Story Production

Agreement

Once you and your contact at 99PI have agreed to the terms of your work, you will receive an agreement for your signature. This agreement will lay out the the fee, schedule, deliverables, etc. Once you sign your agreement, you can begin work, so please sign your agreement electronically at your earliest convenience.

Payment

Your fee is paid in two installments. You can submit your invoice at the following milestones:

• 1. 50% can be invoiced when your first draft is turned in to your editor.

  2. 50% can be invoiced after the listen edit (the second edit with the 99PI team).

Main Contact

After your story has been green-lit, you'll be assigned a 99PI producer/editor as your main contact at 99PI. This is a producer or editor who will help to guide your reporting process. This person is available for brainstorming, help you prep for interviews and other tape gathering, and answer questions as they come up.

Your Equipment

Please let your 99PI producer know your recording setup (e.g. what recording equipment do you have, do you have access to at studio, etc). If you are reporting in the field and do not have a field mic, we can send one to you to use for the duration of your story. If you will be a voice in the story and do not have a voice over mic, we can also send you one for that purpose.

Production Guidelines

Interview Specs

When possible, please record interviews in quiet spaces with lots of acoustic padding and little echo. Gather an additional 30-60 seconds of room tone for each interview. Record interviews in WAV at 44.1 kHz and 24-bit depth.

Recording Interviewees

Depending on the role the interviewee will play in your story, there are multiple options to record them.

For interviewees who will feature prominently in your story, we want to record them in as good quality as possible. Here are the options on order of preference:

Studio rental

If a local studio is available (ideally one in which we can ensure the quality of), this is our preference. If the studio is unvetted, give the studio’s info to your 99PI producer prior to booking so they can check with our team.

Tape sync

If the easier option is to record at the interviewee’s home or office, we can hire a tape syncer to record the interview.

Current tape sync rate: $200 for the first hour + $50 for each additional hour

We also cover travel expenses if traveling more than 30 miles to conduct the sync, at the federal rate of $0.67 per mile. For situations that require more expertise or are particularly difficult, we can offer a higher rate.

Always let your 99PI producer know when you’re hiring a tape syncer. Make sure the tape syncer’s name and email are given to your 99PI producer so they can get them added to Jaggaer for payment. Feel free to send them this freelancer hub (hub.99pi.org) so they have all the information about payment.

Zoom Recording

If the only option to record an important voice in your story is via Zoom, we may be able to send a USB microphone to the guest. Let your 99PI producer know so they can discuss with the team.

For interviewees who is not a main voice in your story, we can record them with just Zoom. The main thing to remember about Zoom recordings is that you want to set your Zoom to record each person in a separate file (this will isolate your interviewee's audio from yours).

• The setting is located in Settings >> Recording >> Advanced >> Record separate participant audio files.

File Management

Upload all of your raw audio to the episode Dropbox folder. Your 99PI producer will send you a request link which you can use to upload the files. (You do not need a Dropbox account to use this link.)

• Please name your files so that they are easy to find and understand (i.e. “John Smith studio interview DATE,” “John Smith field tape DATE,” etc).

• Please upload tape as you gather it, so we have a full copy of all audio you’ve gathered. Please don’t wait until the very end of your reporting process to do this, as large uploads can take a long time.

• Don’t upload audio to your personal Dropbox and then share with us, because that will take up all of your personal Dropbox space.

If you have any problems with Dropbox, use wetransfer to send audio.

Transcription

We use an automated transcription service called Trint. You will be provided with the login info so that you can upload and transcribe interviews.

Other Audio Sources

If you use archival sound or audio from youtube, it's best to download the entire file when possible (you can use the youtube to mp3 converter for this). If that is not possible, you can use a program like Audio Hijack to record the sound off your computer, but please make sure to gather at least thirty seconds before and after the clip you intend to use in the story. We like to have some flexibility when it comes time to produce this type of material.

If you’re looking for historical tape that you can’t find on youtube, we recommend searching the Prelinger Archive for a wide variety of archival material and the Vanderbilt Television News Archive for older news segments. Please be in touch with your 99PI producer if you find material in the Vanderbilt archive that seems promising. We can help with ordering and payment.

Writing Guidelines

Before you begin writing the first draft of your script, please start with this script template📄 and review these sample scripts to get a sense of how our episodes look on the page:

• Freedom House Script Final.pdf📄

• For the Love of Peat Script Final.pdf📄

All episodes are co-narrated by the reporter and 99PI host, Roman Mars.

Working with tape

When including tape in your script, follow these guidelines (it will make it much easier for the 99PI staff as we begin to produce your story):

• Please include the filename and timecode for each act.

• Please correct the transcript so that it matches verbatim with the tape.

