ShortDocs
Discover hundreds of short audio gems produced in response to a prompt from Third Coast for the ShortDocs Competition, hosted between 2003 and 2016. Each year ushered in a new set of rules, new creative partners, and ever-more magical results.
I've Never Lived in Chicago
A docu-song about a broken dream, made from interview tape.
- 2009
- 02:16
- Jonathan Mitchell
PCAF
A Hoosier attends a show at the lofty, hipster-run Shape Shoppe recording studio, in Chicago.
- 2009
- 03:02
- Zachary Baiel
Chicago's Gangster
Every July 22nd, a group of Chicagoans gather to memorialize the death of infamous and beloved bank robber John Dillinger, who spent a year evading the authorities and winning American hearts before he was shot dead in July, 1934.
- 2009
- 03:56
- Heather Radke
Lovable Losers
Feel the passion, feel the pain of the faithful followers of Chicago's Lovable Losers.
- 2009
- 02:58
- Rich Halten
Cooler by the Lake
A classical composer, Stuart Brocklehurst, attempts to deal with his writer's block through environmental field recording.
- 2009
- 06:14
- Laura Vitale
- Rick Moody
Dawn at Chicago's Magic Hedge
Summer 2009: A field recording from of The Magic Hedge, where Chicago receives the dawn and migratory birds in lakefront silence.
- 2009
- 02:18
- Noe Cuellar
Carl, with an El
Carl Sandburg inspires a meditation on private worlds as we ride the El.
- 2009
- 02:45
- Neil Sandell
Couple Two Tree
A loving examination of the Chicagoan language by four non-etymologists.
- 2009
- 03:01
- Sean Cole
Elevated (Grand Chicago)
An onomatopoetic memory of Chicago.
- 2009
- 02:51
- Aaron Ximm
Beat Street
An aging drummer takes his love of music - and his dreams of something bigger - to Chicago's Michigan Avenue.
- 2009
- 02:58
- Chris Sewell
Riding Through the Summer
Pilsen, 2009: Chicago summer is full of life and full of sound - you can hear it best on two wheels.
- 2009
- 03:34
- Katie Mingle
The Big City
For the last 20 years, Sherwin Sleeves has traveled the country, composing "theme songs" for cities across the United States. Inspiration for Chicago's song strikes while he's eating dinner at the Green Mill.
- 2009
- 03:31
- Sean Hurley
Studs & Jimmy
Jimmy Yancey, the blues pianist and White Sox groundsman, and Studs Terkel, the broadcaster and author, may have lived at different ends of Chicago but they're both as integral a part of the city as the El...
- 2009
- 02:59
- Alan Hall