(Originally posted December 31, 2016)
Last month, I did an interview on the podcast Picture Lock where I hinted at the coming changes to Introductions Necessary as we close out one year and look into 2017.
The main takeaway is that we’re changing formats a bit for the next season. All of us have absolutely loved doing season one, and it was a really wonderful experience. We chose the format for this season (short, daily episodes) specifically to make the episodes more useful in classrooms where teachers are pressed for time. And we chose the topic because all of us felt that celebrating Women in STEM is a vital discussion in our current society. Both to remind people of who has come before, and to show off the accomplishments of women working in those fields right now.
But from the beginning our plan was to do a contained season of 365 episodes and then re-evaluate. After a lot of discussion, we’ve decided on the direction for season two.
So we’re announcing Introductions Necessary: Above The Line.
First and foremost, we will still be celebrating the accomplishments of visionary women. But for season two we’ll be turning our gaze to women in the film industry who are working as writers, producers, and/or directors. These women are helping to tell stories, both fictional and factual, that can and have changed the world and they don’t get nearly the credit they deserve. We want to also highlight the importance of having women work behind the scenes in film, not just the importance of on-screen representation.
To better suit this small change of topic, we’re also changing our format. Season two will consist of 50 weekly episodes of roughly ten minutes each. They will still be largely biographic sketches of the work and lives of the women we’re discussing.
This does not mean we won’t still be working to promote women and girls in STEM. We now have nearly fourteen hours of audio content and over 100,000 words that we’ve written together. In 2017 we will be turning our attention to finding all the most useful ways to package, promote, and distribute that content to make a difference and encourage the next generation. There’s a lot of things in my brainstorming notebook, and I can’t wait to start putting them together and announcing them.
But most of all, I want to say thank you so much for all of the love, support, and encouragement you’ve given us this year. This was an incredibly ambitious project and we would not have made it this far without knowing we had wonderful listeners and supporters in our corner.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I know we’ve got some great episodes coming up so please keep listening. I look forward to sharing even more great podcast episodes in 2017. Stay subscribed on iTunes, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app, new episodes will be coming your way very soon.
-Mary