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2:00

for my other podcast, Wait For It.

2:02

But I met John Delore back in

2:04

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. 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

fun little music conversation. Are you a

4:27

Swiftie, Isaac? I am the

4:30

father of a Swiftie. And so I am

4:32

like a partial Swiftie. I would say I

4:34

like Taylor Swift. I listen to Taylor Swift.

4:36

I have not gotten through the latest album

4:38

Awake the entire time yet,

4:40

particularly in its double wide

4:43

anthology version. It's a

4:45

lot of album. And if you are a

4:47

Slate Plus subscriber, you get a lot of

4:49

show. It's waiting for you that bit right

4:51

at the end of this week's episode. If

4:54

you are not a Slate Plus subscriber, I mean,

4:56

that sounds like a great conversation. We're always having

4:59

great conversations here in a Slate Plus segments.

5:01

We don't want you to miss out. Go

5:03

to slate.com/working plus you will get bonus segments

5:05

like that one full access behind the paywall

5:07

on the Slate mothership. And you will get

5:10

to sleep well at night

5:12

knowing you've done everything you can to

5:14

support what we do right here on

5:16

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

5:37

question about your credit card. You

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that right. A real person. customer

6:00

service you deserve with Discover.

6:03

Limitations apply. See

6:05

terms at discover.com/

6:07

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, and

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

6:46

song for our

6:48

sister podcast, Death,

6:51

Sex, and Money.

6:53

With all of that being said,

6:56

I imagine that you were a young person

6:58

who also loved sound, but I know logically

7:00

there has to be a journey into it.

7:02

So can you tell me your earliest memory

7:04

of falling in love with audio and sound?

7:06

Does that exist? How did this happen? Yeah,

7:09

I mean, a couple

7:11

of sort of

7:14

formative memories come to mind. One was

7:16

my dad had a

7:18

stereo, you know, he had the tape deck,

7:20

the record player, all that. But he used

7:22

to plug in the microphone

7:24

and get all the kids once a

7:26

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

7:28

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

7:31

so it was always fun to sit down. And

7:33

the thing that I remember was

7:36

the VU meters, you know, they

7:38

were like the real physical VU meters with

7:40

needles that would sort of, and he would

7:42

check the levels and then he said it,

7:44

but to watch how my voice

7:46

as a kid would make that VU needle

7:49

sort of jump, I thought was

7:51

just absolutely fascinating. Do

7:54

you feel like your 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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26:14

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. tape

40:00

made it through editing, it made

40:02

it through production, made it into the episode,

40:04

and that piece of tape is what people

40:06

have been coming back and being like, hey,

40:08

this one part of the show where this

40:10

thing happened, oh my God, that really did

40:12

something to me. So I think it's for

40:14

me, I lead on how I feel when

40:16

I'm making it and hope to share that

40:18

feeling with listeners. Mm, totally,

40:20

totally. And sometimes that might not be

40:22

the most pristine piece of audio, right?

40:24

Correct. Sometimes it's something, but

40:26

there's something about that muddiness that grabs you,

40:29

right? Exactly, exactly. And you have to just know it

40:31

and, like I said, feel it. Yeah,

40:33

totally. You know, I've collaborated on

40:35

a lot of things over my career, including this

40:37

podcast. You know, you, me and Cameron are collaborating

40:39

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

40:42

really loved this thing where John asks

40:44

what the permission structure is for his

40:46

work on a project to basically know

40:48

how much creative freedom he has and

40:50

how much creative input he's going to

40:52

have. That is such an

40:55

important question to ask, particularly when you are

40:57

not the person in charge, when it's not

40:59

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

41:01

also a good reminder that when you're collaborating

41:03

on something, it's really helpful to lay

41:05

out in advance everyone's expectations for that

41:08

collaboration and how it is supposed to

41:10

work. At the same time,

41:12

though, that conversation is often happening at the very

41:14

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

41:16

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

41:18

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

41:20

that's the moment when you really need to not be,

41:23

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

41:25

need to be honest. How

41:27

do you get over that and have

41:29

that conversation with your collaborators if you

41:31

haven't worked with them before? I

41:33

think when you get too deep

41:36

in the weeds of work, that's when, you know,

41:38

real emotions start coming through. When the deadlines are

41:40

there, when you have to get this thing cut,

41:42

you have to get this thing produced, when you

41:44

have to get whatever this piece of work is

41:46

out the door, that's when emotions start being high.

