Really Specific Stories: Grace Teng Duration: 44:58 SPEAKERS Martin Feld, Grace Teng Martin Feld 00:21 Thank you, Grace, for joining Really Specific Stories; it's great to have you appear on this episode. Grace Teng 00:26 Happy to be here. Martin Feld 00:27 How did you first get into podcasts? Grace Teng 00:31 OK, so right away, we are getting into a very personal part of the story. I mean, I haven't listened to the other episodes, so I don't know, you know, how other people get into podcasts. Martin Feld 00:47 Mm-hmmm. Grace Teng 00:48 For me, you know, I liked to listen to the radio as a kid, but mostly for the music not really for, for the other stuff. I guess the idea of a podcast, I knew about it, but it was always very quaint to me, like, why would you want to listen to people talking? I think was kind of, um, how I how I felt about it. So yeah, I knew about them, but they just seemed like a really niche form for a very long time. The, I guess the turning point for me was in probably 2015, thereabouts, because, like I said, this is a very personal part of the story, but it's one that I guess—eh, well, I don't I don't mind sharing it, I mean... Martin Feld 01:32 Whatever you're comfortable with—no pressure from me. Grace Teng 01:34 Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's strange, because like, straight away, we're just starting out in this really, um, strange spot in my life. But basically, in 2015, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Um, and there was a period of time, like one of the classic signs of depression is like, you stop enjoying things, right? So you stop enjoying things that you used to enjoy. So for me, that meant that, like, I found that I had a hard time reading, I found that had a hard time consuming, like, most of my usual media, like, it just didn't really hold my interest. And the kind of the really strange thing, I guess, was that the one thing that I found tolerable at that time was, OK... I'm, I'm trying to kind of fill in the gaps in my, in my memory. I think what happened was, there was the only thing that seemed tolerable was reading The Pen Addict, the blog, originally. And um, I think I read it, like, pretty much start to finish because, yeah, there was nothing else that seemed very interesting. So it was kind of, you know, just a thing to, to do. Grace Teng 02:43 And when I was done, then I was back to like, well, I don't really enjoy anything that I used to enjoy, so what will I do next? And so kind of out of desperation, I started listening to the podcast, because hey, for some reason, the blog seems tolerable, maybe the podcast will do. So that's literally how I started listening to podcasts, because The Pen Addict podcast is part of the Relay FM network, then I started listening to other Relay podcasts, then um, kind of to the wider Relay universe, right? Um, listening to ATP, a little, I think I kind of like listened to some Incomparable podcasts for a bit and it didn't really hold my interest. Uh, and then from there, I kind of started exploring, like, 'OK, what, what are the big name podcasts?' You know, 99% Invisible, Planet Money (that kind of thing), which I still listen to. Some other things have kind of moved out of the list. But yeah, so I mean, that's how the habit started. It's endured for other reasons, I hope. Um, yeah, but it has has a very specific starting point for me, yeah. Martin Feld 03:53 Wow, look, I'm very grateful that you shared that, because, as I hope listeners know, I come into this with no planned questions... Grace Teng 03:59 Yeah! Martin Feld 03:59 ...you drive the story. So, I'm very grateful that you shared such personal detail there. Thank you, that wouldn't be terribly easy. The fact that you've brought up The Pen Addict... Grace Teng 04:10 Yeah. Martin Feld 04:11 ...as this blog, or this writing that you found so interesting, or at least tolerable, as you put it—were you already a fan of stationery, or were you coming into something new? What was it about that particular content or messaging that captured your interest? Grace Teng 04:25 That's a good question. I mean, I would say that I like stationery, I was not an addict of stationery at the time. I guess part of the appeal is the idea that somebody can be so dedicated to pens that you can sustain a, you know, once- or twice-a-week habit, writing about it for years, right? I mean, the origin of The Pen Addict is such a simple idea. It's just like, hey, there are no pen reviews and where there are, they don't actually show you any writing and then, you know, kind of going from there and... I don't know, I mean, I guess I just appreciated the simplicity of the original idea. And I don't really have an explanation beyond that of why I was drawn to it. I think maybe it was just, I don't know, maybe a little bit of comfort, like I was the kind of kid who, you know, would be like, 'Hey, there's a new pen in the, in the bookstore, I would like to try it!' right? So you know, kind of developed some tastes that way, but yeah, I would not previously have described myself as somebody who was a stationery addict, up to that point. Martin Feld 05:36 That's good. I think I can relate to that, because I like pens, but I wouldn't call myself an addict, so that makes sense. And you mentioned that you started to discover more