Unit 5: Investigating audio production and technology - Podcasting

Our Podcast

Conspiracy Show Podcast

Task 1

Comparison of Two Podcasts

For part of task one we had to carry out an analysis of two different podcasts currently on the market and what makes them unique, for this I have decided to look at an interview/talk show-based podcast and a story based podcast.

I looked at the most popular podcast on the platform ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’. Joe Rogan is a commentator for the UFC and runs the number 1 podcast on the platform. Joe Rogan is so popular because he is very well known and respected. He has had multiple big guests on, including Elon Musk, Mike Tyson and more. On the podcast there is a new topic every 10 minutes meaning the conversation never dies out. The whole podcast is just Joe Rogan having a conversation with a big celebrity. Joe Rogan also has a podcast with his friends, this is where they just talk about the current events going on in the world now. On the ‘Joe Rogan experience’ all the audio/footage for the podcast is very raw and not edited. This makes the podcast feel more real and inclusive for the listener. Furthermore, some Joe Rogan podcasts could last to about 2 hours long. Some viewers may find this too long and get bored as it is a long time too listen to a conversation. However, many people do listen to it all the way through because he changes the topic and has different topic about the guest’s life. This meant he does research about the guest and creates interesting topics that would intrigue the listener. The ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ was the catalyst for a different style of podcast as many people follow in his footsteps and take inspiration from his work.

The next podcast that I looked at was ‘Waffling with Joe Weller’. This podcast is hosted by Joe Weller and Theo Baker. The two hosts are both Youtubers who moved onto Podcast. Like the Joe Rogan Experience they talk about current topics and have a conversation about those topics. However, they also ask fans to send in their questions or problems that they can help solve and talk about. This allows them to connect with the listeners more as they can interact with them on their podcasts. However, there podcasts they go off on a tangent sometimes and most of their podcasts are uncut like the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’. On this podcast they never get any guests on it is always them talking about a topic. This is good as it shows their entertaining personalities. However, in some cases it could be boring as there is no new people on the podcasts, like famous celebrities.

Overall, each podcast is unique in their own way. They both have similar attributes but also have different ways to entertain their audience. The ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ was the catalyst for a different style of podcasts as many people follow in his footsteps and take inspiration from his work. This is emphasised with many podcasts including ‘True Geordie podcast' and more. Both podcasts go on for a long time but the main thing that makes these podcast popular is the hosts personality and how they connect with the listener.

Thursday 6^th February 2020

We were set the assignment to create a short podcast with the maximum of 3 episodes with the time limit being between 5 and 15 minutes. We were able to choose our groups, I decided to go with Kai as we work the best together and we would be able to keep a conversation going with a podcast. As we are doing a film and TV course our original idea was making a podcast were, we reviewed different movies and talked about the actors. After we thought of an idea, we began creating a mind map of different topics we could discuss on the Podcast.

Thursday 13^th February 2020

After reviewing the mind map and looking at our ideas we both thought it wasn’t working. Furthermore, everyone in the class was doing a movie-based podcast. We wanted to be different and have an interesting idea that we are both passionate about. To get some inspiration on some ideas we decided to ask other people what they think about podcasts and who do they listen too. We did some primary research on surveymokey.com and put the questionnaire on our Facebook so anyone can answer the survey.

Primary Research and Secondary Research

For extra research we carried out our own primary research in the form of an audience survey. I and Kai created a survey on SurveyMonkey.com and we created our own questions and it also gave the ability to analyse our results through the form of bar charts. 

Through the research that we undertook our results portrayed that only half of all the people carrying out the survey listen to podcasts. After doing some secondary research. From the article about podcasts on ww.journalism.org, there was only 12% of people listening to podcasts and this is 38% more people in 10 years, this further emphasises that the popularity of podcasts is growing more and more. Using our results, we can decipher that most people enjoy listening to talk show-based podcasts, the Joe Rogan Experience and The True Geordie Podcast. The hosts are funny and charismatic, and they always manage to make each episode different. Through analysing our results that we got from primary and secondary research we can start thinking of a unique and interesting idea for our podcast.

Thursday 20^th February 2020

Over the half term me and Kai spoke on Thursday 20^th February to discuss all the results we got and talk about our new idea. After both looking at the research, we realised it needs to be a talk show-based podcast. After looking at multiple talk show-based podcast a lot of them discuss the idea of conspiracy theories. We both agreed that this was a great idea to discuss as it was something, we are both passionate about and will enjoy discussing.

Thursday 26^th February 2020

We both researched different conspiracy theories and we discussed which ones were the favourites. The main ones that we researched was the Mandela effect, aliens and illuminate. But after speaking to other people they said that there are some conspiracy theories about a current topic. There was some conspiracy about the COVID-19, which is a massive problem and topic. We began making a logo for our podcast using Adobe Photoshop. The dimensions for most podcast logos are between 800x800. So, we created an image dimensions for this and got a picture of me and Kai and began creating our logo.

