Recently we produced a series of video drafts as an exercise, designed for various social platforms, and the embedded clips below are the end result of that. They include a 30 second broadcast clip, a 45 second Instagram reel, and a 90 second, slightly longer-form video designed for Facebook or YouTube.
Promoting podcasts in a video medium is challenging. Social feeds are full of “clips” from podcasts (some of which may or may not actually exist) that rarely recruit listeners. We have found, even, that posting clips becomes the podcast for some followers. If your sole goal is growing follwership, this can be of benefit. If your goal is to produce an audio podcast, the rat race to offer sharable clips for socials can be a distraction, or even worse dissuade subscriptions on podcast platforms.
Even so, creating videos like these for a podcast can be a great exercise. In my long experience working professionally in Adobe Premiere, you will not always have the opportunity to go out and shoot a lot of gorgeous video. Often, your job is to make something out of a pile of assets and that’s really how I approached these videos. I used a mix of podcast clips, images, original scripting, capture, and narration to create three very different videos as opposed to three iterations of the same concept. Some of that was also driven by the trends and norms inherent to the platforms for which they were created. I approached each of these videos with those differences in mind, resulting in completely different end products.
Broadcast Ad (30 seconds)
Being realistic about the limitations of the runtime and competitive nature of broadcast, I took a more avant-garde approach. The video contains plays like a montage of non sequitur clips from the pod, all intentionally out of context with no backing music, narration, or explanation. This could get someone’s attention amid a sea of loud and more traditional broadcast advertisements. It’s a higher-risk approach and I’ve very deliberately stripped out any color (outside of the logo) or movement, instead highlighting the audio. The stark differentiation between it and most other ads could serve to pull in viewers who are curious about what they’re hearing. Feedback on the early draft included polite questioning of my approach. Part of being a video editor, in my experience, is knowing when to decline feedback, and my final version, while I’ve cleaned it up somewhat, does not significantly deviate from my original vision (for good or ill).
Storyboard
| 00:01 to 00:06 | Audio: “Arlo the Burping Pig” vs Survivor Burps game premise. Visual: Still from recording session. |
| 00:06 to 00:12 | Audio: Survivor castaway messages us while recording. Visual: Still from recording session. |
| 00:12 to 00:16 | Audio: Clip from interview with castaway Rita Verreos. Visual: Image from interview. |
| 00:16 to 00:20 | Audieo: Taylor reacts to Christopher’s research. Visual: Still from recording session. |
| 00:20 to 00:26 | Audio: Castaway Daniel Lue talks about his cast assuming season 6 was the final season twenty years ago. Visual: Image from interview with Daniel. |
| 00:26 to 00:30 | Audio: Taylor reacts to Christopher chugging vegan “clow blood.” Visual: Christopher showing his tongue like the season 3 cast. |
Instagram Reel (45 Seconds)
Instagram is a fast-paced platform so I started with a boilerplate of text that sits on top of the video for the duration. It’s meant to mimic TikTok style text overlays that convey the main point of a video before a person even grants their attention. It gives the tiniest possible elevator pitch for the podcast and the rest of the vertically-oriented clip consists of conversation between Digging for Idols’ co-hosts about the inspiration and basis of the show, carefully edited to fit the time constraints exactly. This most likely would be a boosted post targeted at followers of other Survivor-related accounts. I cleaned up some of the edits, adjusted audio levels, and tweaked a couple of graphics, but this, too, remains largely intact from its prior draft.
| Audio 00:00 to 00:40 | Co-hosts discuss the inspiration for and format of the podcast as a primer for potential listeners. |
| Visuals 00:00 to 00:06 | Images of Co-hosts. |
| Visuals 00:06 to 00:14 | Screen cap of scrolling through podcast episodes on Spotify. |
| Visuals 00:14 to 00:21 | Jump cuts through Christopher’s “Damu Bar” chugging. |
| Visuals 00:21 to 00:25 | Co-hosts interviewing castaway Daniel Lue. [still] |
| Visuals 00:25 to 00:29 | Co-hosts interviewing castaway Rita Verreos. |
| Visuals 00:29 to 00:40 | Misc. DFI images. |
| Visuals 00:40 to 00:45 | Vertically oriented “Dig in” graphic. |
| Audio 00:40 to 00:45 | “Welcome to Digging for Idols” episode excerpt. |
Facebook Video (1 min. 30 sec.)
Facebook, arguably, allows for more open-ended runtimes and increased attention spans. This is where you might go to learn something essential about a product or service. Along with that, the 1:30 runtime for this video provides a lot more space to explore a topic. As a result, this represents the most complete picture of the podcast from a video perspective.
To create it, I wrote a script and rehearsed it to take up almost exactly a 90 second window. I then recorded myself delivering that script using Riverside.fm, our podcast recording service, in sections, the best of which were then cobbled together into a 90 second skeleton. Around that skeleton I built a collection of clips and images that offer the basis for the podcast as well as flashes of its personality and the contents of an average episode.
Rather than a storyboard for this one, I will include the script—though it may not match 100% as I did my best to deliver it extemporaneously—because it guided all the supplementary choices. In my experience, often beginning with the narration or essential facts of a video, if you’re dealing with a speaker, is the first step to determining how to approach other creative elements because you may not be able to plan for pacing, delivery, or timing.
[“Hey, it’s Christopher from the Digging for Idols podcast. Do you like shows about weird intersections in pop culture or niche entertainment interests? Well, we’ve got a weird one for you. My co-host Taylor and I are big fans of the show Survivor, and we noticed that if you compile all the acting performances and appearances by Survivor players in other tv series and movies, you get well over 600 credits. That’s basically what our show is all about.
Each episode, we pick one acting performance by a Survivor castaway—whether it be in a feature film, short film, music video and in any capacity, starring role, non-speaking role, cameo—whatever it is, we watch it, we connect it to their Survivor experience and rate it on a Survivor themed scale. And we jump all around the show’s history covering legends as well as players who maybe didn’t quite become household names. It’s a very different way to engage with the fandom because we don’t recap episodes of Survivor.
This is not just a show for Survivor fans but anyone who enjoys digging through IMDb pages and reflecting on the relationship between different areas of entertainment. Along the way we do lots of giggling, get into some of the hot goss, and we’ve even had some Survivor castaways on the show. You can get Digging for Idols wherever you get your podcasts so come check out the pod and say hi on any of our socials @diggingforidols.”]
Reflection
Presenting a video production of a good or service, in my experience, can vary tremendously based on the platform for which it is designed as well as the nature of the subject. In this case, to promote a podcast and at the very least attempt to pull viewers as social media followers, the most essential elements in my estimation were to communicate the central conceit of the show and its uniqueness, demonstrate its personality, and provide a sampling of what one would encounter as a listener or social follower. Approaching from this perspective boxes me in as a videographer in some ways. It makes little sense to forge out and collect cinematic video clips when a more authentic and direct representation is to lean on the established tone and media profile of the show. The result, I think, is a set of videos that are carefully suited to the platforms for which they are intended and provide an authentic view of the podcast.
Leave a Reply