 All right, so here's a podcasting workshop presented by the media creation lab team So but an hour of content three parts Probably about 15 to 20 minutes for each part and there's like an extra half hour if you want to try other things Okay Yeah So history and the types of podcasting or two will be kind of like a workflow checklist of things to ask yourself and consider and determine If you're doing a podcast or a podcast episode Part three we're just going to practice using the Zoom H4 end if there's time and then practice editing using audacity, which is an open-source audio editing software So it's already installed on all those computers so Part one history and types of podcast so Podcasting is a Phenomenon is super popular, but it's lineage goes back like more than 120 years So 1901 the first discovery of wireless broadcasting 1920 the first commercial US radio station 1930s to 40s the golden age of radio 1930s the first TV broadcast in Europe 1954 color TV broadcasting by the 1960s widespread adoption of TV and households 1969 the US Department of Defense launched ARPANET, which is the precursor to the internet 1980s live satellite broadcasting allowed live footage from around the world 2001 Apple released their iPod and Few years later the term podcast is coined by a journalist and a year after that Apple started to distribute podcasts on their iTunes platform. That's when podcasting as a medium really took off But a lot of the the techniques and the tools is really it's not a new thing It's just like the context that's changed and the access and the means Yes, okay, so podcast types. I mean I just kind of Did a survey of the most popular podcasts in the US Canada in the world Culture and entertainment education and infotainment news and politics self-help true crime Which kind of surprises me those are the most popular genres in terms of methods of communication You've got debates interviews recaps and reports, so I'm just kind of curious. Does anybody listen to podcasts? There you go. Yeah Okay, and what's the next slide? Okay, so that's really it so part two planning production editing So the first thing you want to do is you want to start with the end So you want to consider the audience who who are your listeners? What is their familiarity with the topic or topics that you're going to discuss? Are they experts? Are they just more lay people do you need to describe terms and give background on figures? Or can you just assume that they already know that you want to consider cultural factors as well? So maybe like You have a global reach you have to be mindful of like idioms figures of speech that might not translate all the time and you also want to consider listeners situations like like What are they doing when they're listening you want to accommodate that so I'll Touch more on that briefly and you also want to consider technical specs Like how long are the sessions going to be what file format the file quality and size and the volume the decibel volume So again this workshop it's more making the assumption that you're probably going to be doing a podcast for coursework it kind of assumes that The this content the audience and technical technical expense will are technical specs will already be provided by your instructor, right? Well, let's say for example, you want to make a podcast on your own you want to be the next Whoever famous podcaster, so you want to consider a theory called jobs to be done So think of your podcast as any other product or service, right? So like what job would people hire your podcast to do for them? right so like And what requirements do they have do they look to meet when they're hiring podcast? So like an example would be Listener wants to hire your podcast to keep them occupied for their commute So you have to consider the optimal length. Maybe the subject matter. Maybe they're looking for something that Doesn't that's not controversial. That's not depressing. So they're not in a bad mood when they start their day of work Maybe something that they can stop and start so maybe like segments. Maybe that's what suits them, right? It's more like a metaphor job to be done. So it's like like the original theory was a business professor He was hired by McDonald's to investigate why people were buying milkshakes milkshakes And he kind of did research and he found that the people who were buying milkshakes Were they were hiring quote-unquote hiring the milkshake to keep them busy during their drive their commute So they needed something that they could consume with one hand something that They could consume over a period of time during the commute and also something that didn't like fill them up So it's more like a metaphor That makes sense Okay Yeah, and next thing to consider is you want to this is kind of important So the first thing is you want like establish. What is the story question of my my session or my episode? So it's kind of like Think of it as like Your your your session is a magazine like what's what's the the headline going to be or like a YouTube video What's the title going to be so it's going to be in a form of a question that one Encapilates encapsulates what the content is about and to entices people to listen so things like will our hero save the day You know can the student populace at York? You know accommodate her Adjusts to working on campus How do you whatever? Yeah, so that's basically the story question So you don't necessarily have to explicitly ask it But that's you want to put that front and center as you're doing the planning and then the story answer is really The content addresses the question or questions that you pose so yeah, it can be Not necessarily a definitive answer, but it has to your content has to address the story question And you want to consider like the characters so like the people involved who are going to interview What are the subjects you're going