The staff at the National Radio Project got together as a group and listened to Gabe's marvellous piece; this review is compiled from everyone's various comments.
"Moving the Village" is is about a native village that is slowly being destroyed by rising ocean levels caused by global warming, and how the people living there are struggling to cope. It's quite a masterpiece of storytelling and sound -- or, should we say, storytelling through sound. Throughout the half hour, it seems there's a bed of ambient sound the entire way. Case in point: rather than just hearing the narrator or some expert *tell *us that the village is disappearing, we actually hear the crash of the coastline as it crumbles into the sea. Simply brilliant. Journalists should always remember to "show, don't tell." Well, Gabe hasn't forgotten; he succeeds fabulously here.
Even in the middle section of the story, where we hear from the university eggheads, there's a bit of sound of one professor sorting through his filing cabinet. Nice touch in an otherwise sound-poor environment. The science behind the story is explained clearly through actualities and narration; it's just enough, and doesn't come off as wonky at all. The eggheads emerge as real people, too.
Gabe's writing is clear, concise, and conversational, and he does a superb job in voicing -- relaxed, yet illustrative and compelling. But again, it's the sound that really makes this piece, so well we all could actually visualize ourselves in Shishmaref, standing in two feet of water or getting hammered by a horizontal downpour -- something that rarely happens when listening to radio, unfortunately.
One minor nit is that the very first actuality is considerably difficult to understand; one has to strain to make out the meaning.
Other than that, though, it's an outstanding, compelling and unique piece of work. Besides appreciating the craft, we all felt that the story itself is an important one that needs to be heard. This people's entire culture, not just their village, is threatened by the careless commercialism of the industrialized world, particularly the United States. If it's so difficult to move just one village, what happens when we have to start thinking about moving the whole planet? Can't be done. Better change our stupid ways.
You can't move the Earth
Justin Beck
Posted on May 02, 2005 at 01:27 PM
"Moving the Village" is is about a native village that is slowly being destroyed by rising ocean levels caused by global warming, and how the people living there are struggling to cope. It's quite a masterpiece of storytelling and sound -- or, should we say, storytelling through sound. Throughout the half hour, it seems there's a bed of ambient sound the entire way. Case in point: rather than just hearing the narrator or some expert *tell *us that the village is disappearing, we actually hear the crash of the coastline as it crumbles into the sea. Simply brilliant. Journalists should always remember to "show, don't tell." Well, Gabe hasn't forgotten; he succeeds fabulously here.
Even in the middle section of the story, where we hear from the university eggheads, there's a bit of sound of one professor sorting through his filing cabinet. Nice touch in an otherwise sound-poor environment. The science behind the story is explained clearly through actualities and narration; it's just enough, and doesn't come off as wonky at all. The eggheads emerge as real people, too.
Gabe's writing is clear, concise, and conversational, and he does a superb job in voicing -- relaxed, yet illustrative and compelling. But again, it's the sound that really makes this piece, so well we all could actually visualize ourselves in Shishmaref, standing in two feet of water or getting hammered by a horizontal downpour -- something that rarely happens when listening to radio, unfortunately.
One minor nit is that the very first actuality is considerably difficult to understand; one has to strain to make out the meaning.
Other than that, though, it's an outstanding, compelling and unique piece of work. Besides appreciating the craft, we all felt that the story itself is an important one that needs to be heard. This people's entire culture, not just their village, is threatened by the careless commercialism of the industrialized world, particularly the United States. If it's so difficult to move just one village, what happens when we have to start thinking about moving the whole planet? Can't be done. Better change our stupid ways.