Podcast Reflection

 

My first podcast overall was a successful experience. Justin and I were both happy with our final product, and we believe we were able to get across our points while connecting them to our chapter in a well delivered, easily understandable way.

Our goal before starting the project was to explain how Madden NFL Ultimate Team 17 directly relates to Ian Bogost’s chapter on Habituation. We wanted to make sure that the connection wasn’t forced, but show that they actually go hand in hand. Another one of our goals was to attempt to dispel the idea that sports games often aren’t substantive.

I think one of the best strategies we used in the creation of our podcast came with how we read our chapter. We both read the chapter separately and underlined parts of it that we thought related to Madden Ultimate Team, and then met back up and compared what we underlined. This was a valuable tool because things that we both underlined proved to be big, central connections between the book and the game, and then there were lines where only one of us underlined, and this forced us to explicitly reason why that line was representative of the game.

However, our project wasn’t problem free. After listening to some of the other podcasts Justin and I realized that we wanted to try to sound like it wasn’t scripted. So, initially we gave the podcast a shot without a full script, but merely some bullet points on main topics that we wanted to be sure to hit on. This sounded great in theory, but quickly realized a few minutes in that it wasn’t as realistic in practice. After this quick attempt we knew we needed an actual script. So, we wrote a script and then did a dry run of it and realized that it sounded way too scripted. Because we wanted to stick to our goal of sounding unscripted we added in colloquial words and some “likes” even though we wouldn’t usually put that in our writing. This string of events demonstrates that writing is a process. We started with some bullet points, moved on to a fleshed out script, and then we revised it to make it seem a bit more natural. Unfortunately, it was still clear that the podcast was scripted, but I think we did a decent job at minimizing the the scripted effect. To me this was our most obvious unrealistic goal.

The podcast project took advantage of many learning outcomes, most notably collaboration. While Justin and I worked well together, we don’t think exactly alike, and it would have been impossible for both of us to get everything we wanted.

I expect the next podcast to be a little easier now that we know the technology (which took more than we thought), and the best strategies to produce the best podcast we are capable of.