Pod Thoughts - A Manifesto for Podcasting Renewal William Young: Recent Episodes
mrjonmoore
Apparently this episode went walkabout on the feed. I received it but others didn’t so here it is reloaded. Fingers crossed!
Welcome to season 2 episode 2 of PodThoughts. This season is all about storytelling. Today’s episode is How do we do it?
I’m going back to first principles. I find this a useful starting place in many adventures. Once we understand these principles then we can break the rules.
So not surprisingly we need a story to have a beginning, a middle and end. If that we all there was to it then we, the storytelling species, would still be not that far from the trees our ancestors decided weren’t the place to be.
The key point to any story is a moment of change. In Pride and Prejudice two people change. Miss Bennet changes from single to married, and Mr Darcy from self centred bachelor to loving husband.
In War and Peace a man called Pierre wants to kill Napoleon but doesn’t. Admittedly a lot of things happen in that novel too but you get the picture.
We need to take our listeners from a starting point, through a crisis of some sort to a new place.
Let’s say you produce an online course podcast. You want listeners to understand the steps required in the process. You begin with the idea of a course, the crisis is explaining the steps beyond the writing process, something like understanding Facebook ads or some other part of marketing a new online course creator hadn’t thought about and then you bring them to the point where they have changed their understanding of the process because now they know there’s more to the process than just writing the course.
As a fiction producer, the process is more familiar. We can even start at the ending and work backwards so long as we take our listeners with us.
To do this we can make use of sound effects, music and found sounds. Even background soundscapes can be used. This is a difficult thing to get right. Too often first attempts can be a bit sledge hammer to open a peanut in their effects. Subtly is the key.
Planning is key. If you’re producing in seasons this becomes more obvious. If you produce a weekly show, keep the storytelling motif in the back of your mind as you plan each episode.
I’ve recently listened to a highly rated podcast, no names, no pack drill and there was prior to the latest episode a great structure and purpose to each of the previous eight or so episodes and then this latest one was all over the shop. Disjointed, sort of with a direction but difficult to tell.
Half way through the latest episode, they confirmed it was going live to drive without editing. They then confirmed they’d put hours into each of those previous episodes. I really felt used as a listener. The host was receiving my time. Great value had been provided in the earlier episodes which actually answered the questions raised in their titles. This last one was a rehash of their lives, the same bits they always cover with very little of use to the listener who had not fallen under the “guru” presence.
I make this point to show you the higher standard achievable with a plan and a structured story to tell. Even when you are doing interviews which can go off on tangents, tangents worth following most of the time, make sure there is a point to having interviewed this person for your listeners.
Ensure the listener has been on a journey, a meaningful journey otherwise you are simply filling in a half hour, hour or more of someone’s day.
Once we have reached to skill level where storytelling is the basis of our craft, we can start changing the structure. Maybe beginning with the endpoint then rolling back to see how this was reached.
How I Built This from NPR is a good example of this. We are supposed to know who the entrepreneur being interviewed is so we know of their business but not how they got there and that’s the point of the show. So beginning with the end is a workable way of doing things.
How we use music and sound effects to transition from beginning to middle to end is also a skill worth learning. I know how difficult this is from poor attempts of my own. But with practice it I am improving. Maybe the use of soundscapes is talent you don’t know you have, yet.
I’m thinking of doing a whole season the soundscape showing how I’ve moved from clunky and clumsy to a better understanding of the process. I’d love feedback on how you’re doing this and if you think it’s worth the effort.
And with that I’ll sign off this week. In episode 3 i will discuss podcasts I think do the storytelling thing well.
Until then.
Welcome to season 2 episode 1 of PodThoughts. This season is all about storytelling. What is it? How do we do it? Who’s doing it well?
This episode will focus on “What is storytelling?”
This may seem a strange question, after all Homo sapiens is the storytelling species. We are the language using ape. Other species may communicate our nearest relatives, chimps, certainly do but complex storytelling, I’m doubtful. It is only humans who use stories to explain abstract ideas like freedom, slavery, love and quantum physics.
