The project that I am writing about is something that I have been wanting to do for at least seven years. During my early 20s, I was a member of the podcast Nerd’s Eye View which released episodes weekly and covered pop culture. It was an amazing time and sometimes it feels bittersweet to know that it’s in my rearview mirror. The last hurrah was in 2016 when the three of us drove out to The San Bernardino Comic Con and discussed a handful of movies. To date, it’s the only “live recording” that I ever did, and we had a great time. With some melancholy, it was the last true hurrah as I wouldn’t see any of them in person again. The podcast would disband by the following January.
I shouldn’t say that it meant that I was charismatic or really worked as a host. I am not the best when it comes to spontaneous dialogue. There’s a good reason I got demoted around 2013 from a regular to more of a “bit player,” especially as others in the group sought to make the podcast more lucrative. There’s some disappointment that comes with it, but then again the show grew into something richer. As of this day, I know of two people directly involved with those original runs of podcasts that continue to do regular work in the field. The funniest part was hearing one of their co-hosts from another show appear on Gender Reveal randomly this year, which led me to listen to their new-ish show about eating snacks and found joy in just hearing her absolutely destroy Pepsi Peeps. It was just like the good old college days.
Given that I am not necessarily the mastermind behind podcast technique, I had postponed any effort to produce a show of my own. I believed that I needed to work off somebody in order to have anything resembling a quality show. I wasn’t like Jen Kirkman who could just go an hour talking about everything under the sun. I needed a format and structure. Also, I just needed someone who knew how to make it sound good.
The seven years in a lot of ways have been lonely without the podcast. The years of doing the show were an excuse to hang out and listen to a diverse group of opinions. Even as I find that fix on social media, it’s not the same. You only get (mostly) the text, and it’s not the same without those voices and spontaneity. I get why Nerd’s Eye View collapsed, but I still wished I was called upon to have some collaborative hand in a new show. While I have produced thousands of pages of writing since it’s a field that I’ve got a good grasp on. It doesn’t challenge me in the same way that trying to formulate sentences can.
Excuses begat excuses begat excuses begat excuses. I could talk about things for as long as I wanted, but there would never be a forward step without taking some initiative. As I searched for someone to pitch show ideas to, I realized that it was a bit foolhardy to think any of them would amount to something.
What I am about to discuss was technically not envisioned as a podcast. As someone who had a show in 2009, I have stricter definitions of what a podcast is. It’s an audio medium first and foremost. The video shows that call them podcasts may fulfill the same design, but are more akin to afternoon talk shows you watch on basic cable. What I had wanted to do was more of a YouTube slide show with special graphics that worked as stylish punchlines to my recording.
I think what ultimately caused me to say that I had to do this was what happened to me in June. As I finished my Bachelor’s Degree at CSULB, I found that I had to take a few classes over the summer to accumulate units. Whereas I could’ve taken more conventional classes that took me until August, I was eager to finish. That, and I was in the middle of helping my family move house and wanted to dedicate as much free time to the quick turnaround. It ended up working out as the two online classes allowed me to drop and go daily.
As a result, the final projects for both classes ended up being video presentations. Without any experience, I researched the easiest way to achieve them. If you’re really that curious, both are currently somewhere online and feature two roughly designed presentations. I should say that the writing is pretty good, but the visuals left a lot to be desired on my end. Still, learning that I could knock them out in five hours each got me thinking… what’s stopping me from doing those projects that I haven’t done?
Again, this isn’t a podcast. This isn’t even any of the ideas that I have for those shows. What I wanted to do was a more general Top 25 video. For reasons that are made clear when you press play, I was an avid listener this year and wanted to see if I could vocally convey my opinion. Not only that, but I think my interest in Girl Talk and appreciation of DJs like Casey Casem slowly helped me mold the idea of what the show would be. It wasn’t going to be a simple “me talking” video. I wanted there to be rhythm with music, complementing the jokes I had in my head and attempting to formulate a greater experience. I know that this came at an expense. I would have difficulty uploading it to YouTube without copyright strikedowns.
