The Assignment:
Mobile Phone Audio Tour
FOR the Eudora Welty House & Garden
Designed to…
ENGAGE plant lovers and history buffs who want an on-demand garden tour
WITH an easy, self-sufficient way to access rich interpretation the historic Welty garden, any time, without the need for an in-person guide
BY creating a self-guided audio tour, playable on any mobile phone, that interprets the salient plants and stories of the Welty garden through a rich audio experience blending environmental sound effects, music, and narration.
I’m doubly proud of this piece, because before I wrote the first word of a script, I successfully secured the funding to produce it through a grant.
With funding in hand, the next step was to get the buy-in of two individuals who would need to be consulted on the content, and who I hoped would agree to narrate. Since the garden in question is an iconic destination in the South, we needed to nail the local accent. For even the most gifted voice actors, a Mississippi dialect is tough to convincingly replicate. Although I love working with voice talent, I ultimately decided this project called for pure authenticity.
Fortunately, Susan Haltom, who led the restoration of the historic Welty garden, agreed to co-narrate the tour along with Welty’s niece, Mary Alice White, who would read passages from Welty’s work relating to the garden.
With the narrators on board, I wrote the script for the audio tour. Key stories about the garden and its plants were entwined with quotes from Welty’s writing, allowing the listener to see her garden through her eyes.
To produce the finished product, we engaged podcast producer Beau York to capture and edit audio. He grasped our concept perfectly, and did a beautiful job. Take a listen here.
At the time of its launch, I was the gardener at the Welty garden. As a member of that small team I knew just how much the demand for garden tours outstripped our staff’s availability to give them.