audio storytelling

17. Pamela Ribon: Finding Your Own Fun /  by Elaine Sheldon

Pamela Ribon is a television writer, screenwriter, best-selling novelist and all around hilarious human. She’s been a writer in comedy rooms for both network and cable television and is the author of four novels. NPR called her new memoir, Notes to Boys, “brain-breakingly funny.” Pamela has developed original series and features for ABC, ABC Family, Warner Bros., Disney Channel and 20th Century Fox Productions. She recently finished working on a feature for Walt Disney Animation Studios and she’s currently writing for Sony Pictures Animation on an upcoming feature. Pamela started writing on the web in 1998, before most people even knew what a blog was. She has been building her audience ever since, breaking the internet with “Barbie F*cks It Up Again,” among other posts. We talk about standup comedy, how to make your work go viral, and why it’s important to mind your our beeswax and find your own fun.

“Wanting what other people have will never get you what you want, because you’re not spending time finding your own fun. It’s not fun to be jealous of people and it’s such a waste of time, because nobody has the same story. You can take the craziest route if you just follow what’s interesting to you.”
— Pamela Ribon

RELATED LINKS:

Name: Pamela Ribon

Current City: Los Angeles

What are you listening to now? Podcasts: Scriptnotes, The Dinner Party Download, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Extra Hot Great

What film piece of media changed you? The Family Ties episode "A, My Name is Alex." It was an hour-long "very special" episode about Alex going to therapy after the sudden death of a close friend. Shot like a play, Alex moved in and out of the set, talking to an unseen therapist while playing out scenes with his family and friends. Seeing a sitcom tackle something so serious, mixing comedy with drama, letting Michael J Fox "act" so hard, completely blew my young mind. Comedy could help? Comedy could get serious? A sitcom could make me cry? I still remember jokes from it, so it also made me laugh. Because this episode is such a long ago memory, I originally assumed this epiphany happened only to me, but I've met more than one writer who also named this episode as an important moment in their young lives. Wikipedia says it won a shit-ton of awards, so I guess it wasn't just us kids knowing it was a good. 

Who is your career role model? Tina Fey, John Waters, Penn Jillette, Peggy Olson, Bjork, Leslie Knope.

What is a tool you can't live without? Spotify

How do you drink your coffee/tea? Black

What's your spirit animal? Hello Kitty. It used to be Batz Maru. I am evolving.

Any updates since we interviewed you? I'm currently writing a feature for Sony Animation and a comedy pilot for the Disney Channel. Everything else is under various NDAs.

MUSIC FEATURED IN SHOW:

Music this week is by Springtime Carnivore. 

Listen to Episode 17.5 with Greta Morgan of Springtime Carnivore!

TRACKS: Karen Bird’s Themes, Talk To Me Slow, Last One To Know, Foxtrot Freak, Collectors, Western Pink, Name on a Matchbook, Low Clouds, Two Scars

 

CREDITS:

Produced by Elaine Sheldon & Sarah Ginsburg

Sound design by Billy Wirasnik

Illustration by Christine Cover

Production Assistance by Alijah Case

CLIPS FEATURED IN SHOW:

Good Morning America Barbie Segment 1 & 2

Barbie Commercial "Cut & Style Barbie"

 

7. Ingrid Kopp: A Treasure Hunt Around The Web /  by Elaine Sheldon

Ingrid Kopp has been exploring the highest peaks and lowest valleys of independent film for the past 15 years and for the past 6 years has been island hopping to discover intersections between storytelling, social media and technology. As the Director of Interactive at the Tribeca Film Institute, Ingrid supports interactive and cross-platform projects through the TFI New Media Fund and TAA Interactive Prototype Fund. She is the creator of Tribeca Hacks, TFI Interactive and the curator of Storyscapes at the Tribeca Film Festival. All of these spaces invite story, tech and design into the same room to foster conversations and collaborations. In this episode of She Does, Ingrid talks about growing up in South Africa during apartheid, the balance between offline and online communities, lack of diversity in technology and curation, and her dreams to write a book and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro--at the same time.

“In order to get where we want to go, which is creating really amazing pieces of work for audiences everywhere, you need to have diverse production teams and diverse audiences. It makes the work better.”
— Ingrid Kopp

RELATED LINKS

Google Hangout with Lina (ep 6) & Ingrid (ep 7) on April 10 at 3 PM (EST) 

Storyscapes lineup (April 16 – 19): 

TFI Interactive day (April 18)

Ingrid on Twitter 

Ingrid on IndieWire 

Ingrid’s Interactive Playlist

Tribeca Sandbox (resources) 

Name: Ingrid Kopp

Current City: Brooklyn, NY

DOB: 1973

What's on your current playlist? 

