As you may know, I usually record my interviews at the South Bank Centre, Royal Festival Hall.
Permission to record there has been granted by the South Bank Centre Press Office, with the aid of the staff at the Poetry Library. In exchange for that I will be donating copies of the Podcast, on CD, to the library. A very fair exchange.
Being a stickler for making sure I've got everything in place before I do anything - it's taken me nearly six months since agreeing with the Librarian, to actually start burning discs! - I'm half way through them today, and will have 30 of the 47 episodes in the Library from next Saturday.
It feels like a big step forward for the podcast - knowing that there will be a permanent record of the poetry that this show has produced, available for anyone to listen.
Why is the Librarian interested in the podcast? Chris McCabe (a fantastic poet in his own right) has an interest in poetry ephemera - starting with the pamphlets and newsletters produced by the surrealists in the early parts of the 20th century.
Podcasting isn't much different, throwaway recordings for the early part of the twenty first century - and I suppose some of it is worthwhile preserving.
Sunday 28 September 2008
Sunday 21 September 2008
What it takes to put a podcast together
I'm a life long Apple Mac user, have been since I first used a ][e in school in 1981 - admittedly that was to play defender and some helicopter rescue game - but it was my first taste of computers - that year I talked my parents into buying a ZX Spectrum for me to have at home -and I think it was a £300 investment that has really paid off.
Back to the podcast - I use a Cannon Digital Dictaphone and a lapel mic to record my interviews - ok maybe my voice isn't picked up too well but it's enough to have a clear recording of the artist - if the background noise is low enough - outside it finds it very hard to make a clear recording - but I conduct all my recordings at the Royal Festival Hall so have a great indoor space to record in.
I usually spend about and hour and a half with the poets on a Saturday morning, over coffee and croissants, then get them to perform their poetry - I'm looking for about ten minutes of material to put out - so I try and record for fifteen twenty minutes.
The interview itself - I have a set of questions, which really form a guideline for the interview - in which I ask the poet to describe how they got started, what and who are their influences, and how they write and edit their work.
This usually takes about forty minutes,
I like to have a bit of a safety net of recordings, and I have about twelve weeks worth of material that I can put out - which means it can take twelve weeks from recording an interview before it goes out on the net.
On the Sunday I sit down at my Mac and transfer the recordings to the hard-drive - the Cannon produces a .WAV file which I convert to a .MP3 using software called Switch and Flip 4 Mac. I launch Garageband and drop the files into a basic track I've created with the music from Lyman Mediros and the Lower Level, and the ident from the Association of Poetry Podcasters as a intro and outro. Then I play through the recording, editing out any mistakes, coughs, things the poet wants removing, striping it down to the time limit I'm looking for - I've set a constraint of 30 minutes for the show, and cut down any sprawling interviews to that - or make a decision to put them out over two episodes.
I usually alternate an interview show with a poetry show, putting out the poetry of the interviewee the episode before their interview. I fill the rest of those shows with poetry that has either been emailed to me, sent by CD or from a CD I've bought from the artist at their performances.
The thirty minute limit for the show means I can't put out as much as I'd like to in an episode, but it does mean I have to be tight with my edits, and my choices of artist that appear.
In the end I spend about eight hours at the weekend recording and editing the thirty minute show that you hear - I hope it shows!
Back to the podcast - I use a Cannon Digital Dictaphone and a lapel mic to record my interviews - ok maybe my voice isn't picked up too well but it's enough to have a clear recording of the artist - if the background noise is low enough - outside it finds it very hard to make a clear recording - but I conduct all my recordings at the Royal Festival Hall so have a great indoor space to record in.
I usually spend about and hour and a half with the poets on a Saturday morning, over coffee and croissants, then get them to perform their poetry - I'm looking for about ten minutes of material to put out - so I try and record for fifteen twenty minutes.
The interview itself - I have a set of questions, which really form a guideline for the interview - in which I ask the poet to describe how they got started, what and who are their influences, and how they write and edit their work.
This usually takes about forty minutes,
I like to have a bit of a safety net of recordings, and I have about twelve weeks worth of material that I can put out - which means it can take twelve weeks from recording an interview before it goes out on the net.
On the Sunday I sit down at my Mac and transfer the recordings to the hard-drive - the Cannon produces a .WAV file which I convert to a .MP3 using software called Switch and Flip 4 Mac. I launch Garageband and drop the files into a basic track I've created with the music from Lyman Mediros and the Lower Level, and the ident from the Association of Poetry Podcasters as a intro and outro. Then I play through the recording, editing out any mistakes, coughs, things the poet wants removing, striping it down to the time limit I'm looking for - I've set a constraint of 30 minutes for the show, and cut down any sprawling interviews to that - or make a decision to put them out over two episodes.
I usually alternate an interview show with a poetry show, putting out the poetry of the interviewee the episode before their interview. I fill the rest of those shows with poetry that has either been emailed to me, sent by CD or from a CD I've bought from the artist at their performances.
The thirty minute limit for the show means I can't put out as much as I'd like to in an episode, but it does mean I have to be tight with my edits, and my choices of artist that appear.
In the end I spend about eight hours at the weekend recording and editing the thirty minute show that you hear - I hope it shows!
Sunday 14 September 2008
Workshops
I spent the weekend work-shopping a poetry event, and it was a real eye opener. One of the things I was most impressed with was the introduction of a commercial advisor who gave a more business like advice to what is essentially an event run by artists.
I was there to give advice on podcasting, and got some great recordings for a future show. It also highlighted some shortcomings of my podcasting skills - I need to have a bit more preparation of materials, consistency of questioning and more of a vision of where I want to go with the podcast.
I was there to give advice on podcasting, and got some great recordings for a future show. It also highlighted some shortcomings of my podcasting skills - I need to have a bit more preparation of materials, consistency of questioning and more of a vision of where I want to go with the podcast.
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