If I did a film podcast, what should it look like?

I own the website underratedfilms.com - I’ve not done anything with it. I have been taking notes about every movie I’ve watched for the last 3 years though. For the website, I want to write short essays/reviews about each movie I’ve watched and rate them, pretty standard-ish, though I hope to have a nice format for it.

But I thought maybe it would be nice to do a podcast as well. Keep in mind this is not happening any time soon, but as I start thinking about it I’d like to ask some questions about what people like, and whether they think it’s a good idea at all. I’ve been talking to a lot more film critic persons on the internet lately so it feels like I could get some good stuff going there.

Here’s my thoughts for formats:

  1. I read one of my essays to a guest who has also watched the movie. The guest has to hold their tongue while I read, and once I’m done they can tear it apart or agree or whatever, and we discuss it. Then they read an essay and the reverse happens. I imagine this would be a shorter show? 20-30 mins? Maybe have two guests and extend it a bit?
  2. I just read my reviews. It’s simply essays read aloud. I could group like 5 of them together. no banter, just reviews.
  3. structured topic-based conversation about a movie with a guest. I think this sounds the most standard and is maybe boring, unless the structure and prompts were good.
  4. I could add an interview portion to any of these

My questions:

  • what length of podcast to people like for something like this?
  • what would be a good frequency?
  • do you have any other ideas you think are under-utilized in a film-oriented podcast?
  • is this something that would be interesting to people? It’ll all be pretty obscure or unusual genre stuff. I assume there are lots of podcasts about movies already.

THANKS for your thoughts

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Not sure about the reading + discussion variant. Personally I’m usually in the headspace for either or, but not both.

For an essay read, 15~30 minutes seems alright. For discussion podcasts, 1 hour feels like a good upper limit/aspiration.

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I like the idea! I really don’t have time to watch as many films as I did, but still enjoy hearing about people talking about them and their perspectives on it, either on their own or with others.

Format one is the one I’d enjoy the most. It’s always good to have alternative views on anything and would be great conversation if you had someone who didn’t like it from the start.

For your questions:

  • I think a 30 minute discussion per film is enough. Maybe set the episode timelimit based on the amount of films per episode you’d talk about, with a 10 minute intro/outro.
  • Whenever you have time really. Biweekly could work
  • Another guest could be someone who hasn’t seen the film and see if you can sell it to them. That’s something I’ve rarely heard in podcasts and thought it’d be a great listen.
  • Yes!

One podcast I do enjoy, apart from the obvious, is the Dana Gould Hour where he interviews a huge variety of people, mostly cinema based, and has some amazing stories not just about film, but the history of it and how intertwined it is with modern society. I wouldn’t say copy him, but if you haven’t had a chance to listen I’d recommend it. Plus his favourite genre is horror so you may have a bit in common!

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The pitching thing sounds interesting, though it might end up in a way where there’s not much for the guest to say. There’s some podcasts that basically go like the host researches a topic and summarizes it to the guest and often I’m not sure why the guest is even there.

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I completely agree, I prefer podcasts that have interaction and not an uncomfortable guest.

Maybe a timer, say five minutes to sell it, five minutes respond if you’d go on to watch it or not.

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I don’t really listen to film podcasts but letting listeners know in advance what film(s) is being discussed and inviting a couple of questions from them as a “segment”, a la dirtbag, would help break things up and potentially inspire some discussion from an angle that neither you or a guest had approached from.

Without wanting to be unhelpful I think any of the suggested formats would work well. The traditional discussion format works well when people are polite / aren’t loud (I’m personally thinking of Kermode and Mayo’s level of discussion tbh), and it’s only really become boring because there are a lot of podcasts from people that don’t have anything to say.

But also on that, whatever the format takes, I wouldn’t be afraid to switch it up a little bit every now and then. If one episode becomes “Brandon Sheffield waxes lyrical about three Indonesian horrors that prominently feature lasagna” then so be it.

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I personally think the sweet spot for podcast length is around 60 minutes. Maybe ~25 minutes per film and 10 minute intro/outro?

Obscure and unusual is good, I think. I’d assume there are already 10 million dude bros on podcasts out there that want to explain the Avengers to me and tell me why Joker 2 “totally sucked”.

