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1:01

I'm a member of DSC.

1:09

I think that a lot of times the sound design aspect

1:13

is just me in this chair and

1:15

the sun goes down and the

1:17

sun comes up and the sun goes

1:19

down and I'm still sitting in this chair and

1:22

then you send a mix. Yeah, and

1:24

then the notes come in a Google Doc so

1:26

it can feel very solitary.

1:30

Welcome back to working. I'm your host

1:32

Isaac Butler. And I'm your other host

1:34

Ronald Young Jr. Ronald Young

1:37

Jr. Tell us about whose voice we heard at

1:39

the top of the show. Isaac

1:41

Butler. That is the Reverend John

1:43

Delore. He is an accomplished producer

1:46

and sound designer of varied

1:49

audio projects as well as an

1:51

amazing story editor. That's awesome.

1:53

And if I remember correctly you've actually worked

1:55

with John before right? Yes. This is a

1:57

bit of home cooking. John Delore is the

2:00

designer for my other podcast, Wait For

2:02

It. But I met John Delore back

2:04

in 2018 at this audio conference

2:07

in Chicago called Third Coast.

2:10

Back then I was just a part-time audio

2:12

producer trying to make it and a big

2:14

fan of some of John's work that he

2:16

had done at this other company called Gimlet

2:18

on a show called Reply All, which I'm

2:20

sure people are familiar with. Have you heard

2:23

the show, Isaac? Yeah, of course. The other

2:25

thing is that I'm almost, I almost don't

2:27

want to forget this, John Delore composed

2:30

the theme song for Death, Sex, and

2:32

Money, our sister podcast here at Slate.

2:34

So you probably have heard his name

2:36

from the credits of that show as

2:38

well. You're welcome, Anisail. You

2:42

are welcome, Anisail. So beyond the fact

2:44

that he's a polymath and extraordinarily talented,

2:46

why did you want to have him

2:48

on the show today? So

2:50

recently, John Delore, in addition to the

2:52

audio projects he was working on, thought

2:55

that there was a bit of a

2:57

gap in kind of a creative outlet

3:00

for audio producers. So him and his

3:02

creative partner, Julie Shapiro, have created this

3:04

showcase of short audio pieces where creators

3:06

are given a prompt and have to

3:09

respond in audio form. And they called

3:11

it AudioFlex. And they just finished their third

3:13

cohort of pieces that are about to start

3:15

their fourth. It's been well received and they're

3:18

launching a podcast that will feature conversations with

3:20

those same creators and feature their work. And

3:22

the podcast was just named a 2024 Tribeca

3:26

Festival official selection. So John and

3:28

Julie are pretty excited about it.

3:31

That's incredible. And I'm just going to go

3:33

out on a limb here using my psychic powers that

3:36

I was born with, like Charles Xavier.

3:38

I'm going to say, maybe

3:41

there's something extra for our Slate Plus listeners

3:43

at the end of this program. I love

3:45

that you pointed out that you were born

3:47

with these psychic powers. Yeah. I mean, would

3:49

you think like a chemical spill happened? Exactly.

3:51

You could fall into a vat of something.

3:53

Like no, no gamma radiation here, my friend.

3:56

I was born with these powers. Yes.

3:58

There is something for us later. Slate Plus listeners.

4:00

In addition to being quite the accomplished

4:02

sound designer and editor, John also plays

4:04

guitar and is a true music lover.

4:06

So we talk a bit about his

4:08

music interests. And one of my favorite

4:10

things about John is that this conversation

4:12

touches on Bob Dylan, the

4:15

rock band Wilco, and of course, what's

4:17

a music conversation without Taylor Swift? Like

4:19

if we don't touch on Taylor, did

4:21

we actually discuss music at all? So

4:23

Slate Plus listeners can get ready for

4:25

a fun little music conversation. Are you

4:27

a Swifty, Isaac? I am

4:29

the father of a Swifty, and so I

4:31

am like a partial Swifty, I would say.

4:33

I like Taylor Swift. I listen to Taylor

4:36

Swift. I have not gotten through the latest

4:38

album, Awake, the entire time yet,

4:40

particularly in its double-wide anthology version. It's

4:42

a lot of album. It's

4:45

a lot of album. And if you are

4:47

a Slate Plus subscriber, you get a lot

4:49

of show. It's waiting for you, that bit,

4:51

right at the end of this week's episode.

4:54

If you are not a Slate Plus subscriber, I

4:56

mean, that sounds like a great conversation. We're always

4:58

having great conversations here in our Slate Plus

5:00

segments. We don't want you to miss

5:03

out. Go to slate.com/working plus. You will

5:05

get bonus segments like that one, full

5:07

access behind the paywall on the Slate

5:09

mothership, and you will get to sleep

5:11

well at night knowing you've done everything

5:13

you can to support what we do

5:15

right here on working. All

5:20

right. Now let's listen in on

5:22

Ronald's conversation with sound designer and

5:25

many other things extraordinaire, John Delore.

5:35

We've all been there. You have a question

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heard that right. A real person. Get the

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customer service you deserve with

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Discover. Limitations apply.

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See terms at discover.com

6:07

slash credit card. So

6:11

who are you and what do you do? My

6:14

name is John DeLore, known

6:16

to some as the Reverend John DeLore.

6:20

And I am a producer, an

6:22

audio producer, editor,

6:24

sound designer, mixer, musician,

6:27

just all around audio lover. I

6:30

know you as sound designer extraordinaire

6:33

John DeLore. You know, you've had

6:35

a long history of

6:37

making music and making sounds

6:40

and mixing things, including

6:43

making the theme song for

6:45

our sister podcasts, death, sex

6:47

and money. With

6:54

all of that being said, I imagine that you were

6:56

a young person who also loved sound, but

6:59

I know logically there has to be a

7:01

journey into it. So could you tell me

7:03

your earliest memory of falling in love with

7:05

audio and sound? Does that exist? How did

7:08

this happen? Yeah, I mean, a

7:11

couple of sort

7:13

of formative memories come to mind. One

7:15

was my dad had a like

7:18

a stereo, you know, he had the tape

7:20

deck, the record player, all that. But he

7:22

used to plug in the

7:24

microphone and get all the kids once

7:26

a year, even when they were babies, he would record a little

7:28

bit of audio with us, but then he would ask us questions.

