Strike a Spark Podcast
Soooo......
I started a podcast!
Anyone who knows me could guess that this would probably happen eventually, but I took the dive and an idea I was excited about and dove in.
The Strike a Spark podcast evolved from the initial idea of an MCBS podcast that ended up not working out. I wanted a vehicle to have real and authentic conversations with creatives, and I thought that it would be really interesting to talk with fellow multi-hyphenates. So I decided to make the pod!
Check out the trailer below!
I recruited a team of friends and peers from the MCBS program to come and collaborate on the limited series project with the hopes of us all getting to try something we hadn't done before and learn something new from these conversations with these amazing people. The main team consists of myself, Ray Hayse, Taylor Maxson, and Michael "Big Mike" McLean. Over the first season, we also had help from Etienne Strauss and Shakita Moore. And I have to give a thank you to Joiya Poole and Milea Verock for giving us their time, encouragement, and advice.
We preplanned to record the whole season of episodes, came up with a social strategy, and the guys helped me shape this project into what I imagined it would be. And since we are all multi-hyphenates ourselves, it allowed for a unique opportunity for each episode to be led by one main host, but also edited and promoted by them, too. For example, we created teasers, graphics, blooper reels, and soundbites for every guest.
Here is a teaser for one of the episodes I was the lead host on and edited with Anthony Smith:
The format of the podcast is simple, each episode is just over an hour long and hosted by two members of our team while a third produces it. And each episode features a few standard parts including...
An honest mental health check-in
How do you get out of a creative block?
A game custom to our guest
Have you ever thought about choosing a lane?
What song currently describes your life?
This allows us to have a through line with our episodes with the hosts constantly rotating and also with us tailoring the questions and the game to our guest. We've been able to chat with people from all different types of creative fields from Casting Assistants to Comedians and Creative Directors to Actors and Musicians, and that's just a fraction of what SOME of them do!
Here's a little clip from Episode 103: Friendships, Failure + Forging Your Own Paths with Anthony Smith of the Sunset Drive Podcast
Be sure to subscribe our YouTube channel to watch the video podcast or listen to it wherever you stream your podcasts, every other Thursday! You can find the links to the platform of your choice here: https://anchor.fm/strikeasparkpod
P.S. If you want to check out all of the songs that are mentioned at the end of the episodes you can check out the playlist on Spotify!
P.P.S. One fun thing that I'd love to note is that in the process of me creating the branding for Strike a Spark, I wanted to try something opposite of my traditional light and simple design work and branding I'd been doing recently. And after a meeting where Big Mike came up with the podcast name, I came up with the branding concepts to present to the team and we ran with them. But after the first two episodes came out, I felt as though compared to my other work it wasn't quite up to par and I didn't like it as much after a week or so as I originally did. So I took another stab at it and elevated it to the next level. Below you can get a glimpse of the before and after of the rebrand as well as see a bit behind the scenes into how we organize the podcast.