Old Dog, New Tricks

Well, I don't think I'm quite old old. Maybe middle-aged dog, new tricks? Whatever. The point is that I've had to learn an awful lot in the past month as we produce our first episode.

Yvonne here, by the way. We've agreed that Marie is in charge of all things admin, and I'm in charge of the tech side. Or as I call it, messing things up. I wasn't at all nervous for our first interview. Rather, I was terrified I'd somehow manage to obliterate the entire recording with my amateur editing attempts.

The Power of the Manly YouTube Video

Having never given a moment's thought to how graphics are created, audio mixed and videos edited, I suddenly found myself in charge of Making Stuff Look Professional. We want our podcasts to look and sound like someone with a clue produced them. However, we have zero budget and me, a woman who gaily declares "I can do it", then worries about the consequences afterwards.

Having uttered those four little words, I had to somehow follow through. Marie will admit that she's as much use as a fart in a hot air balloon when it comes to techy things. Whilst she's willing to learn, she's also convinced she'll break the entire internet if she presses the wrong button, which is how we came to this division of labour. Yet, once we'd recorded the first interview, the enormity of the task ahead was daunting. I felt overwhelmed with daunt. So, how did I follow through on my words?

The simple answer - exactly what I did when I wanted to wallpaper the bedroom, install a new light fitting, fix the shower, etcetera and so on; I watched a manly YouTube video. Actually, loads of them. Of course, there are womanly ones too, but the tech and DIY worlds are rather male dominated, or perhaps it's simply that men feel the urge to explain. Ooh, I'm being rude now. Sorry, men. I really am grateful that you get off your bottoms and video yourselves explaining stuff.

Pulling Myself and All the Things Together

Some years back, as a distraction from job misery, I decided to do a computing degree. Lord knows what was going through my mind. Maths was never my strong suit, and my parents had to practically bankrupt themselves on tutors to get me through my exams at school. However, during the course, I discovered that I wasn't quite as thick as I thought, and I rather enjoyed everything they threw at me; this included the parts where I had to edit a video. Therefore, armed with blind optimism and cheerful self-belief, I now glued myself to YouTube, read instruction manuals and downloaded free software. Quite a few swears were muttered when I realised how much had changed since I last attempted this. None of it looked familiar.

Eventually, once I'd figured out which buttons to click, we recorded our voice intro together. Marie had chosen the music, and it was up to me to marry the two. I suspect that whoever wrote the Audacity instruction manual never imagined there'd be a woman on the other end barking, “Envelope tool? WTF's the envelope tool? Ah, right, you mean the dotty thing. Well, why didn't you just say so in the first place?" Yet, to my astonishment, I did it! I put music and voice tracks together and added them to a mock podcast recording. Then, a few weeks later, when it was time to mix the outro, I discovered that my menopausal brain had forgotten everything I'd learned, so I learned it all again. Such is the curse of the middle-aged dog and new tricks.

In the meantime, I immersed myself in creating the video to go with the intro. In effect, it's thirty-something carefully timed slides. Think PowerPoint on steroids. Being a creative type, I loved this part. Fortunately, my son makes social media ads for a living. He offered sufficient constructive criticism to send me scuttling back to the drawing board. I should also thank author Jacqui Lents, who has her own Jaqui Just Chatters podcast and gave me loads of useful feedback, all of which was acted upon. The result was a pacy video that everyone agrees does not look like it was made by a fifty-five year old novice who types with four fingers.

Intro, Outro, Shake-it-all-aboutro

The talented Michelle Ford, host of the Two Women Chatting podcast, told me that however long I thought I'd need to edit the podcast, double it. She should have said times it a hundred-fold and add in a learning curve akin to climbing Everest in flip-flops. When it came to editing the interview itself, hours, nay, days of tinkering ensued.

The trick was to achieve a balance of smooth audio with video that didn't look like we were jerking all over the place because I'd cut a bit out. After all, some people will be listening, some viewing - both audiences deserve a great experience. I watched other people's podcasts to get an idea of what I could get away with. That sounds a bit half-arsed, doesn't it? Yet, I had to accept that I wasn't making a top telly programme for the BBC.

I once attended a publishing conference where the guy on stage said about authors who do endless revisions in a years-long quest to perfect their book, “It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough." That stuck with me. To avoid driving myself potty, I simply had to aim for good enough. Which is how I think it has turned out, and I'm happy with that.

What I hadn't accounted for, however, was producing the transcript, creating Show Notes, thinking up keywords for Google to pick up on, creating and editing clips for social media...the list seemed endless. Who thought doing a podcast would be an excellent hobby? Oh yeah, me (insert own rolling eyes emoji here).

The Aftermath

Of course, I know that your first is often your worst. By that, I mean the process, not the results. I'm proud of mistressinging these new skills, but hoping that the next time will take hours, not days.

The blind optimism and cheerful self-belief I referenced earlier does tend to get me into trouble (Mr V has banned me from zip wires after I had to be rescued down...twice). Nevertheless, believing that you can is a powerful thing. “Can" never holds you back.

By telling myself I can, I was giving myself permission to make mistakes. I made loads. But the great thing about being a “can" person is that I'm also convinced I can fix them. And somehow, I do, which serves to make me even braver the next time I face a challenge. Although I still haven't gone back on a zip wire.

Finally, I'm glad that the idea of something being good enough stuck with me. The great Geordie expression “my head's battered" truly applied by the time I got to the end of the process. Perfection was out of reach, but “good enough" was achievable. And that's what you want out of any new endeavour, isn't it? A sense of achievement.

I've passed my efforts over to Marie to check she's happy with the final product. Admittedly, if she suggests any changes, I might have to bury my face in a pillow for a good scream, but I do know she appreciates my half of our team as much as I appreciate her sorting out the guests, coming up with the practical ideas and crafting endless emails. Together, we will learn all the tricks and make the dream work.

A vintage microphone ready for recording heartfelt conversations.