7:31

And so it was always fun to sit down.

7:33

And the thing that I remember was

7:36

the the VU meters, you know,

7:38

like they were like the real physical VU meters

7:40

with needles that would sort of and he would

7:42

check the levels and then he said it. But

7:44

to watch how my voice as

7:46

a kid would make that VU needle sort

7:49

of jump, I thought was

7:51

just absolutely fascinating. Do

7:54

you feel like you're growing

7:56

up with this type of sound has impacted

7:58

your understanding? of

8:00

the fidelity of audio because I know,

8:02

I don't wanna call you a sound

8:04

snob, but I wanna say that you

8:07

are definitely aware. You can.

8:09

You can. Well,

8:12

I think snob is kind of meaner, so

8:14

maybe it works, but I'm saying you are

8:16

a person that's aware of the sounds that

8:18

are going on around you at any given

8:20

time. I mean, with great

8:22

skill in sound design comes great responsibility.

8:25

What's that like? Do you ever feel

8:27

like Superman, we were just listening to

8:29

everything at once? You're like, it's too much. No,

8:32

no. And in fact, like I

8:35

do really care about sound and fidelity and have

8:37

been in position as like a technical director with

8:41

Studio 360 back in the day, or

8:45

doing stuff with WNYC News. We're like, you're gonna

8:47

go out and collect it. And I'd be like,

8:49

we're gonna make sure we have the right wind

8:51

filter. We're gonna have the right mic for outdoors.

8:53

We're gonna have the overcoats. We're gonna have the

8:55

levels will be set. We'll get proximate audio. We'll

8:58

get stereo audio. I take care of gathering all

9:00

of those things. So

9:02

I think fidelity is important when you're gathering

9:04

things, but I also had the

9:06

experience that people are like, I'm sorry, all I

9:09

had was my iPhone. And I'm like, that sounds

9:11

great. And I'm like, I'm sorry, the microphone was

9:13

so far away. I'm like, yeah, but you took

9:15

us there. Or like,

9:17

oh, it's a little low res. That

9:20

tape wins if it's in the right place and

9:22

if it's getting the right people. I

9:25

just love audio textures. I was saying

9:27

to some of the other day, telephone

9:29

tape, old phone tape is

9:31

like hyper compressed and like,

9:35

it's really low res audio, but

9:37

it has got an

9:39

incredible amount of emotional content. Yes, it does.

9:43

So, I don't know, all

9:45

sounds welcome. I know something

9:47

that you care about a lot in our discussions with

9:49

mixing, even wait for it. There's

9:52

stuff that we've talked about in terms of audio

9:54

quality, in terms of recording, whether that's outside, inside.

9:56

I love that you think about all of those

9:59

things. When I get to

10:01

a session of Wait For It, I'm

10:04

always curious as to what a day

10:06

looks like mixing for you. Like

10:09

I know that I can hand you off

10:11

something on a Wednesday night and by Thursday

10:13

afternoon, you're like, here's a mix. You

10:16

know, it will vary.

10:18

So your show, we've done multiple

10:21

episodes. So it's sort of like second,

10:23

third, fourth, we're working on a template that's

10:25

being developed. And, you know, but

10:28

so let's just say it's a one off. You hand it to me.

10:31

The first thing is session organization. And

10:33

some producers hand me

10:35

sessions that are like so clearly

10:38

the host is at the top, everything's labeled,

10:40

all the audio regions are labeled, you know,

10:42

and it's clearly organized. And

10:44

if it says clips, there are only clips on that.

