The Podcast

Making a podcast involves a lot of writing and a lot of time messing

around with sound design. We will get into the technicalities of sound
design later, but for right now I want to focus on the ideas or questions
you are chasing down in the podcast you will record. This, like the
other major projects we will do in this class, will be focused around the
place you have chosen for the quarter. I use the phrase, focused
around because I dont want you to feel limited by the place you have
chosen. In this podcast you can address things going on in that place,
or maybe the place extends beyond what you had originally thought.
Dont feel too limited by your place. It is far more complex and larger
than you may think!
This is an exploratory genre! We will not be making any definite
arguments or limiting solutions at the end of this podcast. You will ask
a question, which you will answer with reflection, analysis, and MORE
QUESTIONS. Your job is to COMPLICATE your place and the original
question. Most of us dont listen to podcasts to find definitive answers,
but to explore concepts, ideas, people, places, etc.
You are an inventor, an explorer, a scholar, designing new ways of
seeing this place and complicating these views. Your job is not to
reproduce others arguments, but maybe reflect on them, challenge
them, use them to generate questions. Instead of saying something
that has already been said, you must set out to make meaning through
exploration!
You may want to begin by looking at your field notes and
observations or approaching this with our class readings in
mind. Think about what Deborah Brandt says about place and its
connection to writing. Remember, your research may not speak
directly to your topic, but you can use it to help you enrich
your point of view on the topic. In other words, you might
find that Martins assertion about how different media outlets
have a bad habit of negatively labeling her generation (p. XIV)
actually connects to question about whether or not the Rec
center is useful for more than just working out. That sounds
strange, but an interesting connection could be made. It
depends on your angle and how you want to evolve your idea in
the podcast. You are in charge here. You will be making the
connections for your audience!
Dont forget about audience! We will be talking about them all
quarter, so you better just get used to em. You get to choose
your audience, but you are also limited as this podcast should

be in some way localized and connected to the place you have

chosen.

-Qualifying Your Topic To Begin: You will have to qualify your topic/question with me. It
may be easiest to think of this as a question in the form of
something like, To what extent does/is or In what way
does/is
You must answer the following questions:
o Why is the question or idea important to you?
o Why will it be important to others?
o How is this question or topic not evaluative? How will you
make it exploratory?
o What other questions will you ask that will help develop
this original question? (I am not looking for interview
questions here)
This will be due Friday, January 15th.
It need only be about 1 or 2 paragraphs
Turn it in on Canvas by class time on Friday.

-The Podcast ScriptThere are several stages that make up the entire script (rough drafts,
revisions, etc.). These assignments and their due dates are all on the
Canvas calendar.
There is not a standard form to this script; however, the script
must meet the requirements I assign to each draft (in terms of
length, annotations, etc.)
When I ask for annotations on the script, I expect to see notes on
how you will cut music in and out, what sounds you will be
incorporating, where these will fall and a brief description of why
you are using them there. Pauses are included here.
You will see how writing doesnt always transition into speech very
smoothly so you will probably want to take note on your scripts of how
quickly or slowly you want to be speaking in certain areas. You will also
see how certain language you use in writing will be a bit strange
coming through a podcast. Your speech will be layered into an
environment of music and sound, so the sound design, although it may
seem separate from writing, is very important in this genre of writing,
and thus you should spend a good amount of time on sound design.
Here is a brief list of what I want to see in your script and the revisions:

All the monologue language, including notation on how to use

your voice to generate certain meaning. If you have other
peoples scripted voices on the podcast (which is a great idea)
the script needs to include that language as well.
A good deal of revised language that should come as we work to
tighten up the script in class workshops.
Music choices, including fade-ins and fade-outs; sound effects,
purposeful background noise.
Interview questions (if applicable).

-The Final Podcast-

Due: Monday, February 1st

This is not a monologue. Although some podcasts only

incorporate the voice of one person, ours does not. It should be
discussion-driven, and there should be one or two questions that
are driving the podcast (these will hopefully transform in some
way throughout the podcast, however).
The following is a list of materials I expect to see in your podcast:
o There must be dialoguethis is multi-voiced. Maybe you
will use a tape from an interview or script a dialogue
between two or more people, or maybe you have a
different idea. Any of these is fine as long as long as there
is dialogue between more than one person.
o Carefully piece together background noise, music, sound
bites, recordings, sound effects, and voice recordings. I
dont expect studio-quality work, but the podcast still
needs to make sure the voice recoding is not drowned
out by music or that the sound effects are not out of
place and too loud. You are layering these things
together so that they produce a unified whole.
o Keep in mind music and sound effects are not neutral. You
will have to explain your music choices and sound effects
so they should reflect the tone of the podcast.
o This should be a unified and cohesive piece. Stay focused
on the initial question(s) you ask. Continue to reflect on
how the questions/moves you are making connect to the
rest of the podcast and help create a cohesive work.
o The podcast should be between 4 to 7 minutes long.