Leaving the Second Era of Plastic Weekly Behind
With the release of this video, Plastic Weekly leaves it’s second era behind. The search for the third era (or just 2.5) begins.
I started Plastic Weekly in 2017 when I was getting bored of my job and listening to a lot of influential podcasts. I wanted to make something as informative and intelligent as The Agenda, a long-running public television show here in Ontario. I wanted it to be a little irreverent like the Jesse Brown’s Canadaland shows at the time, and the design of this website was copied almost entirely from The West Wing Weekly.
I hate editing though, and audio podcasts need to sound pleasing. You’ve gotta trim the gaps, delete the wandering sentences, and balance the levels well enough to accommodate someone listening in a bass-y car stereo, or in maxxed out shitty earbuds on a loud subway. Editing a weekly audio product was too much work and it left too many opportunities for perfectionist tendencies to delay or ruin a release. After 30 episodes across a stop-start year, I was done.
Video was appealing for a few reasons. With both audio and video cues, the audio doesn’t have to be as perfectly produced. I’m not sure why, but having two of your senses activated seems to let your brain ignore (or accept) imperfections in one manner or another.
I was also beginning to commentate for more live streamed climbing competitions, and I wanted practice being on camera. I don’t think many people are able to “be themselves” when a camera is pointed at them. The Counter-Strike commentators and analysts I admired always talked about how they had honed their craft on camera by way of being forced to talk through endless technical delays, “filling” on camera while admins tried to get players reconnected to servers or exchanged faulty hardware. Sometimes there would be two guys commentating for 12 hours in a row, compelled to make interesting conversation without the help of graphics or producers.
I figured I could get that kind of practice by producing some kind of long form, unscripted talk show. Have it be long enough and frequent enough to get some serious hours talking into a camera, trying to be my real self. I wanted to make a show after each World Cup that would be conversational, funny, and adversarial enough to put me on the spot. Make me defend an argument from an attack I hadn’t expected or respond to a joke at my expense, just put me on the spot and don’t let me “have another take”. Just hit record at the beginning, and tough it out til the end. No edits.
When I went searching for a co-host, John Burgman was the man with the bylines in Climbing Magazine, covering all the comps. At that time in early 2018 with a long beard and a bun of hair behind his head, John was immediately enthusiastic and our first Skype call was one of my favourite moments in my time making Plastic Weekly. He was a fan of many sports, and was fluent in competitive analysis and coverage in a way that I wanted to be. We ran The Debrief for 5 IFSC seasons and enjoyed almost every minute of each other’s texts, conversations, and rants. Finally meeting John in person at the 2022 Salt Lake City world cups verified how genuine a friend he is. I love that guy.
At the end of five seasons, we were having trouble finding guests who had actually watched the comps, or who had working internet, or who were available to record when John and I could make time. Some episodes left me feeling like our analysis was getting repetitive. I was really happy with how we had improved our topic selection, and my thumbnail-making skills were waaaaay better in 2023 than in 2018, and I was getting better at ignoring view counts and dismissive comments. But I think both of us were ready to move on. A few weeks before the start of the 2024 season we texted back and forth while I was on vacation in Arizona, and it was obvious we were both on the same page.
The Debrief name won’t be attached to any show that doesn’t feature both of John and I, but I’m still interested in creating more long form chat shows. I’m not going to find someone as researched, as published, as charismatic, and as in-the-same-time-zone-as-me as JBu any time soon, but when that person appears I’ll be dropping them a message.
So after an era of audio podcasts, and then an era of long unedited chat shows, I have to find the next thing. Late last night I published the video above, less than 24 hours after the end of the Keqiao World Cup. While the end product is about 1/6th the length of an episode of The Debrief, it took about twice as long to make. The time watching the events was the same, making the thumbnail was about the same, and uploading/processing was about the same, but I spend as much time recording those 15 minutes and trying to express myself properly as I would have recording a one-take episode of The Debrief. Add 4 hours of editing the clips and graphics together, and it was about twice as much production time as the old show. I’m not sure I’ll have the time or motivation to do that regularly. But as a temporary stand-in, or as an experimental form to discover what I enjoy recording, it’s a good place to start.
Whatever’s next, thanks for watching along, or listening or reading along. At the end, I must give special thanks to Cory and his family (“TheG5”) and Scott Rennak for being our biggest supporters in The Debrief years, in both funding and encouragement.
