One of the best podcasts to launch last year was She Does, a series of audio portraits of women creators across film, music, new media, journalism and more. It was created by two filmmakers, Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Sarah Ginsburg, who previously collaborated on Sheldon’s award-winning interactive documentary Hollow. Using data visualization and web storytelling techniques to examine the economic and social history of one rural West Virginia town, Hollow landed Sheldon onFilmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list and announced her as a documentarian committed to exploring all the new forms non-fiction storytelling can take in a digital world. Hence, She Does, an intimate, beautifully produced podcast with music, sound effects and crisp editing and narration, stood out immediately for its level of polish and imagination. Guests included High Maintenance‘s Katja Blichfeld, Seed and Spark’s Emily Best, artist and writer Molly Crabapple, just to name a few, and their biographical tales were both informative and inspiring.
She Does launched with Filmmaker as a promotional partner, and midway into the podcast’s run it got picked up by Panoply, Slate’s recently formed podcast network. But in early April, She Does stopped their weekly production of new episodes and, last week, posted what they called “a bit of a different episode.” In “It’s Been a Great Year” (embedded below), Sheldon and Ginsburg discuss their great run of episodes and their decision to step back from their weekly release schedule in order to re-concentrate on their own filmmaking practices. In an era in which creators are being encouraged to disperse their practice across multiple fields, this talk is a good reminder of the work that entails, the economies involved and the effect such multi-tasking has on one’s work overall.