I suppose that I was also self-conscious about introducing myself with a video that was heavily other people’s work. This is in large part because of recent works analyzing the plagiarism allegations brought to James Somerton. That, and I think part of me felt like putting that much effort into a video would be too devastating to have immediately taken down because I was too impulsive with my music cues. I hope that it comes across in a practical way that this is an audio collage of music released throughout the year and not my own work. I did write a script, but it’s entirely found in the spoken passages.
Another reason that I wanted to do a project like this is because of my time in school. Because I was in a lot of workshop environments, I was called upon to read my work aloud. Self-consciously, I crafted stories that hit the right beats so that I never ran out of breath and could take dramatic pauses to keep a solid pace. It’s maybe the most tinkering I’ve given my writing in the past few years, and it has led to some thoughtful conversations. However, the ones that have often surprised me are the few times a student, unprovoked, came up to me and said that I had a great voice and that I should consider doing voice-over work.
To be honest, I see these projects as much about pushing me out of my comfort zone as it is trying to hone a craft for speaking that makes me comfortable even considering that. I think there was some detriment in my waiting months between those comments and doing this video because my voice is “out of shape,” but it is hopefully a starting point to start molding something stronger and more confident.
So that was it. I was going to have one end of the year project to test out some ideas. If nothing else, I would learn how to mix dialogue with music. I would find ways to make my perspective click with listeners. Without any expensive software or microphones, I decided to start small, believing that I could acquire skills when I took on more involved productions.
There are some conflicts with doing a video like this in December. While it’s easy to write an outline and script, I had to fit it around the holidays. With family constantly around, I had to take the few hours when I was alone to record audio. Given that it amounted to eight pages, the effort was exhausting and I’m sure it can be found in certain inflection points. I also hope that the outside wind wasn’t picked up on the microphone, though I’m sure audio nerds will be quick to point out the other flaws that met my production.
I say this less to be self-deprecating, but to say I know that this is where I start and am hoping to produce a handful of videos in 2024 that are better produced. I don’t plan to record a video of myself, as I am self-conscious of my appearance. Whatever I produce will be like the video below, though hopefully with more transitions and activity. In one of the funnier errors that I found along the way, I found audio cracking during one second that needed to be rerecorded. It’s during the Boygenius section and is so jarring that it makes me laugh. I didn’t have the “obvious edit” voice on my bucket list for this project.
I should also say that because of doing this all at a humungous discount, it took so long to figure out how to properly craft the original assemblage into an MP3 file and later video. Somehow, the early stages became easier just because I knew sensibly how to make the audio flow. However, getting it to align with a video so I could upload it proved difficult. I tried many forms. When I tried PowerPoint, I came across the headache of attempting to do a slide-by-slide recording that slowly fell apart because every transition sent the audio back five seconds. When I did a full recording without transition slides, the exporting revealed its own headache as a ton of the audio was somehow out of order.
Given that this was a nearly 24-minute video, it was a tiresome experience to run a trial and error on. You had to pray that this time would be different. Hours were spent trying to make a video of a static screen that would translate properly. It was exhausting and I’m grateful that I finally found some way. The irony soon came that a 24-minute video was too big to be uploaded on this website and had to be cut into two halves. Thankfully, I had put in a silent transition about halfway through that made the cut seamless.
So yes, for as much as this video qualifies as “a lark,” I am proud of this first step and hope that it leads to something more meaningful. I think it helped that when listening to music, I had developed an idea of what I wanted to use certain tracks for. I think of everything, the Hannah Diamond and Princess Nokia cues are especially obvious. Some of them developed later down the line, especially the many Chappell Roan cues that didn’t click into place until replaying the album midway through outlining. With all that said, the Underscores cue that leads into the Top 3 is probably the only one I was beyond confident that I wanted in there.
