Three Seas Podcast Production
Episode 1 | Big Names, Big Impact
We have been working on podcasts since 2005. In 2019 a friend of mine, White House Correspondent Brian Karem, asked if we could help him with his, called Just Ask The Question. I’ve been with Three Seas for almost three years, but I’ve been a non-fiction TV producer, writer and director for 30 years. Brian and I had worked together in the ‘90s at America’s Most Wanted in Washington, DC. Clean Cuts, our audio/sound design division, immediately improved the quality of his podcast in two ways – 1) By having him come into one of our acoustically treated studio sound booths to record with his guests; and 2) Having him in our booth would allow one of our audio engineers to oversee the recording sessions. Brian is usually on the run looking for stories, so when the opportunity to talk with someone on his podcast presented itself, he would often record wherever he happened to be, a hotel lobby, an empty office, a coffee shop, and so on. Not locations known for pristine sound recording. And he talked with some very big names: Mary Trump, Michael Cohen, Eric Swalwell, and more. While he focused mostly on politics, he also covered the entertainment and music industries. To help rebrand this long running series we had Richard Mijangos, a Graphic Designer from our video and graphics division, Cerebral Lounge, create new album art for his podcast. Now he was ready to move forward with a relaunch.
Episode 2 | Developing Expertise
There is a LOT more to making a great podcast than people think. The entire Three Seas team’s knowledge and experience in this popular genre has really grown over the last couple of years. It takes hours of development and prep before one second of sound is recorded…Topic, format, talent and guests, style, research, pre-production, branding, distribution, and oh yeah, what are you going to call it?
As everyone knows, doing business during the pandemic has been challenging for obvious reasons. Everyone at Three Seas has adapted extremely well to working in new ways, from various locations, and by using different technology and methods. New tools were introduced, which helped us grow in the podcast and audio books world. Clean Cuts has recorded some very famous people, including Michelle & Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sonia Sotomayor, James Comey, Susan Rice, Jane Fonda, José Andrés, Joe Theismann, Patton Oswalt, and John Mulaney. And we’ve recorded guests for some of the most popular podcasts, Pod Save America, Freakonomic, 544 Days, The Oath and Radiolab to name a few.
Episode 3 | Pivoting for the Market
Due to the pandemic, we put SAG/AFTRA-approved Covid protocols in place for in-person studio recording, but we also developed ways to record people wherever they feel safest – with the highest-quality sound possible. We recorded talent both in-person – in one of our ten studio audio booths, and remotely – at the talents’ homes or offices. To do that, Clean Cuts created customized remote mic kits that were shipped all across America. Then our audio engineers helped set up their new gear for optimal audio quality. During 2021 alone, we completed over 400 successful remote sessions, not only for podcasts, but for commercials, video games, audiobooks, corporate videos and more. Our longest running podcast, Real Estate Today, is one that Clean Cuts currently edits and mixes in collaboration with the National Association of Realtors (NAR). It was created during covid from the radio show of the same name that Clean Cuts has recorded and edited since 2016. After 251 radio episodes, the transition to podcast was seamless. To date, we’ve worked on over 316 radio shows and 62 podcast episodes for NAR.
But inside our four award-winning boutique divisions, we do much more than pump out podcast recording sessions, edits and mixes. We run the gamut on the kinds of services we perform for our ever growing list of clients. We have expanded into producing, writing, marketing, analytics analysis, distribution and hosting several podcast series.
Episode 4 | Three Seas Family Affair
The AFE Factor was the first podcast our in-house creative strategy agency, Gigawatt Group, created and produced for the Association for Facilities Engineering (AFE). This was a multi-layered project led by Creative Director Jim McNulty, Producer Lauren Schild and Designer Dana Cohen. We produced, recorded and edited the podcast, designed the logo, landing page and album artwork, while also managing the reboot of their quarterly digital trade journal.
We worked with Bram Weinstein and his Ampire Media to create our own new podcast series with another former colleague from my America’s Most Wanted days, Avery Mann. Along with AMW, he also spent time at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Avery now owns SOS ThreeSixty with his wife Nicole, a company that helps independent schools be safer through training and strategies, so choosing a topic for our podcast was easy for both of us. We created and produce Making the Case: Crimes Against Kids. Avery hosts the show and we interview victims, family members and law enforcement. We also produced a spin-off special episode for Fox TV, Making the Case: Inside America’s Most Wanted, about their new limited series by interviewing the 2021 host Elizabeth Vargas and one of the new show’s Executive Producers, John Ferracane. Gigawatt Group created the album art and hosts this powerful, and often very emotional series.
Other podcasts we work on, Health Innovation Voices: Deeper Conversations and Confident Conversations on Retirement, tackle tough topics and important issues as well. Mental Health Trailblazers: Psychiatric Nurses Speak Up is from the Minority Fellowship Program at the American Nurses Association. Clean Cuts and Gigawatt Group co-produce this informative series, as well as created the branding, the album artwork, and an audio teaser to help promote Season 1. Gigawatt also provides our client with detailed analytics to help shape, market and distribute the series. This provides them with valuable data: who is listening, for how long, where they are, and much more. We’re talking about doing a Season 2 for all of these amazing series, so stay tuned.
Multiple Three Seas boutiques also help make The Shake Up podcast for Hubspot, a developer of business software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. We provide production support, writing, recording and editing for them. And Austin Caughlin, Markus Huber and Rich Isaac, our original music team from Noise Distillery, composed a custom music package specifically for the series.
Episode 5 | The Future
Late last year we produced our first video podcast series using multiple cameras and one of our in-house DPs. We can’t reveal the name yet, but it is set for release in April 2022. Our Sound Designers with podcast experience include Andrew Eppig, Harry Evans, Cory Foley-Marsello, William Lowe, Jonathan Miller, Archie Moore, John Rigatuso, Mike Goehler, Adam Rooner, and Nick Sjostrom.
As you can see, there’s not much we can’t do to help a client realize their vision – by creating an exciting, popular, top notch podcast series that everyone will be proud of. Maybe it entertains and enlightens a certain audience. Maybe it even makes a difference in the crazy world we currently live in. Either way, all of the professionals at Three Seas, Inc. take great pride in what we produce and post. We love working with all kinds of people, companies, agencies and organizations who want to get their message out there, or who simply want to tell a story for 30 to 60 minutes an episode. What is your dream podcast all about? Let’s talk….
Brian Leonard
VP Development
brian@threeseasinc.com