Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible. Two, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
Speaker 1 00:00:19 Less than a week after Hitler invaded Poland and World War II broke out, Charlie Chaplin began making what would become his most famous film. The Great Dictator. Nobody knew at the time it would become his most famous film. And frankly, people thought it was kind of weird that he was making a comedy right as a global conflict was breaking out. But the legacy of that film has stood the test of time. As Ray Bradbury once put it, when you were faced by the totalitarian regime and the madness they inflicted on the world, courage isn't enough. You have to be able to laugh in their face, throw back your head and say, you don't count. I discount you. I think that's the kind of defiant joy that in a time of crisis gives people hope.
Speaker 3 00:01:03 You have to carry on your life through a daily basis. You fight for what you believe and you do your job really well. You raise your family, you have, you hang out with your friends on a daily life. You have to do that.
Speaker 1 00:01:14 Next, you'll hear how a group of Taiwanese creators came together in the midst of a crisis to launch a media network. My name is Stuart, and this is Audience, a Casos original series where we go behind the scenes of all kinds of great podcasts and uncover the business at Powers audio creators.
Speaker 1 00:01:38 One way to learn how to do something better is to go directly to the people who are really good at that thing. And at Casto, we do just that. Each episode of audience features some of the most talented and creative podcasters around, and we hope that by listening, it will inspire more creativity in your work. As you dive into this journey of audio creation along the way, Casos wants to be part of your journey. From our suite of tools, feature rich hosting platform, and even our production services, we're here to help connect directly with us by emailing
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Speaker 3 00:02:17 So this year, um, there was a movie that just came out. I don't know that, I don't know which market it's it's gone yet, but it's called Marry My Dead Body.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 A while back, I spoke with Emily Wu, who's the co-founder of Ghost Island and Media. And during our conversation, she recommended a film. To me,
Speaker 3 00:02:37 It is hilarious, and, but I wanna bring this up because it has, they managed to, in, you know, two hours to squeeze in everything that the youth are caring about today. It's all of that. It's women's rights, it is gay rights, it is environmentalism, it is generational divide, and it is some really fun ghost stories. And it's about love and getting married, and it's about friendships. But the thing is, it pa it's a comedy and it did it in a really fun way that you watch and go, yes, that is what Taiwan is today. And the thing is, China is not a part of that story at all. There's no place in that at all. That's, uh, that, that even in the consciousness of, of the actual daily lives. This is to say that we, we have such a distinct identity here, such a distinct way, way of life here. And there's, there's so much more about Taiwan than, than the threat of China, even though that is something that's looming as it is, it is an existential question for us.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 Her podcast network, coast Island and Media was created with that in mind. She co-founded it with Kathy Shoe, and it's a multilingual podcast network based in Taiwan.
Speaker 3 00:03:49 We're four years old by now, and we launch about three new shows every year in current affairs. We focus on emerging topics and progressive issues and trying to push out and empower as much voice of the emerging leaders and creators as we can, bringing perspectives from Taiwan, but also, um, just yeah, talk to some really cool people. It's a really small team, but we've been fortunate to be a part of just a really fun burgeoning podcast scene in Taiwan
Speaker 1 00:04:19 With a range of different shows under their umbrella. Ghost And Media has shows like Taiwan Ren, which hears positive and inspiring stories from Taiwanese innovators. Waste not why not a show about sustainability, a current affairs show called The Taiwan Take and a limited series called Metalhead Politics, just to name a few. Plus, there's several Mandarin speaking shows and a French one as well. As Emily said, it's important that their shows have a Taiwanese identity separate from anything to do with China. But even still, this burgeoning podcast scene in Taiwan is against the backdrop of an ongoing conflict with China.
Speaker 3 00:04:59 So Taiwan and China. So Taiwan's been much in the news in the last three years. The first year, 2020, you might have heard about Taiwan because of our covid response. For a long time, we were the only place in the world that was not shut down. Students continued to go to school. Sports games were never canceled. Concert seasons were opened. Parties and parties, and parties was a really fun time. A lot of people with roots in Taiwan or they had friends in Taiwan, they just try to come as if they could. And so 2020 into 2021 and Taiwan was the place in the world to be
Speaker 3 00:05:39 Later, you would've heard about Taiwan last August in 2022 when us Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi visited. And that prompted China to have a very angry response. And for a lot of people, that was the first time they really heard about the geopolitics of Taiwan and China. But what the reality was that for, you know, we, Taiwan came out of martial law in 1989, and at the time, that was the longest martial law in hi in world history. 38 years after our democratization, we started fighting off forces of China. So then all of a sudden the China next door says, no, this is also with the rise of China. They wanted to claim Taiwan as their own. Um, Taiwan has been an independent country. Taiwan has never been a part of the people's Republic of China. But the China, China, like Russia, their propaganda arm is very, very powerful.