There are some rules we need to follow until we know them backwards. Once we reach that stage we can break the rules consciously to create the story we are trying to tell.
Do not be put off by the idea of storytelling. It not just for fiction, indeed it is essential for any podcaster. Whether you’re producing audio essays or you and three friends get together to discuss sport, your show will be telling a story.
The story is as much about you as the ideas you are spreading. Think of Homer and the Iliad. It informs us of the poet and his culture as much as the wrath of Achilles. The choosing of your style will reflect much about yourself or, perhaps more correctly, will reflect much about how listeners choose to see you.
So to the process.
There basically seven different types of story.
- Overcoming the monster.
- Rags to riches
- The Quest
- Voyage and return
- Comedy
- Tragedy and
- Rebirth.
If we look a little more closely at these we see they are in fact variations on a theme.
A character faces something which changes them. Even in a comedy and by comedy I’m thinking Shakespearean comedy but even a National Lampoon comedy has the same elements. Think of the Taming of the Shrew. Both Katherine and Petruchio are changed through the telling of the story.
Think of national Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, the Griswolds face many a trial to reach their quest of a traditional family christmas. They are changed through the process and become closer as a family.
The point is, if you’re podcasting what is the point of each episode. If your niche is true crime, then it comes obvious but even then releasing facts in a particular order can take your audience off to different places before bringing them home to the facts.
A “How to” podcast defines the problem, provides the answer and delivers the skills to move from the problem to the solution.
Once we have the basic idea of storytelling embedded in our thinking then creative methods become a viable option. The judicious use of sound effects, maybe some underlying music and even “dead” space can all enhance the story. Once you are clued into this watch your and others’ reactions whilst watching films. Note the music, the background sounds, the silences. These can and indeed the really good use of these is very subtle.
Sometimes a sledgehammer works too. Think of the music accompanying the shark in the Jaws films.
As an aside I would urge to be extremely careful with the sound effects and music you employ. Unless you have paid for the license to use them or you collected them from a “creative commons” source, you are leaving yourself open to legal action if you breach copyright laws. I am in no way a legal professional nor am I offering legal advice but be careful. From what I have read, copyright is administered at the national level so you could be sued in all jurisdictions on earth if you incorrectly used someone else’s work.
There are plenty of creative commons options, especially for sound effects. Youtube has a library of safely downloadable sound effects. On the same page are safe music clips as well. There is a link in the transcript. (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/soundeffects)
I’ve used some of the sound effects but none of the music. The sound effects are fine.
As I say, it is easy to get carried away sound effects so step lightly to begin.
Other ways to enhance your audio is with direct quotes. Again to avoid copyright issues I search youtube and set the filter to creative commons. It is then possible to rip audio from these videos for use in your show. There’s some links in the transcript to web based services which do this:
https://www.onlinevideoconverter.com/mp3-converter
http://convert2mp3.net/en/
Here’s an example of that process.
Insert storytelling clip here.
That was from a storytelling class video clip but you see the process.
By judicially adding clips you can enhance the authority of your storytelling process without actually having to organise skype calls and so on.
Indeed with the available resources nowadays there is no excuse for poorly constructed podcasts. Listen with the storytellers ear to the shows you subscribe to this week and see how others are doing the job.
On a sad confessional note, I end up watching Pokemon at work each morning as part of my routines, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. The point being, each episode tells a story. There are villains, challenges, accomplishments and setbacks on the quest journey of the heros. If you have kids and find yourself watching the fine program just discussed or any others in the genre take the extra effort to critically analyse the plot structures and the storytelling processes in use.
As I said at the start of this episode, we are the storytelling animal on this planet. If everyone from governments to advertising agencies to anime studios are consciously using this ability, it behoves us as citizens to understand the process. As podcasters it will change the way we produce content for the better.
CONTACT podthoughts@mrjonmoore.com
A transcript of this episode is available at http://www.mrjonmoore.com/pod-thoughts/1-2/
Welcome to season one, episode three of Pod Thoughts.
