Upcoming Audio Challenges

1. Train-departure Announce-Off: Contestants must announce train departures at New York Penn Station. Points will be added for volume, and taken away for excessive clarity.

2. King Canute Scream-Off: Contestants will be taken to the shore at Southampton, England, to command the waves to stop crashing on the beach. Points for volume and for expression of exasperation. Any contestants whose commands actually result in the cessation of the waves will be immediately disqualified and sent to isolation chambers at the The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

3. Bob Barker soundalike contest: Contestants will be asked to recite the phrase "The Price Is Right" according to a series of standards for volume and timbre.

4. "EMO Screamer" contest. Contestants will be given a microphone and instructed to front an EMO band. First contestant to actually draw blood from his or her own vocal cords wins.

Whatever it may be, it is a shoe unlikely to slip comfortably on every foot. It calls to mind the reporting of a conversation between Albert Einstein and Isadora Duncan (a beautiful and famous 'vamp' of the 20s). She suggested: "Why don't you and I make a child together? Think of the possibilities; a child with your brain and my body" To which Einstein replied;
" You have to consider the alternative, there's an even chance it will have my body and your brain".

How much of it will be "engineering". I think I've got some hostiness, but I'm certainly not adept at production at this point in my life.

I would like to see the challenges be based as much on the raw talent as possible without added effects.

ADQ

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

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

How about who can sit through an American Idol Marathon and the various recap shows while holding the remote control. Last one to flinch and change the channel wins. Or maybe the first one to flinch wins!

http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/1010

There's a round 2 contest to list all the signature quotes I have used in round one commenting.

Steve

It falls to the enlightened, and the intelligent and the sane to take responsibility for the deluded or doltish or insane.

One problem with this format of forum is the tendency for old threads to get lost/buried/forgotten...

Steve

It falls to the enlightened, and the intelligent and the sane to take responsibility for the deluded or doltish or insane.

Found Sound

Contestants are given a small, random sample of "found sound" (old audio tapes, car crash, voicemail) by judges which they need to incorporate into an audio piece. They can use it as background, report on it, write a story around it, use it within narration, write prose/poetry about it, etc.

(Hopefully, fair use coverage?)

One of my favorite ways to get laughs is to read canned food labels out loud (or other "involved" product labels).

Another way to get folks chuckling is to read the classifieds to everyone at the table. Try it. You'll like it.

Perhaps there could be a challenge that revolves around reading (the same for each contestant) product labeling or classified adverts into a story of some type?

Jimmy
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Please listen to my entry at:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/197
I made a tune for you (and others) http://jimmybearpearson.com/prtq.php.

Perhaps a challenge of the versatility, voice, and ideas of the "survivors" would be interesting...

Each of the 10 (left standing) are given a particular (generic, low-quality microphone or perhaps hand-held recorder) recording device/mic. No production efforts allowed - just three unedited, non-stop, no breaks minutes of the contestant's show (the actual show, not a proposal for what the show would be). The contestant gets 200 characters to do an "elevator pitch" about their show, posted with the audio.

With this proposed challenge, the strengths of the host show through - and production chops are deemphasized.

I'm reminded of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire - nearly every single dance sequence was shot end-to-end with one camera: no breaks, no special effects, no tricks. They were absolutely two of the most talented people on the planet.

Jimmy
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Please listen to my entry at:
http://www.publicradioquest.com/node/197
I made a tune for you (and everyone here at the PRTQ) http://jimmybearpearson.com/prtq.php.

Stupid Audio Tricks

In this challenge, contestants must share a secret/hidden/embarrassing talent that can be shared aurally. Belching the alphabet? Writing an original song? Reading an original poem? Discouraging telemarketers? Tuvan throat singing? A challenge for all skill levels showcasing hostiness and personality.

I hope I don't come off as a wet blanket here, and I think most of the discussion and opinion in this thread is valuable, but I fear we might be stunting the brainstorm by creating value judgments and a focused lens prematurely. I would love to hear more ideas—imaginative, difficult, ridiculous—that might make interesting challenges. I agree that not every challenge we've imagined works well in the predefined categories or taking into account all skill levels, but let's stretch a bit, shall we?

Who else has a great audio challenge idea?

Devil's advocate here: If the same person is interviewed by all ten people I can't help but think the person being interviewed will react differently and possibly less favorably by interview 10 than they would have in interview two... Burnout.

Djing. Not a difficult thing to do but you all are right in thinking about what's going to take technical skills and what is going to be more of a personality driven thing. Because someone who isn't comfortable with a board will probably be at a disadvantage to someone with djing experience and I think that will affect how they come across. I'm just now getting compliments from friends about sounding natural and it's been two years. So how to level that playing field?

The soundscapes or whatever it was called is interesting, and the monologues and the mini shows...

I always pictured round two like, "Go to a grade school and do a story." Then we (positive visualization with the "we") have to use our individual x factor goodness to create a masterpiece.

A lot of great thoughts on this, though it's giving me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach--not about the next set of challenges, but if there will be a round 2.

First off, I love the fact that the folks running this contest haven't painted themselves into any corners by pre-planning the heck out of it - as with any creative and collaborative project, you have to give yourself wiggle-room and I'm glad to see there is room to...err..wiggle.

In any case, before one comes up with challenges, let's re-cap what the process is.

RECAP

1) First Cut: Start with 10 (assuming 3 from each category + 1 publically-chosen wild card); 3 are removed.

1) Second Cut: Start with 7; 2 are removed.

1) Third Cut: Start with 5; 2 are removed - three finalists are announced.

1) Fourth Cut: All three pilots created by finalists are then thrown into the ring along with the three hand-selected hosts from the other "team" (Launch) and then the absolute winner or winners are announced.

I'm guessing that with each cut, they're going to want each challenge to be more difficult. This already takes this contest outside of most other similar contests like American Idol, etc. because usually their rounds incorporate new or different challenges, not necessarily more difficult ones (the HGTV Design Star show seems like a closer model).

I'm also guessing that in the early rounds (at least) they'd want to keep each challenge general enough that it would be possible for all three categories; the harder things get, the more specific things get.

CHALLENGES

First Cut: I'd think an interview would be something all three categories would be able to do without getting too subject specific. Questions that arise include making sure each semifinalist has someone to interview and subject matter isn't so specific that it'd be hard to compare the various entries.

Second Cut: Have each contestant create a short 5-minute segment all based on the same theme (Christmas, the color blue, nature, industrialism, etc.) so that each category could work in their own realm but that the subject matter would still be close enough to compare.

Third Cut: This should be longer and more involved - still with no essential "production value", I assume, since everyone will still be working on their own. I'm thinking a 15-minute "mini-show" that the finalists who do win could expand to an hour - this one should be a glimpse of what their program would actually be like, since it wouldn't make much sense to award someone a finalist without having a good idea of what their show idea is (maybe not all the details, but at least the basics).

I'm sure there are others that could work, but these are just some suggestions based on the judge's need to gauge the skills of each contestant.

Did anyone else watch the first episode of Project Runway, where they had to use materials found in a grocery store to make a cocktail dress?

Seriously, every good host has to do interviews, even once in a a while. Some interviewees are better than others. Make the finalists all interview the same person. If they don't have the technology to do that themselves, they could go to their public radio station and do a phone-in or even an ISDN line (if PRTQ pays for it). Maybe each finalist gets 10 minutes with this person. Maybe they know about him/her, maybe it's a total John Doe. Maybe there's a short list of possible topics, or maybe the finalists just get a list of that person's interests and resume.

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