10:47

And then other people give me stuff where it's just like audio one, audio two,

10:49

audio three, and you're like, oh shit. And

10:52

then what happens is I have to, if that's the

10:55

case, it's session organization. So if

10:57

I have to spend the first three hours

11:01

let's get all of Ronald's field

11:03

tape under Ronald's field, let's get all of Ronald's

11:05

tracking, you know, oh, and there's six tracking, because

11:07

it's different days and it's like, okay, let me

11:09

listen. Is it the same mic? Yes. So

11:12

it's a lot of session organization to start, which

11:14

is just, again, for audio producers

11:16

who are handing your session to a sound designer. Um,

11:20

PSA, PSID. Well,

11:24

the more, you know, it's like if you're, if you're going

11:26

to ask somebody to sound design something, session

11:28

organization is just, you know, do

11:31

it. Because then we don't spend

11:33

the first three hours doing that. We can jump

11:35

into the creative stuff. Exactly. We

11:37

can jump in, you know, and that's what happens next is, you

11:41

know, once I start getting into it, I start with the host and

11:45

I'm trying to listen to the voice and

11:48

work on EQ and compression to get it where it's feeling

11:50

nice and steady. Yup. Cause

11:52

that's always the heart of things. And then from there, it's

11:54

really, if you

11:56

got two guests, if it's, you know, or three guests or

11:59

depends on how to what kind of show

12:01

you're making. It's looking at those voices and making sure

12:03

those are clean and level. But I pretty much work

12:05

from left to right. Yeah. And

12:07

then if there's a script and I'm working with

12:09

someone like you and you're like, hey, I want

12:12

scoring in here. It's scoring out there. I'm working

12:14

against your vision. Working with it is

12:16

a better way to say it. But my work is like,

12:20

I'm checking it against the script is what I mean. I

12:23

like the idea of you working in opposition to my vision. I

12:25

don't know why. Well,

12:29

you know, I always think that the

12:31

projects I like the best are the ones where there is

12:34

a little room and, you know, not fierce

12:36

opponent opposition, but, you know,

12:39

creative opposition to be like, hmm, what about

12:41

music in here? What about no music? Or

12:43

do you have feel tape for this? I

12:46

know you really want to hear it like this and I'll do it, but let me

12:48

try this idea. So

12:50

yeah, not opposition, but just like, you know, I

12:52

always call it, you know, I ask people,

12:54

I said, well, what is the permission structure

12:56

of this show? Well, what does that creativity

12:59

look like for you in terms of like

13:01

latitude? I know it's probably different from client

13:03

to client, but can you talk to me

13:05

about like the importance of being able to

13:07

have that latitude when you are

13:09

basically the expert in sound and someone's handing you

13:11

something and you're just like, I think this might

13:13

sound better if I do this. I

13:17

enjoy, like, look, I've worked on projects that are like,

13:20

this is where it is. We love the pacing, what

13:22

we wanted to do, we just want it to sound

13:24

clean and loud, de-noise, you

13:26

know, and I'm like, great, I can do that and I

13:28

love doing that. But if I'm working through

13:30

and I hear something like, hey, I added like two seconds

13:32

of pause here just to make sure whatever. You

13:36

know, so I'll go like sort of like

13:38

level one suggestions and then

13:40

there are other shows where they're like, look, you're an editor

13:42

too. So if you hear something in the writing that's not

13:44

clear, let us know. So

13:47

I don't know, for me, it's always like service

13:50

industry a little bit, meaning like it's

13:52

your project. I want it to

13:54

sound the best version of how it sounds in

13:56

your head. And sometimes that

13:59

just means like. executing

14:01

again against somebody's script.

14:03

And that's how they want it, I'm gonna make it sound

14:05

great. And sometimes in doing that, they'll

14:08

go, hey, now that I hear the music this, it's

14:10

not quite working, you know, it might open up discussions,

14:12

but I don't know, I can go both ways.

14:16

I do like projects where there's

14:18

room to play. And

14:20

so I think I more often

14:23

than not end up with projects

14:25

where there is that amount of permission. So

14:28

John, I remember back in 2018 at Third

14:30

Coast, you

14:32

gave us a couple of mixes that

14:34

you did. And I remember you called

14:36

the second one the Michael Bay version

14:40

of the mix. Can

14:42

you tell me some common mistakes that

14:44

sound designers make when they're sound designing

14:47

audio? Yeah, okay, so the

14:50

example that you're referring to is a scene from

14:52

the first episode of the Paris Review podcast. It

14:54

was a Dennis Johnson story being read by Wallace

14:56

Shawn. Right, incredible actor,

14:58

incredible writer. First episode, they're like, go,

15:00

sound design. This is, let's see what

15:02

this podcast will be. And

15:05

the actual car crash scene, I just,

15:07

it was just like, I, whoo, tires

15:09

skidding and glass breaking

15:12

and reverb music. You

15:14

know, I mean, it was like really, and that's what I was

15:16

calling, this is like the Michael Bay version. And

15:20

when I played that for the team, they

15:22

were all like, I mean, it's cool,

15:24

man, very cool. Very

15:27

impressive, but you've got Wallace Shawn

15:30

reading a Dennis Johnson story. You

15:32

don't need any of that. And

15:34

I was like, oh, you know, hours of

15:37

work, just like gone, but like they

15:39

were right. Like I knew

15:41

right away that they were correct. And I was like, okay.

15:45

And then I reduced it. I think I kept one

15:47

or two of the sound effects. It

15:50

was raining. Gigantic

15:53

ferns leaned over us.

15:57

The forest drifted.

16:00

down a hill. I

16:03

could hear a creek rushing down

16:05

among rocks. And

16:10

you, you ridiculous

16:12

people, you

16:15

expect me to help you. That

16:27

was like one of those moments where it was like, you

16:30

keep learning that like just

16:32

because you can in sound doesn't mean you should.

16:35

If you've got good tape, let the tape breathe,

16:37

you know. I learned

16:39

so much just in that one, that that

16:42

one instance. But it was also, I

16:44

think like when you stripped all that sound back, the other

16:46

thing that I remember in that story is Wallace Shawn has

16:49

like the pace. He's a legendary

16:51

actor, you know, he, his

16:53

sense of pacing and his read was so

16:55

good. And so I think that's the

16:58

other thing that, you know, my takeaway from

17:00

making that season. And I think my takeaway

17:02

just in general for sound design is that

17:05

like pacing is kind

17:07

of everything. I mean, yes, there's scoring

17:09

and then there's like making sure the other points are clean

17:11

and all of that. But like if you have, let's say

17:13

you pick a perfect piece of scoring and you

17:16

have it come in three seconds

17:18

too early, that's a pacing choice, not a

17:20

scoring choice. I mean, it's a scoring choice, but it's

17:22

more so a pacing choice. When

17:25

does the host come back in? You know, do

17:27

you have music before the ad

17:29

break? Do you have music after the

17:31

ad break before it starts again? Because if you don't,

17:34

then now you have a pacing issue where like a

17:36

commercial is going straight into your, into your story. And

17:39

so it's like you're trying to just pay attention

17:41

to the pacing. To me, like

17:43

that's most of sound design. So

17:46

you talked about also being an editor,

17:49

which in a lot of cases means a story editor,

17:51

not a person necessarily cutting the tape. And

17:54

I know you've had a lot of roles where you

17:56

were doing that, doing a lot of story editing. Can

17:58

you talk to me about the differences? especially

18:00

when it comes to you feeling like a

18:03

creative in doing one of those

18:05

jobs where you're more collaboratively

18:07

building something and the other one you're doing

18:09

more shaping and molding of someone else's work.

18:11

Can you talk to me about the differences

18:14

of those two roles? Yeah,

18:17

I mean, yeah, story editing, you're in the paragraphs, you're

18:19

in the sentences, you're in the words, and

18:23

you're in the story structure. And

18:25

so I think what I like is coming

18:28

from a background of sound design, and

18:30

I'm an English major as well, so I came into sound design.

18:32

I did not know that. Yeah. A

18:36

degree in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin,

18:38

Minnesota. Oh, wow, okay, I did not know that.

