00:02.35 kinkella Hello and welcome to the pseudo archeology podcast episode 123 and I'm your host Dr Andrew Kinkella and tonight we talk about my ascendancy to fame as part of wired's archeology support. 00:23.47 kinkella Okay, so welcome back. Everyone. It's nice to be here and I thought today I would go over this experience that I had about well really several months ago it came in stages and that experience was to be. The host of wired supports archeology Youtube video now this is part of the wired Youtube channel and I think they have like 11000000 subscribers or something like that. They are a huge channel and they got in touch with me. To do a piece on archeology and the setup is that they take the most common questions from the internet and really mostly from Twitter and they have a specialist um answer these questions. Right? So they picked me as the specialist and I know some of you are probably really interested in how you become kind of a media spokesperson and I thought I would just go over this entire process. So for today I thought I'd start with. Talking about the wired shoot itself. How I got it how it went um, what happens once the video is ah released to the public and then after that I would talk about the comments I think. 01:53.15 kinkella Online at this point there's over 8000 comments on that video and I've tried to answer a big portion of them of course I can't answer 8000 comments but I did my best to sort of interact with that audience and I will say that. The comments overall were massively positive. So with what comes next I don't want you guys to think that it was a downer or something like that like it got very positive. Feeling behind it which was which was really nice and made me feel good. But of course there were some detractors and why were there detractors well because one or 2 of the questions that people had centered around pseudo archeology so you can see why this works perfect for this podcast. And I answered those questions as plainly and as straightforward as I could trying to not make fun of anyone but answering those pseudo archeology questions really straightforwardly and of course I got some well I made some people really angry and. You know sometimes they write in all capital letters. So we'll discuss that we'll explore that and then finally maybe a few tips and tricks like if this happens to you how to deal with people who just hate your guts because you said something that they are just. 03:25.61 kinkella That they disagree with anyway, how did I get this job and how did this go so I've been really um, focused on what we vaguely call public archeology for years now and really in the last mm. Five or six years I've really made a concentrated focused effort to bring archaeology to the general public and that is with my Youtube channel kinkela teaches archaeology that is with getting an agent in the media world. Past preservers is my agency and they get offers sometimes for programs like this and I go through them and then podcasts like this you know so I I'm always pushing to get archeology out to the general publican to use just. Regular language and talk in an everyday way and talk about the fun and exciting parts I just I I love it. You guys. This is like my favorite part of archeology is bringing it bringing it to the public. So anyway jobs like this wired job. Often come through my agent like he'll get see a job or a job will come through him and he'll think of me as a possible fit this one I think I got emailed. They emailed me straight one of the producers at wired just emailed me and they said hey. 04:57.60 kinkella We've seen your Youtube videos. Um, we think you would be good for this what happens then whether you go through an agent or not and I recommend going through an agent when in doubt um, is that these days they will tend to set up a Zoom meeting. And this is and by they I mean the production company in this instance, it would be wired. But I've done a ton of these you guys and they're they all vaguely follow this script so you have a Zoom meeting. And the Zoom meeting is really just to see if you're a fit and the producer will be there or a casting director or this kind of thing on the other side then they ask you general questions about yourself about archeology. You know you just answer them as best you can and they usually are recording it because they're going to show it to the rest of the production. Ah, people later like to the director and so on and to see if you're right? or not now you guys I have lost a million and one of these jobs. That's the that's the daily battle of the actor. You know so you can't let it get to you. I will say when I had my initial Zoom meeting and it was about 45 minutes bit longer than usual I didn't think it went that great. You know I just I was talking with the casting director and it wasn't that it was bad. It's just sometimes you have that sixth sense of like well I I don't think that went too hot. 06:22.30 kinkella You know you just you just do. We had our meeting and then he said you know thanks! We'll get in touch with you and I'm like great and then like a month went by and I heard nothing and I thought that was ah par for the course again you lose a ton of jobs doing this kind of stuff just doesn't work out. no harm no foul but then I got an email. They're like you're it, you're in. We're going to shoot what do you think you know and that was really great I'm like wow you know it was surprising I I didn't think I had it I didn't feel super super confident. And and of course I have stories to go the other way too where I've been super confident and then didn't get the job and I was shocked. You never know you never know what the other side wants anyway, the setup was that I would come to their offices which happened to be in LA and ah, show up there early in the morning. 