Season 5 was our toughest season yet: 5 Golden lessons to learn from podcasting in Accra (Emergency Episode).
What could have gone wrong in Season 5, went wrong. We had obstacles to overcome in this particular season, more than any other. Adrian shares 5 lessons he's learnt from doing a full podcast season in Accra, Ghana, recording in a new venue.
Here's our lessons:
Lesson 1 : Stick to the winning formula
Lesson 2: Be strict when working with sponsors
Lesson 3: Have a plan B and C
Lesson 4: Manage your guests very effectively
Lesson 5: Purchase your own cameras
About The Sound of Accra Podcast
For almost 4 years, we have been championing Ghanaian business, entrepreneurship and Creators through podcasting.
To this date, we've achieved 10s of thousands of audio downloads worldwide and published well over a 100 episodes.
Our mission is always the same, to promote Global Ghanaian excellence. And always to bring you closer to Accra, whenever you are, with powerful stories that make you want to take action in your career, business or personal life.
We are trying to grow our global audience and reach more people and become an established brand in a go to resource for learning about native and diasporan Ghanaian Creators, entrepreneurs and founders worldwide.
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00:00:00
Hey, global ghani. Citizens. Adrian from the Sound of a Crowd podcast
00:00:03
as we get ready to release season five next week, at last, I
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have a confession to make. Season five has been our
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hardest season yet. This was the first season that's completely
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recorded and filmed in Ghana, and certainly we had
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challenges that we had to overcome. What you see in episodes in YouTube
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or wherever you watch or listen to the show, by the way, sure, you're following
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us on all of those platforms. May looked all polished and
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edited, but sometimes you have absolutely no idea
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what goes on behind the scenes to produce such high
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quality content. If there was a season where I should have had a
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cameraman to follow me around during the process of capturing
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a season, it would have been season five.
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So many things that could have gone wrong, went wrong.
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However, we still managed to get a good number of episodes
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done, but it wasn't up to the standard,
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which I would have wanted for myself, which is high standards.
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There's a few lessons that I'm going to share through each experience.
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I've said on podcast training sessions that there's always a lot
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to learn about podcasting, no matter how long you've been doing this.
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I mean, I've been going for almost four years, but technically
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since 2010. I started when I had a
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radio show at university. I created a podcast to go along with
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it. Okay, so here's my lessons, my five
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golden lessons that I want to share with you during my time
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filming and recording in Ghana. So lesson one, stick to the winning
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formula. Now, season three was the last season that we recorded in
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Ghana, but we did this partially. So half the season was done
00:01:43
in the UK and over half in Accra. Even when we did this in
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Accra, this seemed quite seamless because we were
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fortunate to partner up with Africa Global Radio, who I do
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recommend if you do want to go and record some podcasts, who
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we did a partnership with. And as a result, we were able to use their
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studio. Now, this worked well, as the studio already had everything that we
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needed on site for success. They had a team, they had
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cameras, lighting, microphones and
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soundproofing. This season, when the
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opportunity came up to record at a different location, at no
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charge, I snapped this up. But in
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the end, this ended up working against my advantage in
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terms of the time, effort, and money that
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eventually had to be spent in order to get the season done. Lesson
00:02:34
two, be strict when working with sponsors. Now,
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season five, as I mentioned at the 30th anniversary
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speech, which I published as a podcast episode for everyone to
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listen to, was rather sponsored by
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Zuberry, a fintech company, which is now going through a rebrand
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at the moment due to external factors. And so recently, this
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deal has fallen through. However, part of the sponsorship was that their
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logo and branding was to be all over our content. I had
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no issues with this initially, but now that they are effectively
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a different brand, or at least in a transition to be,
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this now seems quite irrelevant in the videos.
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And it's not like I can Photoshop the branding
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that's in the background of the videos. Unfortunately,
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it's going to remain in all of the videos in season five.
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Now, in hindsight, what we should have done is kept
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a normal plain background in the podcast and then have
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only allowed for digital assets to be added on top so
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that they can be changed or removed, such as the logos on the screens, et
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cetera. Lesson Free have a plan B and C
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so there was one guest who came in to record who unfortunately never
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got to finish the episode properly because of power issues. Now, during
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recording one of the episodes, we had a power cut in the building
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and there was not enough time to fix this before they had to leave.
