More than a year ago, when SSLA was in it's first year and I was running around trying to get the clubs set up, or as some people might say, being a complete dictator, a friend pf mine, Navroze Anwar (you might remember him from here ) ran up to me and said,
"Vir, you know what would be awesome? If SSLA had a podcast."
The minute I heard the idea, I was sold. Podcasts are an amazing medium to communicate with the world and they are a great asset for people to get out of their shells and express their opinions.
I am not one that believes in destiny or a singular path to life, but I have to say that things really seemed to fall into place for this one. During a trip to Hong Kong, I picked up a microphone, intended for my Canon 500D (So that I could shoot some awesome movies) however, my camera didn't support the mike. So I tucked it away, waiting for someone either for someone to buy it or to find some use for it.
Then one night the memory of what Navroze said to me came rushing back and I suddenly had a new idea for a new project.
I met the college web team to discuss it and figure out how they wanted to go about it. I made it very clear that this was going to be run by me, and I wouldn't want any sort of faculty interference (except for regulating content, which I can do rather well, if I may say myself.) I said confidently that I was going to hold auditions and select interested students to make up the 4 hosts.
Naively, I was quick to place myself as one of the hosts.
I held auditions the next week, after sending email after email to the entire college explaining the idea and trying to sell the concept to them. I got 13 names, 3 showed up for auditions, 2 called in sick. I'd admit, it felt like I had tripped a bit, nevertheless, I kept a positive outlook. Three people had come, and they weren't bad at all. Their interest spoke more than audition was intended to cover.
After all, to me, this Podcast was to be a place where interested people could come and speak on a variety of subjects.
That night, I was talking to a friend about the auditions and how only three people came, and how it was going to work and she asked me, rather directly, why I hadn't thought of making a sort of a group to judge and select the hosts.
I defended as much as I could, my stance being that since it was my initiative, it was not wrong for me to have the only say in how the episodes went down. However, as the discussion continued in the real world, a small debate occurred in my mind. The debate was as to whether this was a resurrection of my dictatorial side. (Read more on that kind of a dilemma here)
By the end of the night, I had realized my mistake. I was placing myself in a position that was completely against the spirit of the podcast. I wanted a series that anyone and everyone could speak on, so why was I putting myself as the selector?
Instead, I sent out another email, with a new structure. I told my classmates, that the auditions were scrapped (much to the disappointment of those who auditioned) and that instead, the podcast would have 4 hosts who could be anyone. There was no permanent posting. I said that I would be sitting in, however, if 4 people turned up, I'd vacate my seat and let them run the show.
So today we had the first episode , in my professional opinion, I believed that it was a bit shaky, a bit rusty, then again, this was the first time that any of us were doing this. So how prepared could we have possibly been?
The people who shared the mike with me were Aditya Joshi, an actor, filmmaker and photographer. He knows how to speak really well, and he proved that with how he enunciated every word and made perfect sense. There was Palak Sharma, debater, 'munner' and public speaker - Those interests say enough for how she speaks. And finally there was Sanjana Rastogi, who has interests in Model United Nations, and brought clear concise arguments to the episode.
When I played back the recording when it came to editing; I was met with the cold, harsh bitch-smack of reality. The biggest weak link that I found, was me.
Now I'm not fishing for sympathy or some nonsense like that, and I'm sure that when I tell my friends tomorrow about this tomorrow they'll say, "you were awesome!" and other inspiring words. However, listening to the content of my words, I feel I was a bit out of sync.
So, some introspection has come about, I've decided that I will play much more of a role in setting up the episodes and creating interesting content for the episodes. Of course I would jump back into which episodes suit my fancy.
It is merely an extension of the concept of the SSLA podcast, where SSLA has a voice with the world. Each episode should be unique, each starting sequence should be different, each discussion should bring a new person to the show.
That is what I aiming for, but as they say in some fields of photography, that sometimes, you need to craft the perfect photo. Maybe I need to craft the perfect show, and I can't do that behind a mike. I draw people in, once that is done, the perpetual motion of these programs will drive themselves.
So that was the story of my First, and probably, Last Podcast.
Thanks again to Navroze Anwar for coming up with this idea.
Thanks to Aditya, Palak, and Abhinav for coming and auditioning.
