Pagan Podcasting

Tuesday marked the first time anyone can recall there being a Pagan Press Conference, a press conference specifically for Pagan media. I, along with Rev. Don Lewis of the Pagans Tonight show, Iris Firemoon of The Firefly Chronicles, Cara Shultz of PNC Minnesota, and Star Foster of Patheos.com were present for the press conference recording with video and audio.

The Wild Hunt posted a post-produced version of Star Foster’s audio today, you can take a listen at:

http://www.archive.org/details/PatrickMccollumQaAtPaganSpiritGathering2011

I have posted a version of the separate audio I recorded using a different recording device at:

http://www.archive.org/download/PaganPeople/PatrickPressConference.mp3

While Jason invested more post-production effort, there are still screeches in the audio sounding like someone tuning to a different station on an old-time AM radio. My audio, despite no post-production other than noise removal, lacks those artifacts.

Why the difference? Different portable audio recorders have different microphones (unidirectional vs. omnidirectional – a summary on this topic is available at this third party website). However, an important factor is the ability of a recorder to reduce background noise. Many portable recorders tend to be telescoping or omnidirectional, thus being terrible because they pickup all background sound. While that is mere microphone design, many newer recorders have built-in noise reduction technologies that make a difference, as illustrated in the above audio. Just something to keep in mind when you want to move to the next latest and greatest recorder for your show.

Deities & Deadlines, second edition, gives beginning religion writers the benefits of author John Dart’s decades of experience covering religion news for the Los Angeles Times. From reference books to newsletters to national organizations, Dart suggests sources for news stories and background information. He guides religion-news newcomers past common pitfalls, noting, for instance, that “it’s ‘Reform’ Judaism, not ‘Reformed’ Judaism” and explaining the difference between “spirituality” and “spiritualism.” He discusses possible conflict-of-interest issues and reassures new writers that newsroom colleagues will eventually quit calling them “Reverend.”
Wisdom, wit—and a wealth of phone numbers—make Deities & Deadlines an invaluable sourcebook for all newcomers to religion reporting.

You can download and print out the Deities & Deadlines as an Adobe Acrobat file from this page.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=3982

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The above blurb is on the download-page itself.

Looking to do video well? Here’s a very succinct list of the best videography tips I have come across in a very long time. The tips come from popular international TV station Russia Today and are available at:

http://rt.com/online-exclusive/video-uploader/help/

Adding music to a show is one of the simplest things you can do to add professionalism to your show.  However, it is also the most likely element to go disastrously wrong in post-production.  For example, you could inadvertantly create a show where an intro is playing at the same time as the content of your show is playing.

The first step is the most time consuming: find music.  There are many podsafe resources which have been discussed on the PPP podcast as well as listed in our resources for podcasters.

The next couple of steps are post-producing your show’s content and adding the music.  The order of these steps is debatable as both offer advantages.  If you do show notes for the Pagan Podcast Index then adding music first where needed helps keep your timestamps correct if you do show notes during post-production.  Adding music later makes keeping show notes matched to their proper timestamps much more complicated but helps you focus on post-production first before making it pretty with nice music.  Neither technique is wrong, so it is best thought of as a personal preference.

In most music programs, the actual process is very straightforward. Usually you can just drag and drop the music file into the program. The trick is to drag and drop your audio such that content does not
unnecessarily overlap music you do not want to have overlap your content.

A mistake to watch for is when you have stereo tracks to ensure both channels are dragged, not just the left channel or right channel.  For this reason, I often make spoken audio into a mono track to avoid these mistakes.  Failure to double check for this can result in very bad audio.

If you have any questions, feel welcome to post a comment to get feedback from fellow podcasters.

In Illinois (where PSG is taking place this year), it is a felony to capture the audio or video of someone without their explicit consent. You can find a guide to recording in the United States on a state-by-state basis at: http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states.html.

It’s not doom and gloom. With proper information you can keep out of accidental trouble. Anyone that is part of the PPP that needs consent forms can use these forms.