Conducted on 3/21/21 via Zoom. Asa Gutow is a junior at Macalester College and a Priory alumni from the Class of 2018. They are also my incredible mentor! For their own senior project at Priory, they created the pilot episode for a fictional sci-fi podcast. They also have a background in tech theatre, lending them experience in directing, stage managing, design, and screenwriting.
interview transcript
Q: Can you tell me what your senior project podcast was about? A: It was the pilot episode of a sci-fi podcast. It was about the crew of a spaceship who are going to do explore and do some scientific documentation of a planet, when they discover aliens.
Q: Why did you decide to make your podcast? Was there anything you set out to achieve? A: It was specifically only a pilot episode, so there was not a lot of time into get into deeper themes. Really, it was because I have an interest in podcasts and writing, so it was an opportunity to dedicate some time to writing something and seeing what I could do. For me, writing an episode of a podcast was less about a particular audience and more about my own experience with it.
Q: What do you think makes a podcast interesting and compelling in a way that is different from other mediums? A: Obviously, pretty much every medium is going to have its particular strengths and weaknesses. I personally like podcasts because they hit that sweet spot of engagement for me-- I don't like watching things as much because I have to psych myself up to do it. I think what podcasts or audio dramas do well is characterization. Obviously you can have a plot-driven audio drama, but when you're listening to one, you can't step back and watch things happen at a very large scale. You always have to be listening to a specific thing, which means that your characters have to be good.
Q: What did you find was different about actually writing a podcast vs. other things, like a book or a play? A: Writing a podcast is actually most comparable to writing a play, simply because the traditional theatrical way of writing is heavy in dialogue and lighter in stage direction. It's also kind of like writing a screenplay. The significant difference between writing a podcast and any other visual media is that you always have to keep in mind that there's no visuals. Writing is about conveying information via words, so if you're writing something that people will read, you know that every word on the page is going be read, because that's just how reading works. When you write something for a visual medium, you know that its going to get translated, because you're writing something for actors to perform. The big difference is that you are putting information on that page and you have multiple modes of delivery. In a play, someone can say something and then facepalm. In an audio drama, you have to ask yourself, "Is this going to come through to the audience? If I make that into a sound effect, are they going to understand the emotions here or do I need to figure out another way to convey this?" It develops into this negotiation between conveying the information you want to convey and still remaining faithful to the story and characters you have, because maybe your character isn't the sort to announce, "I am facepalming."
Q: What were some challenges you faced while creating your podcast? A: For me personally, the biggest challenge was that writing is hard. In terms of technical aspects, recording was difficult because of the fact that it is hard to find good locations if you don't have access to a dedicated recording studio. Scheduling with people was another difficulty. I will own up to throwing the schedule off because I didn't write the script soon enough.
Q: What were some limitations you found you had as a student creating a podcast rather than a professional with a lot of funding behind them? A: A studio. That's the really enormously big thing. Some podcaster has talked about how during their initial forays into podcasting, they used a giant quilt and had a person recording underneath it to muffle any background noise and minimize echo and reverb. The biggest thing for an amateur audio production is being concerned with the quality of your audio and making sure it sounds clean and beautiful.
Q: What would you say was the most difficult part of creating your podcast (writing, casting, recording, editing, etc)? A: For me, it was the writing because that was the part I was most personally responsible for. A podcast is usually a collaborative venture. If you choose to work with other people, that does make it difficult because you have to coordinate with people, but it's also nice because you don't have to do as much work. That said, the hardest part for me was definitely writing. Looking back, there are things I wish I'd done differently-- there always are. That was the main difficulty for me, especially just getting it done.
Q: How do you think your background in tech theatre (stage managing, sound, etc) helped you in the process of making your podcast? A: It definitely gave me a good sense of what sounds you can do with limited budget and limited foley experience-- what sort of sound effects it is possible to make without having them sound like parodies of themselves. Also, I have stage managed, and that is a role that teaches you a lot about managing people, making sure nobody gets too angry with anyone else, and making sure everyone stays on schedule. That's a good skill to have-- guilting people into arriving to things they need to arrive at. It's stage management, so it pretty much teaches you how to herd cats. And cats always need herding, unfortunately. It's important to communicate clearly, calmly, and firmly that in creating this project you have expectations, and if they want to commit to it, they actually need to commit. Going into my podcast, I also had experience in screenwriting, which looks a lot like a podcast script. Having that formatting being something that I already knew was useful, because it meant I could hop right into trying to write.
Q: Do you have any tips on managing your time and staying creatively motivated? A: I don't really believe in motivation. Obviously, we all love to be creatively motivated. However, motivation is a fickle mistress. When you set out to create something, if you wait until you're motivated, you're never going to finish things. One of the key things to writing is that at a certain point, you just have to sit down and do it, even if you're not really feeling it. Especially when you're on a timetable, you're getting into risky business when you say, "Alright, I'm going to write when I'm motivated." On time management, always give yourself more time than you think you need. Up everything you're giving yourself by a third, and you'll probably be good to go.
Q: Would you say that you have any regrets after completing your podcast? A: Maybe. I am not in the business of regret. If I could do it again, would I do things differently? Yes, because I have the experience of having done it and there were parts that I wasn't necessarily satisfied with. That's sort of the nature of creative projects, especially when you're still in the practice stage. Just because something doesn't reach the goals that you set for yourself doesn't mean that you have to regret it. It's really important to acknowledge that you are working with the skill set you have. Even though your critical abilities may outstrip your artistic abilities, you can't get better without doing the stuff that you don't like so much.