Assignment 3.1 - Interview with Ozzie

I work as a professional DJ on 89.5 WMOT, which is an NPR music affiliate station based in Middle Tennessee, serving Nashville and the surrounding areas. As a remote jock, there aren't a lot of opportunities for me to engage in person with the local community, like hosting showcases or doing artist interviews, so I wanted to do a project where I could work on those skills. An interview seemed like a no-brainer. But who could I interview? 

My husband Trevor has been doing a voice for our dog, Ozzie, since we adopted him in 2018. Ozzie's personality, though he is a little dog and very mellow, he is still bold and commanding, and his voice is reflective of these qualities. Make no mistake, dogs do speak their own language and we communicate effectively with each other, but the question of "what if we could speak with animals" still remains. As a remedy to this, my husband has become his translator (not unlike Keegan Michael Key as President Obama's Anger Translator). This entire persona that Trevor has created has been entirely improvised, and when we have conversations with the persona, it's also improvised. So it stands that this interview was improvised as well, so I wouldn't lose sight of the playful spontaneity of the conversation. However, since it's an interview I had to maintain a little bit of structure. My intention was to get a sense of Ozzie's opinion about his life, check his temperature on how things were going in his life, within the context of a professional radio interview. So I created WPET Radio, a public radio station for pet stories, and used my dj voice (and equipment) to interview my dog (I even included a call for membership at the end). 

I think that the practice of interviewing is highly beneficial for students, especially in an art classroom, because it requires listening skills. A lot of times, interviewers will show up with a list of questions, ask the questions in succession, and have that be that. But the most interesting interviews, I've found (from listening to *a lot* of WNYC) are conversations. There's a back and forth, questions can be informed and formed in the moment, and lead to unexpected and more interesting places. In and adolescent classroom especially, as kids are forming strong opinions and shaping their outlooks on the world, this could be a beneficial practice. The technical skills of sound editing, as well as editing the interview to make narrative sense, are built in, and serve to expand student knowledge in tech and could potentially open up new possibilities for professional pursuits in the long term. 

 I attempted to get at this with my interview with Ozzie.  Enjoy!

Kate Scott · 88.1 WPET Interview with Ozzie Scott

Ozzie, post-interview