About the Project: A Radio Station in Your Hands is a ten-minute documentary that looks at some of the benefits that community radio has to offer. Focusing more specifically on 89.3 FM, KAOS Community Radio, this piece gives the viewer a real sense of what community radio is, what it can provide, and struggles it faces everyday to be able to be made available for the community.
My Roles: This project was created as my final spring quarter project while in Nonfiction Media at The Evergreen State College in 2011. I was involved in the pre-production, production, and post-production of the video. More specifically, for the pre-production side, I did extensive research on radio broadcast, including its history and the differences between low-power FM (LPFM) radio stations, pirate radio stations, community radio stations, and commercial radio broadcast. I also did research on the creation of KAOS Community Radio, my focus for what community radio is all about. I drafted a proposal, treatment, and budget for the project, which can be found here.
I then filmed and interviewed the General Manager, Training & Operations Manager, hosts, and other people who were involved at KAOS Radio to get their input on some of the topics listed above. During the creation of this documentary, I also went through the Rookie Radio training sessions that KAOS Radio provides for community members to become an on-air host for the station, to get a sense of what it takes to make community radio happen.
Last, I also edited the documentary together to be screened at Nonfiction Media’s final screening to the public. This documentary is now also currently used by KAOS Radio as part of their Rookie Radio training sessions to inform those who want to become a host of what KAOS Radio and community radio is all about.
You can find out more about KAOS Community Radio here.
Equipment Used: Canon Vixia HD Palmcorder [HF 200], Audio Technica AT831b lavalier microphone, small Lowell lighting kit, Final Cut Pro 7, Soundtrack Pro, Audacity, Adobe Photoshop CS5.5, Toast Titanium.
The following video includes short clips from the documentary.