Hello, I’m Jon Moore, your host for this podcast.
Luddites!
The world is full of luddites. But before we get to podcasting luddites let’s just define the term.
The original Luddites smashed weaving looms and spinning wheels. Not just any looms nor wheels but specific ones. Those in factories, those which increased the rate of production. Why? Because the machines were destroying jobs and denigrating craft skills.
They simply wanted the rate of industrial development to be slowed, to allow individuals time to adjust to change. Naturally, in Marxist terms, the mill owners, satanic or otherwise, brought the power of the state down upon these individuals.
Sounds like a familiar tale really.
With the introduction of the PC a newer form of Luddite arose. Let me explain. I was writing articles for magazines way back into the 1990s. So of course I borrowed books on the craft from my local library. That’s right kids, these were per interwebs days.
I’d been taught to read punch cards back in the 1970s so embracing of technological change was inculcated into me from an early age.
The PC was wonderful for article writing. Drafts, revisions and completed pieces done in far less time.
I was able to determine when an author of a book on the art of article writing had begun their careers based upon whether they offered one particular piece of advice:
Write your first draft by hand with either a pen or a typewriter.
These latter day Luddites weren’t out smashing the PCs or laptops of this world the acceptance of technological change was, by then, part of the culture but they were digging in against the march of technology. Needless to say those attitudes never show up in “How to write article” articles anymore.
In the wonderful world of podcasting, tech changes have been bouncing along with great rapidity ever since the 2004 launch of the medium.
Way back then, rss feeds were handcrafted in .xml, feedburner was the safest way to let iTunes add your show to their library, radio was the standard to be measured against. It was an audio medium with a long track record, after all. Hosting media files was a hit and miss, stab in the dark mixed metaphor of a choice. Levelator, released in 2005, looked like magic.
Where are we now?
There may still be craftspeople out their hand coding rss feeds, after all there are still craftspeople hand spinning and weaving cloth. The good ones make a healthy living from textiles. I can’t see how a handcrafted rss feed would provide any income differential over using an audio host’s system but it still happens.
Feedburner is now and for a few years has been, more trouble than it’s worth. Breaking feeds more often than saving them, especially once we get past the 100 episode mark.
I’ve discussed the radio, in particular, user supported radio, attitude to listeners in episode one of this series. I don’t think radio is the standard against which we are judged any longer and I think this is a good thing. Yet there are organisations, with a radio heritage selling us, for free, time wasters.
I’m thinking here, in particular, about S-Town. As a listener, I was looking for clues to the point of the series from the very beginning. Sold as a police corruption story it morphed into the sad lonely death of a sad lonely man who poisoned himself, probably, over time with mercury fumes. The story changed nothing in my life other than taking five or six hours out of it. I felt ripped off. The fact the last few episodes focused upon how this man’s suicide affected the narrator only added to my frustration. I just didn’t care, there were no lessons for me, nothing I could take away into my life to make it better. I came to feel it was a cynical attempt to build upon the success of Serial season one and I still do.
The whole experience was a poor one based upon old ideas of upselling from TV and radio culture of the 1970s and 1980s. It had little to do with the listener and everything to do with ego of the narrator and the corporate culture of the production company.
Do not let yourself be fooled into following this path. Keep your listener’s experience in mind. How is the story you’re telling of value to them? That’s all we need to focus on.
Back to things that have actually changed since 2004 with hosting. Hosting companies have come and mostly gone but the good one have stayed and new entrants are keeping them on their toes.
So where are the Luddites?
Levelator users would be a good place to start, people who set their studios up as if they were in radio are another. What matters to listeners, as indeed what mattered to clothing purchasers in 1800s, is the finished product not the method of production.
Let me explain. In the same way people are happy to buy a $20 fridge from Walmart while it destroys jobs in their communities by outsourcing them to China, the growing Victorian middle classes were happy to buy factory made clothing even when it was directly responsible for destroying any number of crafts and skills.