18:40

We're gonna talk more about that offline. And

18:44

so I think that as an editor, what

18:47

I like is working with people or

18:49

encouraging people to think about the sound

18:51

upstream in combination with

18:53

the writing, because if you know

18:55

scoring is gonna come in here, you know this piece of

18:57

tape or this piece of writing is just gonna get people.

19:00

And if you're like music in, when

19:02

you track that in the studio, you will read that

19:04

line differently because you know in post

19:06

music will be there to grab that moment. Yeah.

19:10

And so I like thinking

19:12

of that and bringing that into the

19:14

editorial process. But yeah, when

19:17

you're working in language, the

19:19

paragraphs, the beat, the scenes, the

19:21

story structure, like before

19:23

you even get to the fine tooth comb of like, find

19:27

a synonym for that word or like the little

19:29

things. I

19:32

love like listening to somebody be like, here is

19:34

my outline, here's where I'm going scene to scene.

19:37

And the most fun part about that early stage

19:39

is just being like, oh, well, what do you

19:41

want that character to do? What are

19:43

you trying to set? But like, what are the big questions? All right, this

19:45

is, we hear this, what are the big questions you're trying to set up?

19:48

And really just interrogating the person whose

19:50

piece it is to

19:53

get them to talk about it. And then sometimes they

19:55

say things in the, it happens so many times,

19:57

they say something in the conversation and you're like, oh.

20:00

What you just said is way better writing than you,

20:02

but that's it, that was very clear. You

20:04

delivered in a very conversational

20:06

way. And

20:09

so I like that early stuff and really thinking about

20:11

the structure and I find it very challenging. I

20:14

find it more challenging than sound design,

20:17

actually. Do you feel more excited? Because you

20:19

kind of lit up a little bit when

20:22

you started talking about editing. And

20:24

I feel like because you've had

20:26

this very extensive dive into working

20:28

in sound design, it has

20:30

made you a very particular type of

20:32

editor, which I think is probably

20:35

good for all of the projects that you work

20:37

on. But you sound a little more excited about

20:39

editing. I think I get more excited

20:41

about editing because I still feel like I'm not great at it yet.

20:45

Got you. Because there's a difference between giving

20:47

little editorial notes as the mixer on something

20:49

or your set of goalie ears. Yeah.

20:53

And so things by the time... Yeah, your backstop. Things

20:55

are getting to you and you're going, you know what,

20:58

actually, if you just cut the last... Oh, thanks, man.

21:00

And that's just like, okay, good. There's

21:03

a big difference between that and looking at like a

21:05

V1 script that

21:08

is just like long in the tooth. Is

21:11

that the same? Yeah, for like... Maybe, who

21:13

knows? But

21:16

it's very... It's

21:18

long and it's not quite refined. And

21:20

yeah, and to sit there and be

21:23

like, we're going to make decisions that

21:25

will trickle down to sound. Yeah,

21:29

it's more intimidating. But

21:31

I also really enjoyed

21:34

editing because I think

21:36

that a lot of times the sound design aspect

21:39

is you get the script, it's

21:41

to a point and you start again, you're working

21:44

with a script. You're working with what tape that's in

21:46

there. But it's just me in this

21:48

chair and the sun

21:50

goes down and the sun comes up

21:53

and the sun goes down and I'm still sitting

21:55

in this chair. And then you send a

21:57

mix. And then the notes come in a Google Doc.

22:00

and then you respond to the Google Doc, and then

22:02

every now and then you do an hour call to

22:04

catch up. So it can feel very solitary,

22:07

which is great, but

22:09

the editing thing, it's like you are having

22:11

conversations from the top, so it's also very

22:13

collaborative, and so I think maybe that's part

22:15

of my excitement, just having been

22:17

locked in a mixed booth for so many years. I'm

22:19

like, it's a job where you

22:21

talk to people every day. John, if you want me

22:23

to move in, just I'll move in. Like,

22:27

I'll come live in for a while. This is the podcast

22:29

the world needs. It's like two's company

22:31

or something. Exactly. Not to

22:33

mention your kids and your wife, which we... Oh,

22:35

right, right, right. That's right, they stay.

22:42

We'll be back with more of Ronald's conversation

22:44

with John DeLore after this. This

22:57

podcast is brought to you by Slate Studios and

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We're 304-933-W-O-R-K. And

26:22

now back to the show. We've

26:25

talked a bit about editing and sound design

26:28

but you've worked and you've done all of

26:30

these jobs for several companies in established positions.

26:32

Like you've worked for a heavy hitter. You

26:34

mentioned a few WNYC. You worked for Gimli.

26:37

You worked for Stitcher. You worked

26:39

for quite a few name brand places.

26:41

But in the last few years a lot has

26:43

changed in the audio landscape. What

26:48

do you mean? Which

26:53

means that means now you're a

26:55

freelancer. So talk to

26:57

me about what that transition has been like

26:59

for you. It was strange actually because I

27:02

remember when you made that transition and we

27:04

were talking and I was in a position

27:06

to give you advice which felt wrong because

27:08

like for much of my career you've been

27:11

very much a mentor to me. And I was just like

27:14

well John if you're going to name your company blah blah

27:16

blah. You know there was just like a couple times we

27:18

had where I'm like oh I actually know a little bit

27:20

more of this one just because I've been freelancing a little

27:22

bit longer. So talk to me about what

27:24

that it's been over a year now. So what

27:26

has that transition been like for you? I

27:29

mean look I will say this off the top. I

27:33

have worked on more

27:36

great projects and I've been freelance and running

27:38

my own company which is Starlight Diner Studio.

27:41

StarlightDiner.studio it's a terrible website but it's got

27:43

my email on it. I've

27:46

been doing this for just over a year and

27:49

in the last year I have worked

27:51

on more incredible

27:54

projects just

27:56

on a pure number count than I had in my

27:58

last two years. years at

28:01

Stitcher. And a lot of

28:03

that is just because they stopped green

28:05

lighting the kind of shows that

28:08

I'm good at making, that

28:11

I like ideating and working with people on. They

28:14

decided to get rid of all three story editors

28:17

and they decided to fold the

28:19

Witness Docs documentary unit that

28:21

we'd been building. When

28:24

I was there and it was starting to feel like the

28:26

stuff that we were working on wasn't happening, there was

28:28

a lot of anxiety. Of being like, am I

28:31

at the place where I'm going to get to

28:33

make the things I want to make with the people

28:35

that I want to make it with? And

28:37

as it became increasingly here,

28:39

that wasn't happening. It was like, well, shit,

28:41

this is not good. But that started to weigh

28:43

on me, which I then take home. So

28:45

there was a lot of anxiety around that sort of

28:47

mid-life, mid-career

28:51

like, am I at the place? Am I going to have to jump?