and more shows within this ecosystem or community of content, Relay FM being one of them. Were you aware of some of these people, or personalities or this community beforehand, or was this a new discovery for you? Cab you told me about what it was like to enter this community? Grace Teng 06:03 I feel like I might have come across, well, I mean, of course, Myke Hurley, because he is on The Pen Addict, right? So I felt like I had heard that name before, and then it kind of became like, 'Hey, what other shows is Myke on?' right? And then that, that's really kind of how I started to to discover the rest of Relay FM. I guess, coming to tech, I have always grown up around tech. I mean, my parents were not exactly early adopters, but they were very techie. And so you know, we all, we had computers. Um, they were always tinkering, comfortable with electronics, you know, soldering, building stuff, cobbling together things. Um, and so I had kind of always grown up with an awareness of computers. And I mean, I remember John Siracusa from, you know, kind of his famous OS reviews. And so then, you know, you kind of connect the dots like, 'Hey, John Siracusa has a show on Relay FM, with Merlin Mann'. And Merlin, of course, was it 43 Folders? I can't remember, what's the number? Whatever number of folders it is, so I mean, like, years ago, I, you know, I had come across his, his, his blog from something else. Grace Teng 07:22 And then, you know, yeah, kind of, like, 'Hey, these are kind of Internet people that I've heard about, um, in other arenas, and here they are on, on podcasts!' Yeah, so there was a little bit of that, it wasn't, which I guess maybe helped the discovery, because otherwise, it's kind of hard to tell, just looking at a description of a podcast, whether it's something that might interest you, but if you recognise a name, then that's easier to get started, I think, or overcome that initial, that inertia to, you know, download an episode and start listening. Martin Feld 07:58 So when you started experimenting with different shows—you've mentioned some of them naturally, The Pen Addict is in there because of Myke Hurley—... Grace Teng 08:05 Yes. Martin Feld 08:05 ...which of the other shows on Relay FM did you begin to discover or enjoy that involved Myke Hurley, as a personality who drew you in? Grace Teng 08:14 Connected, obviously, um, was one that I started listening to. Cortex, I actually started really early. I think when I started listening to Cortex, it was like on episode 20. I mean, I haven't kept up to date with all these shows. Like, for example, I stopped listening to Cortex a couple of years ago. MPU (Mac Power Users), still listen to that. There was a period of time, like, I've I've dipped in and out of some of these other shows. I listened to Ungeniused for a bit. Um, there was Playing for Fun... Martin Feld 08:44 Mm-hmmm... Grace Teng 08:44 ...which I think maybe I heard like two episodes, but I recall that that was the first time that I heard of Celeste (the game). So, yeah, even though it wasn't a podcast that I stuck with for a long time, like, I kind of recall, like what, you know, because it is big game. It's a game that I enjoy—'big' may be relative, to be fair—but it's a game that I enjoy, um and has quite a dedicated fan base, and I guess maybe hearing about it for the first time on a podcast, that might be an unusual origin story for somebody who plays Celeste. What else is there? I, yeah, I listened to Analog(ue) for a bit as well. Yeah, but the mainstays for me have been, um, have been Connected and MPU. Like, I feel like those are the ones that I've listened to most consistently over the longest period of time. Martin Feld 09:32 You mentioned that you had this (not necessarily early adopter but) technological upbringing; it's clear that you still have a technological interest to be listening to the shows. What is it about Connected and Mac Power Users that keep you interested? What do you enjoy about the shows and how do they align with your ongoing technological interest? Grace Teng 09:53 That is a good question, because, I think I'll answer MPU first... Martin Feld 09:59 Mm-hmmm? Grace Teng 09:59 ...because I think my interest in that is easier to answer, I think. Broadly speaking, I like tools, right? Pens, but also the digital equivalent, like, you know, besides thinking on paper, you also do a lot of the work on the computer. And so, I enjoy hearing about, you know, people who want to get the most out of the computing tools that they use. There's a big focus on that on MPU. Uh, I mean, I was a Mac user from probably about 2009. So, like, I could relate to it, I guess, right? And just by starting to listen to MPU, and hearing about some of the ways that people get their work done on the Mac, or use the Mac for other purposes, I think. I guess the pay-off was very immediate for me. For Connected, it took a little more time, before I kind of got used to the idea of the show and what it was really about. I think, for me Connected and ATP, which in many ways are very similar and at the same time, are quite different, right? Both of them took a little time to get used to, like, I feel like the first couple of times I listen to both of these, I was like, 'What's going on? What's going on here? I don't get all these in-jokes, I don't