Hi all. We will watch the Final Project 3 videos in class on Thursday–so you have a few more days to make changes if you want to. Today we will get started on the Podcast project–forming groups, talking about how to plan a podcast, and talking about some recording strategies.
Topic Formation
A few weeks back we spent some time talking about possible topics for the podcast project. I want to revisit that conversation today and form teams of 3 (ideally six groups of 3 people). I would like to avoid 4 person groups for this project, because I feel like that could grow too cacophonic.
I have put up a discussion thread on Canvas to help formulate groups.
Planning Your Podcast
Over at The Audacity to Podcast, Daniel Lewis surveys whether to script, ab-lib, or outline your podcast. I am going to echo Lewis’s advice and ask you to outline your podcast. This means that before you start recording, you come up with a list of topics you will address on that show, along with expectations for how long you spend on each topic. I am asking that each of your podcast episodes be between 10 and 15 minutes, so it is up to you to think about how many topics you will address on each episode.
Part of this pre-production process could/probably should involve collecting material you will react to. For instance, let’s say you are doing a podcast on Star Wars, and you want to deal with the upcoming movie. You might print out an article and highlight a passage that you want to read on the podcast. It isn’t necessary to write out what your response would be (though you might jot down a few words in preparation).
Additionally, you should make sure everyone has a copy of the outline a day or so before you begin recording, so that everyone has a chance to think about the topics for that session. To help facilitate best practices here, I will ask for your team to create a Google Doc and share it with me (insignificantwrangler@gmail.com).
Recording Your Podcast
Let’s look at this WikiHow for recording a podcast.
Step six of the tutorial addresses hosting your podcast; to do this, you need to have some server space on the internet. Fortunately, you do, since Squarespace can host podcast files. What’s nice is that tutorial even has steps for publishing your podcast with iTunes.
Note that publishing with iTunes means you need to think ahead. Obviously, you will need a name for your podcast. You will need a description of your members: here I advise you to think about using only your first names to protect your identity. Recognize that the description here establishes ethos: what kind of identity are you trying to craft? Authoritative based on knowledge and experience? Humorous and playful? Somber? What is the personality of your podcast?
In terms of the actual recording, Karol K. offers a tutorial that should be helpful. One of his recommendations concerns an external microphone rather than relying on a computer’s internal mic. I should be able to bring a few into class on Thursday if groups need them. I don’t want anyone to go out and spend money on mics, so hopefully this is an issue we can work around. He advises you start by using a test recording–and I will not only echo his advice but add that you should make sure everyone talks in the test recording so you can check volume and proximity to the mic. And make sure to look at his advice for editing your podcast.
