Lou Giansante is a writer, a multimedia and internet producer, an educator, and a voice talent for audio and video.
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WRITER
He specializes in clear, compelling, jargon-free writing, whether it’s print for the reading eye or scripts for the listening ear.
For Simon & Schuster Audio and Prentice-Hall Academic Audio, he produced and adapted books, transposing written text into scripts for audio books-on-tape.
For Scholastic Inc., he wrote and edited scripts for author podcasts and interviews, online news reports for kids, and video segments for parents on raising kids to be readers. He also scripted Scholastic’s weekly internet radio programs Teacher Radio and News Zone Radio.
For Acoustiguide, Inc. he writes kid-friendly audio tours for children attending art museums and science centers across the country.
For Art Education for the Blind and the Art Beyond Sight Consortium he writes text for web sites, and scripts for streaming audio and video. He specializes in writing verbal description of art works for blind art lovers.
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PRODUCER -- BROADCAST AND INTERNET
He was a reporter and producer of news, features, and documentaries heard on National Public Radio and other public stations. His radio work received some of broadcasting's highest honors including the George Foster Peabody Award.
He became an advocate for children and for the power of interactive media like radio, telephone, and the Internet to empower children. One result -- from 1992 to 2000 he worked at WNYC in New York, where he created New York Kids, live, interactive radio programming for and with 8 to 12 year olds. He also created an accompanying web site www.nykids.org.
In 2001, his advocacy for children and radio led to co-founding the World Radio Forum, an international network of producers who do radio for and with children and youth. He produced the World Radio Forum website: www.worldradioforum.org.
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CONSULTANT
He has consulted on the design of media for children and youth to Radio 4 in the Netherlands, the BBC World Service, KidSPIRIT Internet Radio in Canada, Children’s Pressline, United Nations Radio, and the Harlem Internet Radio Training Site.
In 2000, Scholastic Inc. publishing asked him to create Internet radio for teachers and children at their web site, www.scholastic.com. For teachers, he created Teacher Radio, a series of half-hour programs which he produced and co-hosted with Nina Jaffe. For children, he created News Zone Radio, a weekly interactive news program with kid hosts, in which he was heard as newscaster “Lou the News Guy."
In 2005 -06, he consulted to Scholastic Professional on the design and production of audio and video podcasts of authors.
He continues his relationship with Scholastic as a consultant on the design and scripting of Internet audio and video segments for teachers, parents, and kids.
Since 1987, he has consulted to Art Education for the Blind (AEB). For its groundbreaking series Art History Through Touch and Sound, he produces sound compositions that convey visual art elements and the aesthetic feel of artworks for people with visual problems.
Also for AEB and the Art Beyond Sight consortium, he produces the multimedia web site www.artbeyondsight.org that includes an online Handbook for Museums and Educators.
And he writes and produces AEB’s newest web site, New York Beyond Sight, www.nybeyondsight.org, in which prominent New Yorkers use verbal description to tell people with vision problems about their favorite art, architecture, and landmarks.
In 2007, he consulted to Very Special Arts in Washington, DC on the exhibition Renascence 07. He designed, produced, and narrated an audio tour for blind visitors. He also produced audio described soundtracks to three videos that were part of the exhibition.
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EDUCATOR
As an educator, his experience includes high school and college teaching, artist residencies in schools, and 17 years on the faculty of the graduate Media Studies Program at the New School in New York.
In 2007, he taught workshops in writing and producing audio to web producers at Scholastic News, Scholastic’s news service web site for children.
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TALENT
As a radio reporter and radio program host, he developed a vocal style that’s professional, truthful, sincere, and inviting.
He’s applied that voice to narrating audio books, radio and video documentaries, educational media, streaming audio and video, and museum audio tours.
He co-hosted Teacher Radio, a half-hour internet radio magazine program for elementary teachers heard on Scholastic.com. Also for Scholastic he hosted live interactive web casts for teachers.
He has also done vocal acting and character voices for audio books productions, for WNYC’s New York Kids, and for Scholastic’s News Zone Radio.