Podcast

About this Podcast

In English, we were assigned to create a brief podcast to add to a new media platform we experienced in using. Since Freestyle collaborations are rare– of course I jumped at the opportunity! I worked with an old friend of mine and one I made this year 🙂 And we wanted to do something a bit out of the box. Soo after listening to the Magic Tavern on Spotify and — we knew we wanted to explore fantasy. We wanted to emulate their sense of humor and extravagant storytelling ’cause we loved it!

Our podcast’s main goal was to have fun with whatever ideas we brainstormed. As we created different possible characters we developed the idea of interviewing a real-life dragon. We let out imagination take us a bit wild and some. We chose to even create character sheets so that individual traits and personalities could be developed–all while keeping some secrets! By the way, if you were still wondering, we named our podcast “The Lost Files of Agent Y and Z: Ice Cave Adventures.“

Podcast

The Lost Files of Agent Y and Z: Ice Cave Adventures

In The Lost Files of Agent Y and Z, you will be transported into a world where Dragons have long disappeared, hunted down by humans. In this society dragon-hating society, Yvonne and Zabeus designated Agent Y and Z as named by the awkward dragon-loving Zabeus, are on a mission to find the last living dragon. Or in Yvonne’s case as the favorite child, her actual reason is to prove that her sibling is a crazy lunatic after all. Who is correct? Find out in their journey!

Recording Process

We chose to film at the Freestyle Academy Recording studio. Since our Podcast included exploring the fantasy genre, we thought it would be best if we practiced doing improv. Following a lightly outlined script, we went in and bounced off each other’s ideas. It resulted in lots of trials and error, however, for each of our characters we got the chance to connect and translate an authentic recording.

Editing Process

The editing process was long and arduous. We had 28 minutes of recording to choose from and we had to choose only the best for a maximum of 10 minutes. Then we had to choose which segments to keep and which ones felt repetitive or unnecessary.

I also re-listened to some parts several times over in order to refine the timing and switched the positions of clips to make the overall narrative flow better.

Then we normalized and batch faded all the clips, and also made other edits to the volume levels of certain parts. Once that was done, we had to search for and add in sound effects, to then place the sound effects to match the timing of the podcast. Shout out to Kelly for working from home!

Annotated Bibliography

1. Drake’s Comprehensive Compendium of Dragonology
   1. This book lists different types of dragons, and attributes of them -look, abilities, place of origin, etc. We used this to know basic facts about what dragons would be like in this world, such as their biology, behaviors, and more. For example, we decided that we would be interviewing a frost dragon in the middle of the snowy mountains, who may or may not freeze us to death with their breath weapon.
2. “Hello from the Magic Tavern.” Spotify, 2021. https://open.spotify.com/show/0FGOz929il130iXEwkInBa.
   1. We took inspiration from this podcast. It inspired us to add different sound effects and want to create a storyline, moreover, adding a humorous tone. Due to this, we made sure to exaggerate whatever actions were made. Its combination of music, tavern clinking sounds, and static radio inspired our podcast. We focused on adding ice and wind sound effects, snow crunching, and sound effects of transformation. We did our best to emulate its structure. 
      • The sound effects are also good (tavern sounds, intro music, static radio)
3. Rosenthal, Rob. “How Do You Know a Story Is Worthy of a Podcast…” Transom. Transom, December 22, 2020. https://transom.org/2020/how-do-you-know-a-story-is-worthy-of-a-podcast-series/.
   1. This was a very engaging podcast, it focused on character building and imagery. For our podcast, we made sure to make sure there was a backstory for each action to better replicate this podcast’s casual tone. Moreover, its use of interviews adds intimacy and urgency. We learned from this podcast how to find a good story to turn into a podcast.

Reflection

I learned tons in this podcast! Since we initially had trouble coming to terms with a concrete storyline, I definitely learned that planning is key. More when we had more than one path to go with. On a more personal level, I had trouble understanding the humor. I’m not the funniest girl on the spot but I think it had more to do with yes, we may all be friends but–sometimes we’re just not on the same wavelength.

I think this came true when I had a bit of trouble handling my nervousness at being judged for being too much and fulfilling my role. I also had to balance being true to myself and acting like I knew what they were saying. But I think after embracing the concept of having fun I was def able to be more true to who I am and in my contributions. Love you lots, you guys!

Podcaster Bios

Miranda Hernandez is a senior at MVHS and second year at Freestyle Academy. Since she loves to travel but rarely does so, she is very passionate about art-ing her way out of the ordinary. Her hobbies consist of reading, art, storytelling, learning new things, and meeting new people. She believes there is a little bit of pizzazz in the ordinary. Most days she spends indoors creating sketches and occasionally taking walks through nature.

To further her storytelling skills, she’s exploring fantasy more in-depth through this podcast (she finds that acting like the spoiled child once in a while can be fun). She acts as the voice of Agent Y, Yvonne is the favorite child and a very prejudiced non-dragon believer.

Kelly Lam is a senior at Los Altos High and a first-year at Freestyle Academy. She is studying animation, and her hobbies include reading, singing, playing video games, and folding origami cranes.

They have 3 years of experience playing D&D and also have an interest in fantasy themes and storylines. As a result of her experiences, she heavily enjoys role play in group environments with people she’s comfortable with, which is why she thought this idea for a podcast would be fun.

Vamp Zimmerman attends Freestyle Academy and Mountain View High school. They study film at Freestyle Academy and are the secretary & treasurer for the Gender-Sexuality Alliance at Mountain View High, they like to style and personalise their clothes, make yarn voodoo dolls, as well as tell gruesome stories.

In the podcast, Vamp plays the dragon Zeta, they’re love for coming up with gruesome & complicated backstories as well as their long-standing love of dragons made them a good fit for a dragon thousands of years old. They are currently working on a short film for their Senior Narrative and are planning to go to community college in New York, then transfer to a four-year college, and move to New Jersey.