get...', you know, like, I think the first ATP episode I listened to, like, it started with like, Casey was podcasting while watching a football game or something, and I was so confused. Grace Teng 11:26 But over time, I kind of got around to the idea that the central conceit is really just three friends, they have big overlaps in their common interests, and they are just having fun, right? They're just exchanging the news in the same way that you know, if you see somebody at work, or at school, or you meet a friend or whatever, and you know that you have this shared interest, and you'll be like, 'Hey, did you hear this news? Let's, what do you think?' right? That kind of thing... So, it kind of felt like once I kind of got to know, like, what are the roles that each of these play, uh, each of these people play in their respective kind of like podcast host slash friend groups, then it became, it made sense, and made sense of like, 'OK, now I get it, I get why this is entertaining'. And it feels like hanging out with friends, who don't know me, but I feel like, you know, I know a little bit of the characters that, that they're playing on, on each of these shows. Martin Feld 12:22 And what's the listening context for you? Do you listen to the show at certain times or along with certain activities or is it inconsistent? Grace Teng 12:31 That is usually quite consistent for me. The kind of two places that I tend to listen are when I am commuting (I'm sure is the case for a lot of people), um, and also when I am working out. So those are two easy places to listen. Some maybe more kind of ad hoc times that I listen would be doing chores. It's just something to take the mind off the boredom. Um, so I guess those three main things, right? It isn't always, like, it's not super-consistent, right? It's not that whenever I commute, I'm always listening to podcasts, sometimes it's music or something else, so it can be a bit streaky. Um, I can end up building a backlog, but generally, I will go back to podcasts every couple of weeks or so, like, I don't think I go for like long stretches like months or anything without catching up on some podcasts. Martin Feld 13:28 It's interesting to me how much or how often they are a part of your lives, because you said there that you came to understand their different roles—you feel that you're part of this kind of friend discussion. Grace Teng 13:40 Yeah. Martin Feld 13:41 Do you relate specifically to any of the hosts on the show? How do you consider their roles? And how do you feel that you might connect with them? Grace Teng 13:49 That's a bit tougher to answer, I feel. I'm cognisant that, you know, I'm cognisant that a lot of people can form, you know, almost parasocial relationships with people that they encounter on YouTube, or... Martin Feld 14:01 Mmm... Grace Teng 14:01 ...podcasts or any such medium and so, which is why I was specifically like, these are the roles that they play. And I feel like, I've gotten to know them, which is very different from, you know, I feel like I've gotten to know the person behind the podcast. Hmmm...how do I relate to the roles, is... I don't know that they have a specific relationship beyond just that I enjoy hearing their opinions, because there's nobody that I agree with, you know, 100 per cent, right? But I like the dynamic that they have where it's a good balance, I feel, and I'm referring specifically to Connected and ATP (maybe), where it's like, they kind of keep each other in check, right? It still feels like you know, friends ribbing each other but nobody takes things too far, I think, maybe is the way that that I would put it and I enjoy that kind of camaraderie maybe. Martin Feld 14:57 And in terms of connecting with hosts or there roles—as you know, and as listeners know, I'm based in Australia, I'm not based in the US where a lot of these podcasts come from, if you don't mind my saying, you're also not based in the US—... Grace Teng 15:11 Yeah. Martin Feld 15:12 ...how does the distance affect (or not affect) the listening, given that it's from the US and relatively US-centric with the brands and the technology they talk about? Grace Teng 15:22 Mmm... I'm kind of scanning all the other media consume, right, which, to be honest, is very US-centric as well. I guess that's one of the things that the Internet has done. Um, kind of like a cultural monoculture, which might be tautological, but yeah, I mean, I guess I don't necessarily feel it as different from the rest of the, you know, media landscape. I will say, I do appreciate that Connected, the tagline, right, being you know, 'three different countries, three different accents', even though it's still, you know, two Europeans and one American. I do appreciate that, you know, having that somewhat different perspective, as compared to a lot of shows or a lot of media in general, that just assumes you're in the US. Yeah, but I honestly don't think I can say that it's really crossed my radar. Yeah, hmmm... that's an that's an interesting question. Martin Feld 16:24 Well building on that... Grace Teng 16:25 Yeah? Martin Feld 16:26 ...given that you would be surrounded by local media that is different from the US-centric media that kind of saturates—and that monoculture, that was a great word choice that you made there—... Grace Teng 16:36 Yeah. Martin