Preparation

Good preparation is a sure-fire way to make a good track. Unless your track is intended to be an impromptu, off-the-cuff reaction to a film, you’ll need to prepare.

First, pick a movie you have seen many, many times. Then, get a pack of index cards. Make a time-line for the film using the index cards. Use one index card for every two minutes or so of the film. Then, prepare notes on the cards highlighting what you are going to talk about.

With the index card approach, you can pace the exposition of your track. For example, when I was working on my track comparing the movie Blade Runner to the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on which it was based, I created the timeline index cards. I had already read the book once and seen the movie countless times. Then, I took my index cards and read the book again. I could place notes directly on the card with the corresponding scene or information. I could look back through when I was finished to see which cards were too full and which cards were too empty. This ensured that I wasn’t going to have to speed up or clammer for filler material.

Another important prepration step is to plan breaks for yourself. Unless you lecture for a living, you’ll be surprised at how much 90 minutes of just talking is going to hurt. Pick several major breaks in the movie. Either plan on stitching together several half-hourish segments into one MP3 or releasing several MP3s for your track. Your voice will thank you. It will also be easier to find several half-hour periods where you won’t be interrupted than it will be to find a whole movie’s length with no distractions.

Recording

As mentioned above, plan breaks for yourself during the recording process. Try to find a time where you won’t have interruptions. If you need to take the phone off of the hook for a bit, then you should do it. It’s quite troublesome to try to edit out interruptions and still have the timing of your track line up with the timing of the film.

If your MP3 is going to start at the beginning of chapter one, then I would recommend letting your DVD player get a few seconds into track one. I would then hit the “back a chapter” button to jump back to the beginning of the track at the same time I hit the record button for my microphone.