Wednesday 26^th February 2020

I and Kai began making our pitch and proposal for our podcast, our main strength was all the research we undertook. We added everything in our pitch of what equipment and facilities we need to make this podcast.

Thursday 27^th February 2020

Me and Kai presented our pitch to Daniella and Kelly, we spoke with confidence and was very passionate to show that we had confidence and passion about the idea of our podcast. After we presented our podcast, Kelly wanted us to discuss films that have used this conspiracy in their story line of their film. I and Kai researched into the films and looked at multiple films that look at this conspiracy.

Our Pitch

The Proposal

Our goal is to create three podcasts which follow the main theme of conspiracy theories, however each episode will be different on what the theory is. We need to make our podcasts professional and high quality. We will also see how well the podcast compare to industry examples.

We plan to create three podcasts show all lasting between the time limit 5 to 10 minutes. After doing some primary and secondary research we found out the most listened podcast is a talk show based. We further looked into the main target demographic that listened to podcasts, as we wanted to do our podcast to fit with what they are into. The main age range is between 16 to 25 year old. One topic that this age range frequently talks about is conspiracy theories.

We decided that we wanted to create a podcast show on conspiracy theories and on each podcast show we will be discussing a different conspiracy theory. Episode one we will focus on the Mandela effect as this is one of the biggest and most recognised conspiracy theories out there at the minute. We will discuss the origin of the theory and multiple examples that have taken place. In episode two we will discuss the COVID-19 conspiracy theories, which is topic that very relevant in this current time as it is a conspiracy theory. The main conspiracy theory is that a chemical company in China was testing pathogens on people and one of the patients escaped (Patient 0). There is also a second theory about the COVID-19 being made and set up by the government because of overpopulation. The third and final episode in our trilogy we will discuss the grand conspiracy theory of a secret organisation called the Illuminati. On this episode we will also discuss the alien race helping the Egyptian to build the pyramids.

Our unique selling point is that this is a topic a lot of people want to discuss especially between the age ranges, 16 to 25 year olds. Furthermore, our idea is unique as we haven’t seen as many conspiracy theory podcasts out there and some haven’t discussed some of the conspiracy theories we will discuss. We will be presenting the podcast, setting everything up and editing the audio if needed. 

We will need:

-         Two fixed in position chairs ( not office chairs)

-         Two microphones

-         Recording software

-         Sound studio ( we will be using the studio available in college)

-         A audio editing software

For our contingency plan we have gone through things that could go wrong in audio and planning. In case any of our recordings become corrupted we will put the recording on both of our hard drives. We will check the audio settings and audio and see if it is recording well. This is so we know the audio sound is perfect. A common issue found when creating podcast is recording will stop or if we forget to record. We will check every one minute to make sure it is still recording. Due to the fact there are three other groups creating podcasts. We will create a schedule allowing everyone to know when the room is free or if they have to re-record their podcast.

Overall, we have conducted multiple sets of research about podcasts and what people enjoy in them. We have also created a pitch and done multiple bits research about the topic that we will be covering for our show. We have also played around with the mics and recording equipment so we feel comfortable when recording and editing our podcast.

Task 2

Wednesday 18^th March 2020

Due to COVID-19 we were told that college is likely to close by the end of this week. As we couldn’t have predicted this, we only had enough time to film one episode of our podcast. We decided not to do the COVID-19 topic as it is a very sensitive topic at this moment in time. After having a long meeting about it, me and Kai decided to do the Aliens visiting Earth conspiracy theory. This is because we both feel passionate about this and we both have a lot of facts for this episode.

Thursday 19^th March 2020

James showed us how to record and we helped him fix the audio before we started filming. He showed us the basics of this recording software and then he left us to create the Conspiracy Show.

This was the day we began recording our podcast. One problem we came across was that I and Kai felt awkward at the beginning causing us to laugh and having a few attempts to start the podcast. We were interrupted a few times before we started filming by staff and others. However, after a few attempts we started the recording. We both had strong opinions I believed in this theory and Kai didn’t. This gave an interesting and unique argument that we had during the podcast. It was very interesting seeing the for and against for this topic. We both brought facts and evidence to back up our points or shut each other’s points down. We both spoke with confidence which made the conversation flow.

One thing that we struggled with was a lot of people were slamming doors in the corridor during our speaking. We couldn’t do anything about this we just had to carry on with our podcast. We spoke at a good distance away from the microphone, so it picked up all the dialogue but not us breathing etc.  

