BBC Radio 4
You’ve Got Worms
A radio documentary exploring the strange, funny and essential world of worms through sound-rich science storytelling.
View projectDocumentary podcast production
Documentary audio built around story.
PRONK! develops and produces documentary podcasts, radio documentaries and narrative factual audio — finding the angle, doing the research, capturing the right voices and shaping the material into a finished listening experience.
The form
More than a sequence of interviews.
Documentary audio can move through scenes, contributors, narration, archive, location sound, music and silence. The format exists to serve the story rather than forcing every subject into the same studio conversation.
PRONK! is drawn to subjects that are overlooked, specialist or apparently difficult to dramatise — the places where the right editorial route can reveal something unexpected.
Documentary production
From first question to final mix.
01
Development
Find the premise, narrative engine, treatment and form before production gets expensive.
02
Research
Build the factual foundation, identify contributors and uncover the details that make the story move.
03
Field production
Record interviews, scenes, environments and location sound with the edit already in mind.
04
Story edit
Shape structure, narration, pacing and context around the strongest material.
05
Sound world
Use music, archive and sound design where they create meaning, movement or atmosphere.
06
Mix & delivery
Finish the production for podcast platforms, broadcasters or commissioning organisations.
Relevant work
Documentary thinking in practice.
FQXi
Quantum Clock Makers
A documentary contribution following physicists building clocks for the quantum regime, using people and experiments as the route into specialist science.
View projectOur approach
Follow the story.
PRONK! develops the editorial route first, then chooses the interviews, locations, sound and structure that make that route work.
See the full processWho it is for
Broadcasters, commissioners and organisations with a real story to tell.
Documentary production can work for broadcasters, research bodies, universities, cultural institutions and organisations whose subject needs more than a conventional interview format.
We can join at treatment stage, develop an idea from scratch or take a promising subject and work out what kind of documentary it wants to become.
Common questions
The format follows the story.
Do you produce both podcasts and radio documentaries?
Yes. PRONK! works across podcast, commissioned radio and narrative factual audio, with the delivery shaped around the commissioner and platform.
Can you develop the treatment?
Yes. Development can include research, treatment writing, contributor strategy, narrative structure and pilot work.
Can documentary production include sound design?
Yes. Sound design is used when it strengthens meaning and story, not simply as decoration.
Documentary podcast production