How to Collaborate
Lesson 2 from: Turning Your Expertise into a PodcastKristina Loring, Cal Peternell
How to Collaborate
Lesson 2 from: Turning Your Expertise into a PodcastKristina Loring, Cal Peternell
Lessons
Lesson Info
How to Collaborate
We love the Kitchen Sisters, they're sort of audio documentary legends. And, they say, "Good radio is there to be looked at as well as listened to; the better the story, the more there is to see." And, we wanted to amend that a little bit, and say, "Good radio is there to be experienced as well as listened to; the better the conversation, the more there is to taste." So, we're getting ready to show you our first ingredient which is having a knock out colabo, or what we call two soups and a bowl. (laughing) So what we found really works is our partnership for us is this kind of complementary relationship. We're not, we're not two chefs. I could of, to start this podcast about teaching to cook. I could of gotten together with another chef friend of mine and been like let chef it up together. And we know all about cooking. But then it gets too cheffy. And especially since we're aiming towards home cooks we wanted to make it accessible to them. And so that's why Kristina works out well. ...
At first, you know, I was like well she doesn't really cook. What Kyle's saying is I eat chips for lunch. Like I snack, okay, I don't really She makes a fried egg sandwich and that was about the extent of it. But it turns out that that is a strength because she brings it back when I do start to get a little cheffy. Both my guests and Kristina can help to bring it back to where we want it to be to target the listening audience. So, what we would suggest is if you're gonna collaborate find someone that's outside of your field. Think about what your skills are and then think about how the other person's skills can compliment those. Bring in different points of view, different sets of references. Yeah, and so also a big part of our collaboration is with our guests. Our interviewees are sort of like our third partner. Third or fourth depending on who we're interviewing. And so we're really looking for a diversity of guests. And I mean diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, age, location in the world, art skill, experience, perspective. So that it's not just sort of like existing in this make believe white bubble. Other example of the way collaboration can be real useful. Kristina arrives at our set of the day, which is somebodies kitchen, looking pretty official, she's got her headphones on. She's got her recorder in her hand. And that can sometimes make people a little cautious. But I'm there with my bag of groceries and I start digging around in the drawers right away and seeing what's there. So I think that that part of it also facilitates our interview process. And on the flip side of that. When people feel intimidated cause like oh Cal is that chef at Chez Panisse. I can't cook in front of him. How do I even rip up chard. I'm sort of like I don't know how to rip up chard either. Do whatever you feel is right. So we kind of play off and our guest hopefully feels comfortable with at least one of us at all times. One of the things that we learned from the Kitchen Sisters was that sometimes the the most interesting thing isn't the subject you had in mind but it's the subject over there, behind them. So having a partnership, a collaboration, allows for two sets of eyes. Two sets of ears. Increases your chance of getting that sweet, a little tasty bit of audio. Yeah, and also, if I'm having a really intimidate and sort of revealing and intense conversation with somebody and our spaghetti's on fire behind us, Cal can go turn the stove off without disrupting our guests. Really trusting us and sharing a personal story. Right and in some cases we found that some of our guests are someone that one of us already kinda knows but the other one doesn't know. And that can actually elicit stories that you might not otherwise really get because. And so we have an example. We were with the director Alexander Payne and he was starting to talk about how film and Chez Panisse kind of have this history together. It's a story that I know well. But Kristina, well I don't know that story. And so Alexander told the story in a way that he probably wouldn't have told me. But he told her. So lets hear that. The neat thing about Chez Panisse is it is the intersection of food and film. You know why, right? (music) 42 years ago, Tom Luddy helped Alice Waters found Chez Panisse. And she helped him found the Telluride Film Festival. There were some famous moments like the, maybe you know about the Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, the legend has it they were eating there together with a bunch of other people and Errol Morris was saying I'm gonna make this movie about a pet cemetery. It's a documentary, it's gonna be really great. And Herzog said, no you won't. No one wants to see a movie about a pet cemetery. Errol Morris said, well I am. You just wait and see and Werner Herzog said if you get that movie made I will eat my shoe. So, Errol Morris made the movie and it's called Gates of Heaven. So Werner had to eat his shoes. He got Alice to cook the shoes, of course. As you would. Yeah, I think it was a dessert boot and I believe she confit it in duck fat. It also reminds me always of the great Chaplin movie The Gold Rush, where he twists up the shoe laces on a fork like it's spaghetti. Such a funny movie. (music)
Ratings and Reviews
Alex Mausolf
I really appreciated the overview of the original steps taken by Kristina & Cal to flesh out their idea. This was a great fly-on-the-wall type conversation to have sat through! There were plenty of gems along the way if you are like me, just at the initial stages of an idea for podcasting. A fabulously enriching way to spend just under an hour and a half!
Michelle MartinF
What a fantastic course. I loved hearing their process and how they've shifted from their original plan when it made sense.
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