Podcast Spotlights

Podcast Spotlight: Rewind Cinema

October 3, 2017 8:11 am

Movie podcasts aren’t exactly unique, but luckily most movie podcasts are self-aware enough to realize they should differentiate themselves with unique formats or niche markets rather than simply talk about the latest movie of the week. Rewind Cinema is a movie podcast that’s executed this extremely well. Instead of trying to compete and ultimately conform with the typical movie podcast landscape, Rewind Cinema puts their movie topics up to chance. They randomly select a year of movie history, and then go a step further and randomly choose movies from that year to discuss.

The interesting wrinkle in this format is since it’s fully decided randomly, there’s no subjectivity on what movies should be discussed based on merit or quality. No “this is the best movie of the year” madness. They have to discuss the bad and good all the same.

I got a chance to discuss Rewind Cinema with hosts Matt and Gabe about how they prioritize their movie discussions, their favorite podcasts out there, and their own origin story. Below is our full interview.

Discover Pods: What’s your tweet-length (old Twitter) synopsis of your podcast?

Matt: Randomly chosen movies from a random year in cinema history.

DP: What’s unique about your podcast? Why do listeners keep coming back?

Matt: We randomly select our movies, so we’re not rehashing the same superhero movie that came out or something we feel nostalgic about. We talk about terrible movies and great movies. We hold ourselves to the randomness factor and don’t cater to what is trendy.

DP: Why did you choose to podcast?

Matt: I love podcasts (I listen to nearly 20 at the moment). I also feel that my co-host and I have a “face for radio” as they say.

DP: How do you decide which year to do?

Matt – I think that’s one of the appeals of our show– everything is random. We normally poll our audience on Twitter and Facebook and ask which decade we should head to and then we just randomize all he dates we haven’t covered and take the first year that pops up. So far, we’ve done 80, 98, and 2004.

Gabe – Randomly – we follow our hearts.

DP: In a loaded year (i.e. 1994 with Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption, Lion King, Dumb and Dumber, and more) how to you decide which movies to cover?

Matt – We shrug all responsibility and leave that up to fate too! We take every movie released in every month on the year that we drew and then randomize the orders and take the first one that comes up. It gives us a great mix of awesome movies, mediocre movies, and bad movies. For instance, in 1980, we drew Ordinary People (best picture winner) and Raging Bull (one of the best sports movies of all time), but we also drew Windwalker and When Time Ran Out. Ever heard of them? Probably not.

Gabe – Also random, unless of course we land on something that is totally horrible and obscure, then I’ll pick something that people know and can relate to.

DP: What are your five favorite podcasts?

Matt – It’s hard to say favorite, but here are the current 5 that I download immediately when a new episode comes out: Doughboys, Reply All, The Last Podcast On the Left, Hackable?, and The Solid Verbal.

Gabe
-Cultivated – A podcast about faith and work
-The Marrow with Josh Riebock
-The Dumbbells – a fitness/comedy podcast
-Uhh…S-town was good?
-I don’t listen to enough podcasts

DP: What equipment do you use to record?

Matt – I own a Focusrite 18i8 interface, we use a SM7b and a AKG C214 to record, and it’s all fed into Studio One Pro 3. I do light music recording on the side as well.

Gabe – Matt?

DP: What’s the biggest challenge you face in regards to your podcast?

Matt – Promotion– it’s easily the biggest stumbling block for us. We both hold 9-6 jobs here in NYC, so we don’t have a lot of time to promote the show the way that we would if we had more freedom. We’ve got a good product, just need ears!

Gabe – Probably scheduling our recording sessions and making time to watch the movies each week. Podcasting is more work than most people realize. That, or dealing with Matt.

DP: Anything else you’d like to add?

Matt – Podcasting has been such a joy for me. I studied theatre in college and haven’t applied my creativity as much as I would like to. Podcasting is a great outlet and can be very cheap if you buy the right equipment. If you’re thinking about starting one, go for it!

Gabe – You should listen to our show

DP: Where can listeners find you?

Website: rewindcinema.com Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rewind-cinema/id1200346473?mt=2&ls=1