Speaker 3 00:06:35 And so they're trying to claim the global narrative of what Taiwan is. And they do this through diplomacy. They do this through, um, so diplomacy on a, if you have, if you're a country, you have diplomatic ties with China, you're not, they forbid you to have a ties with Taiwan. So all the embassies here are called trade offices or cultural offices, but we know they're embassies. The diplomat are trained ambassadors. Um, they do this through isolation of inter on the international arena. So that means, um, we're not a part of the United Nations, we're not part of the W H O. Um, on the, in the, at the Olympics, we have a very funny name called Chinese Taipei <laugh>. And so that, so the China kind of pressure is something that we've been living with for a long time. Back in 1996, during our first presidential election, they launched a similar kind of missile crisis, the same thing that you saw in, in 2022.
Speaker 3 00:07:27 And ever since then, we've had missiles pointed at us, the threat of China's been there for decades, but for a long time it felt really lonely because nobody, it seemed like nobody cared because China was the big story. It was the exciting news that all the media journalists wanted to go and cover. But, uh, yeah, for a long time we were sidelined. And so for all you would hear about Taiwan was maybe missiles or presidential elections or semiconductors. But now, within the last year, I would say there's been a lot more eyeballs on Taiwan figuring out like, Hey, what is this really cool place? And in fact, Taiwan, Taiwan, I mean, we're hugely progressive. We are the first country in Asia to have passed gay marriage. We have incredible women in the government. 40% of our parliaments are women. Um, and I, you know, there's a lot more in the, the indigenous communities here.
Speaker 3 00:08:16 Oh, this is also something else China would like to say. Everybody is <unk>, everybody's Chinese, and hence you're a part of us. This is a narrative they really try to push. But in fact, the, um, there's about 20 languages that are spoken in Taiwan that it's, it's a, it's Mandarin. It's, um, a couple of the haka and gai Taiwanese that had roots in China, but also we have 16 recognized indigenous nations here and more trying to get recognized. And, and so, and so this is incredibly diverse place, um, that is utterly different from China and despite what they say. And so if your, your listeners are interested and, uh, definitely ha come and have a visit and, uh, it's a really fun place and hit us up when you do
Speaker 1 00:08:57 So. So geographically, let's just kind of, uh, kind of paint a picture here. Taiwan, in relation to China, I understand it's about maybe a hundred miles away or so off the coast of China.
Speaker 3 00:09:09 Yeah, you know, um, I don't know the actual numbers, but, uh, it's about an hour flight between okay, Taiwan and China.
Speaker 1 00:09:16 And, and, and why, why is Taiwan so important to China? Or maybe why should, maybe, maybe that's not a good way of phrasing it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, why, why is the democratization of Taiwan, why is that such an issue for, for China? Why are they so upset about it?
Speaker 3 00:09:33 Yeah, that's the funny thing. You know, you no one really knows, you know, why does China really, okay, there's, on the one hand, China's always wanted to claim Taiwan. It's the, for any Chinese leader to finally claim the Chinese stream of unifying Taiwan, that would cement them as the greatest leader in history in modern history. So on, on the one hand, there's a lot of face. So with c j pings saying, I will be a strong man, I will be the one to claim this island. On the other hand, there's that, but also they've been taught for so long that Taiwan's a part of China. And so for their citizens, that makes sense, right? They like to say that Taiwan is their <unk>, which is a treasure island, and they, to them, it's, it's a reality. But I think a lot of the people in the educated group who've also traveled abroad, who have seen the reality, they know that this is a different country.
Speaker 3 00:10:34 They know, I mean, by different country, we're talking, we have a president, we have our own military, we have our own currencies. This is a, for all intents and purposes, this is a country, but because of the pressure from China, we don't get to function much like a regular country in the world. So our diplomats have to swing between a very particular grace of how to conduct diplomacy. For example, um, just this week, um, the new US speaker of the House, he was supposed to, he was supposed to come to Taiwan, and I think the new agreement was that we, that he will not come instead because, and that our president will go to the US instead. Um, which is also somewhat of a regular occurrence in a way. Why do they want to clean Taiwan? Yeah. So that's one. Number one is faced, one is strength, strong, strong.
