The Admiral’s Log
Notes on podcasting from the Seaplane team.
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the whole story: the full, sometimes nonlinear, sometimes messy shape of someone's actual memory, kept intact as a historical document meant to last.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.
Podcast Production for Historical Societies
Audio content from a historical society starts with one of three goals: make an oral history accessible to people instead of sitting in a database, deepen local relevance so your community sees the society as alive and current rather than a building full of old things, or support a specific campaign like an anniversary, a new exhibit, or a membership drive.