On Wednesday the 18th we went live with The Catch Podcast. The Catch is hosted by TorchT Co-Founder Brandon Burns and former TorchT Media and Communications Intern Henry Glenn. The Catch isn't TorchT's first time grappling with a podcast but it is definitely our first time being the subjects of one!

Creating a podcast isn't a simple as it sounds and it took Brandon and Henry a fair amount of effort to get it off the ground. The first and arguably hardest part was finding the name. Luckily for Brandon and Henry TorchT Co-Founder Benjamin Thompson suggested "The Catch" when he was taking photos of the two for podcast thumbnails and it stuck.

The next step before recording was format. How long should each episode be? What should each episode be about? This required some research and so Brandon and Henry set to work on consuming as many podcasts as they could. After scouting the podcast landscape they came to the conclusion of one long form discussion episode a week and one ancillary episode a week.

The next conundrum was what to do for the weekly ancillary episode. Playing into their interests Brandon suggested they do "History with Henry". For these episodes Henry finds an event which happened on the day of recording and explains its historical significance and context to Brandon for ten or so minutes. So far Brandon and Henry have discussed the fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus and have two more in the bank ready to go live in the coming weeks.

With the format settled the thumbnail needed to come into existence. Brandon and Henry created numerous drafts but settled on the one you see in this blog post for its minimalist yet bold aesthetic.

Once the recording equipment arrived it was time to set to work and record. The first recording session took place at the TorchT studio space at CreativeCubes South Melbourne. Brandon and Henry attempted to record video for their first episodes but found it to not only be cumbersome but also a dividing force across platforms. It seemed unnecessary to them to be dividing potential audiences by whether or not they could watch the podcast as well as listen. With one recording session down Brandon and Henry committed and completed another session this time at CreativeCubes Carlton.

Following the successful recording of the first five episodes it was time to mix them. The format Brandon and Henry went for was one they discovered in their research. The podcast begins with an out of context bite, usually something funny or bombastic to draw a listener in. Then intro music is played and the main podcast begins. Finally music is placed at the end of the podcast as well.

The mixing of the first two episodes took a bit of time but with templates created for both episode formats The Catch team was able to breeze through editing and mixing the next episodes.

The first long form discussion episode of The Catch and History with Henry are both now live and more are coming soon! If you'd like to comment or deliver feedback on the podcast please don't hesitate, we'd love to hear it.

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