Conversations with Leelabee started in 2020 with an 11 episode Season One and continues in 2021 with Season 2. We talk Travel, Finance, Mental Health, Broadcasting, Filmmaking, Healing from Trauma, Fashion, HIV/AIDS, Transitions, Goal Setting, COVID-19, and more.
My Journey to Podcasting
In 2014 I auditioned to be a newsreader at a local music radio station, I was freelancing as a writer and had just stopped working for a production company. I was always interested in radio growing up, but when I chose to study Film-making instead of Broadcasting and Journalism I thought for sure that I would never get a chance to be on the radio.
I quickly fell in love with the vibe of the radio world, although I struggled to just read the news, as I have always been opinionated. As in, I LOVE TO TELL YOU MY OPINION!!! I will tell anyone who will listen to me, my take on celeb news, pop culture, and politics. Thankfully my bosses took notice and asked if I would like to become the third chair of a two presenter mid-morning show. It was a rocky start, getting my confidence and feeling like I was doing well in my new role as an on-air presenter. I quickly found myself filling in for presenters when they were sick, co-hosting drive time, and sometimes hosting my two-person radio show solo when my co-host was out sick. I had a great time on the radio and enjoyed connecting with listeners, learning how to keep them engaged and involved without them physically seeing you! Radio really is a specific art form that also requires so much research, constant revamping of show content, creating segments, and staying in touch with what your listeners want to get from you. After a short one-and-a-half-year stint, I left radio due to many circumstances some beyond my control. Five years later and many film production jobs later, I realized I missed radio and the feeling of communicating with a wide audience over a non-visual platform. I had been coming up with TV show ideas for a possible talk show but they just never seemed to manifest themselves visually. At that point, I was listening to a lot of podcasts, done by radio personalities, celebrities, and regular people. I thought why not turn what I want to do into a podcast? I had no clue where to begin but I told a friend I was thinking about it and she basically said, “it’s about time!” and that was all I needed to hear.
I went to amazon and used another friend’s podcast equipment listing to find my equipment. Price was important but so was quality, what could I use that was portable and still effective? I selected the Dual Lavalier Microphone by MAONO, it is a set of lapel mics that have a headphone output jack check it out here. I chose this option because I had already settled on using Anchor as my platform and found the app on my phone easy and simple to use.
All I had to do was plug the microphone into the headphone jack on my cellphone and go into the app and hit record! AnchorFM was also a great option for me as a lazy editor as you can edit from within the app itself or on your desktop. There is free background music for your podcast, little sound effects you can place and add. I am now in my second year of podcasting and I still love the simplicity of Anchor as a platform and typically edit on my laptop but record on my phone.
Covid 19 happened shortly after I started my podcast and meant recording remotely, I hadn’t discovered that I could invite people onto Anchor using a link and record within the app easily. So I first started out using Zoom and taking the audio, uploading it to anchor, and editing. This sometimes meant low sound quality, internet glitches, and echoes, as a novice editor I worked around it as much as I could but also decided the content was more important than the presentation. I continue to clean up my audio as much as I can and then publish it because I feel my podcast is raw and authentic and it’s not about perfection (for now). However, the response has still been good. I have had offers for people to produce and edit the podcast but as I am not yet fully monetized and earning enough I will continue to edit it by myself.
When it comes to choosing content or guests for the podcast, I am usually inspired by someone I have recently read about or met. Someone doing great things and who inspires me personally, other times I pick a topic based on what I am going through and that is what inspires my questions for the conversation.
Look out for the next blog when I break down how I came up with my podcast name and branding, how I prep for an episode, book my guests, and more.