41:49

You really want to have conversations long

41:51

before those emotions come in at

41:54

the very beginning. You want to make

41:56

sure that you're feeling super nice to each other. You have to

41:58

set the structures of saying who the stakeholders are. who's

42:00

the shot caller, who's the final edit

42:02

or the final say go to, and

42:05

you have to really recognize at that

42:07

point who is going to be the

42:09

one responsible for the best path forward

42:11

for whatever the project is. If you

42:13

do those conversations in the beginning, then

42:15

later on you won't have to worry

42:17

so much about what happens when we

42:19

come to a place where we're in opposition and

42:21

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

42:24

know whose decision this is to make. Now when

42:26

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

42:28

it can still happen. You can't

42:30

be afraid of having whatever the next difficult

42:32

conversation is, which may be I need you

42:34

to do exactly what I need you to

42:36

do, period. That's where we are, unfortunately. We're

42:39

still collaboration, I appreciate your input, but at

42:41

some point someone has to make a decision

42:43

and we can't be stuck in the struggle

42:45

so long that now

42:47

we've missed whatever the deadline is. So I think

42:49

you can't be afraid of those difficult conversations when

42:51

they do come into play. Yeah,

42:54

totally. One of those that you mentioned very

42:56

briefly that I think is really important is

42:58

actually who is the final decision maker. Yes.

43:01

Right? Because you can get really

43:03

lost in like, well what

43:05

if it was this one? And yeah, and sometimes

43:07

someone just needs to actually pull that rank and

43:09

be like, we all agreed, I

43:11

would make this decision and I am at the point

43:13

where I'm ready to make this decision. Hopefully

43:16

they feel respected and heard even if they disagree

43:18

and blah, blah, blah, blah, but sometimes

43:21

they don't, right? That's when the emails start getting

43:23

real terse and you just started using more periods

43:25

and less exclamation points. Oh, boy. When

43:28

the exclamation points disappear from the emails, watch

43:30

out, your collaboration is about to run aground.

43:32

Exactly, exactly. At that point, let me just

43:34

do what you asked me to do. Exactly.

43:38

I was really curious

43:40

about this podcast prompt

43:42

showcase in the playwriting world.

43:44

It's actually called a ClamBake, where

43:47

you give someone a prompt and some rules, a group

43:49

of people, the same prompt and rules and they go

43:51

off and make something and come back with it. The

43:53

playwright Paula Vogel came up with that term.

43:55

It's called a ClamBake in theater. So

43:58

I'm gonna call it a podcast ClamBake. I

44:00

like that. I like that. He and Julie

44:02

Shapiro, his collaborator, have come up with. It

44:04

sounds really wonderful. You mentioned that you have

44:06

been at least one of them, the one

44:08

that he did in Austin. Could you just

44:10

talk about it from your perspective and what

44:12

it was like? Oh, it

44:14

was outstanding. So we

44:16

went to this event called the Independent

44:18

Media Initiative Festival. So it

44:21

was an IMI Fest. And that's where

44:23

Audio Flux premiered. And there

44:25

were these creators that I had worked with

44:27

or had heard their work before, all audio

44:29

creators. And they each had a three-minute

44:31

piece. And it was so cool because we all

44:33

sat in the room together and listened to each

44:35

three-minute piece. Because three minutes isn't very long. So

44:38

we listened to each three-minute piece. And we were

44:41

able to sit in the room with the creators

44:43

and ask them questions, follow up with them, and

44:45

kind of interact with them after listening to the

44:47

pieces. And it was incredible.

44:49

The prompts were great. And I

44:52

was so blown away by how

44:54

beautiful folks can

44:56

make three minutes sound. They're

44:59

just very efficient with the use of time. And

45:01

they're just beautifully produced. I had a great time being in

45:03

the room and a great time talking to

45:05

the creators afterwards and kind of asking them how

45:07

they arrived at whatever conclusions that they arrived at

45:09

for each one of the projects that they made.

45:11

So it was a lot of fun. And I

45:14

think it's effectively doing exactly what they want to

45:16

do, which is inspiring creators to make very innovative

45:18

audio. That's so awesome.

45:20

And it is so true that artists

45:22

need these spaces and opportunities where they

45:24

can just try things out, often

45:27

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

45:29

for a general audience. Without commercial

45:31

pressure, learning from the experience, being inspired

45:33

from it, just make some shit. Yes,

45:36

exactly. But it also is

45:38

so hard, particularly as an early

45:40

career artist, to find those kinds

45:42

of opportunities. Like, for example, I'm

45:45

not criticizing here. How many

45:47

pieces were done in that first one in Austin that you

45:49

went to? Do you remember how many pieces there were? I

45:51

want to say it was seven. It was either six or

45:53

seven creators. It's six or

45:55

seven people. There's like a gajillion podcast creators

45:57

in this country. an

46:00

example of how difficult these things can be

46:02

to find them once you find them to

46:04

get in into them. If you're hitting that

46:06

wall, you know, particularly early in your career,

46:08

although mid-career people need this too, don't get

46:10

me wrong. You know, what advice do you

46:12

have for someone who's banging their head against

46:14

that wall? You know,

46:16

there's the space that you need to

46:18

actually be creative. And I think a

46:20

lot of creatives need to have relationships

46:23

with other creative people, whether

46:26

they are collaborative or otherwise, you

46:28

need to be in relationship and discussion

46:30

with other creative people to get the juices flowing.

