Community Podcast: Episode IV - A New Hope

[Robbie]

I'm in for whatever I can do. I'm in GMT -6, available pretty much every weeknight after 5:00 or so.

I'll try to record a short thing later. I'm pretty good at making goofy small talk if there's any sort of agenda.

Skype: simracerworld

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Sorry for leaving this dead for the past few days, but I am hoping to get people doing five-minute recordings with each other sometime over the Easter period. If people are able to do it sooner, great - try and organise yourselves into pairs and work out scripts, recording software, microphones and anything else you would need if you were doing a proper podcast. It would be great if we could get recordings that sound like the real deal.

[dr-baker]

With there being plans for a Rejects field trip to the London round of Formula E, could there be plans to record a podcast from there? Jamie and Enoch did it from Eastern Creek for A1GP and Melbourne's F1 races. But I was thinking a podcast in the style of the London meet-up with Jamie last January/February. Could this be viable?

[Bobby Doorknobs]

With there being plans for a Rejects field trip to the London round of Formula E, could there be plans to record a podcast from there? Jamie and Enoch did it from Eastern Creek for A1GP and Melbourne's F1 races. But I was thinking a podcast in the style of the London meet-up with Jamie last January/February. Could this be viable?

If this thing goes according to plan (and if anyone going to London has the appropriate equipment), it should be possible to record a podcast by that time (with the blessing of our new overlords, of course). I think it would be a great segment to include in the Australaychibahspanacoanadrian GP Edition!

[dinizintheoven]

With there being plans for a Rejects field trip to the London round of Formula E, could there be plans to record a podcast from there? Jamie and Enoch did it from Eastern Creek for A1GP and Melbourne's F1 races. But I was thinking a podcast in the style of the London meet-up with Jamie last January/February. Could this be viable?

I'll take my recording equipment just in case!

[Shizuka]

Do you guys look for someone who could give it a minor touch on the podcast in terms of audio quality, EQ, compression and anything like that? I'd help with this gladly.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

Do you guys look for someone who could give it a minor touch on the podcast in terms of audio quality, EQ, compression and anything like that? I'd help with this gladly.

If it turns out that we do need someone for that, I would be most grateful if you could.

As for doing a five-minute recording I should be free for doing one with someone sometime over Easter. I have quite a few college-related things to do now that the year's almost over, but that should no longer be so much of a problem by the end of next week.

[Shizuka]

Alright, I'm going to do a test recording of me speaking (don't get me wrong, not because of wanting to participate!) and then uploading a before/after. I can't show music here after all, it's irrelevant

[Faustus]

With there being plans for a Rejects field trip to the London round of Formula E, could there be plans to record a podcast from there? Jamie and Enoch did it from Eastern Creek for A1GP and Melbourne's F1 races. But I was thinking a podcast in the style of the London meet-up with Jamie last January/February. Could this be viable?

Count me in, I'm definitely going.

[Faustus]

If I can contribute anything interesting and / or useful, it would be my pleasure to participate.

Skype name: fredericoribeiro1977
Timezone: GMT
Availability: until the end of April, just about any time (on gardening leave); not sure about after at the moment

[Bobby Doorknobs]

If I can contribute anything interesting and / or useful, it would be my pleasure to participate.

Skype name: fredericoribeiro1977
Timezone: GMT
Availability: until the end of April, just about any time (on gardening leave); not sure about after at the moment

Noted, glad to have you along

Now that I'm done with college for Easter (I completed my first movie!) I'm free for the whole next fortnight. I'd like to get a five-minute recording with one (or some) of you guys early next week, if there are any volunteers.

[tommykl]

If I can contribute anything interesting and / or useful, it would be my pleasure to participate.

Skype name: fredericoribeiro1977
Timezone: GMT
Availability: until the end of April, just about any time (on gardening leave); not sure about after at the moment

Noted, glad to have you along

Now that I'm done with college for Easter (I completed my first movie!) I'm free for the whole next fortnight. I'd like to get a five-minute recording with one (or some) of you guys early next week, if there are any volunteers.