Speaker 3 00:11:21 But because they have led their citizens to believe that Taiwan is a part of them, if they drop their claim on Taiwan, then other than could other places in China also fall, could Hong Kong, could Tibet could Uyghur, um, in Xang. So there's a bit of that. Um, but then also in greater geopolitics wise, I think China now that China has been their dream expansionism, if they, in their, in their mind, if they lose Taiwan, then they lose, I mean, Taiwan party we speaking where with chin, uh, Japan, there's a really strong indulge Pacific alliance forming. So yeah, a lot of reasons <laugh>, but, uh, there's also a lot of reasons to push back against the Chinese, Chinese claim, um, to preserve this way of life, which is a democratic, a good democratic way of life, one that is in line with the world.
Speaker 1 00:12:18 Yeah, I mean, it almost feels gratuitous to compare, you know, just to compare something to like Hitler or whatever. But I mean, it is, it is the same argument, right? I mean, the same reason he justified taking Ccho hav Akia and, and invading Poland. He was like, look, these are part of the German empire. Yeah, maybe it was a thousand years ago. And has no bearing on the people who live there now. And of course, you know, Putin has said the same thing with Ukraine and the parts of Crimea that he annexed back in 2014. I mean, it, it does sound, you know, there, there, there are I guess some, uh, similarities between what China's doing and what dictators in the past and currently are, are doing as well.
Speaker 3 00:13:02 Yeah, absolutely. And the scary thing about dictators and Altho regime is that they don't play by the books. And so they're really unpredictive and, and that makes 'em very scary. And you, you just don't know what they're going to do. Um, and, and China's teasing, ping is famous for not talking. People <laugh> you. What is he thinking? Um, which is the great mystery, you know, I would like, we would like to think that sure, he would not do anything that he will just, it's all talk, but who knows? Who knows? But the thing is, that's something that we've been living with for decades now. The possibility, the, the reality of who knows.
Speaker 1 00:13:40 Yeah. I mean, so you, I mean, you live that looming threat. I mean, how does, how does that affect, like you personally and, and the people that you know, like, how does that impact your, your lives on
Speaker 3 00:13:50 A daily basis? I'll say this on a daily basis. On a daily, you, you have to carry on your life, your, on a daily basis, you fight for what you believe and you do your job really well. You raise your family, you have, you hang out with your friends on a daily life, you have to do that. But looming over that is that impact of China. If it's, it's a military threat, if it's by economic origin, if it's by further international isolation, then what do you then, how do you deal with that? And so I think everybody deals with it in their different ways, in their own different industries. On this security side, the safety side, we'd run, there's drills every year we run drills, airway drills. And that's a reminder for us. How prepared are we? What are you gonna do if some, if, if something happens now?
Speaker 3 00:14:32 And so there's been a lot more conversations around preparations the last couple of years. And there's, uh, there are training workshops that are becoming more popular now. A lot more people are signing up for them, uh, training workshops on, uh, first aid, for example. Um, how do you stop the bleed? How do you stop bleeding? And how can you help others around you? And a lot of these things aren't just for war response. There's also natural disasters response. We have a lot of earthquakes in Taiwan. We have, there's traffic accidents all the time, of course, as in any place. So when it's kind of that building that community resilience. And so that's been more, more a lot in the conversation.
Speaker 1 00:15:13 Do, do you think the West in general has a good understanding of Taiwan and, and the struggles you face?
Speaker 3 00:15:24 Mm. I think there can always be more, but I think it's been, it's gotten better. And so we're really happy to see that. And it's just because when there's more news being written on it, there's more there, there's more, there's news being reported, there's more stories being told. And there's also people, you know, local medias like us as well and others, um, who we push stories in English, we don't in French. And we're hoping to do more, more languages in the future to tell that narrative on our own, because we couldn't always rely on international media who had, for the last decade, you know, this wasn't a priority place for them. And so we had to clean that narrative. We had to be the one writing the stories on our own. And there's a community of people doing that. So I think it could always be better. But I think there's a lot more news reports now. TV news, documentaries, movies, podcasts, a lot more books. So there's a lot of books coming out this year, um, all from Taiwan studies community. So for, there's a lot more resources now, more than ever. Um, so this is a good time to, to read more and into Taiwan
Speaker 1 00:16:32 Brings us to, to Ghost Island and Media. How'd that come about? Can we get a, a quick history lesson on a ghost Island media?