Feld 16:36 ...are there any tech podcasts, or tech media or things that are similar from where you live that you would say are markedly different? Do you see a contrast? What else are you exposed to? Grace Teng 16:48 That's the thing, because I don't. I feel like you know, in many ways, if you talk about Apple products, they're here. If you talk about Google products, Amazon, whatever, like, I can get them here. Maybe some of the details differ, like, you know, when when are they shipping out? When will you get them? When some services become available outside of the US, like those things, yeah—but I guess, for me, like, in practical terms, it doesn't really make a difference, because I'm interested in technology, but personally, I've never been a super-early adopter. And so it's never been important to me to be like, 'OK, go and get things, the moment they're available; oh, no, I can't get such an such service, because they haven't launched outside of the US or anything like that'. So, to me, it feels like a way to get tech news in general. And at least where I am, where it's very easy to get access to the latest technology, it might as well be the same, right? Grace Teng 17:46 I feel like a local podcast focusing on the, you know, latest and greatest technology or the most pertinent tech news would end up covering much of the same ground—maybe a little local flavour in terms of, again, shipping dates, maybe local regulations, that kind of thing, but I think the broad landscape is really the same. I do know that, you know, there are local tech bloggers, journalists and so on who are on top of, you know, the latest iPhone releases, the new MacBook, whatever, and I guess it's more that I've come to, I've come to enjoy getting my tech news, as a by-product of listening in on this, you know, friends' conversation. And so I'm not necessarily going out and being like, 'I want to read all about the latest device', or, 'I want to go out and read analysis on such and such thing that happened', right? Um, in the tech world, I guess the reason that I listen is really that I just enjoy hearing the banter and then the tech news just comes along with it. Martin Feld 18:57 No, that's a great way to put it, so it's news combined with entertainment. Grace Teng 19:00 Yeah, pretty much. Martin Feld 19:02 Now in terms of the podcasting form, you're a listener, but I'm looking at someone who, uh—I mean, listeners can't see this—but you actually have quite a nice looking microphone set-up. Grace Teng 19:13 I, I, I do, yeah. Yeah. Martin Feld 19:15 Have you, if you don't mind my asking, have you dabbled in or are you considering dabbling in podcasting from the production side? Or has it mainly been listening for you? Grace Teng 19:24 I do, um, have a, what I describe as a 'vanity podcast' that I started with a friend of mine, David, who is a graduate student who studies birds and ecology. So, David is an old friend of mine from, you know, primary school. We've known each other for like 20 years. And over that time, we've had lots of conversations about lots of things and I think what all those conversations have in common is really that we are just very curious people and we have some very specific areas of interest that we can talk at length about, and our conversations just go everywhere, right? So, I think originally the idea that I had for this podcast, which OK, so let me back up for a second because I'm like, OK, I haven't given the name of the podcast, I haven't talked about, like, why we did it. So the podcast is called Monkey Mind. It's not anything that I advertise or anything like, if you look up like my social media, you won't see it anywhere there because like I said, it's a vanity podcast, we do it for fun. And the idea behind Monkey Mind is, that, it's, again, two people talking about whatever comes to mind and it tends to be a very weaving conversation. So, it can start with something that happened to one of us the week prior, and it can end up somewhere else, which I realise is not a very good description. So like, let me try, let me try again! Grace Teng 20:58 So, I think part of the problem is that because I've never, you know, tried to advertise it or talk about it in public in general, that I just don't have a very good, like, elevator pitch for this. Yeah, so essentially, I get on a call with David, we talk about whatever comes to mind, right. And so for example, I think the last episode that we released, it started with the two of us playing Pokémon, doing surprise trades on Pokémon Violet. And then over time, then we just started talking about, um, I want to say natural history. Uh, because I guess Pokémon ties into, you know, there is an element of, like, your taxonomy you're collecting. You're collecting specimens, um, and also David's teaching a class this semester, that uh, and his portion of the class is covering natural history. And then he kind of talks about, like, 'Well, how do you approach this, this topic?' and all that kind of stuff. So it ended up just being like, an episode of two halves, like the first half was just talking about Pokémon, and then suddenly, it goes off in a different direction. And then the second half is about like natural history, how do you curate natural history? How do you talk about it? How do you teach others about