To come up with my final product, I researched many podcasts of different genres and formats to decide which one I would like to do and could do successfully. I ended up deciding on a fiction podcast as I enjoyed listening to a podcast that I researched called ‘Welcome to Night Vale’. I was intrigued by the mystery/crime genre because I thought it would be interesting to make an eerie environment using sound while also revealing the details of a mystery slowly over a recording. I also listened to a podcast called ‘the Black Tapes’ which was centred more around crime than mystery which helped me further develop my ideas for what I wanted to do for my podcast.

To make a fiction podcast, I needed a story. I spent some time researching crimes that I could base my story on and came across a book called Allegedly by Tiffany D Jackson which is about a child who murdered a baby and the characters have to figure out why. This inspired me to explore a story like this and came up with a story about a woman who has been on the run from the authorities for 10 years after the murders of her husband and her youngest child. She is then forced to move from where she had been hiding because the authorities are getting close to finding her. But before leaving she decided she finally wanted to tell the authorities her side of the story through a recording which helps the detectives tie the loose ends of the case together. Overall, I was pretty happy with the story I came up with but had to find a way to make it interesting and entertaining whilst also giving enough details to the audience so they could understand and follow the story with ease. A challenge I faced when I made my first draft of the script was that I tried to fit too much information about the case into Sam’s recording. I did this because I wanted the audience to know every detail, however it felt forced and out of character so I decided I would need a narrator who could fill in the gaps beforehand so that the audience was caught up with the case. I made a couple of drafts of my bumper, narrative and script and had a friend who fit my target audience go over them to see if they understood and could piece together without me telling them, and, with a couple of adjustments, she was able to understand and found it interesting.

My recording process didn’t go as planned at times as I wanted to record through a zoom call using OBS, however, because of issues surrounding time zones and emergencies coming up, I found it best if me and the actor recorded separately and I would edit the audio together. After I finished recording my part and she sent me hers, I began my editing process. My process included splicing the audio together, cutting out mistakes, and adding sound effects and background music. I used sound effects that I found on YouTube and made a playlist of the ones that I was planning to use so that I could easily find them. When I finished putting it together, I rendered the audio and used premiere pro to make the audio sound like it was coming from a radio. I did this to further immerse the audience so that they could feel like they were part of the story. Immersion is important to achieve because it pushes the audience to feel empathy for Sam’s character; it is also the use and gratification of escapism. This is important in a fiction podcast because creating a world that feels real and alive keeps the audience interested and wanting to listen to more.

I think that my final product came out good. Some feedback I received was that the voice acting was good at evoking emotion and empathy for Sam from the audience. I was also told that the music and sound effects were realistic and helped indicate when the podcast was over. I had a well written and throughout script and succeeded in making an intriguing plot. However, a critique I received was that some parts of the podcast were too quiet due to the shaking and movement of my microphone. To improve this, next time I will find a more secure place to record and make sure to have a steady microphone so that the audio doesn’t sound out of place at times. If I were to continue my podcast, I would expand on the bumper and explain that the people speaking are detectives going through cold cases. This would help to explain why these are the stories being told and what the circumstances are behind each case they go through.