Podumentary - Deep Diving Documentaries

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► Tell us about you and your podcast

I (Melanee Dark) am a former voice actor and current marketing director and digital strategist who LOVES documentaries. Jim is a video game producer, musician and documentary lover as well! Personal backstory: we dated for a couple of years in college as fellow theater majors and remained friends as a part of a huge group of friends/fellow CSULB theater majors here in Los Angeles.

In each episode we recap and completely unpack a documentary for our target audience: fellow documentary obsessives!
 

► Why & how did you start this podcast? 

I'm a huge podcast consumer and a big fan of after show podcasts. I came up with the concept for Podumentary in late 2017 when I went searching for an after show podcast centered on documentaries and couldn't find any! I figured, who better to launch a documentary after show podcast than someone with my varied experience and passion for docs?

I worked on developing the show format and branding throughout 2018. Pre-production slowed during a BIG full time job in 2019, and then just when I left that gig to go freelance and concentrate on the podcast...a years long pandemic hit! When freelance again in 2002 and was FINALLY able to launch the podcast in August of 2022! We had to go on immediate hiatus because of some BIG relocations but are now re-settled and going back into production in January of 2024!
 

► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?

That remains to be seen but the goal is weekly. It takes about 8 hours to prepare for each episode, 4 hours in the studio to record and about 4 hours to edit and assemble.

I often don't, which has been a problem, but I've recently pivoted our recording model out of a professional studio and into my home studio and am also adding a content bucket of mini-episodes that will feature just myself. The hope is that these changes will allow for greater time and financial flexibility and let production become a bit more fluid.

So far I've primarily funded this podcast myself with a couple of one-time costs covered by my co-host.
 

► What do you gain from podcasting?        

We don't yet have the sufficient listenership and downloads to have acquired sponsorships or revenue but that's the plan for 2024! I am excited about the built in sponsor/advertiser connections available in RedCircle and RSS.com and will likely start there and grow from there.

We're hopeful because even with only 4 episodes we've had nearly 2,200 downloads with zero marketing or earned media.
 

► How does your podcasting process look like? 

Website: Podpage

Hosting: RedCircle

Editing: Adobe Audition

Graphics, Video et al: Canva Pro

Microphones: Yeti

For each episode I first watch a documentary all the way through. Then I watched it a second time to take detailed notes. I then use the notes to create an outline for Jim and I to follow for the recap. I send Jim the outline with notes and Jim also watches once for enjoyment, then again using the outline I created to format his notes in step with my own.

We haven't yet done an interview but plan to - both the director of the George Carlin documentary as well as producer and daughter Kelly Carlin have agreed to come on the pod.
 

► How do you market your show?

70% of our listeners are on iOS, 15% come from Android and the remaining 15% are a smattering of all the others.

Honestly I haven't had time to fully optimize our marketing efforts but I would say having a dedicated website, social channels and complete show notes with optimized SEO keywords has been the key to the over 2,220 downloads we've had of our 4 episodes so far!
 

► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?

Do strive for optimization of your efforts but avoid needing to achieve perfection. The latter will just slow you down and keep you from actually creating.

Honestly, I learned the most from being a voracious podcast consumer. I knew what I liked (buttoned up approach to episodes, quality sound production, natural, authentic host banter etc.) and what I didn't like (poor sound quality, "room" noise, hosts being WAY too tangential or too inside baseball) Then I just researched how to achieve the things I did like and did them - two of the most frequent compliments I get about our show is that they love our interplay as hosts, that the sound quality is fantastic and that production quality is really tight. Makes my day every time!
 

► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?

You can find our website here: https://www.podumentary.co/ and follow us on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/podumentary/ - Coming soon to TikTok!