For this episode, I turned off the music and the sound effects and spoke frankly to my listeners about where the podcast is and where I hope to take it. I go over some changes to the structure of the show, and ask for your help to promote the show to your friends. No Pixar news or interviews, but if you want to get inside my head and see how it works, have a listen.
Here is the new logo for the podcast. I hope you like it!
Here is a summary of my “address” to you:
Areas of Needed Improvement
Faster responses to your emails.
More consistency in the schedule. In the past I have delivered feasts and famines. For the listeners, I want to do better at creating an expectation and then delivering on it.
The Future of the Podcast
When I started the show, the idea was weekly news, with occasional feature episodes with cool guests and other stories. This was really out of my assumption that getting guests to come on would be very difficult. Much to my delight, I was wrong about this, and I have some amazing guests and feature ideas slated for the coming weeks. So much so, that the thought of putting out a weekly news episode with fact-checking and engaging clips, on top of the feature episode preparation and editing, seemed daunting. In short, I would not be able to do it alone.
So from here on out, the mission is reversed: weekly feature episodes, and monthly news wrap-ups. I love creating the news episodes, but I am even more excited about creating episodes that will be of worth for a longer period of time–the news episodes tend to have a short shelf-life for how much time required to prepare them (every episode, whether news or feature, takes anywhere from 10-20 hours or more to produce on average, so I want that time to spent on something that will really last.)
The blog format is more suited for staying informed, and the Pixar blogging scene is already loaded with great information. Our monthly news episodes here will be more in-depth and analytical, and hopefully will be more than just me talking as I bring on guest hosts, correspondents, etc.
This is not for lack of news. It’s a reallocation of time toward episodes that I feel will be longer lasting and interesting for a more broad audience of Pixar and animation fans.
I’ve created new artwork for the show. I hope you like it.
The RSS feed has been updated, so you may have duplicate episodes in your iTunes library. I recommend deleting them all and downloading them all again. I have learned more about RSS since starting the show, so this should not be a frequent exercise with the structure I have in place now.
As you can see, the website has been updated, and I want to point out that as of this week, the audio player for streaming any episode live has been updated as well. It now works in any browser, even on the iPad which does not support Flash. If it doesn’t work for you, or you experience any technical troubles at all, please let me know.
Audience/Mission
In my mind as I record each episode I have two groups of listeners in mind that I can act as surrogate for when interviewing guests: Fans and Students. If you don’t fit into either group but listen to the podcast, please let me know!
Pixar is home base for all topics, but since most Pixar fans are really animation fans, and most animation Students are interested in learning about the entire industry rather that only one company, we occasionally will branch out with guests from other studios. But we will always come back home to Pixar. That does not mean the perspective will always be pro-Pixar–in everything we do here, we answer primarily to the listeners.
Schedule
The show will continue to be weekly, but to help that be more consistent, Friday morning will be the official publication time that you can look forward to every week.
Communication
Please follow my Twitter and Facebook pages–they will help you stay informed about the show, as well as about Pixar (and fun videos and links throughout the week).
Now there’s a blog you can follow (ideally in your RSS Reader to stay up to date) to stay up on the latest podcast news: blog.thepixarpodcast.com. This is not a blog about Pixar news; it is about podcast news. I will also occasionally write my thoughts about podcasting on this blog–it is purely to keep you informed with the goings on here.
Look out for a survey in the future. I’d like to know who’s listening.
How YOU Can Help the Show
The big goal I have right now is to expand the listenership. I hope that by focusing on more widely appealing feature episodes, more people will discover they are interested in listening. If you enjoy this show, I hope that you will share it with your friends; the more people listen to the show, the easier it is to get great guests to come on. Please spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, booths on street corners, etc.
Also, if you write a review in the iTunes Store, the show gets rated higher in their system and more people will get a chance to see the show featured in iTunes.
I love doing this show, and that’s why I spend so much time doing it. It has been most rewarding to know that this show has already helped animation students and fans to get a better idea about the world of Pixar and animation. Moving forward, fully aware of my weaknesses, I can’t wait to give you some great audio content to listen to. Sincerely, thank you.
Good luck derrick, we all liked your podcasts and i have sent you a mail. Please check that out. Cheers