Second Emulation

Evolving the Podcast: Big Changes Ahead

• Shawn Juarez • Episode 72

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Ready for a transformation? Second Emulation is evolving in every way possible as we approach our 100th episode milestone. What started as a casual hobby has grown into something that deserves more structure, consistency, and professionalism—without losing the passion and personality that brought you here.

The biggest revelation? We're expanding far beyond our accidental identity as "just a movie review podcast." While our Nick Cage journey continues, we're finally embracing the full pop culture spectrum I originally envisioned: dedicated gaming content (featuring no-commentary gameplay streams via Lightstream Studios), quick-take anime reviews that focus on first episodes rather than entire series, book club discussions, tech talk, comic reviews, and monthly pop culture news roundups. Plus, get ready for our "Drunk Blind Trailer Review" segments where we'll attempt to decipher movie trailers with... varying levels of sobriety.

Behind the scenes, we're completely restructuring how we work. Batch recording will replace our on-demand approach, allowing us to plan 10+ episodes ahead and eliminate those frustrating content gaps. We're upgrading our music through Epidemic Sound, implementing actual scripts (imagine that!), and creating a universal media hub through Soloto where you can access everything Second Emulation offers in one convenient place.

These changes aren't random—they represent the natural evolution of a passion project finding its true form. For everyone who's been listening, whether you've been here since episode one or just discovered us recently, thank you. Your support makes this possible, and I hope these improvements will create an even better experience as we build this community together. Have feedback about these changes? I'd genuinely love to hear from you through our socials. The best is yet to come!

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 Hey, everyone! Like, super exciting news! Fan mail has been added to our podcast! We totally love hearing from you, so if you have any questions, comments, or just wanna say hi, click the link above the description. We might even feature you in an upcoming episode! So, don't be shy—click that link and share your thoughts. Okay, now back to the show

Want more of Second Emulation? Stay connected with us by following our social media channels! By clicking the link below to stay up to date with us on our socials and Game review streaming channel.

https://solo.to/secondemulation






  📍 Hi, hello, and welcome to Second Emulation! Oh my God, you guys, I’m so excited for you to listen to this episode—like, it’s going to be so good! Your amazing host is about to take you on a deep dive into all things movies, anime, gaming, and pop culture. Seriously, it’s, like, the best way to spend your time. So, grab your favorite drink, maybe a latte or something cute, and get ready to have the best time. Okay, love that for you! Here’s your host!"

 Hey everyone. Welcome back to Second Alation. I'm Sean, your host, and today I have a special announcement to share with you. We got some exciting changes and new content coming up and I can't wait to tell you guys all about it, so stick around. I. First, I wanna talk about some changes we're making to the podcast starting in the next several days or weeks.

We'll be making some drastic changes to the process of how we do our editing and recording for the podcast and how we release, episodes, during the week, we're also looking into maybe changing also the whole process overall. And one of the key things, what we're gonna be doing is overhauling our social media into a universal link.

And we are gonna be using solo dot two to be the hub for all our social media accounts and to give you our directory to the podcast episodes along with access to some. Things that we'll discuss a little bit later. Now one thing that we're also gonna be changing that's gonna be part of this media directory hub, is we're going to be doing a let's play slash walkthrough videos.

These are gonna be games that we play on stream. That we will eventually have a review of the game and talk about later in an episode podcast. Now, this is something that we've utilized or have done in the past. We've tested it with doing Jedi fallen order, and we've dabbled a little bit and got a war, and then we've gone kind of full force and are full, beginning to end gameplay of Final Fantasy Rebirth. Now, I know we might be late to the game in regards to, let's play walkthroughs, but this is something that we've been wanting to do and have as a companion piece that will also be tied into the episode review of the game that we'll also do at a later day.

But the reason for us wanting to do this is that we want to be able to engage with people in the gaming community as video games is one of the topics that we discuss. And just reviewing a game, and giving you our thoughts. We also wanted to show that we're also gamers too. Now. We don't have, we're excited to like.

Announced this, but what allows us to do this is that we don't have any fancy, PC gaming computer rig that a lot of other content creators, use in order to stream their gameplay on Twitch and. YouTube, we have been looking for, a company that will allow us to do this all from our console from, and offer us the best type of gaming experience for a fraction of the cost.

And we're excited to announce that we have found a, that such company, which is called LightStream Studios. Now, for those who don't know, we've been utilizing them on the backend, but just keeping it very quiet. We've done some testing and our first type of, gameplay for. Ada, the fallen order a little bit for God of war and as I mentioned, real kind of full force with found a fancy seven rebirth.

Now, over the course of us testing this, you can see that we've been, having some real growing pains with this because as when you first start out streaming, any type of video game gameplay, there's always gonna be bugs and tweaks you have to do. Now, what we've learned from these experiences is that we have, made some drastic changes.

We wanna be able to make it more professional. Gameplay for you guys. So we've been, going through the growing pains for that and we find, think that we're in a spot to essentially be able to per. Pursue this new type of content going forward in a more professional sense that we've done in the past.

