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the whole story: the full, sometimes nonlinear, sometimes messy shape of someone's actual memory, kept intact as a historical document meant to last.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.
How Do You Build a Scene Around Old Tape?
Most archival recordings arrive with no setting, no context, no nothin’. You can hear what someone said, but not what the room looked like, who else was there, or why that particular moment mattered enough to record. And helpfully, the person who could tell you all of that is often gone, retired, or simply doesn't remember. Building a narrative around old tape usually means reconstructing what the recording can't tell you, and doing it honestly, without inventing details you don't actually have.
When Do Archival Recordings Actually Improve a Show?
Archival tape has a place in your show when it proves a point that a fresh recording can't, or it sounds like nothing else available and makes the episode more alive to listen to. Either one is a great reason to use it. But when you have archival tape that's neither, that’s probably an indicator that you’re using it only because it exists and feels like it should be used.
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.