The art of conversation lends itself beautifully to engrossing storytelling, so it’s no wonder that many popular podcasts are based on interviews. In this genre, you can organize your podcast around a recorded talk with another person.
Public Intellectual with Jessa Crispin
Come up with an idea and make a plan.
Do some research about your interview subject. Learn about their life and what interests them.
Come up with questions for your interview subject. In the biz, this is called your “Q Line.” You can share these questions with them before the recorded interview--or not.
Set a time and place for the interview.
Meet your interview subject and record your interview. Before you record, make sure to confirm good sound levels. Don’t be afraid to throw out your Q Line if it’s not working or if you improvisationally come across better conversation. To be recording is to be getting your “Tape.”
Finish recording interviews, share a release form with your interview subjects and have them sign it.
Transcribe all your Tape. O Transcribe is a useful tool for this.
Consulting your transcription, pick your “Tracks.” Your Tracks are the interesting parts that you’ll use in your podcast. You also need to write your “Acts.” Your Acts are what you’ll use to set up or deal with your Tracks.
Record yourself reading your Acts.
Determine if you need music and sound design.
Create, license, or find Creative Commons music and sounds.
Put everything together with Audacity--your Acts, Tracks, music, and sounds.
Share the draft of your podcast and get feedback. Share it with your interview subject--or not.
Consider, reject, or incorporate feedback. Reflect on your process and the meaning of your podcast. Repeat previous steps.
In a spreadsheet, enter the metadata for all the files you created or used.
Finish your complete transcript. Your complete transcript is the one you will provide for you audience. It will be a combination of your Acts, Tracks, and descriptions of any of the music and sounds you used.
Decide, as a whole, whether or not your podcast should have a Creative Commons designation.
If you are going to put your podcasts online, do an audit of your online safety and security. Do you have safe passwords? Consider making passwords using the “diceware” method and using LastPass. If you Google yourself, what information do data brokers have about you? Consider contacting data brokers and requesting they remove your information.
No! The steps above are a guide--not the rule. You might do things in a different order. For example, you might write some of your Acts before conducting your interview and writing your transcript. Or, early on, you might find music that you want to use before you even decide who you want to interview. You might find that some of these steps don’t even apply. For instance, journalists don’t always have interview subjects sign release forms because they operate under the assumption that their subjects have agreed to be on the record.