https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SPEBIp67465i7l54K6HJ4K0vto1_Q6K6/view?usp=sharing

My podcast focuses on the song Thoughs & prayers by grandson. It’s a song condemning the modern passive behavior of the government when it comes to dealing with mass shootings. This is a serious topic that so I tried to have a serious tone. At first, I wanted to do a personal podcast about my grandfather. At the same time, I knew that if I were to do a social issue podcast I already had two songs in mind. Then after I spent some time thinking about what I should do I realized that my grandfather doesn’t speak English so I can’t really include his voice, and not including his voice would be like removing an essential part from the podcast. So, I decided against doing that. A podcast about a song seemed like an easier choice because I already had the idea in mind and I’ve listened to Thoughts & prayers like a million times.

The first step I took was thoroughly reading the lyrics of the song and then listening to it many times while cutting it up. That helped me find the parts that I would include in the podcast. Then I came up with the script and then recorded myself several times dividing the parts of the script. The podcast came out to be nearly 8 minutes long so I had to do some more cutting up on iMovie. I used iMovie because I’m more familiar with it than GarageBand. I also tried boosting the volume of my parts and lowering the volume of the song to make the overall volume about the same. My voice seemed monotonous or grey or lacking something, so I decided to add some music in the background. Also, I feel like my accent is more exposed in a podcast then when I speak when communicating with others (and yes everyone has an accent, but I still don’t like mine). The track playing in the background is actually a cut out from Thoughts & prayers repeated over and over again, like a remix. I tried making the background music as quiet as possible not to make it distracting, but since it is an actual part of the song I am talking about I feel like it only adds to the podcast, not vice versa.

Using only the sound felt very limiting. I need the visuals because they allow more room for creativity. I feel like children in school from an early age are taught to express themselves more with visual art, rather than vocal art. And I feel like because we have more experience with visual art it’s easier to present ideas in a creative way visually for most people. I’m not good at public speaking and I don’t normally talk a lot. I feel like there isn’t that much I can do with my voice.

Questions: What part should I cut out to make the podcast shorter? Is it okay to have low volume music in the background (I could make it even lower)? Do I need to introduce myself in the beginning as I did, or is it better to remove that part?