A big Thank You to Aditya, Palak and Sanjana for making the first SSLA Podcast a hit!
"Vir, you know what would be awesome? If SSLA had a podcast."
The minute I heard the idea, I was sold. Podcasts are an amazing medium to communicate with the world and they are a great asset for people to get out of their shells and express their opinions.
I am not one that believes in destiny or a singular path to life, but I have to say that things really seemed to fall into place for this one. During a trip to Hong Kong, I picked up a microphone, intended for my Canon 500D (So that I could shoot some awesome movies) however, my camera didn't support the mike. So I tucked it away, waiting for someone either for someone to buy it or to find some use for it.
Then one night the memory of what Navroze said to me came rushing back and I suddenly had a new idea for a new project.
I met the college web team to discuss it and figure out how they wanted to go about it. I made it very clear that this was going to be run by me, and I wouldn't want any sort of faculty interference (except for regulating content, which I can do rather well, if I may say myself.) I said confidently that I was going to hold auditions and select interested students to make up the 4 hosts.
Naively, I was quick to place myself as one of the hosts.
I held auditions the next week, after sending email after email to the entire college explaining the idea and trying to sell the concept to them. I got 13 names, 3 showed up for auditions, 2 called in sick. I'd admit, it felt like I had tripped a bit, nevertheless, I kept a positive outlook. Three people had come, and they weren't bad at all. Their interest spoke more than audition was intended to cover.
After all, to me, this Podcast was to be a place where interested people could come and speak on a variety of subjects.
That night, I was talking to a friend about the auditions and how only three people came, and how it was going to work and she asked me, rather directly, why I hadn't thought of making a sort of a group to judge and select the hosts.
I defended as much as I could, my stance being that since it was my initiative, it was not wrong for me to have the only say in how the episodes went down. However, as the discussion continued in the real world, a small debate occurred in my mind. The debate was as to whether this was a resurrection of my dictatorial side. (Read more on that kind of a dilemma here)
By the end of the night, I had realized my mistake. I was placing myself in a position that was completely against the spirit of the podcast. I wanted a series that anyone and everyone could speak on, so why was I putting myself as the selector?
Instead, I sent out another email, with a new structure. I told my classmates, that the auditions were scrapped (much to the disappointment of those who auditioned) and that instead, the podcast would have 4 hosts who could be anyone. There was no permanent posting. I said that I would be sitting in, however, if 4 people turned up, I'd vacate my seat and let them run the show.
So today we had the first episode , in my professional opinion, I believed that it was a bit shaky, a bit rusty, then again, this was the first time that any of us were doing this. So how prepared could we have possibly been?
The people who shared the mike with me were Aditya Joshi, an actor, filmmaker and photographer. He knows how to speak really well, and he proved that with how he enunciated every word and made perfect sense. There was Palak Sharma, debater, 'munner' and public speaker - Those interests say enough for how she speaks. And finally there was Sanjana Rastogi, who has interests in Model United Nations, and brought clear concise arguments to the episode.
When I played back the recording when it came to editing; I was met with the cold, harsh bitch-smack of reality. The biggest weak link that I found, was me.
Now I'm not fishing for sympathy or some nonsense like that, and I'm sure that when I tell my friends tomorrow about this tomorrow they'll say, "you were awesome!" and other inspiring words. However, listening to the content of my words, I feel I was a bit out of sync.
So, some introspection has come about, I've decided that I will play much more of a role in setting up the episodes and creating interesting content for the episodes. Of course I would jump back into which episodes suit my fancy.
It is merely an extension of the concept of the SSLA podcast, where SSLA has a voice with the world. Each episode should be unique, each starting sequence should be different, each discussion should bring a new person to the show.
That is what I aiming for, but as they say in some fields of photography, that sometimes, you need to craft the perfect photo. Maybe I need to craft the perfect show, and I can't do that behind a mike. I draw people in, once that is done, the perpetual motion of these programs will drive themselves.
So that was the story of my First, and probably, Last Podcast.
Thanks again to Navroze Anwar for coming up with this idea.
Thanks to Aditya, Palak, and Abhinav for coming and auditioning.
A big Thank You to Aditya, Palak and Sanjana for making the first SSLA Podcast a hit!
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