As someone who really isn’t a movie person (even though I’d like to be, I just had to sacrifice something to the cruel god that is time) I’d offer the selfish wish to make it accessible to people like me who just don’t know all that much about movies. The fact that I already read once or twice that people love the IC podcast even though they don’t even play games makes me hopeful you’ll manage to do that.

In general I think the whole idea of showing people the appeal of something niche and how to appreciate it is something I really enjoy.

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Consider my perspective as someone who enjoys film podcast more than videogames podcasts, but in a different and more profound perspective than most. So:

  1. If you want to do this, there’s two ways. You can do a 20-30 minute review, or you could span it even to an hour if you want to include some exchanges and make the essay last less than half an hour. This is something that I’ve been doing in secret with my friends and I think it works if you have nice chemistry with someone and both can share good discussions. If not, this ends up feeling stalling.
  2. I think this is more unique as a format, and you could even do that in spans of very short episodes (5-15 minutes per episode, and so people will binge them). I feel those are less popular than the average, though, but I feel we need more diversity as podcasts are required. Also, film essays tend to be what truly sticks because film, as an image format, tends to stick better, specially in cases where you need to give examples.
  3. This is the most common and I think it entirely depends on the people around. I feel the IC variant is the best, in the sense that having people talking about the movie but also willing to make some jokes inside is okay. I know Insert Credit differs quite from it, but I did a very similar format of podcast to that in 2014 and it worked quite nicely.
  4. That I don’t know, but sometimes people love having interviews as a side segment.
  • I will tie the first two questions together. The frequency should be weekly on most sides. The longer is a podcast, the more difficult is to keep a list and so disicentivize a listener from continuing to hear it, because the list of episodes that are pending keep increasing. The usual periods tend to be from 15-20 minutes until 4 hours.
  • The longest ones tend to be released monthly, but I’ve heard some freaks do that weekly, so sometimes it works if it’s the podcast in which you do several things at once, but I’d say this format tends to stick worse with people. Either it’s a mixture of everything, or it’s getting deep into a film or saga.
  • The majority of podcasts tend to be 40-50 minutes to an hour and a half, and tend to be weekly episodes. Sadly, this competes directly with video essays.

Also, thanks for the rest of opinions, because I’ve also been thinking to do a podcast and probably a film one, but it’s deep in the works.

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I think that a nice 20-30 min audio version of those reviews should make a pretty comfortable companion. I’d vote for that one. :slight_smile:

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My perspective is somebody who likes movies but doesn’t like the movie podcasts I’ve tried.

Formats

1 and 2: If you start reading something to me I get very bored. Something about people’s ‘reading voice’ doesn’t hold my attention in the same way that just talking normally does (I have a similar problem with audiobooks). If you do take an essay-centered approach, I would recommend outlining them and speaking more off-the-cuff.

3: Yeah, I agree that this sounds boring. Could still be good if you find a cool way to make it your own, but yeah, walking uphill.

4: Nah.

Questions

  • About an hour is what I would like.
  • Bi-weekly feels right to me.
  • When I listened to them before, the theming was always super boring. “here’s a director, let’s go through their work over the next five episodes”. To get me excited, it would be something like “here’s a group of films that really use the color red well”.
  • Yeah, sure!
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Some random ideas in the direction of more conversational forms (I don’t really listen to a ton of podcasts, so no idea how “done” these are):

  • Could have the guests coming in pitching their favorite obscure movies to the audience and have a conversation based on that, including things like why they are pitching it, what the movie means to them and such. Could be a good way to ensure guests are really into it, though it might get harder to find guests with sufficiently unique movie pitches over time.
  • Could pick one movie to recommend as host and the guest recommends another movie that’s similar in some way. Talk about what connects them, what sets them apart, maybe debate a little which one is “better” etc.
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Very excited about this, as my favorite parts of the IC podcast are when you just talk about movies. I know you want to focus on obscure stuff, but even when you talk about movies in the “canon”, I feel like you have a unique perspective, so that’s not necessarily something to avoid completely I think?

Since you’re already going to be doing written reviews, maybe the podcast could be useful for freeform talking about movies/topics/ideas that you haven’t really thought out enough to write up, but still have things to say about?

