The Podcast Project

We just finished our first project of the year, which was all about podcasting and identity. This was an interesting project, because it’s the first project I’ve done that is mostly through audio, with the ultimate goal to create, you guessed it, our very own podcast.However, before we actually got into making the podcast, we had to figure out what we were going to make it about. And since identity was a big part of this project, we had to incorporate it into our podcasts as well. But before we could do that, we had to have a solid understanding of what identity is.

We did some research and activities on the subject, and then we had to make an animated gif representing our identity to show what we learned. Making the gif was pretty interesting, as we had to do something called a double exposure, which is basically two photos overlayed. I won’t explain it all here because I made an entire separate blog post about the gif and my understanding of identity, which is linked here. I’ll still show my gif in this post, because it looks really cool.

Now that we had a solid understanding of identity, it was time to take another look at podcasts. We started off by looking at several different podcast types and the techniques they used, which was pretty helpful. However, even though I had a better idea of how I could make my podcast, I still didn’t know what I wanted to make it about. I started watching podcasts for inspiration, and I found some good ones that gave me some inspiration. Those podcasts were The History of WW2 Podcast and Revolutions.

I thought these two podcasts were great for two reasons. First, they covered interesting topics. Second, they were presented in a way that makes you want to find out what happens next. They were both historical podcasts, but they weren’t boring or dull in any way. I’m not a big history buff, but I had the perfect idea for something I could do for my podcast.

One of my favourite hobbies is reading about and playing Warhammer 40,000, so much so I could even consider it part of my identity. Warhammer is a tabletop game, but it takes place in the far future, and has a surprisingly deep and interesting story. The story aspect is what I wanted to focus on for my podcast, because I know almost everything there is to know, and I enjoy it. I wanted to present it like I was explaining real history, like those historical podcasts I listened to. So I created a podcast plan, got feedback from peers and the teacher, and ended up getting approved.

I ended up calling my podcast Only Lore, and I created some cool artwork using photoshop to act as the cover art for the podcast.

However, the big thing I would be creating for my podcast was the trailer. We had done some listening to other podcast trailers, and I knew how important a podcasts trailer is for starting the podcast off strong. I immediately knew I that I was going to capitalize on the strategy that the history podcasts used, drawing in listeners and piquing their curiosity. I wrote a script that would be a brief introduction to the setting, and would encourage listeners to tune in when it was released. However, things didn’t turn out so well during the recording process, as I didn’t use the microphone properly and so the audio quality wasn’t the best. I also didn’t have any music, but thankfully it was only the first draft, and we got some feedback to work with for our second draft. What I got from my feedback was that the script accomplished it’s goal of drawing viewers in, but the audio quality could be better.

Now that I knew my script had accomplished it’s mission, I only made minor changes to it. I made sure to use the mic properly this time, and I took lots of takes until I thought the quality was good enough. Then I went on to the music, and that’s where things got a little trickier. I already had a good idea of what I wanted to do, but the first time I had to use iMovie a bit because I couldn’t figure it out in GarageBand. After some trial and error, I finally got the result I wanted, and managed to perfectly line up the music with my best recording in GarageBand. It sounded like this, and I think it turned out pretty good.

I definitely learned a lot from this project, because I had barely listened to any podcasts beforehand. I learned all the basics and techniques of podcasting, as well as learning about identity and how to express it using the new podcasting skills I had acquired. I am really happy with the result, and I think that my podcast trailer turned out really well. However, my podcasting learning experience is far from over, as I’ve heard we will be using our podcasts in various other projects throughout the year. But that’s about it for this blog post, so make sure to stay tuned for more!