So do our listeners really give a toss how complicated our studio set is? Do they care if we used a $3000 audio editing software package? Can they actually tell the difference?
I would suggest the answer to those three questions is: No, No and No.
What do they care about?
Content, content and, yes, content.
Are we then shooting ourselves in the foot with complicated setups? Are we wasting time and money on processes which can be outsourced to algorithms? Do we really need a mic so sensitive it can hear a bee breathing at 300 yards? Again, no, no and no.
Now I understand that amongst audiophiles, that’s with a ph not an f, sound quality is more important, almost, than the content. There’s a song by an English duo, Flanders and Swan from back in the 1957. It’s called the Song of Reproduction. In this case it’s about high fidelity recordings of opera and such like performed in a conversation between a listener and a tech type. It ends with the telling line:
And I quote:
“But I never did care for music much,
It's the high fidelity!”
End quote.
I think as podcast producers we can improve our productivity by focusing on the listener experience rather than the technological one.
Lower standards? Possibly but in .mp3 who can really tell the difference?
I’m actually calling for appropriate standards.
One’s which allow content producers to provide exactly what the listeners want to hear. You know, content that adds value to their lives.
You get to pick your battles in this life.
Do you want to spend your time and your hard earned cash battling with bee breaths at 300 yards or do you want to work in a relatively quiet space without reverb which produces mp3 files your non techy listeners will enjoy?
I know where I stand and I assume by now, you know where I stand too.
This medium of podcasting is a liberating creative space. Let’s all free it from it’s past and fly into the future, full of joy at the differences we are making in the lives of others.
CONTACT podthoughts@mrjonmoore.com
A transcript of this episode is available at http://www.mrjonmoore.com/pod-thoughts/1-2/
CONTACT podthoughts@mrjonmoore.com
A transcript of this episode is available at http://www.mrjonmoore.com/writing/1-1/
CONTACT: podthoughts@mrjonmoore.com
Welcome to Podcasting Thoughts!
Oh NO! Another podcast about podcasting? Why???
I’ll glad you asked.
All creative media require renewal, from time to time. I believe it now such a time in the podcasting sphere.
I see things that just don’t gel with what I’ve experienced in the creative process. Things like radio styles, obsessions with tech, the endless rabbit hole that is the world of microphones and yet another entrepreneurial interview show.
All these things are important and I’ll deal with them as the podcast evolves.
I believe we have a medium at our disposal which is screaming out for creative renewal.
In the same way the novel can be formulaic, so too can any other medium. Where are the James Joyce’s of the medium, where is the Finnigan's Wake? Do we have an audio Picasso out there somewhere hung up on the right amount of EQ, sampling rates and levels?
I hope we do have a Joyce, a Picasso or even a Charles Bukowski!
So in this podcast about podcasting I’ll not be talking about EQ, sampling rates, levels or compression. I will be talking about creative expression, shortcuts around tech, access to algorithms and why we should be using them.
We live in a time where the accumulated knowledge of all of humanity, nearly, is available to us at the click of a mouse.
Off on a tangent thought: Do people still use a mouse? I haven’t in years but I’m strictly a laptop type and the smaller the better.
End tangent thought.
We have all this information available to us. Once it was said a tradesperson knew how to do one set of skills remarkably well and professional was someone who knew how to access hidden information.
Well guess what? Anyone can find information now, even the hidden secrets of professionals. We can and should avail ourselves of this gift in the podcasting sphere.
I’ll go into this much more deeply as the episodes roll out. It’s a matter of knowing when to use the accumulated knowledge of others and when not to.
So please, join me on this journey, ask questions, argue with me and we all be refining our own styles and voices.
I’ll planning on releasing episodes on a Wednesday for three in a row with a common theme then having a week off and then the next three and so on.
Any thoughts, feedback or criticism is actually appreciated. You can email me: podthoughts@mrjonmoore.com
So with this intro/trailer episode to get us started on iTunes, I’ll into the first season on Wednesday.