07:16.18 kinkella For a shoot that was about oh I think it was about three and a half hours long which is on the short side I've been on these before you guys where they're like 12 hours long like brutal days and when you walk in, there's really just a chair and sometimes a table sometimes not. And then cameras and lights all pointed at you so you're literally just like sitting in this chair and then they just start asking you questions now common question I get is do you know the questions beforehand and or do you have a script. Do you have a script. The answer is now sometimes they'll have like kind of a beat sheet. Of topics. They want to hit or little like little phrases. They might need for editing purposes. But it's really up to you. So even before I got there they did send me like a hundred questions I went through all of them I answered them to the best of my ability just for myself. I. Emailed them back like I think these questions are good I think these questions don't work so hot and then they took what I said seriously but they also have a bottom line and maybe some of those questions that I didn't think were so great. They still needed to have done. So. My point being. There's a lot of work behind the scenes even before you get to the shoot. You really have to know your stuff you really have to know what you're going to say so I had no idea which of those 100 questions literally 100 questions that they were going to use. Um I got there. 08:45.25 kinkella And they were very nice, very professional. It was great I mean behind the scenes. The wired people. They know what they're doing. They deserve their 11000000 you know plus followers. They were only professional and they set me up and then they just started asking me questions now I would say that 85% of them were from the list. You know? Oh hey, what do you think of this and and I was fairly ready. But as you can see in the video I'm answering off the top of my head I am not reading a script in any way I am looking at the person who asks and then I'm talking. Which gives it a life to it right? which gives it a liveliness and you want that you know you don't want some weirdo just reading a script. You're so odd so there's ah, there's an energy to it and then. About maybe 15% of the questions I hadn't seen or they had just found or they they would run it by me. They'd be like hey what do you think of this one and I'd always just be like hey let's try it. You know so they did ask me all kinds of questions. So even though it's. Only three and a half hours you are working for three and a half hours man you are on camera you are asking questions. You're making sure you're sitting right? You're making sure the sounds okay, right? You are kind of angling correctly. So you look normal and it's. 10:09.24 kinkella I love doing this kind of work but it is a lot of work. Anyone who is getting into this must take it. Absolutely seriously must be a consummate professional themselves and know the stuff cold so you can say it 4 different ways you know, um. In terms of what I wore or what to wear to these kind of things every time I've ever done it. It's been my own clothes and they just give general parameters. You know don't wear anything with stripes or whatever. So I tend to just wear things that I like or I feel comfortable in for the wired shoot. They. Ah. Really wanted me to wear a hat and I felt kind of weird wearing a hat, especially indoors. But I understand why because if you look at these videos every time that there's a specialist. They're always kind of clothed in what. They wear on the job like they've had doctors on their like medical doctors and they'll be wearing you know the whites and and so on right? The the doctor's robe and that kind of thing so I was cool with that and then we just we just shot you know, just question after question after question. What you finally see of course is only a very small percentages of the total of what was asked right? and again man I only got good things to say about the wired production team I thought they picked the best of the best I thought they made me look great and. 11:41.57 kinkella I mean when I watched it I was I was only happy I was kind of like yes because you never know what the production company's going to pick I've done enough of these kind of things where sometimes I'll watch something and I'm I always have a little trepidation watching myself I feel odd about it. Sometimes I wait a really long time before there's certain things I've been and I've never watched at all just because I've been slightly like worried I'm sure I'll watch it in time but you might have done certain things that you thought were really great and then they don't pick those and they picked the like 2 shots that you thought weren't that great. But you have to realize it's for a larger project. You are just a very small part of a much larger project and that's how the system works you just do your best and then you move on and I think 1 thing that's really difficult. Especially for young people getting into this or new people getting into this is you're constantly worried about saying something wrong. You know it's like that they'll ask you something in my case about archeology and you like won't know it or or your answer that you think is right. Is actually kind of wrong or something like that and my big advice is don't worry about it because what you're worrying about is that your're professors listening or something. Ah, you know some archeologists are listening or something but they're not the audience. 13:15.62 kinkella The general public is the audience you will get detractors from the academic world you always will and it's just something you have to deal with and and I'm embarrassed for those people you know the and my meaning there is academics who. Piss on other academics who choose to put their best foot forward and go up into the public world I hate it when academics eat their own and you really see that when another academic like myself. Chooses to do this kind of stuff and so if you want to go into this world. You just have to be cool with the knowledge that those small people will get down on you and you just have to shine it on and keep going because you're doing something that's incredibly important. When we come back. The comments on the wired video.