When my Digital Public History class began a few weeks ago, I’ll be the first to admit that the idea of having to do a podcast that would be published and shared absolutely terrified me.
Having done a slidecast for a class in undergrad for my History of the Future course, I already knew that I hated the idea of having to record my own voice and hated even more the fact that other people would hear it.
As with any research project, I started with a topic which grew into a research plan that continually evolved as I gathered my information. There was something different with my research experience for a podcast though. I suddenly had more concerns that I had never had while researching before.
The first was a concern as to whether people would actually care about the topic I was going to talk about - and care about it for 15 minutes as I talked about it. In the majority of my academic research experiences prior to this moment, I had almost always been given a topic or theme to write about. Whether it was a general theme that my own topic had to fit into, a broad topic for me to pick a more specific topic within to analyze, or even down to being given a question that I had to answer, I suddenly was very aware of how rarely I had been given the opportunity to pick a topic all by myself to research. Would people be care about the topic I chose? Would people be interested in the facts I presented? Would people even pick my topic out of the line of my classmates’ projects to listen to?
So in essence, imposter syndrome is still alive and well in my brain even after four weeks.
In the end, I made my podcast about how the temperance and prohibition movements in Canada led to the creation of the LCBO in Ontario and connected it to the present-day as the LCBO announced they will seek a license to sell marijuana when it is legalized this October.
I had the unfortunate circumstance of catching a cold halfway through recording my podcast. I completed my first recording of 25 minutes (awkward pauses and retakes included) and was sure that I would be left with a 15-minute final product. Unfortunately, my edited version came in around 12:30 even after I added my outside material. Thus, I was left to try to elaborate or clarify some of my points further without adding any extra substance that I wouldn’t have time to explore fully. Therefore, there are a few clips that I added where my voice is a little deeper and a little less enthusiastic that I would have liked, but I'm very happy that I did not sound overly nasally in the clips, so I still consider it a small victory (I also didn’t get locked in a closet this time around). I found myself recording small segments of silence to edit into the clip in order to edit out the mouth-breathing caused by my stuffy nose.
If I had had the time, I would have gone back and recorded the clips again when I was feeling better to create a more polished final product. This assignment definitely gave me an appreciation for the people who contribute to historical podcasts like Activehistory.ca’s History Slam, KnowHistory’s Notice History, and Footnoting History. While some podcasts rely on conversation or interview to fill time, I really developed an appreciation for the work that goes into the more content-heavy podcasts aimed at informing listeners of historical subjects. From writing succinct scripts, finding interesting anecdotes, and delivering the information in a way that captivates and holds attention, the people involved in the podcasts I mentioned above do am amazing job and were definite role models for this project. While my final product is not perfectly polished, I’m rather proud of what I was able to create. Editing my own voice was cringe-worthy at times and I found it difficult to decide where music should go (if any, and maybe I used too much as it is), but I made it through. I don’t think I will be adding “professional podcaster” to my résumé any time soon, but I might not be as afraid to try again in the future.
To finish off, I leave a list of the top 5 things I learned while recording this podcast:
1) Whenever possible, try to record the whole podcast in one go in order to keep the sound levels as consistent as possible. Recording in one go allows for multiple takes of the same phrase or segment and makes it easy when editing to figure out which take is the best.
2) Record extra dead silence at the beginning or end of your recording that you can copy and use to replace any pauses in the body of the recording where you can hear breathing or shuffling.
3) Slow and steady may win the race, but it's hard to do and harder to listen to. Finding a speaking pace that allows for enunciation but that doesn't sound like you're trying to speak slowly is definitely a trial and error situation.
4) Take breaks while editing. Listening to yourself speak repeatedly about a topic you recently spoke about repeatedly while you recorded yourself can become a vicious circle of hating your own speech patterns and tuning yourself out. Walk away from the recording for a while and come back to it with fresh ears for a more productive editing session.
5) If there is something you don't understand about the piece of technology you are using, there is more often than not an 11-year-old on YouTube who can teach you how.
I’ve linked a few more of my favourite historical podcasts below, as well as the Shared Authority podcast series my class has created this year.
…and special mention to The West Wing Weekly just because it’s my favourite podcast :)