On A Mission

Growing up in 1970’s England, I loved to listen to every kind of music including my parents record collection that began with Simon and Garfunkel’s album, Bridge over Troubled Water.

Way before podcasts and music on demand were on the scene, my brother and I would wait for the Sunday evening UK billboard hits and tape our favorite songs so we could relisten to them a million times before the following Sunday, when we rerecorded over them. The audio tracks sometimes included my gran talking in the background and were the furthest thing from sophisticated that you could imagine.

My mum listened to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on a Sunday while she cooked dinner, so radio was a big part of life.

So here we are decades later talking about podcasts, including how to plan and record a compelling podcast in a sea of available content.

In my first podcast, I decided to plan an interview with my parents about their childhood in the 1940’s. My father grew up in Scotland and was born in 1939 and my mother lived in England and was born in 1944, so the conversation has World War II as a backdrop.

It’s poignant and funny what they remember, and I can’t wait to record it. Below are some points I took from this week’s readings and podcasts I sampled for inspiration:

Podcaster Robert Cudmore walks us through the essentials of writing ‘invisible’ scripts, which should sound natural. Aside from using spoken language (contractions etc.), he encourages any budding podcaster to experiment with structure and detail to find just the right balance in their script.

Outlining can be a simple text approach (using Evernote), pen and paper, index cards, mind maps (iThoughts, Free Mind, Mind Note). Scrivener is an application for organizing longer writing pieces. Editing tools may include Grammarly.

Recommended approach is to outline, write and then tackle editing separately. And for the perfect delivery, we are reminded to speak slowly and record 2-3 ‘takes’ of each element with a pause between each to allow for editing.

In the The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film And Video, Tom Schroeppel summarizes a few different ways to record sound including omnidirectional and directional microphones. Some recording devices are handheld while others hang from extendable arms called booms. To record sound close-up, a person may fasten a lavalier Mike to their lapel!!

Sampled Podcasts

This American Life is primarily a non-fiction journalistic-style one hour radio show that explores current events and short stories. I listened to one by the host Ira Glass that focused on babysitters told in part through the brutally honest point of view of a six and nine-year old. For a touch of whimsy, the Perfect Nanny track from Mary Poppins is featured.

NPR’s Up First is a favorite podcast that sums up the day’s news in 15-minutes or less. It starts with a quick recap of the headlines and dives right in. There are two hosts and guests with no other audio in this focused news podcast. One downside: it is interrupted with ads near the beginning and end of the show.

Car Talk by the hilarious Click and Clack – I have no interest in mechanics but this one is fun to listen to for pure entertainment. The banter and laughter between the Bostonian brothers and good-natured fun they poke at anyone who calls in, makes this one an irresistible listen.