In my previous post, I was talking about how podcasters should be performance artists. I guess watching stand up comedy acts like Pablo Francisco can definitely be inspiring in creating livelier content.
I notice too that TWiT, one of the most popular podcasts on the iTunes Store (loosely referred to as the Billboards for Podcasts) have the guests do voice impersonations at times. I think this has more to do with how Leo Laporte can infect everyone else with his voice acting.
When I used to direct plays, a technique I made use of to “unleash the inner actor” would be to have the characters do a dramatic run through of the play with the lights closed or with something to cover their eyes, like a paper bag … or cucumber slices.
Statistically speaking, hiding behind a mask helps remove inhibition, allowing characters to play their role more effectively (Batman and other superheroes for instance hide behind a mask to transcend into another personality).
Try podcasting in the dark or with your eyes closed. It helps.
Several days ago I wrote an entry on why podcasting seems to be so much harder to do. The concession was that unlike blogging, the resources needed to podcast would entail much more equipment. Of course, you can achieve a semi-decent podcast using the built in microphone of your laptop or by purchasing a cheap mic from your friendly computer store for less than P200.00.
But then after some reflection, I realized that the real reason why it is much harder to podcast isn’t because people think it is hard to do. Let me repost that paragraph here:
People THINK that podcasting is very hard to do. When in fact all you need is a cheap ass microphone and a free recording software like Audacity. Once you start recording, all you need to do is be yourself — having a guest over would help but if you really are in the need for some divine inspiration, then San Miguel can always help. You can always find a free service to host your podcasts like Odeo, Twango, Gcast or Podomatic. Against all odds your first podcast may really suck - in terms of coherence or content. But a podcast series is always a work in progress. It may not be obvious to you, but check back on your old blog entries and see how far they have evolved since. The same thing works with podcasts. Just do it!
Unlike blogging, which is now considered to be a spectator sport, podcasting as well as videocasting are performance arts. Though blogging requires technical as well as creative skill, these are already learned in our schooling days such as being trained to construct a grammatically correct sentence and write a paragraph that makes sense.
In school however, we were never taught to do radio shows, or to train our voice to be more attuned for broadcasting. The little that we learn to hone these creative talents are learned in extra curricular activities which for the most part, were … extra and optional.
I admit. I’m a n00b at podcasting. If what I do create sounds okay, it’s because its so easy to edit audio using GarageBand. In fact, editing is the easy part. The hard part is the performance - the voice. The content. The pauses. It is so much harder to get listeners engaged. You have to be theatrical. You have to be musical. You have to be three dimensional. You aren’t talking. You’re performing.
I was able to finally talk to Wil Pascual, the creator of the Lagalag Project, which is an experiment of sorts that features Filipinos around the world and two traveling moleskines. We enjoyed a good 20 minutes talking about photography, moleskines and blogs.
This podcast was recorded using Gizmo and edited using GarageBand on a Macintosh. I need to make an erratum. Gizmo does not save files in MP3 format. It saves them onto WAV first which allows you more options in terms of manipulating the audio file.
Here are personal opinions on why there are so few local podcasters compared to their bloggers. These can actually serve as the main reasons why podcasts are rarer than blogs, and a number of these reasons are quite obvious.
1. Unlike blogging, podcasting can be more expensive. Hosting fees, a microphone investment and other such expenses can turn you off, big time. So you lose even before you started.
2. Podcasting requires you to commit more. If blogging only lets you commit your ideas on the typewriter, podcasting forces you to commit your voice on the table, and rather forcefully as you can’t edit what you just said once its published unless you take the whole podcast down.
3. It sucks to talk to nobody. Finding a guest host or anchor can be a bit tedious. Talking to yourself can also suck. A solution here is to do what David Pogue does in his podcast — read your own blog posts out loud. Sorta like an interpretative oral reading contest.
4. Bigger language barrier. If blogs are much easier to do in English, this is not so with podcasting. In general, it would be more correct to say that the average Filipino in Manila speaks in Taglish, which is a combination of Filipino and English and this has been engraved in our culture, that it is very hard to change. Case in point is the Band of Bloggers podcast which does the show in Taglish.
All in all these are valid reasons why podcasting is sparse here. But then again, the real reason why podcasting isn’t so hot here is actually a misnomer. Read more »
I had an idea. So did Yuga (it rhymes!). We had the same idea. And when you’re stuck in Davao for 3 days, weird stuff can happen. Like a podcast project. This is something that should have been done long ago, but with my lack of resources (my old iBook’s mic was shot — having it repaired proved unsatisfactory as GarageBand kept hanging when trying to record really long stuff with things in the background) the project never pulled through. This podcast was created using Garage Band and the built in microphone of my MacBook. Everything was recorded in the hotel room.
Summary:
Davao Blog Party
Casa Leticia
Costa Marina Beach
Wifi in Davao
Bayan Telecommunications
Smart Mobile TV
Palm Treo Launching
Max’s Power Breakfast
Blog Awards
We’re thinking of starting a completely new site it as an entirely different project from our own personal ones. The niche of the PH Band of Bloggers is to talk about the online efforts in the Philippines including new media, internet marketing and the people behind it.
Okay, this needs an explanation. I had always wanted my own podcast project. Unlike blogging though, podcasting needs a stronger push to implement so I decided to do a pilot recording of Episode 0 at the beach with a few friends.
To those listening from abroad, I apologize for the lack of coherence if you do not understand what we talked about. Listening to this now, I realize that we were really greased with social lubricant.
Thanks to Choy and Brian of Creativoices for lending me their portable Olympus recorder. Sad that it ran out of battery in the middle of everything.
