Making a Podcast


Take your first steps. Join the podcasting community.

1.

Open GarageBand and choose File > New.

2.

Click New Podcast Episode.

3.

Name your new podcast, choose a location to save it (Jennifer keeps hers in a folder called Petroglyph Podcasts), and click Create.

The podcast interface opens in GarageBand.

Notice the Podcast Track in purple at the top and the four additional tracks below: Male Voice, Female Voice, Jingles, and Radio Sounds. If the Media Browser didn't open automatically, click the Media Browser button.

The area below the counter is the editor, a place for fine tweaking and assigning chapter titles and links. We won't be using it for this simple podcast. To hide the editor and give yourself more room to work, choose Control > Hide Editor.

Recording the Voiceover

Podcasts are basically people talkingtelling stories, sharing opinions, explaining something. You can be off the cuff, or you can work with a script. Jennifer wrote a script.

1.

Open the text file Sgraffito.Script.txt alias, located in the Lesson 12 folder.

This is your podcast script. Print out your script or arrange your open windows so you can see the script and the Record button in GarageBand at the same time.

2.

Select the track you will be recording to.

Jennifer chooses the Female Voice track.

3.

Rehearse a couple of times.

You don't need to be as concise as the written script would dictate; feel free to ad-lib a little, or make it real. Reality is something podcasts capture well.

Also remember to pause for effect. Think of it as a radio show. Adjust your voice. Try to sound interesting.

4.

When you're ready, click the Record button.

Wait until you see the playhead start moving; then start speaking into your Mac. Forget about the computer, and just read clearly.

Note

For better results with your Mac's built-in microphone, lean in; get about 5 or 6 inches away.

As you read, you may notice the audio track being laid down, with the waveforms of the sound visible as it goes along.

5.

Click the Record button again or press the spacebar to stop recording.

While you don't have to record the entire script in one unbroken session (you could, for instance, start and stop a number of times), you should at least try to. In GarageBand, you can't edit. It's one take. If you want to try the whole thing again, delete your recording by selecting the audio you just laid down and pressing Delete on your keyboard (or you can undo by choosing Edit > Undo Recording).

Note

Make sure that the playhead is back at the beginning before you try again; otherwise, you'll record in the wrong place.


If you can't deliver on cue, you might have to do this in iMovie. Remember, iMovie also lets you record live, but it has editing tools for taking out unwanted bits and removing errors of various kinds. GarageBand does not. iMovie allows for lots of dynamics: titles, Ken Burns Effects, fades and dissolves. GarageBand is a multitrack layering system, and is less functional in some ways, but easier in others. Podcasts are raw, simplealmost live. Getting to add photographs is a nice bonus.

Adding Photos

Most podcasts don't integrate images, but GarageBand makes this pretty easy. For explaining painting techniques, it's essential.

Note

GarageBand makes four basic types of podcasts: one is a plain audio-only podcast. The second is an enhanced podcast. That's what we're making here. Besides photos, an enhanced podcast might have chapter markers and URL links in it. Number three is a video podcast, essentially a downloadable movie. This leads us to the final type, the enhanced video podcast, which can include all of the above elements. We're going to call ours a podcast for short.


Once the audio track is laid down (it should be under 1 minute), it's time to layer in some photos.

The stills that accompany a podcast are very simple. No matter what your original photos look like, the podcast version will be cropped square, right in the center.

1.

Open the Media Browser, and click Photos.

2.

Find the Sgraffito album, and then find the photos you used in Lesson 5 for the dynamic slideshow.

A podcast with photos makes a very undynamic slideshow. It's more of a dynamic audio show, but with pictures.

3.

Select your opening shot of the pink pot, and drag it to the start of the Podcast Track.

GarageBand defaults to making the shot run the entire length of the audio track, which is too long (but would be nice if you only had one shotsay, the exterior of the studio or the company logo). For now, drop it in and don't worry about how long it is.

If your photo doesn't land quite where you want it, you can drag the head (or tail) with the resize pointer, or move the entire length by dragging.

4.

Find a few more "beauty" shots that demonstrate how the sgraffito technique will look when done; these will illustrate the introduction to the sgraffito podcast.

Try these three from the Cool Pieces folder:

DSCN0732

DSCN0748

DSCN0555

5.

Drop each photo in the Podcast Track at the spot where you want it to pop in.

6.

Click the Track Info button to preview your podcast.

During the course of your podcast work, you will frequently alternate between Track Info view (for previewing) and the Media Browser (for finding new shots to populate the video track).

On any shot, it is easy to grab the head or tail of the clip and drag it to make it longer or shorter, as you desire.

7.

When the intro is complete, continue in the same way to illustrate the remainder of the sgraffito technique, just as you did with the iMovie sgraffito lesson.

From the Media Browser, peek into iPhoto and find the six still images in the Sgraffito folder that show the stages of the process; you'll be using these.

Listen to the voice track to determine where you want each of the images to change, to best illustrate the technique.

When you're done, you should have something like this:

Adding Background Music to Your Podcast

Podcasts are better if you treat them like radio shows and add a few sound effects. Because you're in GarageBand, it would be pretty easy to create your radio show's own soundtrack, but it's also easy to use prebuilt scores to add to your background.

1.

Go to the Media Browser, and click the Audio button.

2.

Select GarageBand Demo Songs.

It would be within your skills to get a song from iTunes or to make a unique piece of music directly in GarageBand, but for now, the fastest option is to use a demo song created explicitly for the purpose of making your life easier.

3.

Choose "For the Mind," and drag it into a new track in the workspace.

It's 1 minute long and should end just after your narration. GarageBand is clever and knows to keep the volume of this track down so as not to muddy the sound of your podcast. When the narration track ends, it automatically brings the volume up on the soundtracka nice feature.

4.

The song is a little long, so add a few more shots at the end, perhaps ending with a shot of the studio as the music concludes.

Now your podcast is done. But how do you publish it? That's where iWeb comes in.




Apple Training Series iLife '06
Apple Training Series: iLife 06
ISBN: 0321421647
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 142
Authors: Michael Rubin

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