it, and that kind of thing? And that's a very regular occurrence. So we've been doing this, I think we actually started around the time of COVID. Um, so it's been about three years, but it's inconsistent. It's really a when-we-have-time thing, and then, you know, we'll go months without recording anything. Martin Feld 22:38 That's great, and I totally incorrectly used the word 'dabbling' in my question, not knowing that you had done it for so long. Grace Teng 22:45 Yeah. Martin Feld 22:45 So you've actually been doing it for a little while, that's great. And when you're podcasting, obviously, the context or the feeling of speaking into the microphone is very different from listening; it's not an activity that you can do while doing other things because you're the one presenting. Grace Teng 23:01 Yes. Martin Feld 23:01 Seems very obvious, but when you think about the feeling of doing that, how do you feel when you're producing or the centre of the podcast, speaking with your friend? Grace Teng 23:10 This is another kind of thing that, in the early part of doing Monkey Mind, I think, to kind of keep things simple, we would record and then I edit it, and then just post it. Then over time, at some point, I realised, like, 'OK, it is a vanity project, it's for fun', you know, not planning to make any money on it or whatever, but because of, of the fact that it's meant to be fun, right? I was like, 'Well, why is the turnaround time for episodes so long?' Because I enjoy the conversation part and I don't really enjoy the production part afterwards, kind of piecing things together. And so, um, originally, at that point, I decided, well, let me outsource that part, right? I'm just going to get somebody else to edit it, and that means that I'm, you know, paying for it but the flip side is that then I think of it as just like you would pay for a hobby almost, right? And I guess I think of this more as a, like, I enjoy these conversations, you know, and I kind of think that could be fun to have other people peer in a little bit into some of these conversations that otherwise would just be between me and a good friend, and maybe share our perspectives a little bit, because I think we have had very different professional experiences and we see things with different lenses. Grace Teng 24:49 And what I appreciate about these conversations is that because we have overlapping but distinct interests, sometimes David might say something about birds and evolution and I'll be like, 'Hey, that actually lines up with something that I know, and let me tell you about it'. And then we kind of have this back and forth. The plan in my head, right, with, with this podcast is just let's just do it, get started, get into the habit of doing it. And maybe when we figure out where we're going with it, we can, you know, be a bit more structured and disciplined and see if we can turn it into a thing. But it's been three years and we're at the stag of like, you know, 'Can you record this week? You can't record this week? OK, let's push it back a week'. 'Oh, I can't make it in in April; let's do it in May.' We're at that stage, really. Yeah. Martin Feld 25:38 You described it as a 'vanity project', or maybe even like paying for a hobby. Grace Teng 25:42 Right. Martin Feld 25:42 How do you consider it within, or what role does it play in all the things that you do in your life? And is it difficult to line up with your professional commitments? Grace Teng 25:52 Now that I've kind of outsourced the editing portion of it, not really; it really is a situation of you know, I would probably meet for for for lunch or dinner anyway. Now we just make it a Zoom call, we record it and then that's it. So it doesn't feel like a, I don't know, it doesn't feel like an obligation. 'Obligation' is maybe not the right word. It doesn't feel like a burden, maybe is a better way of putting it. I honestly don't really have an explanation for why we're doing it other than we both love the things that we talk about, and I think we kind of want to share that, even though we're not doing a very good job at it, at it, by you know, not advertising it or doing it regularly or whatever. Martin Feld 26:34 Well it really is for fun, then? This is something you do for enjoyment. Grace Teng 26:37 Yeah, it really is for fun. Yeah, really is for fun. Martin Feld 26:40 That's great, and you referred to differing or overlapping professional experience. If you don't mind my asking, can you speak a little bit about your professional experience? I'm interested to know where maybe that feeds or draws into the podcasting and the listening that you do. Grace Teng 26:55 I am a software engineer now; I haven't always been. And my listening, my podcast listening, I should say, precedes my professional software engineering by about five years. Um, let's see... so before I was a software engineer, I worked at a tech start-up, but not in engineering. And then before that, I actually was on a kind of personal break, because I was, you know, still kind of dealing with and recovering from the chronic depression that was, that was diagnosed in 2015. Martin Feld 27:31 Mmm. Grace Teng 27:32 Around that time that I started listening to podcasts, I was a teacher, I was an English teacher. Uh, before that, I worked briefly, in film for about—I say, film, maybe I