SO I MADE A PODCAST… NOW WHAT?

Hello there!

If you are reading this blog post it’s because, I’m assuming you are one of two things.

One, a listener to one of the podcasts, I (Bradley McCaw) have created. Two, a podcast creator that has been led to this article via the magic of the internet.

If you are a listener, this post will provide some insight into my career behind the scenes and I hope you find it interesting. But I feel I am speaking now to the creators, who are looking to understand that stage we artists find between the creating and delivering of an arts project.

Over the past two weeks I have been supported by City of Moreton Bay and Arts Queensland with time to review my incomplete slate of podcasts.

In 2018 I begun travelling the world performing a headline show on luxury cruise ships and to fill my down time and develop my storytelling craft, started drafting documentary style podcasts. Ramble City begun as a show called FROM PAGE TO STAGE… and I would ask artists about creating theatre or art. This moved into conversations with artists and sportspeople from all walks of life. And by covid I'd recorded about 30 interviews.

Alongside side this I created TEN DAYS ON BROADWAY, a podcast about my mission to get my musical on stage and how a crazy ten days in NYC interviewing people about musical theatre helped me achieve that dream. The show has so produced and scripted, it took me years to even create a draft that could be shared with friends and family.

Over the past few years I’ve started work on the other shows now placed in the development folder above - MAKING WORRIED MINDS, THIS COUNTRY and ORIGINS.

These documentary works were all inspired by that same desire to be a better writer and storyteller and audio begin the cheapest world to realise such projects.

Thanks to the support of City of Moreton Bay and Arts Queensland I have developed a blueprint for release and final development for these incomplete works. This two weeks process that I am working on currently (as I write this post) will provide me with a plan and schedule to work towards over the next two years.

I have spent these two weeks reviewing each work, returning to it with fresh eyes, determining what steps need to be taken creatively and functionally for the work to be completed, and then identified who possible partners could be to help take that work into the world.

This stage of exploration and development may seem, in some ways to be an over complication. And I wouldn’t suggest creating all these works without a business plan to begin with - but in all fairness I didn’t know what a business plan was, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about money or funding these projects when I was developing them. I was excited by the ideas and ability to become a better writer. It was only when friends told me these works were good that I started to explore how I might best share them with the world, to give them the best opportunity for exposure.

And I think that’s the best frame to take when legitimising your art. Or taking that step from looking at your work as more than just a passion. It requires a structure and focus beyond just 'a hobby and a diligence that raises both the stakes and what’s required of you on a daily basis.

In my case, 5 or so shows is too many. I wouldn’t recommend it. But I had a bunch of un-produced musicals that I couldn't finish - I didn’t understand story well enough - so these podcasts had a real function in developing my work as a writer. It was planned and thought out. The release and business of these ideas were not.

So if you are reading this and you yourself have a project that is struggling to find it’s audience, or is sitting incomplete and you are considering the next steps… first consider why you started the project… and that may lead you to understanding who might be interested in listening or participating in the work… and that might help you look towards possible organisations / partners that work in those areas best philosophically and financially. Who has skin in that very specific game that would benefit from helping you share your show with the world. This is the business of art and the simplest way I feel I can describe the journey I have been on our the past few years.

Complete projects is a must for an artist. When the time is right - when and how we know that is a question best explored in another post - we must embrace the opportunity and that uncomfortable feeling of moving on from the chapter we spent making these things. That blanket of security we felt wrapped up in the solving and making or a beautiful idea we cherished.

Instead we must step into the bleak and sometimes harsh world of business and networking. Or deadlines and structure. This plan to review and outline a two year blueprint has helped me transition between these worlds.

Thankyou to the City of Moreton Bay and Arts Queensland for the opportunity to continue to expand my skillset and career.

Bradley McCaw

November 10th.