Adventure · Imagination · Honour
That’s where the learning begins.
Berry Point Studio workshops are for the curious, the creative, and the what-iffers.
What if I started a podcast?
What if I learned to interview someone well?
What if I could record my own music?
What if I made a radio show?
What if I finally understood what all those knobs, microphones, tracks, and waveforms actually do?
You do not need to arrive knowing how.
More than a decade ago, while mentoring young filmmakers and theatre and media makers, I described three principles that had already shaped more than 25 years of my work with young people: adventure, imagination, and honour.
At the time, much of that work centred on filmmaking. After decades of working with images, I became increasingly fascinated by sound, and by the intersection of imagination and sonic landscapes.
The medium changed. The principles did not.
Adventure
Trying something you have never done before.
A microphone, a mixer, a recording programme, an interview, or simply hearing your own recorded voice can take you outside your comfort zone.
Yay!
That is where the learning begins.
Imagination
Imagination is the ability to find a new way of looking at something.
Sound gives us an extraordinary playground for that. A voice, a footstep, a piece of music, a strange noise, or even silence can suggest an entire world without ever showing us a picture.
Our workshops are hands-on because there is a point between simply being shown how something works and figuring it out for yourself where something wonderful can happen.
You begin asking:
What if?
What if we put the microphone over here?
What if we tell the story this way?
What if we use that sound?
What if I ask a different question?
What if I can actually do this?
The what-iffers are the ones who discover possibilities that weren’t there before.
Honour
We honour the process.
We honour the tools of the trade and learn to use them well.
We honour the gifts we have been given, and the different gifts other people bring into the room.
We honour each other for our different ways of seeing the world and using our imaginations.
And we honour the people who have generously taught us what they know by passing some of that knowledge along.
That has always been part of the philosophy behind Berry Point Studio.
Half-Day Studio Workshops
Four hours · $95 per person · maximum four participants
These are small, practical workshops with plenty of opportunity to actually use the studio.
Rather than sitting through four hours of instruction, participants learn by doing. Depending on the workshop, you might record an interview, create a short radio programme, build a playlist, record several tracks, edit audio, experiment with microphones, or produce something of your own.
And yes, you get to touch the equipment.
The goal is simple:
Leave knowing something you did not know when you arrived, and having made something you had not made before.
No previous experience is required unless otherwise noted.
Workshop Possibilities
Start Your Own Podcast
You have something to say. How do you turn it into a programme?
Explore podcast ideas, format, microphones, recording, interviewing, basic editing, and how to create a first episode or pilot.
Leave with a recorded sample and a clearer idea of where your podcast could go.
The Art of the Interview
A good interview is much more than a list of questions.
Explore listening, curiosity, preparation, follow-up questions, microphone technique, and the wonderful things that can happen when a conversation goes somewhere you did not expect.
Participants interview each other and experience both sides of the microphone.
Behind the Microphone
What makes a voice work on radio?
Try announcing, microphone technique, music introductions, station IDs, short spoken segments, timing, and working naturally with a microphone.
Especially suitable for anyone curious about radio, podcasting, voice work, or presenting.
Make a Radio Show
Start with an idea and build a programme around it.
Explore format, music, spoken segments, timing, transitions, interviews, station IDs, and the relationship between the presenter and the listener.
Then put the pieces together and make a short show.
The Art of the Playlist
A playlist can be more than a collection of songs.
Explore how music can create mood, tell a story, surprise a listener, move between eras and styles, and take someone somewhere they did not expect to go.
Learn the practical side of building and preparing playlists while also exploring the creative decisions behind good radio programming.
RadioBOSS: From Playlist to Air
Go behind the scenes of an internet radio station.
Learn how playlists, scheduling, metadata, programme elements, live sources, and automation work together to keep a station running.
Participants build and operate a short programme sequence themselves.
Reaper: Recording Without Fear
Tracks, waveforms, inputs, outputs, plug-ins, edits. It can look intimidating until you start using it.
This hands-on introduction to Reaper explores recording, basic editing, levels, multitrack production, and exporting a finished piece.
The goal is not to learn every button.
The goal is to discover that you can use it.
Record Your Music
What actually happens between playing a song and having a recording you can listen to?
Explore microphones, signal flow, levels, headphones, multitrack recording, listening back, and the beginnings of a mix.
Bring an instrument, bring a song, and bring your ears.
Soundscapes and Foley
Tell a story without relying only on words.
Record ordinary sounds, create unexpected ones, experiment with Foley, and combine sound, voice, and imagination to build an audio scene.
This is play with a purpose.
Tell Your Story
Not everyone wants to become a broadcaster.
Some people simply have a story worth keeping.
Learn how to record memories, family stories, oral histories, conversations, and the voices of people who matter to you.
Because sometimes a recording that seems ordinary today becomes a treasure years from now.
For the What-Iffers
Berry Point Studio is not about knowing everything before you walk through the door.
It is about being willing to try.
Bring your questions.
Bring your ideas.
Bring the thing you have been wondering whether you could do.
Adventure. Imagination. Honour.
All you need to bring along is curiosity.