A Podcast With A Twist…Attempt 1 of 2

 

It took me a long time to figure out what kind of podcast I was going to do. After having conducted a ton of interviews for my video projects, I really didn’t want to hear a bunch of people talking about 9/11 or Ground Zero or construction sites. So, I decided to think outside the box a little bit.

Probably my biggest challenge this semester was paying attention to capturing clean (or as clean as you can get on a consctruction site) audio when I was shooting. As a photographer, sound is simply not an issue.

So, while shooting my first segment, I picked up on something while capturing B-Roll. The audio I was hearing was very loud, booming…yet industrial…and reptitive…kind of like a hip-hop or dance beat. 

Well, something clicked under the hard hat that day, and I realized two things:

1. The music sounds industrial…and there happens to be a whole genre of music called industrial.

2. The repetition of the beats wouldn’t be that hard to mimic in the recording studio.

I also happened to have about 8 years of guitar lessons under my belt, so I was no stranger to building simple arrangements that are cohesive and have rythem. 

So, I decided to try two podcasts.

The first is inspired by the podcasts that FADER Magazine distributes on iTunes every month. They are meant to be played while you either flip through a physical copy of their magazine, or browse the .pdf that they provide with the podcast. What I did was find about 5-10 songs that I felt had an “industrial” vibe to them…that reminded me of the audio coming through my headphones while I was inside of Ground Zero for the first time.

I  teamed up with my study abroad roommate Benjamin Julia to produce a short industrial beat. He happens to be a senior in the Clive Davis School of Recorded Music at NYU, so we had plenty of access to a recording studio.

Some pictures from last session:

Benjamin Julia the helm of the audio ship.

“Look, just don’t touch anything OK?” was Benjamin’s first comment to me.

Listening to our previous session’s work.

Keeping track of the levels (pun not intended) in the studio

Portrait of Benjamin Julia.

Reflection of Benjamin in the door to the studio

“Benjamin our track is so complicated!,” I exclaimed when I saw this screen,”Dude, that’s not yours, relax”

It took us about two weeks in total to finish, but here is our track (looped twice..it’s only about 1:30 played once):

One note: Yes, the motorcycle sound is cheesy, but he refused to be apart of the project without at least one engine rev in it. Seriously. 

Read the next post for attempt 2 of 2, and a little bit more explanation about why I went the music route with the podcast…

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