I decided to name the podcast Durtee Lawndree in line with my blog, because it exemplifies exactly what I want my blog to be about and that is people "airing their truths." I had a great time talking with everyone and am super excited about releasing future episodes.
What I've learned through this first podcasting process:
#1. Interviewing is a learning process and I can only get better
For those of you that know me, you probably know that when I start talking I can definitely hold me own, but when it comes to sitting with someone, asking questions and speaking with them, my nerves get a little itchy and inflamed. For this first session I had set interview questions because of this fear, which I think worked well for me. My hope going forward is that when I sit down and interview I will be able to sense the interviewee a little better and formulate questions as it goes along.
#2. Editing is a learning process and I can only get better
I've pretty much only used my Garage Band and some Pro-Tools for light music editing, which means I have never been in the position of splicing and dicing a whole conversation.
For this first interview I cut almost 45 minutes down to about 20. It hurt my soul to take out huge chunks of conversation that I thought were interesting and funny. However, I knew that I needed to shorten a lengthy conversation that did encounter some stumbles as well as had information that wasn't necessarily relevant to our conversation.
This part of the editing process reminds me of when I'm editing my own writing and I think... this part is so intriguing and well written and I have to throw it in the garbage. Sometimes I can save the writing for later, but sometimes I can't because it would be too disjointed as its own.
#3. DON'T Interview at a super loud venue like... a coffee shop
When I was scheduling times with people to meet there was no part of me that realized I needed to account for noise level. This is obviously the mistake of a beginning podcaster. In my mind, cafes are quiet and that's why people are always there studying, right?
In reality, cafes are quite loud with the bustle of the baristas making drinks, flipping book pages, conversations, spoons in coffee mugs, all stuff I realized is white noise that I drown out while working on a project. At least I know I don't have ADD.
Since at this point I don't have a real mic and was using my handy iphone mic, I don't have very much ability to isolate the conversation from the other noises, though I did use a variety of techniques to minimize it. I'm looking forward to getting a mic at some point for this project, but until then it's gonna be up to Carmen, my iphone, to help me with the interviews.
#4. Patience
As with any new skill it does test a little bit of patience. Editing itself is not all that hard, but getting to know short cuts and accidentally pressing the wrong one, deleting a section and not noticing till later is a little trying. As I edited, things ran more steadily and the process became a little faster. There definitely are still elements that I have to learn like making cuts and transitions a little more smooth, but I'm sure that will come with more editing experience.
#5. Podcasting is really fun
Though I write a lot and I have finished writing products, I realized there's nothing quite like having a finished sound product. Strangely it felt like I'd accomplished more in this 25 minute segment than in all the thousands of hours I've done writing throughout my life. I'm still not sure why that is.
If you have any comments, questions, concerns, want to be interviewed, want to give me free editorial tutorials, have a mic you want to donate or anything else is on your mind, email me: durteelawndree@gmail.com
Now here's the podcast!
If your browser has trouble loading the podcast go directly to Podomatic and listen from there.
No comments:
Post a Comment