Podcasting

Task 1.1

Podcasts can have many different components, including background music, credits and images. Podcasts are not directly audio based and can be of a video variant.

An example of a podcast is this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pmWjsS0LvY&t=29s

In this podcast the two are shown on screen discussing tech news and things going on with the media in games. They have back and forth discussions and the chat between them flows, there is no music just their voices and their cameras clear as crystal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBBRoCCINu4

And in this podcast we have three people sitting on screen discussing the latest trends in game culture and upcoming titles. They have clear video of them sitting in the room with their mics and the audio is crisp clear. You don't even need to watch it to understand what's going on.

Task 1.2

Software - Software is necessary for podcasts, people can use basic software like recording software if they are screen-capping. Or they can have good editing software to make their interface and make their final cut.

They can use software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Windows Movie Maker and Sony Vegas, to name a few. These are all amazing programs able to easily compile footage and put it together into a cut.

Scripts - Scripts are heavily important for podcasts. They can be the very foundation of the topics and what the people will discuss. Half the time they follow the script word for word, or they follow certain plans and then have some improvised opinion pieces between them.

On the other hand, sometimes the podcast can be entirely improvised or have little input in terms of scripting. Giving a slightly natural feel to the whole thing.

Resources - Headphones are good to use in a podcast, as you can hear your own voice and the quality it carries with it. The microphones you use in correlation with this should be of good quality to determine the best outcome.

Publishing - To publish a podcast one must upload it to the internet. Social media is one of the many sites people can use to spread word of the podcast. Or even Youtube, where many, if not loads get uploaded to.

Task 1.3

Libel - Defaming a person or publishing statements about them that do not hold true, with the intend of harming their reputation.

Copyright - The legal right, given to a creator of any piece of work so they can distribute their work.

PRS - A society that includes composers, music publishers and songwriters. Any lyric that is repeated in public or on other services like radio stations and TV channels, is licensed. This also is the same for songs put onto CDs, DVDs and the internet.

Example of Libel: Robin Williams once sued a celebrity lookalike of his who was being assisted by an agent, to pose as Williams himself. The lookalike avoided having to pay damages and was barred from imitating Williams ever again.

Example of Copyright: If someone uploads a cartoon, show or podcast onto Youtube, and they are not an official uploading source (directly associated with it). Then they have the right to take down the video, even result in putting a strike on your channel. Depending on the circumstances, copyright can be a serious thing to cross varying on the company.

Example of PRS: If someone were to upload a song, similar to how copyright works, the studio could have the right to take it down, or mute the track from making money. Sometimes, companies can take the video and 'monetise' is, meaning any advertisements that play on the track, they make money off of it, as they own the rights to the track.

Task 1.4

An example of a podcast is this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pmWjsS0LvY&t=29s

In this podcast the two are shown on screen discussing tech news and things going on with the media in games. They have back and forth discussions and the chat between them flows, there is no music just their voices and their cameras clear as crystal.

The main gender demographic is males aged 16 and older, they discuss very technical things and the purpose is to listen to opinions on things to do with gaming media.

Another one is this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBBRoCCINu4

And in this podcast we have three people sitting on screen discussing the latest trends in game culture and upcoming titles. They have clear video of them sitting in the room with their mics and the audio is crisp clear. You don't even need to watch it to understand what's going on.

The target age is most likely 16 and older, gender I would say is more diverse but mostly male still. As the vibe gives a neutral feel and they talk about very casual things in comparion to the previous one.

An example of another podcast is this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4t-AuUkeKQ

A sports podcast done by a few people, purely audio talking about the latest things in sports including controversial topics in sports. I'd say the target audience is 13 and older males as they talk about athletes and their current business and what's going on in the sports world.

And finally - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jt3CWrQCaU

This is a podcast done by a few friends talking about films and filming in media. And them discussing their opinions on the films, in this one, they discuss the marvel film 'Logan'. I'd say the target audience for this would be mixed male and females, it's very chill and funny, just a few friends messing around and sharing a passion of film.

Task 2.1

I am going to make my podcast about the animation studio, Lerche studios. A japanese animation company who have done many series, some of which I will cover in the podcast. Two series I will focus on will be Danganronpa: The Animation and Persona 4: The Animation.

I will record with my mic, and use Sony Vegas Pro to make the final cut, that should be all I need, I have high quality AKG headphones to make sure the sound is top notch. I will not need guest speakers for this however, this will be solely me.

Task 2.2

My target audience for this will be males aged 16 and over, people interested in Japanese animation and darker themes. Anyone interested in animation as a whole really. Other media they'd enjoy would be shows like Soul Eater, Attack on Titan and Assassination Classroom.

Task 2.3

With the success of Japanese animation (otherwise known as anime), there have been many studios to exist as of recently, helping to make and develop some fantastic shows (Soul Eater footage) and some, not so
fantastic series (Sailer Moon Crystal footage). We've had many different studios, from Bones Studio (Skull Man footage) to Gainax (Panty and Stocking footage).