For the same reason, I'm free for the same period of time, so I'm definitely up for it.

[kodabar]

One problem with doing a podcast is that it's going to be a couple of strangers talking to each other. Jamie and Enoch had known each other for a long time, so the banter between them was genuine. I'd suggest that the potential podcasters might like to hang out and have a few practices before making anything public. It takes time to develop a rapport and natural badinage, so the sooner it gets going, the better.

There were a couple of community editions of the F1Rejects podcast before and they weren't great. They weren't terrible, but it took them a while to settle into it - just listen to the first five minutes of either of them to hear how awkward they were at first. And then listen to the last five minutes to see how they'd improved.

I'd also be up for having a go at it myself.
Skype name: kodabar
Equipment: professional studio mics and headsets
Time zone: UK GMT/GMT+1
Availability: Any time. I work from home and keep my own hours, so I can be available at any time

Here's a quick 30 second sample of me done off the cuff just now:
https://soundcloud.com/kodabar/reject-test

[Bobby Doorknobs]

One problem with doing a podcast is that it's going to be a couple of strangers talking to each other. Jamie and Enoch had known each other for a long time, so the banter between them was genuine. I'd suggest that the potential podcasters might like to hang out and have a few practices before making anything public. It takes time to develop a rapport and natural badinage, so the sooner it gets going, the better.

There were a couple of community editions of the F1Rejects podcast before and they weren't great. They weren't terrible, but it took them a while to settle into it - just listen to the first five minutes of either of them to hear how awkward they were at first. And then listen to the last five minutes to see how they'd improved.

I'd also be up for having a go at it myself.
Skype name: kodabar
Equipment: professional studio mics and headsets
Time zone: UK GMT/GMT+1
Availability: Any time. I work from home and keep my own hours, so I can be available at any time

Here's a quick 30 second sample of me done off the cuff just now:
https://soundcloud.com/kodabar/reject-test

The points made in this post lead me to confess that I was absolutely terrified of doing a recording with someone. It was an idea I liked at first, even if I was a little nervous about it, but the more I thought about it the more I started to think I couldn't do it. I know I said I was going to do a recording with someone over Easter and I can tell you, I hadn't forgotten about it. In fact, it barely escaped my conscience for that whole period, but it was something I felt totally unprepared for mentally, and had no way of knowing how to properly prepare for it. I had virtually everything in place for actually recording, but the one thing that was stopping me was the fact that I was essentially doing it with a complete stranger. Sure, I know you guys here on the forum, but it's a fairly "safe" environment and is totally different to meeting someone in real life, as you are probably aware. The idea of doing this face-to-face with someone who I had never met before in person scared me and as time went by I felt like I was in a Catch-22 situation: I felt I couldn't do the recording because I was too afraid it would go badly from my side, but at the same time I couldn't just pull the plug on this because it would then just have been a waste of everybody's time and I couldn't deal with that guilt. I also felt that simply asking someone else to take over organisation of this without a better reason than "I'm not feeling up to it" would also seem like I was wasting people's time. So yeah, in all three cases I was afraid of what other people would think. Now, I feel like this is wasting people's time anyway, and I deeply apologise if that is the case, so I felt I should say something about it.

The silly thing about all this is as I get used to a situation I get more relaxed about it, as one might in any situation. In fact, I had this very same problem when I was directing my college film a few months back. I was too afraid to approach anyone to act in it, and on top of that I was afraid to take on the tough job of directing, so I ended up stuck with two volunteers who I at first had difficulty directing coherently because I was just not in any positive state of mind, before calming down after about ten minutes and then I was fine. In fact, I completed most of the shooting in the space of 90 minutes.

