Assorted Audio
Ivan Ruiz-Knott Writer, Producer, Sound Designer, Editor
I’ve long been excited about narrative radio stories, frequently toying with the idea of a career change and even once attending a Transom Traveling Workshop. Perhaps because most of my professional work is so visual I’ve deeply enjoyed the change of medium. Casting about in the darkness, chasing sound.
As an amateur, most of my output has been sporadic and unrelated, though I keep looking for something thematic that could justify and motivate a consistent show.
In one of my futures I figure it out. I produce a steady stream of narrative audio pieces, pitching stories and contributing producing to my favorite shows. I start going to Third Coast. Engage without being overwhelmed by it all. Livvy and I give up our life of modest, two-bedroom luxury to live in squalor in New York City, eating through our savings while I charm my way into internships by telling everyone about how decades before Rob Rosenthal once called me “the doctor”. And one-day, an old man, I gleefully accept a role as a producer at This American Life. Ira (may he rest in peace) is long dead, but I remember him fondly, putting up the picture that was taken of us on my 28th birthday, half a century before, and remember his distinctive voice telling me “You should make radio.”
My sister got Livvy and I meet and greet tickets to a talk Ira Glass was doing in Chicago, and too nervous to wait in line or talk to any of the other people there we ended up hanging out by ourselves by a trash can. Much to our surprise, Ira eventually had to throw something away and was kind enough to chat with us for a while.
The first audio story I put together, inspired by Starley Kine’s Mystery Show and Jonathan Goldstein’s deadpan style.
Our friend Timothy Rodriguez once started telling Livvy and me a bizzare story about meeting a king, and I immediately told him to stop talking and wait till I had my recording equipment. This is the story he and I ended up making.
Gimlet Media, the studio behind Reply All, Mystery Show, and Heavyweight, put out a request for pitches for a show they were doing called “Casting Call.” This was my submission for a potential show. I didn’t get selected, but did end up making more friends.
For the Transom Traveling Workshop I produced this story about a local sci-fi themed bicycle chopper gang.
The podcast I produced for my studio, Types & Symbols, about a nineteenth-century religious figure’s magnum opus.