28:53

Where else can I can jump? And

28:55

then when you're freelance, that goes away and

28:57

you're getting to work on, like in the

28:59

first month after I was out, I was talking

29:02

to you about working on Wait for It. I

29:04

was talking to Bianca Gavord and Sound

29:06

Design and mixed the second season of

29:09

Constellation Prize. So suddenly it was

29:11

like the anxiety over not

29:13

feeling fulfilled creatively, that was gone.

29:17

Which made me a little bit happier around the home, but

29:20

it's replaced with the anxiety of, oh, I've got to

29:23

make money to pay for insurance and the

29:25

mortgage and the groceries. And

29:27

yeah, like I got to go

29:29

out and like, hi,

29:32

I'm freelance. Do you have work? I would love

29:34

to make something for you. I would love to

29:36

edit. And so suddenly it's like

29:38

you're out there and you have to sort of market

29:41

yourself, which is like, oh

29:43

God, you're very good at

29:45

it. And like, it just, it,

29:48

yeah, it makes me want to like bathe.

29:51

Um, like just having to like go out

29:53

and be self-promotional is very difficult. Yeah. I

29:56

think for a lot of people, it's like,

29:59

so I remember talking to you. about that, it's like how do you, like

30:02

the things I talked to you earlier on were like, how

30:05

do you make it work? You do,

30:07

I mean, you're doing it, but like

30:09

also like, yeah, company name, presence, how

30:13

do you reach out for work? How do you, you know, like how do

30:15

you bid for work?

30:17

Yeah. And not feel like you're

30:19

selling, underselling yourself? Because

30:21

then you're nervous, you're like, if I go too high, I'm not

30:23

gonna get the job. Yeah. So yeah, there

30:26

was a big shift and I, you know, I'm

30:28

a year in and I'm still learning how to,

30:32

how to make it all work. I

30:34

think the one thing that I always admired and

30:36

was a little bit envious of you is that

30:38

you have a very particular set of skills that

30:42

I think put you in demand

30:44

in a very specific way that I think is

30:46

helpful for you, which is sound design, which is

30:48

like, even if there's ever a chance that you

30:50

don't get to do the thing that you are

30:52

excited about doing, like let's say editing, there's a

30:55

way in which you can fall back on some

30:57

of the skills that people neglect, but when they

30:59

hear you do it, they're like, oh no, this

31:01

is valuable. We definitely have to pay for this,

31:04

if we don't pay for anything else. And I just

31:06

was wondering if you had seen that in your travels

31:08

of freelancing. Oh yeah. Yeah,

31:11

absolutely. And I think that

31:13

again, like we were saying before, that's why I ended up

31:15

in projects where there is a little bit of latitude and

31:17

room for collaboration. You know,

31:19

people are like, here's the tape. Do you wanna have fun? Like build

31:21

the first scene? I just want this in here and maybe the music

31:23

out here. And I'm like, great. Yeah. I

31:26

love that. I absolutely love that. And I think

31:28

that, you know, I don't know,

31:30

like you cannot under, we cannot like

31:33

understate how valuable

31:35

it is to feel creatively fulfilled. Yes.

31:38

And also I will say the other thing that

31:41

I've realized is that, well, I

31:43

was like, I'm freelance. I don't

31:45

have any colleagues. Now it really is

31:47

just me in this room. You know, and now like

31:49

a year later, I'm like, I have so many colleagues.

31:51

You have so many colleagues, yeah. Yeah. So

31:53

it's like, it's sort of realizing that. And I don't

31:56

think I didn't really understand that.

31:58

And I like a year later, I'm like. I

32:00

have colleagues, I have people that I call with

32:02

questions about contracts, about, you know, I have friends

32:04

that I call and I'm like, hey, will you

32:07

listen to this thing I tried? You know what

32:09

I mean? It's

32:11

great. And so I really,

32:13

I've really come to love like

32:15

the freelance, you know, the independent audio

32:18

community. And not to say that

32:20

there aren't great people who aren't independent. And I still think

32:22

there are people who are in the big shops who I

32:24

consider colleagues and still talk to. So I

32:26

don't know. In a way I feel

32:28

like getting laid off, like I have more colleagues than

32:30

I did before. I think that's 100% true.

32:34

You realize that like all of a sudden your

32:36

colleague and the title and the definition of colleague

32:38

expands a lot more. I

32:41

want to go back to what you're saying about

32:43

feeling creatively fulfilled because you have,

32:45

you've checked a couple of boxes, you're doing

32:47

the projects you like, even though it's probably

32:49

a little bit, there's more strategy going into

32:51

planning and making sure that you're paying the

32:54

bills and all that. But you also in

32:56

this year or so that you're being on,

32:58

you've spun up a pretty big independent

33:01

focused project. Talk

33:03

to me about AudioFlux, what that is and

33:05

what your intent was behind it. So

33:08

I don't know, I think

33:10

it was March 8th. It

33:13

was not long after that I got a

33:15

text message from Julie Shapiro. And

33:18

she was just finishing a short stint at a

33:20

place. And so we were both sort

33:22

of coming into this moment like unattached

33:25

to companies. And then

33:27

Julie had this idea that she and I

33:29

kept talking about, which was sort of bringing

33:31

back the Third

33:34

Coast, their short audio competition,

33:36

bringing it back, but like in

33:39

a different form and sort of an

33:41

homage to that. But we

33:44

just sort of kept

33:46

brainstorming about the idea and really enjoying

33:49

it. And again, it was all

33:51

built around short audio pieces, giving people prompts, having

33:53

them respond. And we're like,

33:55

well, we should try this. So let's get a

33:57

timetable. And we were thinking we would launch it.

