THE BACKGROUND
This podcast was developed during the inaugural Sundance Co//ab Audio Narrative Storytelling course.
The podcast is a limited season narrative non-fiction podcast that explores the unexamined history of women and money.
The high profile pay inequality scandals in recent years have highlighted the difficulty that even the most privileged of women have in achieving equal compensation for equal work.
At the same time there is significant cultural stigma surrounding conversations about money within our society, especially women and money which makes contemporary issues harder to address. By shining a light on the past, I want this podcast to gently push open the door to wider discussions concerning issues surrounding money within our society today.
Whilst these are such relevant issues today the main purpose of this podcast is to entertain. Thus each episode is deeply researched, carefully constructed and produced with a music bed, sound effects and actors to bring to life a rich story.
EDITOR: SET THE TONE / STORYTELLING / RESEARCH
As the editor of this podcast it was important for me to create coherence for every aspect of the podcast from the season arc, to the story arc of each episode, to the look and feel of every marketing asset from the website to the logo.
For Sisters of Fortune it was important that whilst each episode is deeply researched, the podcast ultimately exists because of my personal excitement for the subject; it is designed to entertain. This element has to come through in all the visual assets of the podcast, as well as in the storytelling style.
Visually the bold colours and graphics were the key for setting the tone.
As editor I curated the episodes to ensure that each story shared something surprising and rebellious about the subject matter. This is not a podcast that tells familiar histories, it shares stories that offer fresh perspectives, and unexplored stories.
With the first season, Writing Fortunes, this meant extensive research, and careful consideration of contributors. The resulting series includes stories about very familiar figures who we already admire, as well as stories that might surprise, such as an episode about a woman who could not write, and a woman who is linked to writing by chance and was notorious and reckless, but an extremely savvy business in a difficult time.
PRODUCER: REMOTE RECORDING / TECHNICAL PRODUCTION
As this is a narrative led podcast, each episode required precise audio production, from capturing scripted audio in a studio like setting, to finding suitable archive quotes, and actors to bring them life, to finding sound effects to separate scenes and bring them to life, to creating a music bed to amplify the emotion and set the pace of the story.
Contributors were recorded remotely, using various remote recording set ups, each of whilst selected pragmatically to ensure the best possible audio segments.
The podcast will be released in January 2022, please contact me directly for a preview.