Speaker 3 00:16:39 Yeah, yeah. So I come from documentaries, TV documentaries, um, organizing, uh, film festivals, and then doing online news. And in, in very, very different ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, I've done public television on the other, I, um, we did a, a very commercial news site that its goal was to go viral. It is the same time as Buzzfeed and Gawker at the time and later. So it was a lot of fun producing and writing. It was, it was a partly telling Taiwan stories to go abroad, partly use having Taiwanese talents and technologies to tell the global story. So there was a lot of practice and storytelling the first half of my career. Um, and then I, I, and then I left Taiwan and I went to China. Um, I lived in Beijing, Shanghai, and I lived in Hong Kong, saw the umbrella movement of TW 2014.
Speaker 3 00:17:29 And my entire time in China was basically during the rise of Xi Jinping. And we saw the changes of China, um, and because of, because of him. And you also saw at the time that Taiwan's place in the world was just diminishing more and more and more every year. And it was really heartbreaking. The best, the most talented writers of our generation were all flocking to China, only to write about China, because Taiwan was just not exciting. And that's heartbreaking to have somebody tell you, well, look, yeah, I know your home isn't pouring. Your home is beautiful. Your home is, there's all these things happening, but, uh, yeah, and there's a threat of China, but yeah, we're not gonna write about it. And so, and then I was living in China, so that sense of frustration was, was quite hard. At the same time, I was starting to listen to a lot of podcasts.
Speaker 3 00:18:20 So I love the medium. I love that you, I love how you could hear like directly from, you know, whether the newsmakers or just anybody getting interview, and it was going into your years and you could browse so easily, programs from around the world, all different kind of topics. I was learning so much from just listening to podcasts when I was sitting in China, and one day a Taiwanese person was kidnapped in China. He was a rights worker. He was, this was March of 2017, and obviously the Chinese state took him because he was pro-democracy. And the, what the Chinese did was completely against the, was against agreement between Taiwan and China on how to handle detainees. Can they believe, just disappeared him. Now, over a year prior to that, there were four Hong Kong book seller who were very treated in the same way, and they got a lot of coverage.
Speaker 3 00:19:12 And, uh, and this particular one, international coverage was quite low. So I think that was a moment i, I realized we like, okay, fine, we need to take this on ourselves to, to tell these stories. So I started to plan my move back to Taiwan, and by the end of 2018, we had found our first show, which was in sustainability. And so the point of the sh the of Goan Media was to have more stories, have more news coming outta Taiwan from the Taiwan perspective, but it doesn't mean it has to be about Taiwan. So the show on sustainability, for example, it's not a, it's not a show about Taiwan, it just talks about sustainability from maybe more of a globe, uh, Asia perspective. So it, for us, it's also finding that balance between how much about Taiwan do you talk about and how much is just the, the issues that we talk about.
Speaker 3 00:19:58 And yeah, I think conclusions has been like, we are the, what we care about here is so much in line with the world. The youth here are incredibly, um, environmentally oriented. Um, they are so, or what they care about environmentalism, L G B T rights, labor rights, or just the fun, like, you know, you know, creating good music and preservation of languages, everything that's happening all around the world, <laugh>. And that's what we have in common with the world isn't how special we are, but really is how much we have in common with the rest of the world.
Speaker 1 00:20:29 You have through Ghost Island Media, like you mentioned earlier, you have your, your English speaking shows, your, your Mandarin shows. You have one French show, and I think you said you're, you're expanding into different languages. I assume you have different intended audiences for, for the English shows and the Mandarin show. So with those two different audiences, are, are there distinct messages you're trying to share with each audience?
Speaker 3 00:20:52 Short answer is the only difference in the target audience is the language they speak. On the Mandarin side, we have cannabis pushing kind of a part of the cannabis movement here. The host is a, she's the first cannabis only lawyer in Taiwan, quite a cool lady. Um, there's, uh, one for emerging creators. There's one on cultural diplomacy, there's a documentary on family and death and cancer. There's a women's rights and gender, there's China impact, and the, there's one on another French collaboration. So these topics are all these progressive topics that need more conversations, that we want to see more engagement, we wanna see more conversations there. We, we know of the emerging leaders in these fields, and so we want to talk to them. We wanna have them get ahold of the microphone and be able to project that. So that is more of a discourse in the Mandarin speaking world.
