How to make a podcast: A weekend bootcamp with The Guardian’s audio team

What makes you return to a podcast again and again? The warmth of the hosts, like visiting an old friend? The gripping content? The captivating sound effects? In this day and age, anyone can create a podcast – but the formula to producing and distributing one that has people talking is harder to crack. In this highly interactive and practical weekend boot camp, led by experts from The Guardian’s award-winning audio team, you will gain access to the alchemy behind successful podcast production, from concept to creation and beyond.

Over two afternoons, you will have unrivalled access to seminars, practical workshops and Q&As, which will unlock not only how you can hone your creative ideas, but how you can design a competitively sleek audio experience for your future listeners, and how you can monetise your creative output. You will also have the opportunity to produce an elevator pitch between sessions, which our expert panel will review to give immediate group feedback to the class.

This weekend boot camp is an essential for anyone who loves podcasts and wants to take their production skills to the next level. A rare opportunity to hear from the Guardian’s own audio team about their own processes and how their learnings can be applied to projects of all scales. You will complete the masterclass with a heightened understanding of the industry and its requirements for success, and with a hunger to get creative.

For beginners getting to grips with audio for the first time, we recommend purchasing tickets to How to Get Started in Podcasting for a helpful orientation in the world of podcasts - and as a perfect primer for this more intensive two-part workshop.

Course Content

• Introduction to podcasting: Courtney Yusuf will open our weekend boot camp with invaluable information on what makes a good podcast great, including best practices, a topical look at the industry, issues surround it, and a Q&A.
• Coming up with ideas: Esther Opoku Gyeni, audio producer for the Guardian’s Long Reads and Innermost, and Danielle Stephens, Guardian acting lead audio producer for Politics Weekly and Football Weekly, leads this session which will explore how to develop your ideas for your podcast and what makes a story right – or wrong – for audio. Interactive exercises will enable you to dig deeper into your well of creativity.
• Monetising your podcast: Robert Abel, The Guardian’s Head of Commercial Audio Strategy, will talk about how to maximise your chances of making a profit from your podcast, from how you shape your idea in the first place, through budgeting, to marketing and building an audience, and different approaches to monetisation.
• Hannah Moore, audio producer of Today in Focus, will be in conversation with Chris Michael, host of the Reverberate podcast, to share tips and tricks for presenting and producing your podcast, as well as the pitfalls to avoid and best in class examples. You will also have the opportunity to put your own questions to them.
• Basics of Sound Recording for Producers: Danielle Stephens will cover the essentials for recording audio as well as tips and tricks for getting started with editing for producers - plus Q&A
• Panel Q&A: Our panel of speakers will answer your pressing questions about anything further you want to know about audio creation and production.

This course is for ...

• Anyone with a basic understanding of podcast production.
• Anyone who is looking to expand their technical knowledge and creative skills to take their podcast to the next level.
• If you attended the How to Get Started in Podcasting masterclass and want to build on your learning.

Tutor Profiles

Courtney Yusuf is an audio producer for The Guardian’s daily current affairs podcast, Today In Focus. As a multimedia journalist, Courtney has a particular interest in race, culture, and the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Esther Opoku Gyeni previously worked in TV on shows such as BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. She was shortlisted as one of the top 100 ones to watch in TV in 2017. She worked at the biggest Gospel station in Europe; Premier Gospel Radio producing their live breakfast shows before coming to the Guardian as an Audio producer where she works on The Guardian Long reads and Innermost.

Danielle Stephens is acting lead audio producer, currently working on The Guardian’s Politics Weekly and Politics Weekly Extra podcasts. Before signing onto The Guardian full time, she was a freelance producer, working on several BBC Sounds podcasts, such as After: Surviving Sexual Assault (which was nominated this year for a British Podcast Award), and Texting Keith Olbermann. She also produced the first series of Finding Annie, with Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac. She previously worked for American Public Media’s Marketplace in New York, and helped cover the 2016 presidential election while there.

Hannah Moore is a journalist and producer specialising in arts and culture. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Vice, Daily Beast, and across the BBC. Before joining the ‘Today In Focus’ team in 2019, she was an on-air reporter for Radio 1/1Xtra Newsbeat, where she covered breaking stories including the Manchester Arena bombing, and the Grenfell Tower fire. She has reported live from red carpet events and London Fashion Week, and got exclusive interviews with celebrities including The Rock, Vivienne Westwood and Cher. She has also produced documentaries for BBC World Service and Radio 4. She holds an MA in Arts & Culture Reporting from Columbia University in New York.

Robert Abel has a 15-year track record of building substantial business growth through world-class audio. Heading up the audio department as a long-standing member of the executive team at Somethin’ Else, Robert was a key player in transforming the company from a small business into the largest independent audio production company in Europe. In the newly-created role of Head of Commercial Audio Strategy at The Guardian since Autumn 2019, Robert devises and helps to implement strategy to drive commercial and editorial success, across GNM’s operations in the UK, Australia and the US.

Chris Michael is the creator and host of Reverberate, the Guardian’s podcast series exploring moments when music shook history. He is also an international news and special series editor, and the former editor of Guardian Cities, and focuses on how to expand the Guardian’s global narrative storytelling for international audiences

Course Details

• Date: Saturday 3 & Sunday 4 July 2021
• Time: 2pm-5pm (BST)

This masterclass is available globally. If you are joining us from outside the United Kingdom, please use this time zone converter to check your local live streaming time.

You will be sent a link to the webinar two hrs before the start time. Please email masterclasses@theguardian.com if you have not received the access link within one hour of the scheduled start time.

All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible but please contact us at masterclasses@theguardian.com if you have any queries or concerns.

Full course and returns information on the Masterclasses website