to study and so forth for possible you want to at least kind of Convey the challenges that they face and the actions that they do to overcome those challenges because that's conflict And all stories need some form of conflict to be interesting right You also want to consider what to reveal and what to not reveal so maybe during the course of your study you come across some insight maybe you want to Convey that or maybe you want to put in your your pocket put in a drawer and like maybe say it for a later episode for example Yeah And you want to do some research so of the topic maybe do a general interview consider digital and real documents You might want to consider consult subject matter Experts with interviews if you're gonna do more research Interviews you definitely want to have a focus set of questions Try to ask open any questions like how and the why so that they don't they're not able to answer with just one word Do some pre research to have an understanding of the topic because you know Assuming third time is limited. You want to make the effective with that So I feel a little bit of priest research and also in terms of orders You want to start general questions and move down to the specific questions? So you start with the easy softball questions, and then you move into the hard-heating ones I don't know if anybody saw the Y file posting today For his name McLaughlin. He's a professor here at York. He teaches journalism. He's releasing a book on Interviews he said the common mistake that people has they want to find they want to seem smart So that right off the bat they start with the hard-hitting questions, but you want to ease into that Again, you want to if possible get your interview subjects to Describe challenges that they face and the actions that they overdone So maybe what was the first time that you or the last time you or was the most memorable incidents? Incident you came out just get like an elaborate story and again if you're doing Even if you're not doing it for academic course where you have to consider ethical ethical considerations Like do you actually need informed consent? Do you need like a written form that you need to give to your subject to have them? Complete so that's that's definitely Something to consider. I mean I could go on about that, but just definitely keep that in your mind 2.4 create a script or a plan Even if it's more like a loose at least have some kind of plan and methods we kind of discuss So there's debates interviews recaps reenactments. That's kind of something that like Was mentioning like a narrated real-time in the present You're recounting a story, but you're happy you're describing as it happened So there's like this story back in the days of radio like somebody was reading the story of like an invasion of earth and people thought it was real because it was it was Described in the present. Yeah, and there's reports. That's common in news You also want to consider like ask yourself what kind of format do I want either? You can have a seat And also what kind of what level of structure so there's low medium high You also want to look at exemplars like popular podcasts that you might want to follow. So like Low medium high structure. It's it's pretty viable. So you look at The most popular podcast most of them are kind of like interviews that are fairly low structure they're just kind of like Like a conversation, but you also might have like a medium structured or a semi-structured interview. That's more of like Investigative or research interviews or like a news podcast And then you might have like not as common, but you might have a high structured interview So that's like the kind of thing you might see where like people will it's almost like a survey on the street Voice of the populace with voice of the people So you just ask your set of questions and then that's it Yeah, you also will consider do I want to use external artifacts like music effects clips permissions and licenses So does that can anyone think of like a specific podcast that they know of you don't necessarily have to be an avid listener But what can you name one specific? Podcasts and think about what kind of methods they use and what kind of level of structure Okay, let's briefly I can think of the Joe Rogan experience I don't the lab doesn't necessarily endorse or condemn any podcast that I mentioned but that as far as I can tell it's like one of the most popular Podcasts in the world and it's like basically all all interviews, but it's super low structure or it's just like conversation There's also the daily, which is the New York Times. I would say that's fairly Medium level structure is a combination of interviews and in the field reports And I think they use clips pretty effectively Clips like sound bites So like for example Daily, yeah, so I just sample an episode so they they interviewed people in Florida from Hurricane so like you might have you know as person to feel it's like okay so I was in Florida and I interviewed a bunch of people I found that most of the residents in this area or transplants from Michigan and so on and then you have a clip of somebody actually saying it's like, yeah I came here from Michigan Three years ago and I'm here so it's like five to ten seconds. They just kind of sprinkle it within the thing So it adds variety. Yeah. Yeah, good question. Okay, so definitely you want to do pre-production after you have your your plan You know what methods you want to use the format so on Think of the recording schedule what what date in the year what day of the week time of day You're doing interview like think about What time of day that you're coming at so they might be at the end of their work days They might be a bit hard so you might have to make that adjustment think of location and travel time if you're going on location to record duration and breaks contact info everybody who