Friday, May 6, 2011

Tiny Urban Tidbits #19: My Visit to NPR's Studios in Boston


Some of you might remember that I had my first radio interview last fall. It was during the tense, final round of Project Food Blog when Boston's NPR station, WBUR invited me to come in for a radio interview. They were interested in interviewing me because I had made this animated stop-motion video of Boston out of vegetables. They even called me and asked me to bring some radishes so they could eat them on air!

I've been meaning to share that experience with you, since I found it quite interesting. I'd never been inside a radio station before, and it was really cool to watch them stitch together live programs on the fly.



The radio world moves very quickly since many of the programs are time-sensitive. Although I was originally slated to come in early in the week, important news on Tuesday took precedent and pushed my interview back to Thursday.

Thursday Noon
I arrived at the studio around 1PM. I stared in awe as I took in my surroundings: multiple soundproof, glass-walled rooms filled with people conducting live interviews and shows! You could hear the live broadcast of the station throughout the hallways. I was tickled by this one live interview because the host was trying so hard to diplomatically tell the interviewee that his time was up!

I then met Sacha Pfeiffer, the host of Radio Boston, who was really really nice! She found out I lived in Cambridge and we chatted for quite some time about our favorite restaurants in the area.

I had no idea what she was going to ask me during the interview, so I was a bit nervous. However, she totally put me at ease.

"Just talk as if we're having a conversation."

Thankfully, the interview was going to be recorded (not live!) and broadcast a couple hours later. If I totally screwed up, we could always retake something.

Well, we ended up not having to re-record anything! Sacha made everything so natural I really felt like we were just chatting.  I was shocked she actually ate one of my little MBTA radishes right on air (which, honestly, weren't flavored at all and probably didn't taste so good!).  She's such a good sport.

I was surprised how much fun I had at the interview. It was even more interesting afterwards to hear how they edited the simple interview into a produced clip, with music and everything! I can't imagine how they do it for the live interviews . .  .

If you missed it the first time around, you can hear the interview at the link below.

Holy Eggplant! Is that the Pru?
Article: Holy Eggplant! Is that the Pru?
Listen Now: Holy Eggplant! Is that the Pru?

Have a wonderful weekend!

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