Why Don’t You Podcast More Often?

Frock Flicks started out as a podcast way back in 2007, and I’m still not sure why we chose that format instead of a blog. I guess because the basic idea was “three chicks sit around and talk shit about historical costumes in movies,” so the emphasis was on talking, thus an audio format seemed appropriate. And 2007, I guess, was back in the first wave of podcasts being popular or something.

I did a little research, bought a microphone, figured out how to submit a file to iTunes, and off we went. But even in the very beginning, that product was a hack job produced on an incredibly random schedule. After our first podcast on Marie Antoinette (2006), we managed to record the Elizabeth (1998) podcast a month later, and then it was a whole year after that for a podcast about The Other Bolyen Girl (where we actually went Out! To! A! Movie! Theater! OMG!). We did our first live show, Wait Wait Don’t Frock Me, about 6 months later at Costume-Con, followed by Vanity Fair (2004) some four months after.  Then there was another year-plus jump to 2009 until we podcasted Affair of the Necklace (2001), and for a while we had a once-a-year podcast going. That’s not much of a series, is it?

Not until 2014, when we started this blog, did we even faintly pick up the podcasting pace. Faintly! We’ve had two runs with weekly episodic podcasting recaps, first for the final season of Downton Abbey in January 2016 and again for the second season (aka, Paris!) of Outlander in April 2016. I’ll note that Downton was much, much easier because Kendra and I watched the entire series in advance, using U.K.-pirated episodes, so we could pre-record the podcasts and publish them along with the U.S. air dates. Whereas the Outlander podcasts were done right as the eps aired on Showtime, and that was super complicated for everyone involved (I bowed out of that mess ;)

OK, why am I boring y’all with this backstory of the Frock Flicks podcast? This may explain why we don’t podcast that much or that frequently!

We’ve tried a lot of different things recently to get ourselves to podcast more often. We thought we’d make some Patreon-only podcasts. We did manage to do 5 episodes that way! between November 2016 and June 2017 (so not quite one a month). Then we tried to do a short-form podcast that was less about one big movie/TV review and more ‘what we’re watching’ (which the Patreon podcasts kind of were). We managed two episodes late last year.

I comes down to the three of us being more apt as writers than sound editors, frankly. Writing blog posts five times a week is surprisingly easier than creating a regular podcast because you can write a little bit here and there as you have ideas or find images. To record a podcast, at least two of us have to get in the same room together, and that doesn’t happen as often as you’d think. We’ve tried out different tools for remote recording, and audio quality issues aside, the mere fact of coordinating our schedules still means it’s a lot harder than just publishing a blog post.

My point is that the blog here has become our mainstay, our raison d’etre, this is the real meat of Frock Flicks, while the podcast is something of a special occasion treat. We’ll certainly do it when we can, but it’s never going to be a regular thing around here — because it never has been a regular thing!

I think the best use of Frock Flicks podcasts may be costume dramas that are currently in movie theaters because all we can do is talk about those films and give impressions. First-run features don’t have screencaps available so we can’t do a detailed analysis or even a heavy-handed snark. So if we’re inclined and able to get together, yeah, we may venture out into the world to see a flick and WTFrock it afterwards for ya as a special treat.