should say video production—I worked briefly in video production for about three months, and then before that I was in school, uh, for film. So that's actually where I learned all the audio production stuff. I probably would have all of this, even if I didn't get into podcasting, because just leftovers from, from school days, yeah. Martin Feld 28:09 See, this is really fascinating, because throughout your history here, across teaching, video production, now audio with this hobby or vanity project, as you put it, software, this is really, and maybe this is a cheesy term by today's standards, but it's multimedia, you're engaging with a lot of different media. So, focusing, at least at first, on the software engineering part, you said that podcasting actually preceded this career shift. Grace Teng 28:38 Yeah. Martin Feld 28:38 Did podcasting feed into that in any way? Or how have you grown or developed or moved into that software engineering role, given it's so different from what came before? Grace Teng 28:49 So I would say there are two parts to this baby. So the first part is the part where they are correlated, right, but not directly related, because I think there was a general interest in tech from when I was a kid... Martin Feld 29:03 Mmm... Grace Teng 29:04 ...which then is why I, you know, got into listening to tech podcasts, which then is also why, when the time came for me to, you know, reevaluate where I was professionally that I chose to go into software engineering. But you are also right, because I think when I started listening to ATP, I had dabbled in, um, programming when I was when I was a kid, but I had never done it professionally. And at the time that I started listening to ATP, I had not done programming for many years at that point. So when I started listening to ATP, it was a little, there was an adjustment of, like, 'Wow, these, these people are engineers, right?' And it is, ATP is for a general audience, but that audience is very technical still. And sometimes people, you know, write in with questions that are—file systems, I mean, John, Siracusa and his, you know, the bell that goes off whenever he starts talking about file systems. And I'm like, 'Why is he so enthusiastic about APFS?' I mean, I get it's a running gag, but I don't actually get it, right? Grace Teng 30:10 So yeah, there was a little bit of that that was kind of out of reach (as a non-engineer), which then I don't think that made me a better engineer or that impacted me when I made the switch into software engineering. But it does feel a little bit like, 'Hey, now I maybe have a more complete understanding of what's going on', right? It's like pulling back the curtain: 'Oh, that's what they mean; that's what they're talking about; that's why it's funny', right? So there's a little bit of that. So I wouldn't say they are directly, you know, one didn't lead to the other, but they are both driven by an underlying love and appreciation for technology. Martin Feld 30:52 I really like how all these different parts, essentially connect: fandom, growing up... Grace Teng 30:59 Yeah. Martin Feld 31:00 ...professional experience. All of this stuff feeds into each other, which I find really fascinating. On the video production part that you mentioned in your career, I'm interested in the fact that now you're consuming—on the down-low, as you said, producing—so much audio. That's a big shift. I mean, video relies on or includes audio, but audio by itself, that's, that's quite removed. Can you tell me about how you feel producing and consuming audio these days when you have such a video background? What does this mean to you? Grace Teng 31:33 Hmm... so I'm kind of formulating the response, because I'm thinking about this for the first time. But yeah, I guess maybe I have a bit of a different, maybe almost unique perspective, maybe not unique, I feel like a lot of film students actually end up dabbling in podcasts or, you know, similar mediums at some point or another because, you know, you learn to work with audio, as part of your film education. And at least for me, when I went to film school, the professors were really insistent that it's 50 per cent of the movie, it does as much of the storytelling as the video, right? And when I went to film school, like, it was a very large department, and there were many different craft departments, right, so there was camera, there was editing. And then there was production sound and post-production sound as well. And then there was also, like, television, children's media, you know, narrative film, experimental film. And then there was documentary, which was actually one of the things that I ended up, yeah, I didn't go to film school expecting to do a lot of documentary, but that's part of what I ended up doing. Grace Teng 32:49 So, I spent a lot of time in film school doing production sound and doing documentary, which I think actually feeds really nicely, uh, into podcasting, because by far, the film discipline that overlaps the most, right, with podcasting has to be, well probably the first would be studio recording, but then production sound would be a close second. The audio editors would beg to differ, they would be like, 'Hey, actually, audio editing is a huge part of podcasting', but because I outsource that part, I don't think about it that