The Admiral’s Log
Notes on podcasting from the Seaplane team.
Why "Audio-Forward" Matters
We describe ourselves as audio-forward, and it's not a stylistic flourish. It's the actual difference between a show that happens to be in audio and a show that was built to take advantage of everything audio can do that no other medium can.
How Much Editing Does a Raw Interview Need Before It Becomes a Real Story?
There's no universal ratio here, whatever rule of thumb you've heard about hours of editing per minute of finished audio. The real answer depends on what job the piece is actually doing. A tightly structured documentary segment often needs heavy shaping to hold together. A conversational, hangout-style interview show usually wants a much lighter touch, because part of what people are there for is the unfiltered, unpolished feeling of two people actually talking. The amount of editing should follow the format's job, not a fixed formula applied the same way to everything.
Adapting Oral History Interviews Into an Episodic Structure
Oral history and a narrative audio show exist to do two genuinely different jobs, even when they're built from the exact same recording. Oral history exists to preserve the whole story: the full, sometimes nonlinear, sometimes messy shape of someone's actual memory, kept intact as a historical document meant to last. A narrative show exists to shape material into an arc a listener will actually follow from beginning to end. Those two goals can pull in opposite directions: preservation wants completeness, storytelling wants selection and shape, and adapting oral history material into an episode means serving the second goal without quietly betraying the first.
Using Music and Sound Design in Documentary Podcasts
Sound design and music aren't decoration layered on top of a finished story. Done well, they're part of how the story gets told in the first place, sometimes doing work that narration and interviews can't do on their own. A few real, different approaches show how wide that range actually is.
How Long Should a Documentary-Style Episode Run?
Forgive our bluntness: that’s the wrong question!!!! (mostly.) A better one would be: how long does this specific story take to earn its ending? A documentary episode should run exactly as long as the material supports real depth, and not a minute longer just to hit a number that sounds standard.