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As a result, all I had was half an audio recording and
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a video footage which ended up getting deleted
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as we were supposed to rerecord this episode. But it never
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happened. In the end, the lesson here is to record in a more
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dedicated area where there's plenty of backup power and
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support on site. So when things do go wrong and when there
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is dumb saw, when there is light off, you can continue to record
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as if nothing happened. Lesson Four manage your guests very
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effectively on the final day of recording I had a very
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ambitious goal of recording six guests in one day. Yes,
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this may have been more feasible in the west, such as the UK, because
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there are systems, there are studios in place, which makes
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this a lot easier to manage. However, this
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seemed like this was going to work and starting early in the morning and
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finishing off in the evening, this was the plan. But what
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ended up happening was a nightmare. My first two guests were very
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late and the first guest even went to the wrong address, which
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meant that all of the cushion time that I had factored into the day of
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recording, in case there was any people that were running late for a little
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bit, had gone. This meant that
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I had to record each guest back to back with no
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breaks, and also meant pushing back guests where possible to
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minimize wasting their time. As a result, some guests weren't too
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happy, but others were able to understand. I did my best efforts to
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compensate my guests where possible, as I always believe you should take
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good care of guests no matter how big or small they are. This
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day ended up becoming extremely stressful, but nevertheless,
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we got it done. Now, my final lesson. Lesson Five
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purchase your own cameras. At our new
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location of recording the cameras we were provided with
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they weren't mirrorless, meaning that they didn't have the ability to record
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continuously, meaning you have to have someone to manually
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press records again once they hit the 30 minutes mark.
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This was something I wasn't going to take for the final day of
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recording, so as a result, I decided to put
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my money where my mouth is and hire a camera to avoid any
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issues. This also didn't work out very well because the
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camera that was supposed to be delivered early in the morning ended up being
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delivered late in the afternoon. And as a result, my first few
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guests had to be recorded on my phone, which ended up
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taking time by transferring data between my phone and my
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MacBook. Yes, on my phone. Phones these
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days are actually good enough to record long form content, but
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of course it's much better to have a dedicated DSLR
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camera where the quality is a lot better. My lesson here is to
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purchase and bring your own cameras, especially when coming to places like a
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car. You just can't rely on people to deliver certain things on
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time. As a result, one of the guests that were recorded on my
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phone, it turned out that the episode came out blurry in the end as
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the camera settings weren't done right and now I can only release the audio for
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that particular episode. And there you have it folks. That was a quick look at
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some of my trials and tribulations from season five. I really
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wanted to follow up with a strong season, quality wise and production
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wise following a good solid season before, but I
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must say this was challenging to match Autex seed
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recording in a brand new location in Accra. On the
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plus side, I really do like the guest lineup and I was able to capture
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some really good conversations in the midst of all of this. I'm sure you
00:07:34
guys have seen the two trailers that have been released for season
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five and I've had quite a few of you reach out and say that the
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guest lineup is pretty strong. So I'm hoping that the
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guest lineup would help to compensate for the quality and the production
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levels not being quite up to the standard of season four.
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But hopefully season six will be opportuned and even season
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seven will be opportunities to redeem all of that. Just to mention,
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season six will be recorded in the UK and possibly parts of Europe.
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Feel free to reach out if you want to come on the show. You can
00:08:07
reach out to our podcast manager, Mami by contacting Mommy
00:08:11
that's Maam@thesandocraud.com.
00:08:15
Or if you're interested, just head over to our website WW, dot
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thesandokra.com and hit the contact button and fill
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out the contact form and let us know if you're interested and we will take
00:08:25
a look and see if you're a good fit for season six and beyond
00:08:29
on your way out guys. Please subscribe or follow if you're listing on Apple podcasts
00:08:33
spotify YouTube so you don't miss an episode so you don't miss season five,
00:08:36
rather. And leave us five star reviews wherever you're listing on
00:08:40
this episode on and leave us any comments. I hope you've learned something
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from this one guys. I'm asian daniels. You guys have been amazing. Take
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care. God bless. Until next time.