The Dog Cast

Per my last English class, English 304, with Dr. M J Cripps, in the summer of 2019, we were given an assignment that expanded throughout the entire semester worth of learning. In this assignment, we were given complete freedom to develop a topic for a blog to work on. In total, we had to give at least two posts in each of the next five weeks of classes and could do it in a written format, video format (VLOG), or any other way we could think of. For me, I decided to make a Blog Roll, called the Dog Blog.

From doing this we learned how a blog platform functions, whether that is by writing posts that work within the “blog genre”, or even how we could have shaped our writing style into what a professional/successful blog would look like. Now that I am almost out of my door of UNE I wanted to leave a mark on it like no other.

So, Instead of just leaving this as a Blog I am going to be making them into a series of podcasts, which I have so cleverly named, the Dog Cast. Get it? Its a dog podcast – Pun 100% intended.

I decided on doing a podcast series on this information so that it not only branches out to those who want to read more but, I am making it more accessible. Most people will generally listen to the music of some kind, something where it just plays in the background while they focus hard on work. For me, making this Blog into podcasts opens up the market for someone to go in and listen to my story with my own voice.

Please click on “The Dog Cast” below to view the entire series as the only two will be shown below.

Reflection

Doing this project, I used my iPhone XS for GarageBand and my HP Notebook laptop for Audacity. Usually, for podcasts, people use a real microphone and go into recording booths. Sadly, due to the current pandemic, I do not have that luxury. However, if given that chance to do this podcast again I would have happily re-done it in a professional setting.

To start with, I recorded each episode on GarageBand. From there I transferred the data – via email – to Audacity which is a form of medium that I am the most comfortable with. In doing this realized that my audio files were in a m4a format which Audacity does not take so I used a file converter and made them into MP3’s, which Audacity does work with. I will use Audacity to do my minor audio edits on each podcast and add my sound effect and background sound. I am choosing to do it this way because again, I am most familiar with Audacity for recording and editing, but, I am also knowledgable in how to layer sounds using GarageBand.

Click on images Below to view the behind the scenes!

Since I am doing it all locally, I went ahead, grabbed a cut of coffee, and let it begin. Instead of sitting there holding my phone, I used a Bluetooth operated microphone so that the diction and clarity were persistent. Once all of these podcasts are edited, I will be adding in other background sounds as well as intro and outro music. My reasoning for making this blog into a podcast is so it makes it easier for someone to listen too while doing other things. This way my story is getting heard in a manner that is easiest for both I and the listener.

For each podcast, I choose to do it in one setting by taking breaks in-between each post.  This way it could give me time to add a blank space while editing and give the listener a chance to take in the information they just heard. The only real problem I had was having to compress the audio files so that they would be able to fit onto WordPress. To make it work each audio file was exported using a 112 kbps, bit mode was average, and the channel mode was set to Joint stereo for maximum listening. I, of course, also had Bella with me while I recorded. After all, her opinion on this matters the most.


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