But the focus of this video is Studio Hibari, or rather, one of it's sub-divisons, Lerche Studios.

Founded in July 1979, Studio Hibari has had many years of experience, having many different solo-projects and co-produced pieces of work, and Lerche is one of their more prominent ones to come out from the
darkness.

(Show footage of Danganronpa)

The first of many series I intend to cover that Lerche has worked on is quite an odd one. In premise and story. (Show footage courtroom spin).

Danganronpa, originally a game series, this got adapted into an anime series too, having the same general plot and characters as the original game too.

The story involves a group of students (fifteen) being thrown into some very special school, known as Hope's Peak Academy, where if you graduate, it is said that your future will be fanatastic, memorable
and easy.

Our Protagonist, going by the name of Makoto Naegi however, soon enters and finds himself knocked unconscious by something unknown, soon waking up with all the other students and having no recollection
of what just happened. It's not long when they soon explore the school and come across an odd bear of some kind. (Show footage of Kuma tyring to explain what he is).

That's about when the slightly weirdness ends though, as what they're told soon after is that they have to kill to escape. You heard right. And not just kill to escape, but they have to kill someone, and get
away with the murder. If they're caught as the killer, they will be executed (Example footage), if they're not caught as the killer, then everyone else will be executed instead (Other example footage).

Of course this freaks most of them out, but not until the first murder occurs, then the real investigation begins. (Investigation footage)

Once in the courtroom, they begin to act in something called a nonstop debate, wherein the students have to talk and decide who killed the victim, in this case, one clue leads to the downfall of a student
by the name of Leon Kuwata. Having been found out, his execution soon follows (show footage whilst talking over).

Now what about this anime is good? Well clearly Lerche took some good looks at the original game and did a fine job adapting them into this animated universe of the same story. The character's voices are spot
on to how they should sound (examples).

Well, most of them sound spot on, a few of them in my opinion sound a tad off, and a few need some tweaking for future installments.

In addition to the wonderful voice acting, the visuals look identical to the original and the music is exactly how it should sound. However upon research it did turn out that they ripped many tracks from the
game to use in the anime. This isn't too much of an issue as it also turns out they did some tweaking of their own by making some of their own versions of the music. They made some tracks a tad different,
by adding instruments or vocals to songs that previously didn't have them, or subtle changes to the songs.

Some songs also were made specifically for the anime, which is a detail that I highly appreciate them doing. The story is also point for point in this thirteen episode series, which is nice so they don't
seem like they've made any drastic changes or alienated the audience that may want to see what they've experienced once in visual novel form, in a full on funded animated series.

Onto the cons however, and these aren't overly major ones by any means, but I have already mentioned one gripe I have with the characters sounding a tad off than how I think they should sound, granted, this
is more of a personal complaint. So don't let this taint your view of it by any means.

On the other hand I have more of a valid complaint about this series, now, the game spans about thirty to over forty hours, and the anime lasts 13 episodes, this means that loads and loads of plot, character
development and emotion gets wasted as we end up going through six cases, which if you do the maths, means every other episode almost, is the murder happening and the cases happening. Which means that when
you find out the killer, any sort of emotional section they shoehorn in (in this version at least), gets wasted completely as you don't get enough time to bond with these characters, it feels like an overview
of the whole story, not an actual in-depth experience with the characters and learning them one by one like the original game did. (Footage of Leon/Mondo being found guilty).

So do I recommend you watching this series? Oh yes I do, if you'd rather not watch a playthrough of it on someone's bland Youtube channel of course, or if you'd rather not pick up the game, as it is not
everyone's taste. Lerche clearly understood what to do and handled the series, in my opinion, very well, with a few hiccups in voice direction and pacing, I reccomend this highly to any fan of murder mystery.

(Footage of some sort)

Silence for a second, then move onto Persona 4 The Animation

(Footage of the Opening)

Onto another series that Lerche had heavy involvement in, Persona 4 The Animation (show title card), also based off of a game, this company has a thing for doing adaptations of games and manga.

The story in this series involves out protagonist, Yu Narukami, entering the small town of Inaba Japan to live with his uncle and cousin for a year.

Things seem simple until he ends up hearing about a rumour with his newfound friends, which involves turning on a TV on a rainy night to see your 'soulmate'.

Soon after hearing this, suddenly a woman on the local news gets murdered, and things seem odd about these two events and almost as if they're connected. When the protagonist one night watches TV, he finds out that he can go inside a TV when he touches the screen, though his friends
are doubtful at first they soon believe him, once they actually see it for themselves. They find themselves inside another world and come across a mysterious creature known as 'Teddie', who's been there since
as long as he can remember.

Once out things seem peachy, until  eventually another woman gets killed in a similar fashion, and the protagonist's friend suggests that it has to be connected. Possibly to that other world as they found a very odd room that was almost identical to another room in the real world. Assuming these women found a way to get into that world, just like they did.