Speaker 3 00:21:45 Our show on gender, um, that one gets a lot of traffic from China. It's now, it's been consistently the top two shows on for sexuality in China. So is our emerging creator one, our documentary on family and death, because it is about cross-national divide. It's also about Taiwanese diaspora that hit a big strike strike accord with our audience in the us our show on China influence, you know, that that does really well internationally of the China speakers of the world. So for Mandarin shows, it's targeting at yes, only the Mandarin speakers, but we're going after these topics that we want to see more discussions about these emerging, um, progressive topics that need more conversation. In that same light, on the English side, it's also the same logic, is that these are conversations that need to have, we, we need to see more conversations about it's sustain sustainability, the role of Taiwan, Taiwanese history, emerging creators, emerging leaders, and so on.
Speaker 1 00:22:45 I, I, I really have enjoyed, uh, of all your shows I've kind of been able to dive into, I I've really enjoyed metalhead politics. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 3 00:22:52 Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:22:52 Yeah. It's an, it's a really interesting show. I, I, I'm curious, how did you and, uh, and and Freddy link up? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:23:00 So this was at a time, I'm thinking, I'm trying to think back to this. It was 2020. So Freddy Lim, um, is a parliament, is a member of the Parliament in Taiwan. Um, he himself is quite a character. He started as a front man to a quite famous metal band out of Taiwan. They do a lot of world tours, and they're very popular in Europe and also in Japan. And eventually he turned into an activist. And so he was head of the Amnesty International in Taiwan for, for about four years. And then his political career started as the, uh, in 2014 with the Sunflower movement in Taiwan, which is a watershed moment, student activism moment for this generation. Basically in Taiwan, every, every 10 years we see a big student movement. And that was the movement for this generation and a lot of young political leaders today who are in office, um, or who are working in media.
Speaker 3 00:24:03 And so they all participated in this movement. What happened was the students occupied the Parliament for 30 days. This was about six months before the umbrella movement of Hong Kong. So Freddy was a part of that cohort that came out, and there were political parties that came out. And nowadays there are PhDs that were written already about the impact of Sunflower movement on, on democracy in type one, and so on and so and so on. So, so anyways, so he's a really cool figure. He is a metal musician, metal band musician, and then he's also a member of the Parliament. And we didn't know each other that well initially, to be honest. Uh, we had known of each other and we had just go silent. Media had just launched, and Freddy was also looking for a way to do more English programming on his side. And also it was world Covid.
Speaker 3 00:24:53 His band couldn't go on tour anymore. So we thought, Hey, actually podcast is a really good way of filling up more air and, and trying to fill up to reach his audiences while, uh, until they can go back on tour. And I think they're, this year they're, they're finally back on tour again now. And so that's how it came about. We thought, yeah, we, but in, and initially it really was to talk about the covid response, not in how good Taiwan was doing, but against kind of some of the misunderstandings, especially back then, 2020 in April, the head of w h o at the time, Tedros, um, he had some very unsu, unsubstantiated claims about Taiwan. And it was a, it was, it was a com it was a bit of a mess. And then we felt that we had needed to push back. And so then we launched our first, um, episode, and then we just kept going after that. So we, in the all we had only, it's, it's a limited series, six episodes only, but, um, what we do talk about, it's evergreen and it's, it's, it talks about Taiwanese, um, modern Taiwanese history and what we still have to deal with today, our current challenges.
Speaker 1 00:26:02 Yeah. I wanted to ask you about the concept behind a limited series, because I like it a lot because I think at, at some point a story has to end, or projects that maybe have like a limited scope, I think sometimes are a little easier as a creator to kind of wrap your mind around. At least that's, that's how I think about it. Wa was that always the plan with metalhead politics?
