Week 5: Podcast reflection

Week 5 is significant for two reasons. Firstly Monday the 19th marks a milestone for me, exactly one month in Vietnam and the longest I've ever been away from home.

And secondly, my first assignment for making media, The podcast, has come to an end.

And so now I have to reflect on the experience, as required by the assessment. I think to make it easier to understand I will structure it as; Positives, Negatives and areas we would have improved on if we had more time. So lets get into it.

+ POSITIVES.

+ The final product: I think that overall our final product was a really good quality podcast. I enjoyed my role as the host and I think it also suited the style of podcast we were going for. The music was effective and appropriate, the advertisement was pretty entertaining and most importantly it didn't drag on too long.

+Taking advice: We received a lot of advice after our rough cut draft was shown. While many people said they enjoyed it they also said that the tone and pace were way too slow and downbeat. I think we responded really well to this criticism and immediately redrafted a new script. This script combined all the guests together to make the podcast more conversational rather than interviewing the two guests separately as we had done in the rough cut.

+Editing experience: For me the chance to edit this podcast using the adobe audition program was a real highlight. I had previously done very basic waveform editing on audition but had never really attempted multi-track editing. It was really easy and fun to play with and I am glad I can say I've learned a new skill.

+ The Team: Working with Vy and Vinh was fantastic as well and made the whole experience so smooth. They're both really friendly and open but also gave very insightful advice and suggestions while worked on the podcast. They were also very flexible with their time and hard working which made it so quick and effective for us to get our script done fast.

- NEGATIVES

- Sound Quality: There really were not many negatives for me at all but if I had to pick one it would be the sound quality. We recorded the podcast using a hand held shotgun microphone and it was pointed at each person as they talked. I believe 3 stationary microphones, one for each person, would have produced a much crisper sound. If you listen closely you can hear a lot of interference whenever the microphone moves from one person to the next.

- Editing quality: As much as I enjoyed it I think I rushed the editing a little bit. The start sounds a bit "choppy".

The final multitrack mixdown of the RUOK? podcast.

Things we would improve if we had more time.

Dialogue delivery: If we had more time it would have been good to do a lot more takes until we got exactly the delivery we wanted. It can still sound a bit flat at times.

More editing: I could have made the podcast even more concise and smooth and get rid of the choppiness.

Overall I am really happy with this podcast and I think it has been a very useful experience. Next we will be creating a magazine on this issue. Due to the elements of feature writing and photojournalism involved with this task I feel it will really play to my strengths and experience from other courses.

I've been Tom Hogan and you've been reading my blog, see you next time!

-T