Soon after, the protagonist awakens to a power known as a 'Persona' another side of him that lets him fight creatures known as 'Shadows' that reside in the TV world. Moments later, once the protagonsits
friend faces his other self and obtains his persona, they realise that this world did kill those women, and someone was throwing them in there.

They then make a promise to catch this killer by any means necessary and save all the other victims and get them their personas to increase their power as a group and bring justice to the killer.

The pros of this anime? It is creative, in many ways, of course there are some tropes in this show too but Lerche had heavy involvement with the original game an as such clearly knew what they were doing with this series."

The characters are all well-defined, some getting more screentime than others but it comes with the fact it's a progressive story with a mystery ever coming closer to its conclusion. The colours are bright, varied and vivid to the eyes too, and they change tone only when needed.

The voice acting is top-notch, and I feel all characters are voiced well by their respective actors and there are no voices I can find to complain about even if I try to find one that grates on me.

The action sequences are some of the best I've seen, and also is well, very well animated and slick, and every impact feels right. The music, much like Danganronpa is ripped from the games too, and really feels energetic when it needs to be, I also enjoyed the opening and credit pieces they made, two for each.

The cons on the other hand, well there's a major one, and again, like Danganronpa, there seems to be an issue with the pacing of this anime feels very off. No I don't mean how Danganronpa spanned 13 episodes and felt brief.

This is a different issue, you see, the pacing in this anime is hindered by something known as the 'calander'. In the original game, you had set days, and events on those days, the calander simply was used to show you time is ticking and deadlines needed to be met. The issue with this is it is used as a mechanic to deliver some, slightly off pacing, firing many scenes at you in one episode.

This is extremely apparent as the show goes on, and while it does cover eveything in the game, it is easier to understand if you've played the game and have experienced this before. But then the question arises, should you watch this if you happen to not want to play the game and just want to know what happens?

To which I say yes, it just is a bit quick at times and a few scenes that are intended to be funny
are just not, and some are hilarious, but humour is subjective.

In the end Lerche did a fine job with this series and they even still make shows to this day, which really shows how far they've come, and they're still kicking on now.

Task 2.4

The first section of my podcast will have me introducing the studio and what they've done, when they originated.

Then I will move on to discussing Danganronpa: The animation, and what the pros and cons are of the show and if I could recommend it to newcomers.

I will then move on to talking about Persona 4: The animation, and the things that it contains, pros, cons and such like Danganronpa.

And I will conclude and wrap up the whole thing at the end.

Task 3.1

I will be using part of a headset's mic to record my podcast, and I will have my headphones with it to make sure the quality is decent.

I will also use Sony Vegas to edit the final cut.



Task 3.2


These are audio channels in Sony Vegas Pro, the same ones I will use for my podcast. They are all able to mute, add effects to channels such as reverb, amplify, tone down volume and many other things.

Task 3.3

I have sat down and done the script, and I have read through my script. I have recorded my lines and I read from the script word for word.

I recorded many lines separately so I can easily cut and edit them into the timeline, with this I can easily slap stuff together. And nothing is clumped up.

Sony Vegas Pro will easily help me edit this all together into one final cut.

Task 3.4

I am going to edit my podcast now.

I have gone on to Sony Vegas Pro and have imported all audio and video clips. I placed the audio into the timeline after cutting it in the preview media section. I put no background music in the video so my voice was clearly heard.

After doing this I placed my video clips into the video, suitable to what i am talking about (mainly the anime I am talking about). And that way the audio and video sync up so the audience grasps what is going on.

When I was finished I exported it and rendered the video, which can now be put on Youtube.

Task 3.5

I didn't change anything recording-wise, it fits the script entirely, I checked by having the script up, and playing the final cut at the same time.

I didn't add anything I didn't plan whatsoever, everything was planned perfectly.

Task 3.6

The best format to save my podcast is mxf, the standard for Sony Vegas video files, video. I will use this because I have put audio and video into this. The audio and video will be compatible with Youtube and the cut will look it's best when there's video with it.

Task 4.1

In the picture below, this is the first screen to go to when uploading, by simply clicking on the arrow picture above "Select files to upload", you can begin.


Below, the list of possible files to upload will appear, and you can select your file to upload. Unfortunately, my file contains clips of anime I discuss, and thus it cannot be uploaded onto Youtube... So an mxf will be provided instead.


Task 4.2

I feel my podcast came out great, the final edit works like a charm, it's short sweet and to the point, it wasn't too boring. I enjoyed editing loads as I do it in my spare time, so it came just naturally to me, I had the feeling of creativity and nothing stopping me expressing my tastes.

I could've improved on my mic quality being better, maybe turning up the feedback it took in from my voice. Or maybe I could've had more moments where the scenes playing had the forefront of the audio department.

As a whole, I felt like I have grasped what it is to make a podcast,t he raw freedom and creativity to be able to make your opinions and tastes known. Being passionate helps you open up how you feel and people can listen, and challenge or agree to your views.


Aimee's feedback was helpful, I feel she has pointed out the very good points I raised and the positives I had in the podcast as a whole.

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