A while back I published my review of Blood Memory, before it was fully available to the public, where I mused: “I’m trying to think if anyone, ever, pulled off a non-narrated true crime….”
Sometime after this was released, we sat down to talk. As I was getting prepared for this interview, I looked around for other interviews that Nick van der Kolk had done with other folks. I was sure that my conversation with him would fit inside a wide cannon.
But that’s not what I found. For some odd reason, despite the fact that he was was part of the team who won the first top prize at Third Coast in 2011, for a podcast that’s been around since 2005, who has prolifically and continuously published, won a ton of awards…there are very few interviews with him.
In fact, it’s hard to find much of his voice…if you’re a L+R regular, you will know that even in his own podcast, his voice is sparse.
Inside this interview, he generously shares his vision for what a narrator is, and what it is not for him. He talks about what the craft is for him, what his vision is for non-narrated pieces, and whether or not he considers Blood Memory part of the “True Crime” genre of narrative podcasts.
Production Credits:
Produced by: Samantha Hodder
Edited, Mixed and Mastered: Imogen Sayers
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
[03:57] Samantha: And was it true crime when you started pitching it originally?
[6:00] Samantha: How did this start? How did you meet Michael, virtually or actually?
[7:50] Nick van der Kolk: a second intern who did the same thing, and he was the one who somehow was able to track him down, and I started this correspondence, I think, the following year, so in 20-2012. So 14 years is when I first reached out to, to Michael.
[12:59] Nick van der Kolk: … this is obviously not in the podcast ‘cause I didn’t record, but the, but the scene that really stands out in my memory is, is going to actually see him in the visitor center in Chino for the very first time, and that was my first time encountering the U.S. prison system at all.
[14:28] Samantha: And in all the years of Love and Radio, had you ever been to a prison before to meet anyone?
[15:59] Samantha: So about narration, I wanna hear your take on why, wha-what your approach is to narration or lack thereof it. What is it between you and narration?
[17:02] Nick van der Kolk: I just record, and I record, and I record. And, I mean, I’ve been doing this for a while…And, you know, generally in most Love and Radio episodes, it is kinda built into the interview process
[20:33] Samantha: So that structure, which you spend the next nine episodes unraveling, talk to me about how that concept came together.
[00:22:50] Nick van der Kolk: I want you to be sitting with whoever the subject is, and you’re kinda hearing this, this interloper coming in and posing these questions.
[23:52] Nick van der Kolk: I don't feel comfortable pretending like I'm in the room when I'm not. So if you hear me on the phone, I am talking to that person on the phone.
[26:21] Samantha: Was this, like, a thesis statement on the wall? "There will be no narration. I have to figure out how to do this without narration." Like, you didn't buckle in 10 episodes, and there could've been times for it.
[30:29] Nick van der Kolk: … I wanna give people all the tools for them to be able to draw their own conclusions.
[31:41] Nick van der Kolk: But I am always struck by in the aesthetics of a documentary, particularly one that is non-narrated, how much the editing choices and the idea of, like, someone being behind the camera is an aesthetic within those films. I find that you’re, at least when I watch them, I’m really aware of that spirit of that person also being in the room, even if you don’t hear them, that there are choices that are being made that are very clear.
[35:57] Samantha: I was curious about the fact-checking angle. This is sort of in place of narration in a way where, you know, you’re helping to, you’re helping the listener piece together a complicated narrative where I think it’s Robin’s voice, right?
[38:36] Samantha: You decided to release this independently, but, but why did you release it when you did? What was the strategy of that? What, how did you know the story was over, and why did you release it when you did?