34:00

you know, six months later or

34:02

something like that. And then we got

34:05

some funding from the independent media initiative. And they were

34:07

like, well, do you think you could generate

34:10

this by this fall for our

34:12

IMI Fest? And so we

34:14

sort of accelerated and did that and

34:18

invited six makers. We

34:21

partnered with Wendy McNaughton. It's always so,

34:23

it's strangely hard to describe what AudioFlux

34:25

is. Who was also a guest on

34:27

working Wendy McNaughton. She was my first

34:29

interview on working. She

34:32

is a genius. She is. And

34:35

so Julie had a relationship with Wendy

34:37

and we said, hey, we're gonna do this thing for this

34:40

fall. So what we do is

34:42

we partner with the creative partner. Wendy

34:44

McNaughton was our first. She's an

34:46

incredible artist, illustrator. But

34:48

so with Wendy, we developed

34:51

four prompts. Well, one prompt is the

34:53

piece can only be three minutes. And then there

34:55

were three other prompts where, you know, it has to

34:57

reference the theme of letting go and then a couple

34:59

other prompts that sort of were, you

35:01

know, directed by her work or

35:03

inspired by her work. We gave

35:05

those four prompts to six makers. We

35:09

had Aaron Edwards, Gregory

35:11

Warner, Chloe Proscinos,

35:14

Megan Tan, Yo-Wei Shaw

35:16

and Matilda Erfolino. And

35:18

we said, all right, you guys have six weeks

35:20

to make a three minute piece in response to this.

35:22

And then we're all gonna go together to Austin,

35:24

Texas and present them. And that

35:27

was part of our idea was like, if we're gonna make

35:29

these, we wanna have a room full of people, listen to

35:31

them together with the makers in the room. Yes. And

35:34

I was in there. It was incredible. Yes. Yeah.

35:37

It was great, you know, and it was like our first iteration

35:39

of it. And friendships happened,

35:42

great audio happened. But,

35:44

you know, in a nutshell,

35:46

like what we wanted was to create a

35:48

space where makers could experiment,

35:51

could play, could, you

35:53

know, a couple people in the first cycle said,

35:55

I've never had the chance to do something personal.

35:58

And they got to do it in three minutes. Yeah. And

36:00

people have had people say, yeah, I want to try a scripted

36:02

thing. I haven't done a scripted thing. They

36:04

did a scripted thing. So like, you

36:06

know, we want it to be that

36:08

space where makers again can feel creatively

36:10

fulfilled and also where

36:12

they can be creatively fulfilled by each other's

36:15

company and each other's feedback and by being

36:17

in a room together. And

36:19

so yeah, we launched, we started talking about

36:21

that like in March, April

36:23

of last year, 2023. And

36:26

now a year and a few months later, we

36:29

have, we just presented our third circuit

36:31

at Tribeca. We did our second circuit at

36:33

On Air and our

36:36

fourth circuit will debut. It resonates this

36:38

fall. So we're, it's been great, busy,

36:41

but great. John

36:46

Delore, thank you so much for being on

36:48

Working. Thank you, Ronald Young Jr. When

36:55

we come back, Ronald and I will talk about the

36:57

different meanings of good, how

37:00

to set yourself up for a positive collaboration

37:02

and creating a space where people can try

37:04

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38:51

Ronald, I just loved this conversation. You

38:53

and John clearly have a deep collaborative

38:55

connection built over your projects together and

38:58

it has led to a really illuminating

39:00

interview. I wanted to start

39:02

with this thing that John said about

39:04

audio quality, right? That he's an audio

39:06

quality snob but also that there's all

39:08

different kinds of good audio, quote unquote,

39:10

right? There's the good audio of like

39:12

you have the perfect windscreen and the

39:14

pop filters in place and you've got

39:16

to pick the right microphone for outdoors.

39:19

But there's also the good quality of

39:21

it sounds, you know, there's a lot of noise on

39:23

it but it sounds really immediate and it gives you

39:25

a sense of what the world is like, right? And

39:28

it gets us to the emotional truth of

39:30

that moment. It's a really good reminder for

39:32

all of us who make things that good

39:35

is contextual and that's not just true of

39:37

audio, sentences, brushstrokes on a canvas,

39:39

camera angles, they all exist in sequence. And

39:41

so there's no such thing as just good.

39:44

You know what I mean? I'm

39:46

wondering how you think about good

39:48

and about finding the right aesthetic

39:50

gesture for the moment when you're

39:53

making your own work. So

39:55

for me, it's always about a feeling. It's

39:57

always about not just the

40:00

idea of seeing something and judging

40:02

it as good or not, it's

40:04

about the feeling that whatever I'm

40:07

creating evokes in me and in

40:09

people who listen or watch

40:11

whatever that I'm making. So if I

40:13

can evoke good feelings in myself, I

40:16

think oftentimes that I can expect that

40:18

other people will also share

40:20

in those feelings when they share in the

40:22

work that I've created. So when I think

40:25

about what's good audio, for

40:27

instance, there was an episode I did

40:29

in season one of Wait For It,

40:31

where I heard something on tape, I heard

40:33

it being recorded and I immediately knew it

40:35

was good tape because of the way that

40:37

I felt. And that same piece of tape

40:39

made it through editing, it made it through

40:41

production, made it into the episode and that

40:43

piece of tape is what people have been

40:45

coming back and being like, hey, this one

40:47

part of the show where this thing happened,

40:49

oh my God, that really did something to

40:51

me. So I think it's, for me, I

40:53

lead on how I feel when I'm making

40:55

it and hope to share that feeling with

40:57

listeners. Totally, totally. And

41:00

sometimes that might not be the most pristine

41:02

piece of audio, right? Correct. Sometimes

41:04

it's something, but there's something about that muddiness that

41:06

grabs you, right? Exactly, exactly. And you have to

41:08

just know it and, like I said, feel it.

