Eyewitness Beauty
A weekly beauty-news podcast, built from a name, a rough idea, and a piece of theme music into a five-year-running show with a devoted audience.
The Situation
Nick and Annie came to Seaplane Armada hoping to turn their experience and credibility in the beauty world into a show. They needed it to be a light lift, timely, and fun to make. They came to us with backgrounds at companies and publications like Into The Gloss and Glossier, Nécessaire, and Soft Services, and a strong journalistic sense for stories within the industry. They also had a show name, a general sense of the kinds of stories they wanted to cover, a piece of theme music, and two strong, funny, opinionated voices. Having these pieces already put together is a huge leg up, but what they didn't have yet was a format, a structure, or any experience turning a conversation into something an audience would want to return to every week.
The Approach
Jessamine led the project from the initial concept all the way through production: developing the show's structure, shaping how episodes would be paced so they stayed fun and quick rather than indulgent, and building recurring segments the show could grow into. Nick and Annie were journalists and online personalities, not trained performers, so the real craft challenge was capturing their natural chemistry on tape and then shaping it into something dynamic in the edit. Edit too little and it’s unfocused and unprofessional. But if you edit too incisively, you risk flattening the personality that made them worth listening to in the first place.
The workflow that we developed became repeatable: record loose, deliberately leaving in way more material than needed so there was room to find the best version of the conversation. From there, get rid of the easy stuff and make content choices early in the paper edit, which was a chance for Nick and Annie to weigh in on what felt essential. Only after that did the actual audio cut happen, which helps keep the workflow budget-efficient. Editing down 80 full minutes of tape takes many more man hours than editing down 45. After that we gave them a fully listenable piece with their editorial decisions baked-in and publish-ready. Any final thoughts could be addressed speedily before publication. Over time, as the working relationship deepened, that notes process got faster, since Jessamine could increasingly anticipate what the hosts would want kept and what they'd want cut.
What Made This Project Distinct
Shows like this are personality-driven and rely on the development of the format to let those personalities shine. The job was building a structure flexible enough to let two non-performers sound like themselves at their best, week after week, while still giving a growing audience something consistent to hold onto. Segments got tested, some stuck and became recurring fixtures, others got retired when they weren't earning their place, an ongoing process of shaping the show in response to what was actually working rather than sticking rigidly to the original pitch.
The Outcome
Eyewitness Beauty ran independently funded for years with real audience loyalty built up along the way. Listener reviews describe it as "witty, funny, and educational" and "hands down my favorite beauty podcast," and the show earned endorsements from figures in the beauty and media world, including a nod from Vogue. We worked on this show with them for years, but eventually retired from the weekly work. Jessamine's formative development work on the show built the format and workflow that let Nick and Annie carry it forward well beyond that.
Seaplane Armada works with independent creators who have a real idea and real personality, but need help turning that into a show people come back to every week. If that sounds like what you're building, get in touch at theadmiral@seaplanearmada.com