Who you might need to know and if possible if you have a location go to that location in advance God look at the space, you know, what kind of background noise there are what might disrupt you think of the positioning of the speakers Look think of practical things like, you know, are there power outlets are the easy accessible? You know restrooms as well and equipment like recording equipment Do you want like a more field recorder or do you have time and space to set up like a desktop microphone? Right? And consider other Situational factors so for example in March or April we had a student who wanted to do an interview They brought an outside guest, but they didn't realize that at the time York was not permitting Non-students and faculty so that that was a barrier that they didn't anticipate So something like that right you want to avoid that if you can like the saying announce the prevention is worth a pound of cure Yeah Okay, so where are we at now? Okay, and you want to do the recording? So in terms of diet try to avoid dairy products and carbonated drinks in the large hours leading up Dairy products because they produce mucus and phlegm and that can kind of make it a bit harder to speak Dairy, you know carbonated drinks like soft drinks, you know that they can Hurt your throat also, you know make you burp So in terms of warm-up try to do tongue twisters just do a web search for tongue twisters Positioning for mics you want to hold them about four to six inches away from the mouth So maybe at the base of the neck or the collar That's the ideal and think of like no taking do you like reading notes and for taking notes Do you want to use a smartphone? Do you want to use paper you're gonna use paper it's best to arrange it so you're not shuffling because that will Pick up on the audio and if you're taking notes think of like do you be mindful of the keyboard? Is that gonna pick up on the audio recording or scratching your pen as well? So try to anticipate that And then you do the actual recording so when you're doing recording you want the volume to Peek around minus 12 decibels so every recorder will have some kind of like visual indicator To represent the volume and most of them will have like a scale that shows the decibel values And you want to try to mitigate distractions or like smartphones make sure they're turned off speakers other people in the area Timers you might want to use a timer of some kind And if you're using timer do you want it to be audible on the recording? And if you're actually videotaping do you want it to be visible on recording? So maybe you're doing like a group podcast around the table. Maybe something like a visual clock might help you Yeah, and when you're doing recording, it's a good idea to have five to ten seconds of just kind of No speaking at the beginning and the end of the track that helps you when you're recording or editing down the road yeah Okay, so It comes to editing you want to try to organize your files however you can maybe Use folders group them by media type or the session or the name of the people involved Try to use a naming convention for files so that they're automatically grouped together start with like the larger containers like year Then month and day maybe last name first initial and then music effects and clips You might have to source them from the web do web search for royalty free Just keep in mind that royalty free doesn't necessarily mean that it's free. So like a lot of services will offer like Clips that you can buy a license for so when you check out you enter like the projected audience size and the duration Then you pay them the service and the service then pays the royalty to the content creator some cases you might be able to Get it for free you can make the argument like you could if there's a music song that you want to write You can write to the record label, especially if it's a smaller record label Just fill out a form ask for a license and just indicate your use. I can show you an example that later That's a good question. So there's something called Public domain. I don't know. I'm a familiar with that like after a certain number of years After the death of the creator it enters the public domain. So you don't have it's copyright free But if you're using classical music, that's from like 300 years ago Like the actual recording that using might be copyrighted. So you have to think about that You know, I mean like let's say you're you're using a sonata that was composed in like whatever 1600 But the actual recording was made five years ago. That would be probably under So you probably could not use it. If you perform it on yourself yourself Like a cover you could use that or like I said, you can maybe contact The record label or the artist. Yeah Okay, so it comes time to editing. Do I need to do audio cleaning? So make adjustments to the volume So pause or a negative gain Consider background noise and pops and again music effects and clips make sure it's suitable volume if you're having background music You don't want to overpower the speech So you're gonna have to lower the volume think about the timing. So if you're gonna use music, I think a good suggestion would be to like Put in a spot where people will notice it's starting and notice it ending but In the between people shouldn't really notice that people are talking over it And you want to make sure that the mood is appropriate for what you're trying to accomplish Yeah Okay And what comes to publishing? I mean again, if you're doing it for coursework Probably just use the designated course content system. You can try uploading to YouTube and other social media platforms. There's also audio Specific media platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud And there's podcasting hosting services like Buzzsprout. They have like free services as well as like paid ones Yeah paid subscriptions, I mean