People have many reasons for starting a podcast, I started The Mountain Cosmos as a passion project. For me, I wanted to find a way to record stories in a format that resonated with my lifestyle and therefor my listeners. I am an outdoors kind of person, my life usually revolves around time spent in the mountains. Sitting down to read is not always a luxury I allow myself to have. Like many, there are times were listening is much more accessible. But I love a good chat. Podcasts are such a flexible medium both for listening and creating.
In my normal life, I am a ski instructor, people are constantly asking, “when will you get a real job?”
I told myself upon finishing university if I start a podcast people will get off my back about the real job thing. Ski instructing is a real job. Although I wanted to be more than a ski instructor, I wanted to show depth with other things going on, building my skills in the media space.
Having studied to become a journalist it ignited the need to tell and gather stories. For me, studying journalism was always about the stories and connections I could have with people. Though the broadcast space can be nerve-wracking, it can be more exposing then sitting at a keyboard.
In 2017 I completed a unit called, Presentation for Broadcast, I had ever been so nervous. Staring down the barrel of the teleprompter made my heart feel like it was going to jump out of my chest. One would think the nerves would have turned me away, but in reality, it was exciting. The thrill was similar to standing on top of a scary line on my skis just about to drop in. It hooked me in.
In my final year, I completed a radio unit which was uninspiring. It consisted of a shift in at the radio station based on campus every two weeks for a couple of hours writing news scrips for the news bulletin. Occasionally we had to read our scripts out. It was dry and I felt disappointed in the environment being so stale. Even though I had loved the first radio class I’d done earlier in my studies, we had more freedom and made some fun audio packages. Maybe this sparked my inevitable inspiration for creating The Mountain Cosmos.
Building The Mountain Cosmos from the ground up highlighted the holes in my university education. But if there is one thing university teaches, it is how to learn. Sure, I had developed a good sense of story, and an ability to cut and edit audio on campus. All completely set up with expensive software and a recording studio. In the real world, those luxuries were not in my reality. There is much more to establishing a podcast than simply uploading an audio file. It has and still is such a learning curb from making a website, editing, gathering interviews, the list goes on.
When I was in the beginning phases of starting The Mountain Cosmos I was nervous. I no longer had university to hide behind, I was not a cute university student calling up strangers and asking them to talk to me about whatever story I could produce before a deadline. I cared more about my podcast than any assignment. The people I wanted to interview were actually in my industry. I was nervous about what everyone would think about me and my project. Maybe everyone would think I was crazy. What would happen if my podcast was terrible? What happens if I accidentally defame the resort I am working at? Maybe no one cares.
What inspired me to get it out in the podcast and internet space was, I already had a few interviews recorded. I felt a responsibility to publish the stories, these people had given me their time even without my podcast having a name. So I had to get it out there and it had to be the goods. People had trusted me even if I did not trust myself yet.
As a passion project I noticed when editing a vast difference to my student journo days, I was engaged at a level previously I had not been. My questions were better, it was real, and I WAS INTERESTED!!!
Rouchelle x
Rouchelle Gilmore 