With regards to interested people hanging out a bit so there would be less "awkwardness", that poses a difficulty, at least on my part, seeing as I am in a different country to all the other volunteers. In fact, I think there's only one forum member within any reasonable distance of my home and that's shinji (who by the way did a good job in his previous community podcast appearance ). Of course, shinji is not a volunteer in this project and I'm sure there's a good reason why, so I think you can rule me out of the equation there, which saddens me, as I would love to be a part of a future podcast, in spite of my issues.

Anyway, kodabar, it's great to see you're interested, I like the recording, your details will be added to the list and of course, welcome to the forum!

P.S. I know I was overthinking when it came to doing a recording with someone. It's a problem I can easily identify on my own. Solving the problem isn't so easy, but I am trying to address this in my everyday life

[watka]

Podcasting isn't for everyone and there's no shame in that. We can only try and give honest feedback to each other.

[shinji]

And there's no pressure on you Simtek, it's cool you put yourself forward with the idea but it's also grand if you don't feel up to it or don't fancy it for whatever reason. All good

And you're being far, far too kind about my brief forays five years ago! Yikes!

[kodabar]

I had virtually everything in place for actually recording, but the one thing that was stopping me was the fact that I was essentially doing it with a complete stranger.

Being able to think about that and face up to it is quite the thing. Most podcasts fail very quickly and this one is especially tricky as it's a replacement for a successful podcast, so it's got to be good fairly quickly and the very notion of doing it with strangers is almost overwhelming.

There doesn't seem to be much progress on the podcast at the moment and I can't help but feel that everyone is waiting for someone else to step up. At this rate, no one will and it will just languish. Perhaps the best way forward might be to find someone to manage the podcast - organise the running of it without taking part in the broadcast and maybe supervise the edit. Anyone think that's a good idea?

Unrelated, but I just had to reply:
I used to work as a film producer. One time, the director we'd hired for a shoot didn't turn up. It didn't matter why; he just wasn't there. Somehow people expected me to just step in and do it. Everyone else was there, the studio was booked, we had a deadline to meet, I knew the script and storyboards, so I had to do it. Like you, I was absolutely bricking it, but I also did the ten minutes rest and managed to get through it. I'm quite bad at directing though and managed to pretty much ruin the film. So top marks to you for getting yours in the can successfully.

[Bobby Doorknobs]

There doesn't seem to be much progress on the podcast at the moment and I can't help but feel that everyone is waiting for someone else to step up. At this rate, no one will and it will just languish. Perhaps the best way forward might be to find someone to manage the podcast - organise the running of it without taking part in the broadcast and maybe supervise the edit. Anyone think that's a good idea?

Yes, I can't help but feel that someone can do a better job of that than I can, seeing as I was pretty much the de facto leader of this project with little progress.

Unrelated, but I just had to reply:
I used to work as a film producer. One time, the director we'd hired for a shoot didn't turn up. It didn't matter why; he just wasn't there. Somehow people expected me to just step in and do it. Everyone else was there, the studio was booked, we had a deadline to meet, I knew the script and storyboards, so I had to do it. Like you, I was absolutely bricking it, but I also did the ten minutes rest and managed to get through it. I'm quite bad at directing though and managed to pretty much ruin the film. So top marks to you for getting yours in the can successfully.

Thank you. There's actually a key shot missing from my film due to one of the actors disappearing from college for two weeks, but the end result was okay.

Thank you also to watka and shinji, I now feel a little less ashamed thanks to your kind words

[ronfuzz]

The podcasts were an integral part of my F1 enjoyment, and without them, I have to say my love for the sport has diminished slightly. Hopefully some people in this fine resurrected forum will step up to the mantle and carry forward into the future something that most people here cherish and miss with fond memories.

FWIW, I couldn't contribute to the podcast itself, I'm a boring git, but I am a pro audio engineer and I would be happy to master/eq/spruce up the audio quality of anything you guys wanted to post up there on the interwebs. Which reminds me, the musical rejects links were also genius and shouldn't be forgotten!