Podcasts

[light pop music plays in background]

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Hey, folks! This is Rebecca, back to talk about multimodal formats you can use to discuss film.

One way to discuss film is to literally talk about it, creating an audio file, like a podcast. Podcasts have become rather popular in the last few years, both in the multimodal writing classroom and in the larger world of media consumption, so today I want to talk about how you can talk about film in a podcast. As usual, this podcast is broken into five sections: 1) what modes of communication podcasts use; 2) the rhetorical situation of podcasts; 3) how to use examples in your podcast; 4) how to make your podcast accessible; and 5) some suggestions about making podcasts.

 

 

Podcasts rely on linguistic and aural modes of communication to tell the reader about a topic. Podcasts rely primarily on the spoken word as you explain your ideas. That means that you need to be clear in what you say. I have a habit of talking way too fast and mumbling; that means that I have to re-record myself sometimes because I’m unintelligible. If your listener cannot hear what you say, then they’ll never understand your ideas, so make your linguistic and aural modes clean and tight.

 

Because podcasts are just audio, the rhetorical situation is different from something like a blog or video essay, and your audience will experience it differently. People listen to podcasts while they’re driving or doing the dishes or folding their laundry, whatever. Because people often (though not always) listen to podcasts while doing something else, you need to think about how to present your ideas clearly and in a way that captures and keeps their attention. They are listening to learn something for fun, so be engaging, but they are also likely only paying you partial attention, so keep the ideas clear and understandable.

 

So how do you talk about film in a podcast? Because we’re talking about film, it may seem odd to use a podcast; after all, you can’t show pictures or GIFs or videos in a podcast, all of which I talk about in my other formats. While you can’t see anything in a podcast, description is still a powerful tool. You can describe many things in your film while talking about it in effective ways, just like you can when writing a paper or blog, just verbally instead of visually.

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Moreover, podcasts are particularly effective tools for discussing sound in films, meaning that your text itself might tell you if this is the right format for you. Films do plenty of things with sound that are interesting, from the use of musical themes in movies such as Phantom of the Opera or Lord of the Rings to the use of silence in films like Signs or A Quiet Place. Podcasts allow you to focus on the sound, to isolate out the aural mode from the visual.

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For example, let’s say I want to make an argument about the use of music from Hello, Dolly in the film Wall-E. In particular, I want to discuss how the film distorts the sound of the music to give the feeling of distance as we zero in on Wall-E, thinking about the juxtaposition that happens there to highlight Wall-E’s loneliness. I could play you two clips; first, a clip from the original song from Hello, Dolly:

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[Cornelius & Barnaby sing] We’ll see the shows at Delmonico’s And we’ll close the town in a whirl And we won’t come home until we’ve kissed a girl.

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[light pop music plays in background]

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Then the same clip from Wall-E:

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[Cornelius & Barnaby sing, fading out slowly and becoming slightly metallic] We’ll see the shows at Delmonico’s And we’ll close the town in a whirl And we won’t come home until we’ve kissed a girl.

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[light pop music plays in background]

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I would then explain the audio distortions the film uses to create this effect. I couldn’t capture this sound difference with just pictures, and the audio does more than my linguistic explanation ever could. The audio clips let your reader hear what you hear so you can explain the significance and analyze the effect. I could capture this with film, but cutting the audio from the video can help focus your reader on the sounds you want to discuss.

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Just like with video clips and images, you need to make sure that you use these sound bites wisely. You shouldn’t overburden your podcast with clips just because it sounds cool. Make sure that you’re using the clips to achieve something, to help your audience understand you and your text better. Use the clips for illustration, not ornamentation.

 

Moving on to accessibility: Because your audience is listening to this text, you’ll need to think about those who might not be able to hear what you’re saying. If you want to reach the widest audience possible, you’ll want to make a transcript to post with your podcast so that those who cannot hear your ideas can at least read them, as I have done below. You could also convert the audio file into a video and add captioning. Making audio into video does change how your audience can access your project since you can’t post video files to some of the most popular podcasting sites, such as iTunes and Spotify, so you’ll need to keep that in mind. The key to accessibility, here and elsewhere, is to include as many different ways of experiencing your ideas as possible so if your reader can’t experience it one way, they can experience it another.

 

Guidelines Finally, some suggestions on making your podcast:

1. Plan and edit your podcasts. While podcasts often sound like a natural conversation between friends or someone monologuing about what they love, you do not want true stream of consciousness in your podcast. It’s hard to follow because your brain works differently than my brain which works differently from someone else’s brain; the connections you’re making may make sense to you, but they may not make sense to all of your listeners. You need to make sure the podcast flows logically so folks can follow along. So, make a plan before you record; it can be a full script, a list of the major points you want to hit, or something in between. You do not have to keep to the plan, but even thinking out what you want to say in advance can help you straighten out your thoughts a bit. Then, when you’re done recording, feel free to cut down your recording. You don’t have to keep everything you say or even keep it in the same order. Listen to what you say and figure out a natural order for your ideas. This will help your listener keep up with you, especially if you’re covering many ideas.

2. It’s okay to mess up your recording. It does not have to be perfect. If you flub a word or an idea, laugh, curse, do what you need to do to respond to the mistake, then just pick up where you left off. That’s the beauty of editing: you can take out all the mistakes.

3. Listen to some podcasts before you make your own. Podcasts are all different, but there are some consistencies: you need an opening and a sign off; podcasts are almost always a series, so you need to think about how to link different podcasts together; and folks often use music for transitions. Feel out how podcasts work and then decide which of these conventions you want to follow.

 

Most importantly, have some fun. Reach out to others and strike up a conversation. Bring your ideas and personalities to life. Podcasts have become a pretty central part of many people’s lives, so figure out what you, and only you, can add to their lives. Podcasts are relatively easy to make, especially with Audacity, a free audio-editing software. It takes more know-how then something like a blog, but not as much as a video essay, so it can be a good place to dip your toe into multimodality.

Tune in next time to find out more about video essays.