41:11

Yeah, totally. I've collaborated

41:13

on a lot of things over my career, including

41:15

this podcast, you know, Yumi and Cameron are collaborating

41:18

on this episode, et cetera, and so forth. I

41:21

really loved this thing where John

41:23

asks what the permission structure

41:25

is for his work on a project to

41:27

basically know how much creative freedom he has

41:29

and how much creative input he's going to

41:31

have. That is such an

41:33

important question to ask, particularly when you are

41:35

not the person in charge, when it's not

41:37

your name on the thing, right? But it's

41:39

also a good reminder that when you're collaborating

41:42

on something, it's really helpful to lay

41:44

out in advance everyone's expectations for that

41:46

collaboration and how it is supposed to

41:49

work. At the same time,

41:51

though, that conversation is often happening at the very

41:53

beginning of the process. And if it's with someone

41:55

you haven't worked with before, everyone's going

41:57

to sort of be nice about it, right? And actually, that's

41:59

the moment. when you really need to not be

42:01

quote unquote nice, you need to be kind, but you

42:03

need to be honest. How do

42:06

you get over that and have that

42:08

conversation with your collaborators if you haven't

42:10

worked with them before? I

42:12

think when you get too deep

42:14

in the weeds of work, that's when real

42:16

emotions start coming through, when the deadlines are

42:18

there, when you have to get this thing

42:21

cut, you have to get this thing produced,

42:23

when you have to get whatever this piece

42:25

of work is out the door, that's when

42:27

emotions start being high. You really wanna have

42:29

conversations long before those emotions come

42:31

in. At the very

42:33

beginning, when everyone's being super nice to each

42:35

other, you have to set the structures of

42:38

saying who the stakeholders are, who's the shot

42:40

caller, who's the final edit or the final

42:42

say go to, and you have to really

42:44

recognize at that point who is going to

42:47

be the one responsible for the best path

42:49

forward for whatever the project is. If you

42:51

do those conversations in the beginning, then later

42:53

on, you won't have to worry so much

42:56

about what happens when we

42:58

come to a place where we're in opposition and we

43:00

don't know how to move forward, we don't know whose

43:02

decision this is to make. Now when that

43:04

does happen, even when you've had those conversations,

43:06

it can still happen. You can't be afraid

43:09

of having whatever the next difficult conversation is,

43:11

which may be I need you to do

43:13

exactly what I need you to do, period.

43:15

That's where we are, unfortunately. We're still collaboration,

43:17

I appreciate your input, but at some point,

43:20

someone has to make a decision and we

43:22

can't be stuck in the struggle so long

43:25

that now we've missed whatever the deadline is. So

43:27

I think you can't be afraid of those difficult

43:30

conversations when they do come into play. Yeah,

43:32

totally. One of those that you mentioned very

43:34

briefly that I think is really important, it's

43:37

actually like, who is the final decision maker?

43:39

Yes. Because you

43:41

can get really lost in like, well,

43:44

what if it was this? Yeah, and sometimes someone

43:46

just needs to actually pull that rank and

43:48

be like, we all agreed I would

43:50

make this decision and I am at the point where

43:52

I'm ready to make this decision. Hopefully

43:55

they feel respected and heard even if they disagree

43:57

and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but sometimes they

43:59

disagree. they don't, right? That's when the emails

44:01

start getting real terse and you just started

44:03

using more periods and less exclamation points. Oh,

44:06

boy. Oh, yeah, when the exclamation points disappear

44:08

from the emails, watch out. Your collaboration is

44:10

about to run aground. Exactly, exactly. At that

44:12

point, let me just do what you asked

44:14

me to do. Exactly.

44:16

I was really curious

44:19

about this podcast prompt

44:21

showcase in the playwriting world.

44:23

It's actually called a ClamBake, where

44:25

you give someone a prompt and some rules, a group

44:28

of people, the same prompt and rules, and

44:30

they go off and make something and come back with it.

44:32

I like that. The playwright Paula Vogel came up with that

44:34

term. It's called a ClamBake in theater. So

44:37

I'm gonna call it a podcast ClamBake, all right? I

44:39

like that. I like that. He and

44:41

Julie Shapiro, his collaborator, have come up with it.

44:43

It sounds really wonderful. You mentioned that you have

44:45

been at at least one of them, the one

44:47

that he did in Austin. Could you just talk

44:49

about it from your perspective and what it was

44:51

like? Oh, it was outstanding.

44:54

So we went to this

44:56

event called the Independent Media Initiative Festival.