Speaker 3 00:26:25 Uh, in a way, yes. We knew that we wanted to give ourselves at least some episodes just to see how we would do, but I think we both would love to continue it. But our schedules are so busy. I mean, it really ended after six episodes in 2020, cuz he had, cuz Parliament session was starting again, so it was out of practicality that we needed to take a pause. And then
Speaker 1 00:26:49 <laugh>, he had to go be part of the, he had to go help run the country. I guess that's <laugh>. Yeah, that's important. Sounds important. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:26:56 And, and then, uh, Taiwan, when Covid started and then that was, you know, it made it more difficult and then geopolitics and so we haven't been able to continue it. But when, when Nancy Pesi visited, after she visited in some of the public discussions that we saw, there was one particular one we thought we really needed a pushback on. So we, we came back with a special episode. So I think that's the format now, is that, for that particular show, we'll come back for a very special episodes, but yeah, I mean, back to limited series. So out of the, okay, I'm counting right with, there are a couple of them that were created as limited series. The documentary, for example, that we launched in the middle of, uh, 2021. It's called s it's the story of, it's a mother and a daughter, uh, ly reconciliating and talking out their differences and loving each other in what was at the time the last year of the mother's life.
Speaker 3 00:27:59 So the mother was diagnosed with late stage cancer and was told that she had one year to live. And the daughter who had done do, um, she's an artist, she had done podcasts before. Um, she actually was the first batch of the Spotify Sound Up program in the us. And so she thought, look, you know, we're not, we're not gonna let you go like this. And so we got together and we said, we, we would love to produce the story if they were open to us, you know, helping out. So they started film, they started recording their conversations. So it's a c it's a year of conversations between the two. They growing up as an immigrant in New York in the eighties, there was a lot of, a lot of things they didn't get to talk about. And I think, uh, something that Doreen, the, the daughter always thought, okay, well now this is the time, you know, let's, let's work things out.
Speaker 3 00:28:54 It's beautiful. It is through the, the year you see their relationship blossom into what they said. They're the closest ever after that. The first several episodes were difficult to listen to cuz it, there's a lot of, they're, they're very similar in the way, you know, they're both incredibly strong, confident women. Um, sometimes they butted heads and then they open themselves up to the audience for us to listen in on that process of learning about each other in that way and fighting, standing up for yourself and then apologizing. And then in the end, the, the, this, this relationship. So that was the first podcast documentary in Taiwan when we, when we launched it, and we wanted to send a signal to the industry. That podcast was beyond interviews and commentaries and analysis, which is needed in a lot of different kinds of topics, but there's also other possibilities that could come with.
Speaker 3 00:29:49 So we, we <laugh>, we staged, um, a premier at the mo at a movie theater. We made the first episode into visuals and invited, um, members of the film ministry and also the advertising industry and also friends and families and members of kind of cancer care groups. And to, to say, look, this is, you know, podcast is a part of this loop. It could be a book, it could be a movie, it could be a TV show. Um, it could or stay as a podcast, it could be a stage theater play. You know, this is this podcast, the storytelling. It's just one medium. Um, so I think for a limited series, I I I approach it as that is that there's one story we're trying to tell. And you know, for that particular story, it was 14 episodes for our collaboration with the French Embassy here, which is the on the French project.
Speaker 3 00:30:37 We really needed just five episodes for that was enough. And it depends. And sometimes they come back. The China impact initially was meant as a limited series, but after the first season we, it was really good at reception and, and, uh, we thought actually let's, this is a, this particular format is a really good format, let's continue this. And then we brought it back for a second season. But we do have many, um, ongoing shows. So our Mandarin show on cannabis and women and gender are sustain. You know, those are very, very regular. We haven't skipped an episode since they launched two or three years ago. Um, the English ones, they were so busy. The English ones are a bit more irregular. <laugh> Taiwan, a country, I'm proud to say I'm from in my career as a media entrepreneur. I've spoken to movers and shakers here who make global headlines. But what I'm most excited about are the up and coming forces of my generation. They're young, they're creative, they're dare to defy the status quo. Follow me as I meet emerging leaders of Taiwan who lift us, who inspire us, who are changing the world, starting in Taiwan. This is Game Changers with Emily Wired.
Speaker 1 00:31:52 One of the things keeping Emily and her team so busy is a new project called Game Changers with Emily Wu. It's a video series on YouTube all about the people in Taiwan doing cool things. During our conversation, Emily and I chatted all about it. Cause it's a project she's pretty jazzed about.
