The 49th MediaSnackers podcast hooks up with the presenter and producer of the Jet Set Show.
(WORLD) The MediaSnackers podcast focusses on individuals, organisations or companies who are simply impressing us and which are crying out for more discussion.
Zadi Diaz is the presenter and producer of youth-orientated vodcast, the Jet Set Show.
0.00—0.10 Intro
0.11—1.10 Zadi introduces herself and Jet Set Show
1.11—2.10 how the Jet Set Show started
2.11—4.06 the logistics
4.07—5.55 why you don’t need Hollywood or make it look like TV
5.56—8.39 no barriers for entry but who’s directing the change
8.40—10.14 who else is impressing
10.15—10.27 Thanks and outro
Subscribe directly through iTunes by clicking on this icon (download iTunes for free here).
Not using iTunes? Then just copy / paste this feed and drop it into your aggregating software.
Want to suggest someone or put your virtual hand-up to be interviewed? Then get in touch here.
TRANSCRIPTION
DK: So I’m here with Zadi from Jet Set Show. Hello Zadi. Zadi isn’t it?
Zadi Diaz: It is Zadi. It is Zadi.
DK: I’m terrible. Sorry. So Zadi could you dish yourself to the listeners. Give us a bit of info about, you know, your role there and Jet Set Show as well for those who haven’t seen it yet.
Zadi Diaz: Yeah, absolutely. So, my name is Zadi Diaz and I’m the host and executive producer of Jet Set Show along side of Stephen Wolfe, who’s also executive producer. And we produce this show, youth oriented podcast, on Jetsetshow.com. It’s a weekly show and it’s fun, exciting, kind of just taking stuff that’s on the web and interviewing teens and young people that are doing really interesting things and just having a lot of fun with it. We have like really quirky, curious news and we make fun of things of just general youth culture, that kind of thing. So we’re having a lot of fun with it.
DK: So tell us why you got into this, you know? Did you see the market there? Or a gap? Or even just that you got a spare bit of time on your hands?
Zadi Diaz: Maybe all of the above.
DK: Okay.
Zadi Diaz: But, it’s funny the way I got into this. I actually, one night, we both lived in New York about a year and a half ago and I worked in independent media. Steve worked in entertainment and we kind of both are into technology so it just seemed to be a really natural fit.
When we moved over here to Los Angeles it was for kind of entertainment purposes. But since we were both into technology, especially Steve, we were just like, why don’t we, we’re capable of doing this ourselves and we really don’t need Hollywood anymore to do this and the barrier to entry is so low that you can just… You know if you have a camera, you have a great idea, you can just, you know, pick up that camera, write a script and do it yourself. And that’s proven to be really successful and just a lot more fun.
DK: So how long have you been going? And kind of tell us a bit about the logistics about the show? Like what do you got to do to produce it?
Zadi Diaz: Yeah, so we started on June 1st. And basically when we started it was targeted for a much younger audience, but what we found was that in communicating with people online and the people that are actually making media, they were actually a bit older; in their teens and it was just a lot more fun, kind of, communicating back and forth. So what we wanted to do with the show is really incorporate those elements and that communication element and have fun with the people on the other side of the screen.
So, what we do is that we have like a general idea of where we’re going with the show. And based on the comments or emails of the previous show we kind of get ideas for the next show. So that if somebody mentions, you know, music or food or something like that, we’re like, “Oh, that would be fun to do.” And then we kind of just, kind of, go off on a tangent and then just write a script based on that idea; just a general loose script, an outline maybe is probably more what it is. And I’ll just start talking in front of the camera.
Steve will just ask me the questions behind the camera. You’ll often hear him, kind of just commenting or laughing or that kind of thing because we want to make it as kind of casual as possible. We don’t want it be or look like Television. We want it to, kind of, just want people to know that this is a conversation that these are, you know, that we’re just regular people just having fun in front of the camera and kind of inviting people to do the same thing.
So, it’s really, you know, we keep it a lot shorter than we used to. Our shows used to run about eight minutes or something in the beginning, but now they run about four minutes, which is a lot more adjustable and a lot more fun and you know compact with information so.
DK: Okay. It’s really interesting what you way because there was a couple comments in your answers there. One was like, “You don’t need Hollywood anymore.” And the other one was, “We don’t want it to be like a TV polished show.” And do you think that’s because the audience doesn’t want stuff like that anymore because they’re kind of used to the kind of YouTube’d, digesting YouTube stuff and it’s all very much down and dirty. So do you see that the kind of audience expectations have changed?
