As you probably already know, I started a podcast with my friend Rey (aka Nantoy) last year, due to pandemic boredom.
It ended up saving my mental health because lockdown loneliness really screwed me up.
Oh, you didn’t know I had a podcast? It’s called Banana Q: a Filipino-Flavored Podcast and I’d really be grateful if you gave it a listen!
Don’t start with episode 1 because the quality of that isn’t the best and it might put you off. We have greatly improved since then. Beside, it’s not like a TV show that you have to watch from start to finish, but more like an anthology series in which each episode is stand-alone, so you can start with anything. Episodes I suggest:
It’s called “Banana Q” because it’s a play on banana cue, a Filipino snack. Q stands for questions – all our episode titles are questions which we try to answer the fun Filipino way. Most of them are about Filipino culture but really it’s about any topic under the sun talked about in the Filipino perspective.
So our genre is “society and culture” but really it should also fall under “comedy” because so many listeners have made comments about how our episodes always make them laugh. I didn’t realize just how much I laugh until I listened to myself on record. Now I understand why friends say my laughter is contagious.
My podcasting routine involves either brainstorming or recording episodes with my co-host Rey on most Tuesday and Thursday nights, unless we are busy with work or have something else going on. I created a Google Sheets that we use for our tracking, notes, etc. One of the tabs is a calendar which looks like this:
The statuses with the different colours is something I’ve used while project coordinating at work. So each status represents the steps involved in producing a podcast episode.
- To Record. We think of a topic which we want to cover and pencil the recording and publishing dates into the calendar. Before recording, we hold a brainstorming session to discuss what to talk about as well as the flow and who is in charge of talking about what. We don’t rehearse beforehand, but we only record once we have a flow written down because we made the mistake of not doing this our first few times and we ended up talking for 3 hours.
- WIP – Dee. After recording, Rey sends his voice file to me. Using Audacity, I merge both our voices and cut out irrelevant parts. This is more than just bloopers or too many filler words, but also removing swathes of conversation caused by going down the rabbit hole which made us go way over our maximum of 1 hour limit that we self imposed. We both agreed that the editing down is very important because we have listened to a lot of amateur podcasts that do not do this and just include everything as is and we don’t enjoy these at all. Once I’m happy with the file, I export it as WAV then send it to Rey.
- WIP – Rey. Rey improves the voice quality, adds in sound effects and music, puts all sound files together, then processes the completed episode through Auphonic. He sends the MP3 file to me for review.
- Completed. I listen to the episode and check for things like dead air or music that is too loud, it overpowers the voice, etc. I tell Rey what to correct if needed, and say when it’s good to go.
- Published. Rey logs into Podbean and uploads the MP3 along with the description usually written by me and schedules it for publishing.
See? Not that complicated at all!
Except when we have multiple guests on an episode and it challenges my producer capabilities. The Jollibee episode is the first such thing we did. I had a really hard time arranging the multiple interviews into one cohesive flowing piece, but the end product was so satisfying. I’m glad I have years of experience on story flow – not through podcasts, but blogs and videos – because it really helps. Also I listen to a lot of professional podcasts and use them as aspirational pieces.
Since we launched, we have been invited to guest on a few other podcasts and even a blog, so I thought I’d link them here:
- Applying for a Job? on Mark Garcia Audio Experience
- Mars, Pautang! on That Broke Pinay
- Filipino Stereotype on Our Own Opinion
And below is our guesting on A Table for Two Please vlog where we talk about Singapore food we miss, amongst other things.
Check them out if you have the chance!
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