A message from Katharine Kerr, Director:
Communicate. Engage. Entertain. Empower.#keepcreating
Dear All,
I hope you’re all keeping well and that you and your loved ones are staying in touch. At the moment a lot of people are still adjusting to the changes brought by the current conditions.
But plenty of businesses are still working to deliver their usual services in a new way, and if you had a podcast planned, there’s no need to write it off just yet. We’re here to help.
In fact, using this most personal medium to communicate information and updates, address current issues or just show you are there for your customers can be powerful at this time.
My accountant called me last week just to say that they were there if the business needed anything. That small act struck me with solidarity, and we increasingly see these acts of connection and community across the patchwork of our homes, neighbourhoods and social media feeds. We truly are all in this together, and eventually, this will pass.
Perhaps face-to-face events and meetings are a thing of the past for now, but our world is far more creative than that, and hand in hand with the fantastic technology that is available to us, we are able to harness both.
We will continue communicating, engaging, entertaining and empowering voices wherever they are and whatever the circumstances. Because we can.
I’m not going to say it doesn’t break my heart a little, that I might not be recording on the ramparts of a castle, tramping through a busy crowd or capturing the sound of laughter and chatter in beautiful public spaces over the next few months. After all, location recording is a wonderful way to immerse us all in a different place. But it’s not the only way!
We have loads of options for remote recording now. The question is, which one to choose? Depending on whether you’d still like to incorporate a face-to-face element with your recordings and include video calls, or if you have a less tech-savvy contributor who can only lend your their voice, we’ve got a plan that doesn’t compromise the quality of your output.
A couple of weeks ago, before Covid-19 took hold, I was asked on a programme whether we should still aim for broadcast quality in our podcast recordings. My answer was yes then as it is now, with the caveat that the biggest priority should be that your content is good and that your listener can hear it without straining or distraction. That doesn’t change one jot.
And on another note, in some cases this may even present some people with an easier solution than in-person recording. Gone are the budgets for planes, trains and automobiles. Suddenly incredible talent has unprecedented availability (although I wouldn’t quite call this a positive for our cherished public performers and presenters), and as a producer, getting five different and very busy people to a remote location at once isn’t the scheduling jenga is usually is. Safe to say, we can respond with high-quality solutions, and fast.
If you’d like to invest in decent USB microphones, of course we can advise on the best to use, but our mobile phones – recently mocked for their pernicious invasion of our private spaces – present the most simple and basic option: a quality microphone and built in recording device.
So we are turning all these tricks to our benefit here, and I do hope that by getting our heads down and making the best of now, we can return to our public places, stronger, more connected and more grateful for those we love and value in a year’s time.
We’re here if you need us, so don’t hesitate to call for advice (or just a chat!)
Very Best Wishes,
Katharine