Based on the kind of broad knowledge you have and discussions of yours I’ve enjoyed listening to in the past, I think @Mnemogenic 's idea of focusing themes/trends/angles that allow you to talk about and connect a bunch of disparate movies might work better than focusing on just one movie? You do this A LOT on the IC podcast (though unfortunately I can’t immediately think of any examples). Though even if you do want to devote each episode to a specific movie (which would probably make it easier to keep things consistent if you’re having a different guest on each time) you can still pick movies that can serve as jumping off points to broader discussions.

So I guess I vote for option 3? I don’t think it’s boring at all. Such an approach is standard because it’s flexible and less work for guests than making them prepare essays like in option 1. Though option 1 might be work better if you have a consistent cohost or small rotating panel of guests that are prepared to put enough time into writing essays (e.g. if you have other contributors to your website).

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I know you have underratedfilms . com but I’ll just leave “Insert Ticket” here with no expectation of being acknowledged.

  • I agree with others in that I prefer the more conversational podcasts. For a monologue style I prefer a video essay which also lends itself to discussing films which are a visual medium (hire Esper to create accompanying videos). I think it could depend on the movie though. If you’re reviewing 12 Angry Men a monologue style might be more conducive / fitting, where as if you’re reviewing one of those movies from the IC Snake segment, more of a comical conversational discussion would fit the bill.
  • Frequency should be either every week or every other week
  • I think one film a week discussed in depth for 30min sounds nice. probably really only 20min of discussion once you factor in openings and closings.
  • a focus on audio could be interesting and fitting for an audio podcast? And while not under-utilized talking about who the creators / companies are and what they’ve worked on is always extremely interesting to me.
  • More than with games, movie podcasts are tricky in that if it isn’t a movie you’ve seen there is this dilemma about whether the movie itself should just be watched vs. don’t listen to the podcast because of spoilers vs. I haven’t watched that movie therefore I’m not inherently interested. The best way to get around this is have the focus of each episode be some design principle / idea, and use the movie to discuss it.
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Everyone’s gotta be smoking.

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You’re a good talker. Even a 20 min a week essay / discussion from you would be more than welcome. I feel like… I don’t even need to watch any of the films you discuss, but enough of a description from you and what you think of the movie would fire my imagination, and if it really got peeked I would go do more research on the film discussed.

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if I did this I would do a video podcast and constantly have a lit cigarette in my hand and never once smoke it.

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The only film thing I can bear is Kermode and Mayo. The former is the reviewer and the other the host. Very conventional tastes but he is certainly knowledgeable about film and he is a good communicator. I use it mostly to have a general idea about new releases. He comes in with written notes but he constructs the review off the cuff as he sees fit, and Mayo sort of directs him and prods him as an audience stand-in.

Of the things you mention, what sounds interesting to me is the potential clashing opinions; having to justify a certain point the others are not convinced about is always a highlight on the IC show. So are the clips I’ve seen of Siskel and Ebert disagreeing with each other. I think it’s good because it sort of redirects the negative energy criticism can sometimes have more towards a clash of personalities/perspectives instead, and through that, somehow, what the movie is becomes clearer.

The obscure movies angle is also appealing, because it’s something unique that you specifically can bring to the table. Seeing it as a way to discover and appreciate an alternative canon of film history doubles its interest, because you are both hearing good criticism and discovering something you didn’t know about.

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have you considered a format similar to on cinema at the cinema?

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Just for some clarifying points - when I say short essays I meant like 5 minutes max. So there wouldn’t be a lot of waiting before the other person speaks. There are a couple reasons for it being short… one is because I’m intending the text essays to be short (we’ll see), and the other is I don’t want to make anyone do really extensive homework before coming on the show (or maybe it should be a regular group with rotating guests?), especially if it’s weekly.

I agree that some discord with some occasional enfusing together is the vibe that would make this interesting. When thinking about the essay portion I thought about my film relationship with Mathew Kumar - we watch a lot of the same kind of stuff but we generally have completely opposed feelings about each piece of media.

I appreciate everyone’s thoughts, I’m figuring out what makes sense. I feel like one thing I can definitely bring to this is obscure american and HK films that have sub-50 reviews on imdb. whether anyone ever wants to watch those is another story!!

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Better yet just place the lit cigarette on top your ear like a pencil, really frees up those hands for gesturing wildly.

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