I find Cinematography really inspiring to my audio work. Often more inspiring than sound design.  That might sound strange, considering I am a sound designer in the Audio medium.  

But even in the Audio medium, "sound" is too often approached as it is in other media - a thing to do last, in service to something else deemed more critical.

For example, in Film and TV, the sound serves the image.

But for Audio Storytelling, it begs the question - what other medium is sound in service to? 

Some might answer it's the STORY! On the surface, it seems that way, but not quite.

The Story is not the medium; the Story is the message.

A message can be delivered over any media (a book, comic, Game, TV/Film, audiobook, a podcast). And each medium offers unique attributes that, when carefully considered, create something far more potent than the Story alone.

So The Story holds the same place in Audio as in Film and TV. It’s the message. 

Digging deeper, we see that Sound is to your Audio Story what Cinematography is to your Visual Story: the very medium of the Story's expression. And just like cinematography does in Film/TV, Sound offers unique artistic opportunities in how an Audio Story can be told.

There is no intermediary between Sound and Story in the Audio medium. The relationship is direct. Sound is the very medium through which you tell your Story.  

This direct relationship excites me the most about Audio and is why I mainly work in Audio first media like Podcasts, specifically fiction audio.  

To be sure, oral storytelling is the original tradition. And the simplest form is to point a microphone at it and call it an “Audio story.” But that’s not unlike pointing a camera at the same storyteller and calling it Film. Sure, technically, yes. But is it the art of Film?

Audio has so much more unique potential to offer our story-telling than that. 

Because the Story is the message - we storytellers get to choose the medium of its expression. And we should choose a medium with purpose, with an eye and ear toward taking advantage of the unique abilities of that medium.

For example, suppose you decided on Audio as the medium to tell your Story. In my opinion, it's essential for you to be as interested in how sound can tell your Story in Audio as a visual storyteller is in how they could use visuals to tell theirs.

One of my favorite parts of Audio storytelling is working with writers directly on finding opportunities to use Sound to its full advantage in their audio stories - long before the first sound is recorded.

Let me know if you’d like to chat about your story, I’d enjoy hearing from you!