For the first term in PLP 10 Humanities, we have been studying what makes a story, and asking good interview questions. And for most of our projects so far, we have made different types of podcasts. We made 2 during our Camp Capilano trip, one for our WW1 soldier podcasts, one for science, and a few drafts before creating our big Vancouver Podcasts, (mine was about labour rights). But all of that writing, editing, recording, thinking, and hard work were only building us up for what would come next.

Over the course of this first term, we have been working on breaking down the building blocks of good stories, and storytelling. We first read a graphic novel on WW1, and that lead to watching more videos on the War, and eventually to our own video. We teamed up in groups to make videos on why we think the Great War started. If you want to read more, look at my other post about this project. The reason I’m mentioning this project is because it is the beginning of the long road to the final demonstration of our podcasting skills.

After that video, we began working on our first major podcast of the year. We needed to research and explain how the war had influenced the identity of the people involved, and Canada’s identity as well. We had to really focus on what we were saying in the script, because everything we said mattered, since there are no visuals to support what you are telling the listener. Look here for more on the creation of the WWI Podcast I made. This project was a real taste of the amount of detail we need to put into the script, overall feel of the podcast, and finding a good place to record. All of which were vital to the coming hurricane of work we would have to do.

And here it was. The second biggest workload of audio editing we would have to face:

Our Vancouver podcasts. In this project, we would be looking at large topics that take place in our city, like labour Rights, city growth, immigration, and environmentalism, to name a few.

To kick off this project we took a field trip to the local Vancouver Museum, located near Granville island.

There, we learned all about Vancouver’s history, the good and bad. In the days before we arrived, our teachers kept reminding us that we were there to learn, and also choose a topic of the history that interests us. We needed to choose our top three favourite topics, and have a story from the museum for each topic that grabbed our attention. We would be put into groups based on our preferences.

I ended up with Labour Rights, my third choice, with city development and immigration being my top two. My other group members were Ryan, William and Kyle. After visiting the museum, we sort of had an idea of what we would talk about in our podcast, but we definitely needed to research more.

For this podcast, the driving question was: Through the emergence and growth of Vancouver, was everyone treated the same?

And the driving question that my group and I made for our podcast, which fits with the greater driving question:

What labour rights were in place in early Vancouver, and how were Asian immigrants treated differently during this time?

In our podcast, We would talk about how Asian people came across to Vancouver to start a new life, and then they would end up working the more difficult or dangerous jobs. They wouldn’t have much pay at all, and the working conditions would be terrible. For example, while working on the Canadian Pacific Railway, the workers would be working all day, for only a few dollars per day.

In our podcast, we explained what was happening, and how through the growth of Vancouver labour rights were put into place. We also got to interview a youth worker from Worksafe BC when she came to our class to talk to us about our worker rights. The program was called Alive After 5:00 If you want to find out more.

After we wrote our our script, got it critiqued by both our peers and teacher, we moved on to recording our first draft. Our group went to Seycove’s recording booth, which is equipped with a Mac computer in a small editing room, and then through a small window behind the computer, you can see the even smaller recording room which is where we set up our mic to record.

We each took turns sitting in the mostly-soundproof recording booth, and read through all the parts of the script we wanted to say. This part didn’t take us long, and we moved onto the editing stage. We each took a small portion to edit, and then sent it to Ryan to put together and hand in. In this stage, we didn’t have our interview, but a few days later we were able to interview Faye, the Worksafe BC worker. We took her into the recording booth, and I asked her the questions we prepared. We asked her about what she knew about the labour rights in early Vancouver, and when the labour rights were implemented. She gave us some really good information, and it helped our podcast a lot.

We then editied in the interview, and made a few other changes. One other thing we had to do for the whole podcast, (9 minutes), was make our own music in an app called garage band. We each made a short 2 minute song, and then we had enough music, since it sounds nice when you change the music from one song to another at specific times.

Well, here it is, the big Labour Rights in Vancouver Podcast we spent so long on:

This took us a long time to make, and I think I can speak for my whole group when I say we learned a lot. We learned about what went on during the construction of the CPR, the growth of Vancouver as a city, and we learned a lot about the amount of work it takes to make a big podcast like this. We learned that research is very important, we had a lot to look up, and we wouldn’t have been able to write the script based on the knowledge we already possessed, obviously.

Although, it really didn’t take us that long to find all the facts and information we needed, it took us a long time to put it into the right order and wording to really make a good story. We needed it to be interesting, and for a full 9 minutes. This is where I felt that we slowed to a crawl in the creative process. We were really stuck on how to write it. Then, one day, I sat down during a spare block and really took a look at what we had, and saw that we had a strong podcast, but it needed some work. And so I reorganized, added, took away and edited my way through the some 1,700 words we had. And, after draft one, we realized we did a good job, and just needed our interview.

And this is where I think we got lucky… super lucky.

A few days before the final one was due, our future interviewee waltzed right into our class and talked to us about our worker rights as a teenager. During the talk, I had the idea that after this class we should interview her. And, after class she agreed to do so at lunch. We ended up with a great interview, and we all relaxed a little bit.

Our podcast was complete.

 

Overall, I thought this was a great project to do, since it really showed us the real amount of work it takes to make an almost-professional podcast. My group did a good job in the overall workload, although we definitely procrastinated a lot…

We didn’t exactly start the next step until a few days before the due date, and we wouldn’t have gotten an interview if it wasn’t for the random guest speaker for our planning 10 class. But, I did enjoy working with this group, Will, Ryan and Kyle, we had good times, and more stressful times. If I could do one thing differently, I think I’d get my group and I to work harder in the editing stage, as I feel that wasn’t our strongest point. Some of the audio clips are really fuzzy, and the interview could’ve been integrated in a better way. All in all, I feel we did a great job, and I’m finding myself sort of looking forward to the next podcast we will have to tackle in the new year.

 

If you noticed, I was hinting at another big project that we had to tackle, right after we finished this one. Look for my next post describing this experience.

 

That’s all,
See you