I suppose the thing that makes me proudest of this endeavor is that I managed to pull music entirely from the past year. There was no cheating and the results thankfully create a collage of how diverse things have been. I should also say that the one area of the video that suffers from not being more visual is the ending, which found a handful of tracks transitioning into each other to allow viewers time to read my Follow page. It’s a major reason I had Allegra Krieger there, especially as one of three (!) songs I found this year that mentioned Long Beach by name.
Before I conclude, I thought that I’d mention the obvious. This isn’t a Top 25 video. It quickly became apparent how difficult it would be to fit that much information into a first time video production during the Christmas season. Even with my limited vision, there was no reason to write that much. With that said, it caused me to miss opportunities to highlight a lot more. One of my most noteworthy regrets is a comedic piece to highlight my Number 12 pick (Daniel Pemberton’s score for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)) that involved Teezo Touchdown saying “Have you seen the new Spider-Man?” I would respond with something and he would say “I’m going to see it when I can.” Then, in a non-sequitur, I would ask Charli XCX if she had and play part of the Bottoms (2023) track “Yes No Okay.” There was also a point where I wanted to include Cannons singing the word “Disclaimer,” but it felt like it would overwhelm everything given that the early half is music-heavy. I also wanted to use Jane Remover’s “Video” at some point but felt that the audio was too meandering, especially in a video with a lot of long transitions.
Those are just some ideas I had to leave on the cutting room floor. If I hadn’t experienced such a headache with uploading the official video to its final form, I probably would’ve done a rough cut of the Teezo Touchdown gag just because it amuses me still. As it stands, I have heard those 24 minutes way too much and just need it behind me.
With this context, I provide you my final video/s. It’s intended to be one, but as mentioned, the upload proved difficult.
Part 1
Part 2
And with that, I would like to finish off by highlighting what would ultimately fall into the rest of my Top 25 had that video been an actual thing. I think it’s here that you get the bigger vision of what I wanted to do, but just lacked the stamina to do so.
12. Daniel Pemberton – “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
13. Indigo De Souza – “All of This Will End
14. “Parade (2023 Broadway Cast Recording)”
15. Chappell Roan – “The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess”
16. Billy Woods & Kenny Segal – “Maps
17. Julie Byrne – “The Greater Wings”
18. Robbie Robertson – “Killers of the Flower Moon”
19. Yeule – “Softscars”
20. Danny Brown – “Quaranta”
21. Dorian Electra – “Fanfare”
22. 8485 – “Personal Protocol”
23. Jerskin Fendrix – “Poor Things”
24. Jane Remover – “Census Designated”
25. Earl Sweatshirt & The Alchemist – “Voir Dire”
26. Kesha – “Gag Order”
27. PinkPantheress – “Heaven Knows”
28. Yaeji – “With a Hammer”
29. Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”
30. Renee Rapp – “Snow Angel”
And with that, I have completed a goal seven years in the making. I am very proud of finally doing it. No matter what has happened, I can at least say that I tried. At no point going forward do I think that I will become a proper video editor, but I like to think that I will find some little itch that makes me want to put audio to video and share with the world. As it stands, there is something that brings me joy. Hearing everything that I had in my head exist in a tangible form is beautiful and makes me curious to know what would happen if I ever needed to make something “serious.” This isn’t to say it’s not “serious,” but you know what I mean.
So enjoy. I still miss my Nerd’s Eye View friends and hope they’re all doing well. As for now, I am happy to have finally completed a goal that’s been on my list for way too long. It has helped reveal a lot of shortcomings as a producer of content and makes me critical of what I need to improve on next time around. For now, I end 2023 with at least this little artifact to look back on. Hopefully, it won’t be the worst part of looking back on this time. If it is, it means I’ve only gotten better since.
Happy New Year, one and all. Take care of yourselves and good luck with your goals.
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