PodMov Daily: Monday, June 15

Episode 226: Your Monday Mix

Monday Q&A: The Podcasting Filmmakers of Femme Regard

With their film production company Femme Regard, Carolina Alvarez and Tessa Markle set out to reinvent cinematic roles from the female perspective. We spoke with the two artists about a key part of their work, Femme Regard Podcast, which has challenged its hosts and widened their community in rewarding, unexpected ways.

“We started this podcast to connect to our audience and share our journey since it can take years to share the final product of our films, something the typical follower may not realize,” they said. The show is based around realistic professional insight, designed to educate indie filmmakers “with some knowledge of the industry and a lot of drive.”

Now in its fifth season, the podcast has attracted listeners far outside the indie film community to spread advocacy for women in film. Alvarez and Markle share why they chose to start the podcast, how they’ve grown its listener base, how they’ve built up a consistent schedule of guests, and of course, film recommendations. Enjoy!

Podnews: The Case for Standardized Podcast Transcripts

“A transcript — a text-version of your podcast’s audio — is a good, useful thing,” writes Podnews editor James Cridland. However the process of producing, sharing, and controlling these documents is far from standardized. Cridland spoke to a wide range of industry professionals to check on the state of the script.

The reasons for providing transcripts, from accessibility to language support to SEO, are well known. Raz Kaplan, the Marketing Manager of Audioburst, told Cridland that two months after adding visible automated transcripts to the audio search platform, “we’ve received 80% more visitors from Google during our test period.”

Automated transcripts aren’t known for their accuracy, and some platforms have found that offering those of better quality isn’t worth the cost. Cridland explores solutions, including an RSS extension and standard format, that would give podcasters more control over how the world finds and reads their work.

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Here's what else is going on:

• Better half: Slate CRO Charlie Kammerer revealed during a publisher summit that 50% of The Slate Group’s revenue comes from its podcasts, like Slow Burn, Political Gabfest, and The Gist. After podcasting for 15 years, it’s “a recipe that we know works.”

• Screen free: In Hindustan Times, radio jockey Roshan Abbas writes about his personal love for podcasts and how India’s landscape has embraced both slickly produced and DIY shows. “Tune in to the new content revolution, which is a silent earful.”

• Sonic youth: The education publication Chalkbeat New York has more details on the remarkable winners of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge. Reema Amin reports on the hard circumstances that inspired both The Dragon Kids and The Flossy Podcast.

• New digs: A firmware update has been announced for the RØDECaster Pro podcasting console. Version 2.1 offers complete granular control over all processing parameters, more flexible recording and export options, and expanded multitrack capabilities.