Tape

Alex Blumberg is the co-founder of Gimlet Media. Prior to that he was a producer for This American Life. "A big lesson for me is that there aren't really rules. If [the radio story] is really fun, and you really love it, it's probably going to work. ... And if it doesn't, if it drags, then you should come in with script. ... In the beginning, I was always asking myself, here's this like 3 minute piece of tape in my story — and every other piece of tape had been like 30 to 45 seconds, and here's this one that's a 3 minute chunk — but I think I like it at 3 minutes. Can I do it at 3 minutes or do I have to break it up? And the answer is yeah, if it works at 3 minutes then you can do it at 3 minutes. And if it doesn't, then it doesn't. And the more that happens where I am like my whole story was a piece of teaser tape — 12 seconds of tape here, and 12 seconds of tape here — and then 5 minutes where everything happens, that's fine. If it works, it works."