Speaker 3 00:32:10 Yeah, it's, uh, I love this project. It's, um, it's 30 episodes, 30 guests is where I, I interview emerging leaders in Taiwan. These are very young cool hit people ages between 22 and 44. The cutoff is was was 44, who do amazing things. I mean, and they're, they're in all different industry. They're in the arts, music, sports, politics, uh, sustainability publishing, food fashion, blockchain education and so on. And they're such cool people. So we've just been really fortunate to be able to interview like for two months now. Um, meeting really cool people all the time, but you know, that one is where it's a collaboration with a TV network here. And so that was a very different process for us. You need to get makeup done, you need to have a wardrobe, you need to have a stylist. You just set dress your sets, right?
Speaker 3 00:33:10 Finding a good studio for it. That's not, that didn't look the same for all 30 episodes. That took some thinking, um, finding your, your, your fa mo you know, your favorite makeup artist, right? So that was really fun. But then getting there so early and then you have to tell, and then the preparation with the guests and with the B roll footage, it was such a different preparation. But we will push that series as a podcast on our end, but there's really meant for tv. And so I think when you hear the podcast version, you'll feel like it's missing something. And that's because in the au in the video version, there's b roll footage with together with it. Whereas if it, if we had done it as a strict audio um, program, we would, uh, you know, we would've maybe described some of those scenes a little bit more, but we knew that we could rely on video for some of those parts. So, so that's, it was a really different, but, but that's, that's a really highly pro produced and packaged piece and yeah, it's called Game Changers with Emily Wu. Well
Speaker 1 00:34:12 That's, that's really exciting. Well, Emily, this is, this has been a whole lot of fun. Uh, I do kind of end with the standard, you know, I want to give the floor back to you. I, I know we've been in correspondence now for, for a while, so is there anything like, as you thought about our conversation, you were wanting to share that I, that I haven't given you a chance to yet?
Speaker 3 00:34:32 No, I'm just, I'm really grateful for the opportunity and for the questions that you asked for us to talk Yeah. A bit about our work, share a bit about our projects, and also talk a bit about Taiwan and just having this opportunity to share all this with your audience. Thank you. Real, like, thank you very much for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:34:49 You bet. It's been, it's been a blast and I can't wait to see everything, uh, you continue to do.
Speaker 3 00:34:54 Thank you. Keep in touch.
Speaker 1 00:34:56 Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 0 00:34:58 Soldiers don't give yourselves to brutes men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think, and what to feel, who drill you, diet you treat you like kettle use, you as Cannon father. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts.
Speaker 1 00:35:16 Some people consider Charlie Chaplin's speech at the end of the great dictator to be one of the best monologues in the history of film. It's quite the legacy to leave behind. And a reminder that in the face of tyranny and abuse of power, inspiration can come in unlikely forms. The
Speaker 0 00:35:33 Kingdom of God is within man, not one man, not a group of men, but in all men in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness.
Speaker 1 00:35:43 And now it's time for our podcasting tip or our guests share some wisdom with us.
Speaker 3 00:35:50 Hey, my name's Emily Wu from Ghost Island Media and my podcasting tip is experiment, experiment, experiment a lot. Um, we found great fun and success in experimenting in bits at a time. So like, if you wanted to experiment with drama, just do five minutes at a time or even one minute. And it keeps it fun, it keeps you, um, you can learn a lot through that one minute because frankly, you know, if you wanna start a whole episode that's just daunting and we never finish because it's too big of a task. But kind of practicing, experimenting with new formats and different ways of designing that soundscape and storytelling kind of tiny chunks at a time, it's through the experimentations. Are we able to implement those in bigger shows down the line and also have fun, have lots of fun because, uh, I think this is what podcasting should be. And if you're not having fun, um, no, you should be having fun doing it. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:36:55 Audience is a Casto original series. Our founder and executive producer is Craig Hewitt. Production assistance is provided by Jocelyn Devore, ISEL Brill and Marni Hills. Our website in logo design is courtesy of Friend Schwab Brill, our head of product here at Casto. All of our music comes from the Story Blocks Library. And this episode was written, edited, narrated, and produced by me. I'm Stuart Barefoot. All previous episodes can be streamed anywhere you listen to podcast and online at audience podcast dot f film. Next time on audience I chat with Joe Skinner from PBS's American Masters Creative Spark.
Speaker 4 00:37:39 You know, it almost feels like low hanging fruit. Like why not try to further break the mold of the medium? And I think in, in audio, there's so much room for that. And while I don't think our show is tremendously groundbreaking in form it, I like having more wiggled room to explore that space and it feels more creative for me and, and I think it's gonna lead to a more interesting story for the audience.