Zadi Diaz: Yeah, I think that people are looking for different things now. I mean we know what film, what movies look like. We know what Television looks like and I think that this just a really exciting time because this a medium where you can actually, you’re not a passive viewer. You’re communicating. You’re talking to that other person and they’re assessable. You can email them. You can have a conversation with them.
It’s not like a TV show where you’re emailing a producer and it’s completely polished and you know, you don’t really get a sense of what that person is because of, there’s so many other elements involved when it comes to editing and production and so you have maybe 50 people on one show.
When it comes to podcasting and online content, you have, you know, a really small group of friends or something, usually creating a show so that they intimately know each other and that really comes across on the other side as really authentic I think and I think it’s that authentic quality that people are looking for; a connection. I think that, you know, it’s a really huge element of this whole medium, where somebody feels like they’re connected and they’re really being authentic with that person on the other side.
DK: Definitely. And you said right at the beginning about the barrier for entry has become so low, in terms of technology, but also, you know, the pricing of all this stuff as well. And especially with the platforms out there such as YouTube, which in a sense just makes, you know, sharing your content free. It’s become a whole different media menu, which is what we talk about on MediaSnackers. But how do you see, are young people driving this or younger people driving this or do you see the platforms are throwing it up and directing the change? Where do you see that’s coming from?
Zadi Diaz: Oh, it’s coming from all directions. Definitely the barrier to entry is a lot lower. You can get a camera for $400.00. Not even that, you can borrow a camera, you know. You can get a camera off of something like Craigslist. You can, you know, trade something for a camera. You can have an internet connection. I even have a friend who told me, a way to actually video blog or podcast, for free, which would be, you know just go into an Apple store, you know, record yourself on their iSight. You know, put it up to Blogger and then just, you know, log in and then just do that every week.
You know, there are really like – you can find a way to video blog and it not be that expensive. So the barrier to entry is definitely a lot lower. I think that, you know, for youth out there it’s more exciting because it’s the next evolution of communication. I mean, we text each other all the time now. I mean it’s so much faster than emailing, you know and we, with moblogging and having our phones with us and taking pictures and media and recording things around our lives.
It’s just the next evolution of communication. And the more tools that are available to us, that makes that simpler, the more prevalent I think you’ll see that this medium becomes, because it is, you know how they say in Television and Film, “It’s all about the story. It’s all about the story.” But in this medium it’s all about communication. It’s all about the person. So, I think that that is really what’s going to drive this medium into the next level. It’s finding out how to communicate with each other on a much grander scale, a much faster scale, a better scale and really doing that through entertainment.
Doing that through, you know, things like, documentaries. Doing that through just, you know, showing us what your life is like on the other side of the world. So, you know, for a teen to do that, they’re doing that. And for an 80 year-old people, you know. It just runs the gambit which is really great because you’ll have somebody who is like 18 listening to somebody who’s 84 and it’s mind blowing, so –
DK: Definitely. I think it’s very empowering and positive all this new technology which is again what I talk about a hell of a lot on MediaSnackers; it’s a very pro social thing. I’m going to wrap it up in terms of one more question and it’s a kind of interesting one because I want to get your views on. I know you feature the content on your shows, like for example scrigidy.com, I think, yeah the girl.
Zadi Diaz: Right.
DK: So, who else is impressing you in this space?
Zadi Diaz: Oh we have, there are a lot of teen video bloggers that are contacting us and we’re just like, “Oh, we want to work together.” We have a 14-year-old who just, you know, who we’re just working with know who’s, you know, getting his idea for a video blog, a series pitch and he wants to pitch it to the audience and have the audience actually help him create the show and we’re being kind of like the conduit for that.
And we have, we just interviewed this other young guy who’s a sneaker designer. He designs, he’s like a sneaker artist. He paints on sneakers and, you know we have like all these different kinds of like young people that are doing really interesting things that you would never hear about or see on something like let’s say Television or whatever.
Maybe you would see it. But I think for them to be able to tell their story in their words and then go on and say, “Oh, I got featured on Jet Setter. I’m working with Jet Set and that’s so cool that I’m going to do my own, you know, podcast. I’m going to do my own video blog, because they really just got a taste of it and they’re just like, Ah, I definitely like this and this is the way for me to get my information out.” So if we can do that. That is the greatest thing.
DK: Well, I just want to thank you for giving up your time to speak for us Zadi. I really appreciate that.
Zadi Diaz: Oh, no problem. Thank You.