46:32

Sometimes it's hard to find those places. People move

46:34

to a new area and they say, Oh, I

46:36

don't know. Where are the creative people? Where are

46:39

the storytellers? How do we find them? Uh, the

46:41

answer to that is to find them. You know,

46:43

they exist. Those spaces always exist. And I know

46:45

there's people that are going to be like, but

46:47

I can't find them. It's like, keep looking. They're

46:49

out there. I promise you. If

46:51

you can't find them, you probably haven't been looking

46:53

as hard as you need to look to find

46:55

them because in some places you go to New

46:57

York, they're just everywhere. You could just find, you

46:59

could stumble into creative communities in New York. But

47:02

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

47:04

Wisconsin, you might have to do a little

47:06

bit more digging, but I guarantee you that

47:08

even in Madison, Wisconsin, there's a storytelling community.

47:10

There is a fine arts community or somewhere where

47:12

you can actually have those creative outlets. But

47:14

if you, if you can't find them, if you

47:16

get to a place where I've looked everywhere, Oh

47:18

no, I can't find them, Ronald. I looked

47:20

and I kept looking. You got to

47:23

make it. You got to make it yourself. You

47:25

have to start at yourself. A creative community starts

47:27

with you and the things that you are creating.

47:29

And then it becomes collaboration when you start accepting

47:31

and sharing other people into the fold who

47:33

are also creating and making those things as

47:35

well. So those things always exist.

47:37

For me, learning how to make podcasts, I

47:39

had to create a podcast. I was listening

47:42

to great storytelling audio from folks and I

47:44

said, I want to do that. And so

47:46

the way that I did that was just

47:48

starting my own, which started trash, you

47:50

know, in the very beginning and then you just keep iterating,

47:52

keep iterating and it gets better and better. So if you

47:55

can't find it, keep looking. And if you get to the

47:57

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

47:59

I can't. can't find it, then make one on your own.

48:02

Yeah, that's totally right. And I think one of the

48:05

easy things that you can do to find those

48:07

communities, which you sort of hinted at, is go

48:09

to events. Yes. You know?

48:11

Just go to events that you

48:13

think are at least adjacent to the kind of

48:15

thing you wanna be doing. You'll meet people. It

48:18

could be hard if you're not good at like

48:20

talking to strangers, but you know, bring a friend,

48:23

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

48:25

doing, see whose work you like, maybe approach

48:27

them, talk to them. You know,

48:30

most people I know who are

48:33

in the creative fields want

48:35

to be helpful if they can. They might have

48:37

a limit of how much help they're actually able

48:39

to provide, but most of them wanna be helpful

48:41

if they can. So go, be part

48:43

of, you know, find a community, go to

48:46

their events, become part of it. And one

48:48

quick story is that like, Isaac, you stumbled

48:50

on something that's so true because for me

48:52

to find the audio creatives, I

48:54

had to go to the storytelling community here

48:56

in DC, so I found the storytelling community

48:58

where the people were telling live stories on

49:01

stage and I started doing that. And then

49:03

through that found the audio creators who were

49:05

right there. They were just, oh yeah, we

49:07

actually hang out here all the time. And

49:09

I found like one, I found two communities

49:11

that are kind of like interlocked, which is

49:13

one thing. The other thing is when you

49:15

find that community, join the mailing list, stay

49:17

late, go early. That's where you're finding

49:20

like the nerds, the people that are really about

49:22

this. You don't wanna just be in there with

49:24

the spectators. You really wanna get all the extra

49:26

information because it was being on

49:28

an email list that led me to start working

49:30

on my first podcast officially, which ended up being

49:33

like an internship for me at the time.

49:35

And that gave me inroads into the community

49:37

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

49:39

important to not just attend, but also find

49:41

ways to be like, I'm a nerd, I'm

49:43

in here. I wanna be a wonk, like

49:45

get me in here with y'all. Yeah,

49:48

unless of course, and this is totally true, you're gonna go to some

49:50

of those events and you're not gonna like what you see. Exactly.

49:52

In which case that's just not the right group

49:55

for you. Don't try to be part of a

49:57

club that you don't actually respect, right? Correct, yes,

49:59

yes. valuable advice. Well,

50:04

that is all the time we have for

50:06

this week's show. Before we leave you, I'm

50:08

going to make one last Slate Plus pitch.

50:10

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be part of that community go to slate.com/working

50:24

plus to sign up today. Thank

50:26

you so much to the great and good

50:28

Reverend John Delore for being our guest. And

50:30

thanks as always to Cameron Drews who makes

50:32

us sound so amazing. Thank you, Cameron.

50:35

Tune in next week for June's

50:37

conversation with photographer Jim Sa. Until

50:39

then, get back to work.