much! Um, like this literally just popped in my head, like no, actually, audio editing is probably the the biggest overlap! Grace Teng 33:29 So, then the other side of it is having worked on documentary, where obviously the image is very important, but you are also relying so much on audio to really tell the story to build the context. Like, what is the space? What does it sound like? And of course, there's so much that goes into, I mean, I guess when, when... the way that I was taught documentary was that a documentary is really just four basic blocks, put together in different configurations: and so, one is a portrait of a place; then the second is person engaged in an activity; and then the third is archival footage; and then the fourth is the interview, which I think is what most people think of when they think of documentaries, but the first two are equally important. And in those two, right, the sounds, you know soundscape, all of that contributes to painting a picture of a place, it contributes to your sense of what the person is doing. I guess when I say person engaged in activity and like maybe, you know, as an example, if you interview a painter, right? Then of course, you also want to show them painting. If you interview, you know, (I don't know), a mechanic, you want to show them fixing a car, something like that. And all of those things have sounds associated with them, and because a documentary filmmaker, like, obviously you do planning before you go into shoot, but you're also adapting on the fly. And so sometimes you don't always get the picture that you want, uh, and you're dependent on the sound to tell the story. Grace Teng 35:14 And I guess the other side of it is like, you have to be aware of the audio, because you don't have total control over that as well. And so, you kind of want to be responsive to what's going on in your environment. Like, if you hear an interesting noise, you might want to turn your camera in that direction and things like that. I guess maybe the discipline itself just made it very, it cultivated this awareness of what sound can do. Now, having said all of that, right, I think that's maybe more pertinent to the class of podcasts that you might hear on NPR, right, or something that you might hear on, maybe the more, uh, narrative-style podcast like 99% Invisible or This American Life, right? Because that's really where like, if you interview somebody, you hear them in their natural environment, you hear all the sounds that you might hear, in their workplace or in their home, or whatever, as opposed to, you know, friends podcasting in the studio. Grace Teng 36:13 So, maybe I would say that film and documentary background gave me an appreciation for how much craft is involved in putting those narrative podcasts together, to the degree that I almost don't feel like I'm missing the picture. And I actually think that in these listening-in-on-friends'-conversations kind of podcasts, like, there's less of that, because it's a much more controlled environment. There's less montage going on. Of course, there's editing, there's post-processing, um, and so on. But there's less storytelling that is based on the juxtaposition of clips or juxtaposition of audio, and other techniques like that, that you would traditionally attribute to film. Martin Feld 36:58 Wow, thank you for bringing your film knowledge into this. And as you've said that, my mind has gone to video podcasts. Now, this is another form of the podcast, or it's delivered differently. I think most people listening would think about something like YouTube as the delivery mechanism. I like that distinction that you gave between what is essentially a conversation or chatcast versus the narrative ones. How do you think about the distinction between audio podcasts through something like RSS versus video podcasts? What's your impression about the importance of the form or how it's seen or heard? Grace Teng 37:38 I guess I would say I'm not a purist. So, I'm really quite agnostic as to, for example, whether a podcast is delivered over RSS, which I guess, you know, has become contentious with Spotify, and so on. When it comes to video podcasts, I guess, in my mind, the question is really: what does the video contribute to the podcast? Because if I can turn off the video and listen, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything, then I would question: what's the, what's the video doing? I think it can be useful in a maybe almost atmospheric sense, right? Setting the scene, setting the tone... but I have to say, I haven't really seen a lot of video podcasts where the video was really integral to what was being talked about. I mean, I think that's (for the most part) intentional, right? Because I almost feel like the video podcast exists because YouTube is such a dominant medium. If podcasts were as popular as YouTube, then we might not see that many video podcasts because I think a lot of people kind of use YouTube as a discovery mechanism, and that's how they find podcasts, how they consume podcasts, and then almost as a side effect, podcasters feel a need to have a video component to the podcast. But if the core idea is to be a podcast, then the video simply can't be that integral. Otherwise, you are cutting out, you know, the core audience that listens on their, on their