Editing

Tuesday 24th March 2020

As there was a lot of audio of I and Kai trying to get the intro right and people interrupting us before we started. I deleted all the 6 minutes of audio where it didn’t work. I did this by zooming in on the audio and highlighting the audio that we didn’t need at the beginning. Then I pressed delete on the keyboard and it just left me with the audio from our podcast. I did this in waveform as I wanted to experiment with both multi-track and wave form. Overall, I find multitrack easier to use as it has multiple layers to help you piece audio together.

I first began to remove all the repeated words and every time I said ‘erm’ and other things. I had to try and edit it, so the audio didn’t sound like there was a cut and it just sounded like a conversation without any cuts. I did this by zooming in on the audio I wanted to cut and looked at the line on the wave were there is no audio. Then I cut and then the no audio matched up perfectly, this meant I didn’t have to put any fade on the audio, and it made it sound like a flowing conversation.

In some cases when trying to match it up I couldn’t so I had to try and fade in the audio, so it sounded like the conversation was continuing. I did this by over laying the audio clips making one clip fade in and the other fade out. This was perfect as the audio perfectly lined up making the conversation continue to flow. Furthermore, I breath heavily before is speak in the audio. I did the same technique by cross fading it to make it sound like a good conversation.

After all the footage was cut all matched up so it sounded like a clear conversation with no clear cuts. 

I began to make the introduction for my edit of the podcast. I first looked at non copyright introduction music. I wanted the intro not to be just music I wanted it to have something to do with our show. At the end of the podcast I say, ‘this is just a conspiracy’. I copy and passed this and put this before the beat drop. This created an interesting and unique intro to our podcast.

I didn’t like how my voice sounded on the intro, after looking at a few effects that I could do. I experimented with multiple effects until I found the one that fitted the style I wanted. The effect I decided to go for was wide spooky Echo as it fitted with the theme of our podcast conspiracy. As they are often seen as spooky. I also moved the volume up to make the audio clear on the introduction.

Task 3

Evaluation

Our Assignment was to create a three-episode podcast on any subject ranging from movies, to technology, to music, to politics. The assignment will help develop the knowledge and understanding of recording sound, sound design and finally podcasting. I and Kai undertook primary and secondary research to find the target audience and what podcasts are the best. During our research we found out that the podcast has become more popular in the last few years and the age range being young adult age (between 16-15). We looked at popular podcast such as the Joe Rogan Experience to see what we could do on our podcast to appeal to the audience. We also conducted our own research in form of a survey in our podcast. However, with our own research most of the people who answered were our friends meaning the answers would be biased as we are interested in similar things. Our idea started out as a movie-based podcast that focused on cinematic universes, classic and actors. However we felt that this idea wasn’t original and there are so many movie based podcasts on iTunes ad BBC sounds, furthermore most of the groups on the course were going to make a movie inspired podcast and that made our idea feel unique and we didn’t have any passion. After brainstorming different ideas and looking at popular topics that other podcasts have looked at, we decided on a new idea for our podcast show. We were going to create a conspiracy themed podcasts where I to convince Kai about all the crazy conspiracy theories that we have researched and looked at which theories are the most popular.

During this project there are multiple things that went well during the process of making a podcast show. One thing was the research we undertook, about the conspiracy theory. I had a lot of strong facts to prove the conspiracy right and Kai had facts to counter my point. This created a very interesting and unique argument, as it made the podcast more interesting and shows you can see both sides of the argument. Furthermore, I believe the post-production side of the podcast went well. During the editing process I research and watched multiple videos about Adobe Audition 2020. As this was the audio editing software I would use when creating my podcast. During editing I learnt how to cut out all the repeated words and any time we paused. I cut this out and faded in or out to make the transition smooth and so it sounded like there was no cuts. This allowed the conversation to flow a lot better and allowed the podcast to sound a lot more professional.

One thing that we struggled with was thinking of a unique and interesting original idea, different from anyone else. We overcame this problem by looking at popular topics that talk show-based podcast have looked at. The main topic is different conspiracy theories. Due to the current position we are in with a pandemic (COVID-19), school and colleges are all shut. This meant we were only allowed to record one episode of our podcast. We chose the most popular and recognisable topic as we had the most facts about them. If I was to do this again, I would plan for this in advance, doing a podcast online with me and Kai, however due to this being very unpredictable, we couldn’t have planned for this.

Overall, I believe we created a fun and interesting one-episode podcast which had interesting facts that are fun and unique. Furthermore, I also thought we engaged the audience by addressing them and asking them questions. This made the audience feel like they are involved with the podcast and allowed them to put in their input on the topic. I believe that if colleges and school didn’t shut because of COVID-19 we could have created a trilogy of conspiracy themed podcasts as both me and Kai had strong and interesting facts about each conspiracy.