Examine Asian American identity By Revisiting Influential Asian & Asian-American Cinemas

My name is Sean Niu. Like many Asian American creators, I spent time accumulating accomplishments on my resume (Finance, Business School, Tech) before finally getting sick of hedging for the future. I quit my job to pursue my creative voice which has become The Electric Image Express.

The Electric Image Express is a podcast on Asian American identity, culture, and other issues related to minority identity framed by revisiting favorite Asian and Asian American film.

My listeners are mostly millennial American minorities who are interested in Asian American stories and Asian film.

When I set out to focus on my creative passions, I thought I would be working on writing, photography, and painting more. I was sick of yearning for other popular pop culture/movie podcasts such as The Rewatchables to cover some of my favorite Asian movies such as The Wedding Banquet, Chungking Express, Akira, or The Big Sick, so I decided to make one myself. I wanted to celebrate these Asian and AAPI creatives who have often been overlooked by Hollywood.

My first podcast was released on April 14, 2020. It was a monologue with a 20 min segment featuring my mother and her immigrant story as a Taiwanese American in the 1970s. It took about a week of recording and re-recording to finally get the format down. After the 4th episode where I had my first full-time guest for Harold and Kumar, I haven’t looked back. Now content creation and production takes about half a day in total.

I try to release at least twice a week. I currently use a program called Descript that transcribes my recording into text, which makes editing easier.

I don’t have a day job right now— if I did I think I could hit one podcast a week.

The only cost right now is for Descript, which is less than $20 a month. I sometimes pay for IG advertising but I haven’t found it worthwhile so far. I am hiring a growth marketing intern that will receive a monthly marketing budget.

I currently do not have sponsorship. I did not set out to make this a career but I do actively think about sustainably growing the listener base. Podcasting has become an excellent platform for me to express opinions and uplift other voices around Asian American identity— a topic that I am extremely passionate about. It has also helped me develop skills and experience in design, marketing, audio production, content production, and people management— all skills that I believe will be extremely helpful for any creative career I will pursue in the future.

Hardware: I use a Blue Yeti USB Mic with a pop filter.
Software: I either use Zoom for recording or record separate tracks on Audacity. I use Descript for editing, and upload to ZenCast (RSS provider)

Guests: Currently I identify a film and topic that I care about and have reached out to people in my social network that have related experiences to the topic. For example, I have a British South Asian friend who is an amateur actor/comedian who joined me to talk about the British Pakistani comedy Four Lions. I am still debating whether I want to interview people directly associated with the films or continue to find relevant voices who were deeply affected by the films.

Prep: I have a template that I share with my guests that helps them understand how I structure my episodes. (Roughly film background—> actors/director—>Asian American themes—> categories) If its their first time, I have a call with them a couple days before the recording to make sure they understand what to prepare. On the day of recording, we hop on a Zoom call.

I have an IG and Twitter account for the show:

• IG: electricimageexpress
• Twitter: the_electric_image_express

I typically post when each episode is released— on IG I often include a short clip from the movie. All marketing links to Spotify which has the more detailed audience measurement tools compared to Zencast. Otherwise I try to tag and message creators who are relevant to the episode and get them to listen and share.

Best advice is to just get out there and experiment. The barrier to entry for podcasting is extremely low. My first few episodes were recorded on my iPad and edited on the free software Audacity. Although I started as a single host I do think having a core group of guests is crucial for having snappy, entertaining content. Experienced guests improve their performance and having multiple participants helps each other person gather their thoughts.

I didn’t refer to any resources when starting because I just wanted to jump right in. I constantly listen to podcasts so I had a good idea of the type of content I wanted to create.

I usually spend 2-3 minutes per episode talking about my podcasting experience at the start or end of each episode so please give my show a listen:)

I have a website where I post writing, photography, and my podcasts. sean-niu.squarespace.com

My instagram and twitter are also constantly active with my photography and thoughts: @sameseanniulook