Podcasts: StartUp, Invisibilia, Desert Island Discs, Start The Week. I love BBC Radio 4 podcasts, a sign of my age perhaps. 

Music: Billy Bragg, Miriam Makeba and Just A Band.

What piece(s) of media changed you?

Films: Divorce Iranian Style by Kim Longinotto; The Leader, The Driver and The Driver's Wife by Nick Broomfield; Moonstruck by Norman Jewison.

Books: All the RE:Search books but especially Angry Women and Angry Women in Rock. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Also, all Shakespeare plays. 

Shows: Every show I went to at Gilman in Berkeley 1995/96. Sonic Boom: The Art of Sound, a show at the Hayward Gallery in London in 2000 got me excited about installations.

Who are your career role models? Debra Zimmerman, from Women Make Movies; Jess Search, from BRITDOC; and Peter Dale from Rare Day. Peter was my first boss in media and an incredible mentor, supporter and all round good person.

What tool(s) can't you live without? My iPhone, a huge bag with a book or two in it, Moleskine notebooks and a good pen.

How do you drink your coffee/tea?  Strong coffee. I have been known to order quad lattes which I think are actually a heart risk!

Spirit animal? Goat. I love goats, and by the way, I loved goats before the Internet loved goats.

MUSIC FEATURED IN SHOW:

  • Zebrat - A Childish World, Imagination

  • Podington Bear - Button Mushrooms, Formant, Resonant Ducs, Rainbow Architecture, Infant

  • Ketsa - Shiny Clouds

CREDITS

PRODUCED by Elaine Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg

SOUND DESIGN by Billy Wirasnik

CLIPS FEATURED IN SHOW:

3. Anna Sale: Let’s Talk About Death, Sex & Money /  by Elaine Sheldon

Anna Sale is the creator, host and managing editor of WNYC’s podcast, Death, Sex & Money, a biweekly show featuring intimate interviews with both celebrities and commoners alike, that has risen to the top of the iTunes charts. She’s a public media veteran who covered the 2012 presidential campaign and has contributed to This American Life, NPR, Marketplace, Studio 360, PBS Newshour, and Slate. In this episode, Anna talks about her West Virginian (or Appalachian) roots, being a self-proclaimed “honorable detector of snobs”, coming into journalism as an activist, landing her first job, coping with divorce, the art of the interview and the challenge of telling stories that aren’t often featured on the front page. You’re in for a real treat. Anna has a special gift, a voice made to be heard. You can hear the smile in her voice.

Name: Anna Sale

Current City: NYC 

DOB: 1980

What are you listening to? D'Angelo's Black Messiah

What film/book/show/piece of media changed you? There are so many. A recent favorite was the film, "Stories We Tell" by Sarah Polley.

Who is your career role model? Terry, forever.

What is a tool you can't live without? ProTools, Google Docs, My worn-down, audio-in-one-ear tangled earbuds.

How do you take your coffee? Black, mostly. With soy if I'm in a fancy place.

What’s your spirit animal? A mule. I was getting a massage in Tampa in 2012, just after the Republican National Convention, and this sweet masseuse--young guy, bleached hair, pierced face--told me that was the essence he was reading: Wild and free like a horse plus a pleaser/hardworker, like a donkey=mule.

“When I was putting together Death, Sexy & Money I wasn’t thinking of it as a women’s show or a show where we talk about women’s stories or the women’s view on things. Because I think no matter what your sexuality or your gender, there’s a lot happening that’s shifting the ways that we think about what the stories of our lives are in the U.S. So, I want to do both. But I think just making the base assumption when you’re doing a story that the details of this woman’s story is important. Given the history of women in this country in the past 100 years, that’s still a radical thing. So it feels good to be a part of that.”
— Anna Sale

CREDITS

PRODUCED by Elaine Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg

SOUND DESIGN by Billy Wirasnik

CLIPS FEATURED IN SHOW:

DS&M: How to Be a Man With Bill Withers

DS&M: I Killed Someone. Now I Have 3 Kids.

DS&M: Ellen Burstyn's Lessons on Survival

DS&M: The NFL Made Me Rich. I Won't Watch It Now.

DS&M: Dan Savage Says Cheating Happens. And That's OK.

DS&M: Jane Fonda After Death and Divorce

DS&M: This Senator Saved My Love Life

MUSIC FEATURED IN SHOW:

Cassie Lopez

Tiny Folk

Hudson