Recording your podcast comes with some possible issues, volume. Your volume needs to be good, if it’s too loud then people won’t be able to listen to your podcast for more than ten seconds without getting a migraine and if it’s too quiet then they’ll get fed up trying to figure out what you’re saying and in both cases they’ll give up on your product. What’s the solution? Gain. Adjust your gain as you test the sound, make sure that your audio is consistently in the green/ yellow zones, if at any point during your test run it goes into the red then adjust your gain accordingly.

Once your gain is adjusted begin a practice session, get used to talking into the mic and find your speaking pace. During this test you may discover that the microphone picks up more sound then you think such as breaths and the pages of your script turning. This is good information to have, now in your subsequent takes you know to leave a couple of seconds in between these moments where you can cut these out. Small things like this can seriously impact the quality of your finished product.

Editing your podcast, I used Adobe Audition to edit mine and is a brilliant piece of software, it has plenty of tools and online courses to help you along the way. Even something as simple as adding a fade to your opening music can make your podcast seem more professional. Take your time editing and make sure to pick out any little bits that stick out; Breaths, key taps, coughs etc. If a pause is too long, cut it down, if it’s too short then extend it. The most important thing to do however is to play it back after you have finished editing, not only will this give you an idea of what your audience will hear but it will also allow you to see if you missed anything while editing.

When scripting your podcast, it’s important to keep in mind that this is NOT an essay, so don’t write it as if it is. What I mean by this is that as a listener, it is not entertaining to hear someone read out an essay and they are more likely to stop listening if that’s what they hear.

What’s the best way to avoid this? Read it out. Consistently read aloud what you have written to make the determination “is this too essay like or does this sound like how someone would speak?”. During the scripting process I went through multiple drafts and the problem with each scrapped draft was either “it’s too academic” or “it’s too amateur”. What I mean from the latter is that to avoid my script being an essay I went too far in the opposite direction and it ended up as something that sounded more sincere in tone but that tone didn’t match my topic.

Ideas

I have two ideas that I can base my podcast around, my first and the idea I am most likely to use is “Misconceptions of each side of the political spectrum”. My second idea is “Has political correctness gone too far?”. the latter idea was inspired from a ‘Channel 4’ documentary entitled Has Political Correctness Gone Mad?. 

Feedback

I received a wide variety of feedback for each of my ideas, including such questions as “Will it be satirical or serious?”, personally I would make the piece serious as I think it is important to present a topic like that in a serious manner. Another bit of feedback suggested I interview a politician such as a local MP, while this could provide a good insight I believe it would be relatively difficult to organise an interview with someone of that profession. An alternative would be to interview a leader of a society that is particularly involved with politics and is regularly involved in political discussions. Although there is good feedback, I haven’t taken all of it into account. For example, one of my responses asked me to analyse the state of life before political correctness had “gone too far”, I decided that I would not explore this as it took away from the discussion that political correctness in modern day has gone too far, while it is undeniable that political correctness was important in improving the lives of certain discriminated groups of people, my podcast aims to discern whether or not it has done its job and is now becoming more and more limiting.

Modifications

After a short discussion “Misconceptions of each end of the political spectrum” could potentially result in accusations of political bias. To rectify this, I have decided that the podcast should be presented by co-hosts, one from each end of the political spectrum. They would defend and provide misconceptions for their opposition, i.e. the right wing host would provide misconceptions of the left and vice versa. This way the discussion can stay objective without it swinging in favour of one particular side. The only potential issue I see arising from this is that the co-hosts’ political stance may dissuade them from ‘defending’ their opposition, this is a possibility I have yet to mitigate.

Podcasts

One of the podcasts I regularly listen to is Louder With Crowder, the podcast has one host and on occasion has various guests ranging from other crew members to major political figures. The show covers various new stories related to media, education etc and explores the political motives and implications stemming from those events. The host, Steven, has a series of videos called “Change my Mind” where he sets up a stand at a college campus with a controversial statement displayed, he then invites members of the public to sit down with him and have a civilised discussion about the topic. This series is what introduced me to his podcast and inspired my podcast idea.

Link https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/category/podcasts/

 

During today’s session we began to discuss the different ways a documentary could be constructed, whether it be: hopeful, fearful, informal, biased, un-biased etc.

Our project will be a solo documentary about a topic which encapsulates the themes of hope and fear. At this point in time I have decided that I would like to explore the possibility of producing a political documentary. My decision stems from the big political divide between the right and the left especially in American politics. Both sides fear the influence that the other has on the nation and hold hope that they will change their opinions. There is a common consensus that the vocal minority of each sides represents the thoughts and ideologies of everyone within that community, “if you’re not with me, you’re against me” is a common train of thought especially in younger activists.

My podcast will be based around the question “Do you know your enemy?”. The piece will inform the listener of misconceptions about each party. Potential negatives in creating a political piece include the likelihood that it will be biased due to my own political beliefs. Being biased in itself isn’t inherently negative, the negative arises from my earlier statement that “if you’re not with me, you’re against me”, this carries the potential that potential listeners that are not politically aligned with me may feel alienated or do not believe that they should listen to it.