phones or on their commute, where they can't watch your video. Grace Teng 39:11 So, I think this is interesting, because I don't remember the name of the podcast that Adam Savage does on the Tested channel, but I actually think, like, in terms of, you know, setting, setting the atmosphere, that's really, that to me is interesting, because it takes place in his cave, where you see all the paraphernalia behind and that does help to communicate, again, it's a group of friends—they're talking about something that happened and something that a common interest that they share—and the visuals reflect those common interests. And so in that way, I think it's beneficial, but I also don't think it's crucial. So, I have an example that is maybe very, very obscure. Martin Feld 39:52 I welcome that! Grace Teng 39:53 So I, uh, enjoy watching speedruns. So, there is a podcast called Dear PB? I don't know if, um, I would be surprised if, you know, I met another Dear PB listener that's not heavily involved in speedrunning. So, it is a podcast by people involved in speedrunning, and every episode, they get somebody in who is involved in the speedrunning community, and they talk about speedruns, right? But I think what is interesting to me is originally, they started with the conceit that the speedrunner would come, they would speedrun a game that was about an hour long, and they would talk over that time, but at the same time, they wanted to keep it mainly a podcast. So the rule kind of was: 'OK, you are playing a game, we are talking, but don't mention anything that's on screen', right? So they would record the game feed, and then that would become the video on their, on the YouTube upload of the podcast. Grace Teng 41:01 Two things happen. One was that their guests became very distracted, because they were doing something while trying to have a conversation, which I think then became a gimmick. And that actually spawned a YouTube series on Games Done Quick. So, if you go to the Games Done Quick channel and you look for—Think Fast! is what it's called. So there is a series on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel, where the same two people who host to Dear PB, they host this speedrunning game show, where two people, right, will come, they will each speedrun a game and they will be asked trivia questions, right? And the gimmick is, like: how fast can you play a game while answering trivia questions? And once that thing, right, once that series happened on YouTube, they stopped doing videos on the Dear PB podcast because they were like, 'It's not really the right medium, now we have this outlet for all the shenanigans that we were up to before, where we had distracting runners with people playing games with conversation; and now we have our podcast and we're just going to use it to talk about speedrunning and this gaming and this thing that we have in common without the distraction of having to have a video'. So, I kind of feel like the video podcast is more of a (I don't know), a bit of a redheaded stepchild, like, it's neither here nor there. It exists because people kind of need YouTube as a distribution channel and not because there's something inherent to the video. Martin Feld 42:46 Yeah, and it comes back to the point you were saying about: what is the purpose of video? What are you hoping to show or indicate? It needs to be useful, right? Grace Teng 42:54 Yeah. Martin Feld 42:55 When it comes to your own podcasting, is video something that you have considered or have done before, given your video background? Grace Teng 43:05 No. Nope, uh, not from me, and I don't think, yeah, I don't think my co-host was would be interested as well. I think, well, part of what I like about podcasting as a medium is that there's very low overhead. Again, this is specific to the conversation type of podcast; for the kind of narrative-storytelling type of podcasts, like, a tonne of what goes into that, because you're doing everything that you would normally do for a video production, except without a camera, right? You're going to places, you're interviewing people, um, you're collecting—well, not footage—you're collecting sound, and then when you come back, you kind of have to piece it all together in the same way that you would with a video, but with a conversational kind of podcast there isn't all of that overhead, and I like it that way. Martin Feld 43:56 That's a great wrap-up of what you'd like about the medium. And from there, I'd like to ask you: is there anything that we haven't covered or that I haven't asked you about that you would like to cover about your podcasting experience, your history, your consumption of it? Grace Teng 44:10 Hmmm... I don't think so. I think, I mean, it's, you know, more than I've ever answered before. And that's an interesting final question, because that was something that our documentary professor said, You should always end interviews with that question'. Martin Feld 44:26 Brilliant. Well, I'm glad that I did the right thing according to your professor. Grace Teng 44:29 Yeah. Martin Feld 44:30 Well, Grace, this has been fantastic, and I appreciate that you've spoken more about podcasting than you ever have before. It's been wonderful to meet you and chat on the show. Grace Teng 44:39 Yeah, same same. Thank you for inviting me to do this.