BuggedCast Episode 4 – “Bring in the Geeks!”

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 29th, 2007

Gabe and JC on Rock Ed Radio prior to the podcast session in my car

And now for something light and happy! For my guests, I had good friends JC Medina and Gabe Mercado, who are the co-founders of Geek Chorus. Organizing “stupid events for smart people” Geek Chorus aims to bring geek culture into the mainstream in the Philippines.

This was also my chance to test out my theory on developing studio quality “mobile podcasting” which meant turning my cute Corolla into a (oven hot) recording studio. If you are really stripped of cash and need to record something, the car makes for a very good alternative recording studio. And you know what … it works!

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Download the MP3 file here. [28MB]
Conversation is in both English and in the local dialect, Filipino. Traces of geek speak are also in this podcast.

Show notes:

• The 2007 Definition of a Geek
• Geek organizations in the Philippines
• The Geek Survival Guide
• Being Geek is Being Interactive
• A Short History of Geek Chorus
• Nintendo DS Nights on May 4!!
• Playlist Night on May 16 (stay tuned for my Kenny Loggins remixes – Jayvee)
• Mag:Net Cafe at Bonifacio High Street Opens on May 7
• Powerpoint Nights @ The Living Room on June 2
• Blogger Flash Mobbing, SRA Nights and Intermediate Pad Paper Olympics
• Medieval War Engines Day for 1st Year Anniv on Feb 2008
• Welcome to the studio Mia Tengco of all girl band Wake Up Your Seatmate

For more inquiries, you can email Geek Chorus at yarr at geekchorus dot org.

Erratum: I accidentally mentioned that it was episode 5 on air. This is actually episode 4.

Podcasting, the Voice Talent and the Paper Bag

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 9th, 2007

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.

Podcasting is a Performance Art

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 8th, 2007

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.

BuggedCast Episode 1 – “Lagalag”

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 30th, 2007

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.

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Wil and I were speaking in both English and Filipino. Would like to apologize for those who cannot understand some parts.

Show notes:

• Gizmo Project is way cooler than Skype because it allows you to record conversations
• Wil talks about the Lagalag Project and how it came to be
• Wil discusses his moleskine page for the project
• A short explanation on my picture of Foz’s smile that was captured on YouTube
• A short note on the Philippine Blog Awards and who’s going
• We love moleskine and Benedict Bueno

The Real Reason Why There Are So Few Philippine Podcasters

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 22nd, 2007

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.
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Band of Bloggers Podcast Episode 1

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 18th, 2007

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.

BoBCast, Episode 1: Breakfast with Piolo
Hosted by: Jayvee & Yuga
Guest: Aileen Apolo
Time: 20 minutes

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.

The BuggedCast Episode 0

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 17th, 2007

Show Notes:

• Welcome to Puerto Galera
• Yuga gets introduced
• Marc Macalua and Sharms get introduced. They’re getting … married??!
• Rico gets introduced.
• Sasha’s b5media jacket is waterproof
• Battery dies (deus ex machina)

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.