Creating more than just a Podcast

Creating a podcast that is episodic has been a little bit more of a departure from what the last Podcast project was for me. This time, we were tasked with creating a podcast that was episodic, with at least 3 episodes.

The length for each podcast was set to be from 5 to 45 minutes long and we were to focus on production quality “with no barely audible narration, popping, whizzing, etc.” Each podcast needed an intro and outro, quality podcast cover art, and all the metadata filled out properly.

Outlining, art creation, and Pre-recording

Having done a podcast before for another class and also having done one as a hobby with my friend and me. I also have done video editing, audio editing, and live streaming so there wasn’t any learning needing to be done in order to “introduce myself” to what skills that I would need to produce the podcast.

The Topic

I came up with the idea and the name at almost the exact same time. I had been listening to a TON of podcasts about comedy from stand-up comedians and had noticed a clear shift in the quality and formatting of a lot of the podcasts that I was listening to. This sparked the idea in me that I could talk about the changing dynamics that COVID-19 was bringing to the comedy world and how it would change it forever. I also had to keep in mind that these topics are going to spread across multiple media outlets, not just podcasting. I figured there are tons of assets, videos, movies, live shows, and other things that I could use as content for the semester.

Hence the name “Is This Thing On?” I wanted the podcast to have a name that was easily synonymous with stand-up comedy and I really like it and think it is pretty unique.

Improvements over the last Podcast Project

One of the huge problems that I had on my last project, was because I was recording in a slightly different way than I would normally record my friend and I’s podcast, I made the problem much more difficult on myself by recording in the wrong file format.

This time, I knew better. I made sure to record in an Audio only file format so I didn’t have to do any conversion or anything technical to change the file into one that made more sense for the project at hand.

I also didn’t design this podcast, like I did my last one, with the intention of having other people on as a co-host. This way, if I COULD get someone, it would be more of a pleasant surprise rather than me relying on them.

Publishing

I again chose to use Anchor.fm as my aggregator for the project. I continue to choose Anchor.fm because of its simplicity and its ability to host unlimited-timed podcasts while other sites only allow a certain length before requiring you to pay. Publishing to Spotify for free is still a huge bonus for any creator along with publishing to Itunes Podcasts and Google Podcasts. It is very simple to use the program and I don’t know why anyone would choose anything else if they are publishing an “audio-only” podcast.

Conclusion

Overall, even though I had to do more content than I had to do for the first project, this one went much more smoothly. I made sure my recording device was thoroughly tested before starting and that all the “distractions” (my wife and son) were taken care of each time I had to record.