The Admiral’s Log
Notes on podcasting from the Seaplane team.
Should You Build an Audio Tour or a Podcast?
These get talked about like they're the same thing, which makes sense because they’re both informative audio, but because they serve different purposes they really should be thought of as a different thing entirely. A podcast is built to be found anywhere, by anyone, whenever they want it. An audio tour is built for one specific moment: someone standing in front of something real, wanting more context right now. Those are different uses entirely, and knowing the difference will directly relate to how you build the piece and how successful it is.
Why We Only Take Certain Projects
We turn down more work than people expect from a two-person shop. Some of that comes down to simple math, a budget that doesn't actually cover the work being asked for. Most of it comes down to something less transactional: whether the project is one we actually want to make.
How a Boutique Studio Works Differently Than an Agency
At most agencies, the person who pitches you isn't the person who makes your show. A senior creative director sells the vision in the room, and the actual work gets handed down to whoever's available on staff that month, sometimes talented, sometimes junior, always a step removed from the person you actually trusted with the idea. At a boutique studio, that gap doesn't exist. The people pitching the vision are the same people in the edit at midnight making it real.
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 We Collaborate With Communications Teams Day to Day
Most of the organizations we work with have a communications team already stretched across a dozen other responsibilities. Our job is to make working with us feel like one more capable hand on the project, not one more thing to manage.
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the whole story: the full, sometimes nonlinear, sometimes messy shape of someone's actual memory, kept intact as a historical document meant to last.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.
Building Narrative Tension in Nonfiction Audio
Narrative tension in a nonfiction piece is about timing more than it is big juicy details. Often the details you’re working with are complex and smaller than some kind of big reveal. You can't manufacture an obstacle that wasn't there, or write in a twist that didn't happen, but what you can do is find the honest, real tension that's already buried in the material, and structure the story so a listener feels it the way you felt it discovering it yourself.
Should You Build Production In-House or Outsource It?
Advertising and PR agencies have run this experiment for decades: build an in-house production team to save money, discover a few years in that it didn't save money and the work got worse, dismantle the team, go back to outside production partners, and repeat the whole cycle again about ten years later. That pattern keeps recurring for a real reason, not bad luck. In-house production only works at a scale most organizations never actually reach.
How Do You Know If Your Organization's Story Is Strong Enough for a Series?
Importance and narrative strength are different things, and it's easy to confuse them. A mission can matter enormously and still not have enough story in it to sustain more than one good episode. The real question isn't how important the work is. It's whether there's real narrative material underneath it.
Who Is This Show Actually For?
A podcast built to serve two different audiences equally, in every episode, usually ends up serving neither one well. Pick a single, real audience to build for, and let everyone else benefit as a side effect of the show being good.
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.
How Many Interviews Does One Episode Actually Need?
Not a number. A question: does this next voice tell the listener something the episode doesn't already know? If the answer is no, adding it doesn't make the episode more thorough. It just makes it longer.
Single Host or Multiple Hosts — When Does Each Work?
A second host only earns their seat if the relationship between hosts is engaging and fills a purpose. If two people are just taking turns reciting prepared points at each other, that's one host's job split awkwardly between two people, not a genuine co-hosted show. If one co-host mostly sits and provides occasional color, that’s a baseball game not a podcast.
Should Your Founder or Executive Director Be the One Hosting Your Podcast?
Hosting is a distinct skill from leading an organization, and it doesn't automatically come bundled with the job title. The person with the most authority to speak on a topic and the person best equipped to carry a conversation on mic are sometimes the same person. Often they're not.
Does a Podcast Need Video, or Is Audio-Only Enough?
Most of the recent push toward video podcasts is coming from platforms, not from anything that actually makes a show better. Once a major platform decided to bet on video (hellooooo Spotify!), pressure trickled down to every show, video or not. Audio-only remains the stronger craft choice for the large majority of shows, and tacking on video tends to make the product worse while multiplying the cost. By a lot. That said—video does have its place with the right show.
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.
Should A Podcast Be Seasonal or Ongoing?
Most organizations default to "ongoing show" without really deciding it. It's the shape people picture when they picture a podcast, so it's the shape they build toward, even when nobody's actually checked whether there's enough material to sustain it past episode ten.
Should This Be a Documentary or an Interview Podcast?
A podcast is one of the only media formats that doesn't actually require a fixed length or shape. There's no twenty-two-minute rule, no broadcast hour to fill. That freedom is the whole advantage of the medium, and it's exactly why this particular choice matters more than people assume. Get it wrong, and you either force rigid structure onto material that wanted room to breathe, or let material ramble that actually needed a real shape.
Podcasts for Environmental and Conservation Nonprofits
Environmental and conservation nonprofits can use podcasting as a way to diversify their communications efforts and move towards specific messaging goals: build an emotional connection to a place or species that a fact sheet can't create, translate complex science or policy for donors and the public, or document fieldwork directly, giving supporters real access to the work their donations fund.