• Listen to the tape to make sure it is understandable before including it in the script. If it isn’t, find another place where the person says something similar in a clearer way or convey the information in narration instead.

• If the tape uses audio that is separated by more than 30 seconds or so, add another timecode so it's easier to find.

• If there are internal cuts to tape use these conventions:

  • "..." indicates a small cut

  • "//" followed by another timecode indicates a larger internal cut.

Editing Process

Our editing process breaks down into a few phases.

The Script Edit

Once you have a draft of your story, you’ll share your script with a 99PI editor. The editor will look over the script and make changes. Depending on what shape your script is in, these changes may be small or large.

It’s during this phase of the editing process that we typically work through bigger questions related to structure, approach, narrative arc, etc. Your editor may suggest significant cuts or additions. They may suggest you do follow-up interviews or even look for additional sources to include.

Citations For Fact Checking

Once you and your editor have gotten the script into good shape, you should add footnotes to the script so that it can be fact-checked by one of our research assistants. (You can put in footnotes as early as your first draft if you prefer. Just keep in mind large sections might be cut, so you might be giving yourself extra work.)

For each fact in the script, include a footnote that points to the source of that information, whether it's an interview, a document, an archival news report, a scientific article, etc. (See the sample scripts linked above in the “Script Writing” section for examples of how to do this). We will share all of your transcripts, and links to any relevant articles or documents, with our fact-checker. They may be in touch with you if they have questions.

The Read to Tape (RTT)

Once the script is ready and the footnotes are provided, the story progresses to a group edit. In the RTT, you and members of the 99PI team come together for a read through with tape. This means the reporter and Roman read their lines while a producer plays the audio.

If you work in ProTools (or another editing software which can easily export a ProTools-friendly OMF file), we may ask you to cut the tape for the group edit. If you are cutting your own tape, please follow these guidelines:

• When you create the session, make sure it’s set to “copy” audio files when it imports (rather than “add”).

• Put each raw file in its own clearly labeled track (i.e. John Smith).

• Leave ten second tails for each cut, internal or otherwise. In final production, our staff will make sure it sounds good (that's why the verbatim transcript is so important).

• Do not make fades, and do not do any automation or engineering (this stuff messes with our process and our built-in plugins).

• Do not do any scoring.

• If you’re making changes to clips (after the group edit, for instance) please “save as” and rename the session with a new version number and your name (i.e. session working title - your name - v1, v2, etc.)

• Please upload the .PTX session to the Dropbox folder where you’ve uploaded all your audio.

The RTT is the first time the 99PI team gets a sense of how the story sounds out loud. What follows are two rounds of notes. The first round is for big picture feedback. In the second round of notes, we walk through the script comment by comment. Again, these edits may be small or large. Your editor will consider the feedback from the group edit, and may ask you to re-write certain parts of the script before synthesizing into a near-final draft.

Voice Tracking

Once changes have been made to the script, you’ll record your tracks. A 99PI producer will listen in and offer coaching while you do. They’ll often ask you to do multiple takes of each line. You’ll then upload your tracks to the designated Dropbox folder.

The Listen Edit (LE)

Two weeks after the RTT is the Listen Edit. This is another live edit and it’s the first time the group will hear an assembled episode. For this one, you’ll post a bounce of your episode plus the script in your episode’s slack channel so people can download it ahead of time. When everyone is on zoom, you give a countdown and we all press play on our own files at the same time. Then it’s the same edit process as in the RTT with the big picture and line-by-line notes.

Notes Mix 1 (NM1)

Two weeks after the LE is the first notes mix. This edit is not on zoom. The bounce is posted on Slack, and whoever is available will listen and give comments on their own time. If you are not on Slack, your editor will post the mix to Slack for the 99PI team to weigh in. There’s no group discussion after NM1 but as with the previous edits, you and your editor will likely touch base and figure out next steps.

The Mixing Process

Once you’re done making any changes from NM1 you can clean up your session—deleting muted clips and leftover markers—and pass off the session to the engineer working on your episode. Once you hand off the session it’s out of your hands for the rest of the process. Our engineer will put all the pieces together, which typically involves polishing and making sure the story fits the approach, style, and voice of the show. You should expect changes ranging from small to large during this phase of the process. Often these changes come in the week before the episode release. Your editor will talk through the reasoning for any changes and ask you to record any necessary re-tracks and upload those retracks to Dropbox.

Notes Mix 2 (NM2)

Once the engineer is finished, they will post a Notes Mix 2 bounce and script. The reporter is not usually involved at this point. The 99PI team does another round of notes, but we're only focusing on small tweaks, absolutely necessary pickups, and mix notes (like individual cuts or music in/outs).

And then … you’re done!

Congratulations! You will be notified as soon as the story is published to our feed and website.