44:59

It was an IMI Fest, and that's where

45:01

Audio Flux premiered. And there were these creators

45:04

that I had worked with or had heard

45:06

their work before, all audio creators, and they

45:08

each had a three-minute piece. And it was

45:10

so cool because we all sat in the

45:12

room together and listened to each three-minute piece,

45:14

because three minutes isn't very long. So

45:17

we listened to each three-minute piece, and then we

45:19

were able to sit in the room with the

45:21

creators and ask them questions, follow up with them,

45:24

and kind of interact with them after listening to

45:26

the pieces. And it was

45:28

incredible. The prompts were great, and I was

45:30

so blown away by how beautiful

45:34

folks can make three minutes

45:36

sound. They're just very efficient

45:38

with the use of time, and they're just beautifully

45:40

produced. I had a great time being in the

45:42

room, and a great time talking to the creators

45:44

afterwards and kind of asking them how they arrived

45:46

at whatever conclusions that they arrived at for each

45:49

one of the projects that they made. So it

45:51

was a lot of fun, and I think it's

45:53

effectively doing exactly what they want to do, which

45:55

is inspiring creators to make very innovative audio. That's

45:58

so awesome. it is

46:00

so true that artists need these spaces and

46:03

opportunities where they can just try things out,

46:05

often just for their peers, not for a general audience, but

46:07

even for a general audience. Without commercial

46:10

pressure, learning from the experience, being

46:12

inspired from it, just make some

46:14

shit, you know? Yes, exactly. But

46:16

it also is so hard, particularly

46:18

as an early career artist, to

46:20

find those kinds of opportunities. Like

46:22

for example, I'm not criticizing here,

46:25

how many pieces were done in that first

46:27

one in Austin that you went to? Remember

46:29

how many pieces there were? I wanna say

46:31

it was seven, it was either six or

46:33

seven creators, yeah. Right, it's six or seven

46:35

people. There's like a gajillion podcast creators in

46:37

this country, right? So it's just an example

46:39

of how difficult these things can be to

46:41

find, and then once you find them to

46:43

get into them. If you're hitting that wall,

46:45

particularly early in your career, although mid-career people

46:47

need this too, don't get me wrong, what

46:50

advice do you have for someone who's banging their head

46:52

against that wall? You

46:54

know, there's the space that you need

46:57

to actually be creative, and

46:59

I think a lot of creatives need

47:01

to have relationships with other creative people,

47:04

whether they are collaborative or otherwise. You need

47:06

to be in relationship and discussion with other creative

47:08

people to get the juices flowing. Sometimes it's

47:10

hard to find those places. People move to a

47:13

new area and they say, oh, I don't

47:15

know, where are the creative people? Where are

47:17

the storytellers? How do we find them? The

47:20

answer to that is to find them. You know,

47:22

they exist. Those spaces always exist, and I know

47:24

those people are gonna be like, but I can't

47:26

find them, it's like, keep looking. They're

47:29

out there, I promise you. If you can't find

47:31

them, you probably haven't been looking as hard as

47:33

you need to look to find them, because in

47:35

some places you go to New York, they're just

47:37

everywhere. You could just find, you could stumble into

47:39

creative communities in New York. But

47:41

if you're in, I don't know, Madison, Wisconsin,

47:43

you might have to do a little bit

47:45

more digging, but I guarantee you that even

47:48

in Madison, Wisconsin, there is a storytelling community.

47:50

There is a fine arts community or somewhere

47:52

where you can actually have those creative outlets.

47:54

But if you can't find them, if you

47:56

get to a place where I've looked everywhere,

47:58

oh no, I can't find them, Ronald, I

48:00

looked and I... I kept looking, you gotta

48:02

make it. You gotta make it yourself. You

48:04

have to start it yourself. Creative community starts

48:06

with you and the things that you are

48:08

creating and then it becomes collaboration when you

48:10

start accepting and sharing other people into the

48:12

fold who are also creating and making those

48:14

things as well. So those things always exist.

48:17

For me, learning how to make podcasts, I

48:19

had to create a podcast. I was listening

48:21

to great storytelling audio from folks and I

48:23

said, I wanna do that. And so the

48:25

way that I did that was just starting

48:27

my own, which started trash in

48:29

the very beginning and then you just keep iterating, keep

48:31

iterating and it gets better and better. So if you

48:33

can't find it, keep looking and if you get to

48:35

the place where I've looked to the ends of the

48:37

earth and I can't find it, then make one on

48:39

your own. Yeah, that's totally right. And

48:42

I think one of the easy things

48:44

that you can do to find those communities, which

48:46

you sort of hinted at is go to events.

48:48

Yes. You know, just go

48:50

to events that you think are

48:52

at least adjacent to the kind of thing you

48:54

wanna be doing. You'll meet people. It can be

48:57

hard if you're not good at like talking to

48:59

strangers, but you know, bring a friend, go

49:02

to them, meet people, see what they're doing,

49:04

see whose work you like, maybe approach them,

49:06

talk to them. You know, most

49:10

people I know who are

49:12

in the creative fields want

49:14

to be helpful if they can. They might have a

49:16

limit of how much help they're actually able to provide,

49:18

but they most of them wanna be helpful if they

49:20

can. So go, be part of, you

49:23

know, find a community, go to their events, become part

49:25

of it. And one quick story is

49:27

that like, Isaac, you stumbled on something that's

49:29

so true, because for me to find the

49:32

audio creatives, I had to go to the

49:34

storytelling community here in DC. So I found

49:36

the storytelling community where the people were telling

49:38

live stories on stage, and I started doing

49:40

that. And then through that found the audio

49:42

creators who were right there. They were just,

49:44

oh yeah, we actually hang out here all

49:46

the time. And I found like one, I

49:48

found two communities that are kind of like

49:51

interlocked, which is one thing. The other thing

49:53

is when you find that community, join the

49:55

mailing list, stay late, go early. That's where

49:57

you're finding like the nerd. to the people

49:59

that are really about this. You don't want

50:01

to just be in there with the spectators.

50:03

You really want to get all the extra

50:05

information because it was being on an email

50:08

list that led me to start working on

50:10

my first podcast officially, which ended up being

50:12

like an internship for me at the time.

50:14

And that gave me inroads into the community

50:16

here in Washington, DC. So I think it's

50:18

important to not just attend, but also find

50:20

ways to be like, I'm a nerd.

50:22

I'm in here. I want to be a wonk. Like get me

50:25

in here with y'all, you know? Yeah, unless

50:27

of course, and this is totally true, you're going to go to

50:29

some of those events and you're not going to like what you

50:31

see. Exactly. In which case that's just not the right group for

50:33

you. Don't try to be part

50:35

of a club that you don't actually respect, right?

50:37

Correct. Yes, yes. Valuable advice.

50:42

Well, that is all the time we have

50:44

for this week's show. Before we leave you,

50:47

I'm going to make one last Slate Plus

50:49

pitch. Slate Plus members get bonus segments on

50:51

shows like this one, bonus full episodes of

50:53

shows like Slow Burn and Dakota Ring. They

50:56

get full access behind the paywall at the

50:58

mothership site, slate.com. We would love to have

51:00

you be part of that community. Go to

51:02

slate.com/working plus to sign up today. Thank

51:05

you so much to the great and good

51:07

Reverend John Delore for being our guest. And

51:09

thanks as always to Cameron Drews, who makes

51:11

us sound so amazing. Thank you, Cameron.

51:13

Tune in next week for June's

51:15

conversation with photographer Jim Tsai. Until

51:17

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