Now it's getting personal.

I don't want to create an "Us and Them" thing here.
"Them" meaning the produced pieces, "Us" meaning the ones whose audio was, well, "nakey".

I'm not really hearing it on the boards but it does kind of have that vibe at times.

And even though I'm feelin' kind of lost in the dust, I'm not really being all Debbie Downer about it.

Whenever I'm down about something the best thing for me to do is to lift someone else up.
I thought by putting my insecurities out here would give me the opportunity to do that for anyone who might be in the same place right now.

Wow the response to this post has been so cool!
And besides that, it helps me to find out about each of you so I can be a more effective voter.

"Happiness is the best revenge!"

ehh my entry wasn't my best either, but that is just how it is... plus this is only one of life's opportunities, and a long shot for most entrants at that. in addition, i would imagine that they might have PRTQ 2 and PRTQ 3, in which case all of us would have a definite advantage over the newbies especially after we see who gets picked.

try not to be too obsessed with it. I know it is hard. but really if you don't get in, all that means is that you weren't in the top 0.7 percent of the contest. It doesn't mean you weren't in the top 50%, 20%, 10%, 5% or even the top 1%. The top 0.7 %!!!!!

If that isn't an extremely small portion, i don't know what is. People have far far far better chances of getting into Harvard and Yale (well, maybe not in the general population, but for THOSE THAT APPLY! and you applied!).

I am sure it will be a hard choice for the judges and there is no hard science behind it, only the experienced opinions of the judges. It doesn't mean you aren't talented, and it also doesn't mean you couldn't make it in public radio.

When I took the GMATs (graduate business administration test like GREs or LSATs) last year I was surprised that my Verbal score was in the 98th percentile. Now, for normal life, 98% is amazing. But in this test you would have to get a 99.3% to even get into the next round.

So I would realize that the odds are stacked against us regardless of what we do and try not to worry to much about it. It really isn't about us. It is about having crazy unlikely odds.

And it is likely that the 9 that get picked by the judges are just EXCEPTIONALLY AMAZING.

I'll settle for "great" in most of my life, and that is the truth. I find it is better to make my goals high but not unachievable.

Good luck releasing tension!

Elizabeth

My entry at Public Radio Quest:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/7572

My College Radio Myspace (feel free to friend me!):
http://www.myspace.com/girlsongprimerradio

Shelly-
I'm not discouraged. Yet. You shouldn't be either. It's like having a live lottery ticket- with much better odds. There are some great entries out there. Quite a few, in fact. Smooth voices, fine writing, slick production. But the judges were quite explicit about a few things: They aren't looking for a producer or an engineer. They're looking for a host. One who has "that X factor", that "je ne sais quoi" (pardon my French).
I struggled with my entry, too. I put together two entirely different pieces. One went toward purposely trying to show hostiness and doing a demo of the program I had in mind. The other is just me, being me. I went with me. Did I make the right choice? Maybe.
Do I think I am better than my clip shows? Most definitely! I think you're better than what your clip shows. The same goes for most of the others.
Could I use the prize money? Oh, desperately!
Will I have a pity party when my name does not appear on the short list? Yes. (hopefully just for a day or two).
In the meantime, I'm going to have fun with this. Getting to know some of the great people who have gotten involved here; getting new ideas for improving my presentation, writing, and production by listening to the clips, reading the comments and writing in forums like this; dreaming up ways I can include contributions from some of the little people left behind when I win it all to make my show really great! Oh, stop. We're all doing that to some degree.
This is a cool thing and we're a part of it. Public Radio history is being made, and we were there at the beginning. How can we lose?
Jim Barfuss
http://www.publicradioquest.com/user/2824

“It is not success to succeed at being something you are not.”

Naw, I'm not discouraged.. I did it to have fun. Some people don't have the skills or the time to make HUGE shows. And Honestly I think I did decent considering the fact that all you were supposed to do was talk about yourself to show your personality to everyone.

I think you did great. :)
---
Shameless Promotion -
My Entry

We must remember that we’re judged by those who can see through the slick here. Hostiness is the priority in judging, and someone in the committee will seek the simple pleasure in the presentations.

Professional producers put the “wow” around our “pow.” Be happy you wrote and presented YOUR best, and then shine for that; compare yourself to yourself, period.

Good 'n' gutsy provocative point you brought up, by the way. Pow!

Senior year of high school I finally got involved in speech and debate. I didn't do debate, but I had a wonderful time doing the various speech-related categories. The way those worked, you performed your memorized piece two or three separate times in different rooms in front of different judges.

At my very first storytelling competition, in the second round, I went next-to-last in a group of 10 or so. The others were moving all over the front of the classroom, using lots of voices, making quite the splash. I went up and did my little piece. I was so nervous that I lost my place in the story at one point; I stopped, took a deep breath, remembered what I needed to and pushed on to the end. Then I slumped in my seat.

During the break I told the speech/debate coach that I was so depressed I just wanted to go home. She was flabbergasted and said just hang in there.

Turns out the others were disqualified. You're only allowed ONE STEP in your presentation, and the others violated that. I had not only stuck to the rules, but the judges were impressed I'd only had one quick mental block and moved past it. I won my first speech trophy that day.

I can't say that you're going to the top of the pack because others didn't really stick to the concept of what the judges asked for. But you did an admirable job and have a little more audio experience because of it. And as Martha would say, that's a good thing.

************************************************
Life is a matinee. BroadwayMatinee.com
Judge my hostiness in the PRTQ

Sally,

I really liked your entry and gave you five stars.

I was under the impression that they were not looking for production value either. In fact, I thought that was implicit. The rules did state that we could add to it if we felt the need and respected copyright issues.

At any rate, I'm not a "radio expert", but even I can tell the difference between a great host and production.

You did exactly what was requested---so don't feel bad about not dressing it up with music or sound effects.

Also, this might just be my own personal preference--but I don't like a lot of the really heavily produced pieces. Some of the announcers sound like they are about to play me the morning commute jam and have me win some tickets for something.

Part of the appeal of NPR (IMHO) is that it has a sort of down-to-earth sound and lacks the slick, obnoxious, in-your-face sound that a lot of commercial stations have.

That's just preference, of course--but it's one of the reasons I love NPR.

ADQ

Please and Thank You for your Vote:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/audio/user/6914

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I also feel like my energy didn't come through, but c'est la vie. Don't get me wrong. I'm not throwing in the towel yet. I have a teensy weensy bit of hope yet for this Quest, but perhaps more significant is that I have been thinking about how to use this audio (and maybe video) technology to get more of my own fiction and poetry "out there." I've found the entries of all these bright, interesting NPR listeners -- and hosts! -- to be really creative and inspiring. The whole experience is pushing me to a new level of creativity in my own work, which is a pretty good feeling. Don't be discouraged! Can you find a way to twist and turn and tweak this into a positive?

Sue
www.publicradioquest.com/node/1267
www.suerepko.com

The instructions said round one wasn't about high production values, nor about a pitch for a show; it is about letting your personality shine. Maybe some reviewers are attracted to glossy show pitches, but you've got to remember that some of these contestants have been in radio and podcasting for a while and have probably used their existing audience to drum up support for themselves (hence the many comments). Tapping in to an existing base of supporters doesn't bother me at all, Heck, if I had a base, I'd certainly be rallying it as well. So, just because some folks have had a lot of reviews, it doesn't mean they're 'winning'. It's a talent quest, not a popularity contest. So, buck up Shelly, I think you did it just right.