Friday, April 20, 2012

A day in the life of a Podcasting Star

A lot of you are probably thinking, hey, I certainly love listening to the Gather Around Me podcast starring Ben Pobjie and Cam Smith, which I subscribe to on iTunes and totally listen to all the time, and I especially love the latest episode wherein Ben and Cam read a Choose Your Own Adventure book and invite ME to select where the story will take them next - but there are times when I wish I could know more about the process behind the GAM podcast and its wild popularity.

WISH. NO. MORE. Because here is:

MY DAY AS A PODCASTER BY BEN

6.05am: Arrive at the GAM offices, where I am greeted by Esther, our hard-working secretary. She gives me my daily iron pills and flirts outrageously with me, and we have a good laugh.

6.08am: Enter the GAM Control Centre, where Cam screams at me for being late.

6.09am: Cam, sobbing, begs for my forgiveness for being angry, and then takes a short nap.

6.10-6.30am: Catch up on GAM email. Delete spam and offers of marriage from men, move offers of marriage from women into special folder. Agree to every offer of corporate sponsor. Reply to sexy emails from Packed to the Rafters cast members with equally sexy emails.

6.45am: Cam wakes up. I subdue him with a soothing voice and pleas to drop the knife.

7-10am: Planning session for new podcast. We storyboard each episode meticulously on butcher's paper, then transfer the storyboard to our 3D clay puppet board. We then make a crude animation of the podcast, edit and score it, and play it back to see if we think it will fly as a quality Gather Around Me instalment. We do this several times until we have what we call "GOLD". We then record a rough guide vocal using this script, so our orchestra can follow it.

10-11am: Orchestra session. All the music is written by Cam, but in a strange code that only he knows, so he has to hum it to the orchestra and they play it back. Normally a recording session will be done in the nude, and Cam usually assaults at least six musicians before it's over.

11-11.30am: Meeting with lawyers to discuss Cam's defence for assault trial.

11.36am: Cam begs me to let him cut my hair. I refuse, but he goes ahead anyway.

11.45am: Cam starts sobbing again.

12pm: Lunch, eaten on opposite sides of a picnic table in a nearby park, neither of us willing to take our eyes off the other. Between bites of his salami toastie, Cam threatens to kill me several times.

12.45-3pm: Sex.

3-4pm: Recording of the podcast. Cam does the whole thing in a thick Russian accent, and insists on having his "manager", a 17-year-old boxer named Michelle, sitting beside him the whole time. Today's podcast is examining the issue of aged-care funding, but three minutes in we get sidetracked by wondering which sea animal it would be preferable to be raped by, and we never really get back on-topic. By the end of the hour Cam is incredibly drunk and claims he is my biological mother. he then beats me savagely.

4.15pm: Over-dubbing and adding of wacky sound effects.

4.30pm: Daily prayers. At GAM we have a new religion each week to keep things fresh. This week's is Shinto.

4.45-5pm: Sex.

5.15pm: Breakfast.

6pm: Cam asks for my hand in marriage, but immediately rescinds the offer, displaying crossed fingers. He then beats me savagely.

6.30pm: Esther screams with exasperation and hurls herself through a plate-glass window. Later on she confesses it was because "YouTube was being slow".

6.45pm: Wash dishes and genitals.

7pm: Kiss Cam goodnight and shampoo his beard.

7.30pm: Hit the streets, out for a good time.

8pm: Become caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with international arms traders.

8.15pm: Dessert and bed.


That's SHOWBUSINESS folks!

2 comments:

Doug Quixote said...

"6.45pm: Wash dishes and genitals."

Was this in the dishwasher, and if so, how well are you recovering?

Dan said...

You guys make it seem so effortless but when you listen to the show it begins to makes a lot of sense, you can really hear all the crying, sex, and beatings that went into producing such a top notch podcast. Keep it up guys, it was pretty heartbreaking that one time when you stopped for a while.