Now we'll be streaming oh. What LightStream allows us to do is allows us to stream our gaming content from our console so we don't have to have a. Capture card, a gaming pc, all the other hardware and bulk that you would need that content creators, utilize. We. We don't have to, we don't have that.

And it does makes us, in a way, allows us, a little bit more freedom as livestream studios is more like a plug and play and allows us a lot of different categories and resources to make our stream better. And we've been using them for a while, we're excited to announce everyone that this is something that we're gonna be pursuing, but not only just with gameplay, we're also looking to maybe do an IRL type stream now.

We were trying to get all the pieces together so that we could maybe present, you know this at a convention where we give you like a walk around real time streaming. But the pieces just didn't align. So we are working to maybe see how we can get something like this going in the near future. Now, what will end up happening is that you'll be able to see our let's plays, on Twitch, and then the VDS will be on YouTube at a later date or after the stream ends, where we will go in, re-edit it.

And put on the markers and things that, that are necessary for. Twitch or for YouTube. My apologies. Now this all brings us back to what I mentioned earlier is that we'll be using a universal link called Solo two as like our, media type hub. Because what separates that from other universal links is that we are allowed to.

Post or have a hub of streaming content within our universal link, and they're, they have allowed us, or you have the ability to have a link for your. Twitch or YouTube and our podcast. So if you click on our link, you'll be brought to not only our social links for the podcast, but you'll also be able to watch the stream and listen to the podcast from the podcast directory that we have listed there for Apple.

So you don't actually have to be on Twitch or YouTube. You'll be able to watch everything from that hub, which is I think is very nice. And then later if you miss it, you can then, watch the VDS on the YouTube channel. Now, the reason why I said this is gonna be a game changer for us is that for those who all know, trying to post as many links to your social and where what you're doing can be a pain.

And we've looked into other universal links like Link Tree and they didn't not quite offer the things that we wanted, and two to fulfilled or filled in the gaps of the things that we wanted to do. So that's why we're excited that with our Let's Plays and walkthroughs, you'll be able to watch those without actually having to go to Twitch.

And then the VDS will be available for rewatch later. The reason why we want to do. Let's plays is that we're gamers all in heart. We wanna be able to game and talk about, the games that we played like we used to back in the day and. I feel like one thing that's gonna separate us from other let's plays and walkthroughs is that we are not gonna be doing any commentating.

We might interact with the chat, by typing or, doing some other means, but our let's plays or gameplay are going to be essentially no commentary. We feel like. Those who, you know, other content creators who do commentaries with their game plays, that works for them. And we've watched a lot of content creators who do this type of content and essentially that works for them.

But unfortunately for us, we feel like it also takes away from the podcast or not. Not from the podcast. It takes away from the gameplay that you yourself are now having to focus on two different things and we feel like we don't want to be distracted. We've noticed in, several moments of someone's trying to, they're really locking the game in a boss battle and also having to commentate or talk to or engage with their chat can also.

Distract and also cost them, the match or a loss in the boss, depending on, what they're trying to achieve. And we feel like we ourselves don't want to, to do that, but we also just want the gameplay to speak for themselves. Not to say that when we do the vds, we are also going to have, we'll say game facts, but essentially, depending on the game that we're playing, we'll give a little brief description of know what level we're at, what area we're at, what we're utilizing at that time, depending if it's an RPG action game, platform, or shooter. And that way you know, you can follow along, see what gear you know you wanna obtain, and. Go from there. Now we, these gameplay videos are not gonna be like a hundred percent total completion where, we beat the game and try to get everything, in the first go around.

No, we are gonna be casually playing the game, going at our pace and just enjoying the game as is just like anyone else. So if there are those, there's other content creators. Creators who, will do the a hundred percent. And, that's just not us. We might, go back and do, side quests, but we will, announce that as time goes on.

But with this, we're also going to have, a dedicated streaming schedule of some part. Going forward of just announcing what days we're going to be alive live and streaming on Twitch, and we'll announce what game we're going to be doing that. And since we've just finished our final Fantasy seven Rebirth play through, we are looking at a game going forward that's gonna be the next test.

And for us to get our. Both feed in playing on stream for you guys. So we're like working around seeing what games, will fulfill that need for content. And with that, also be on the lookout on our socials. We'll be posting, when we're going live next. We will be doing a complete overhaul on how we record episodes from a demand on demand recording style to a batch recording format.

This will allow me to at least plan for a 10 plus episode in advance where there'll be no disruptions between episodes of long periods of no content. And what I mean by that is in the past when I first started this podcast, everything's been on a on demand record as needed. We've never been up until recently, a point where we would plan out episodes.

It's always been in the moment we're watching, we review, then we record, and then we would edit. That the podcast itself can no longer su sustain that type of model, and I can no longer sustain that model because what ends up happening is a lot of stuff either gets, drop drops off or just falls behind.

And I. As I do this podcast as a hobby, there was a lot of stuff that was falling behind that I could not keep up with. In the moment that meant new things for us to create content on wasn't able to get to, and then things we were just falling behind. And me personally, I don't wanna fall behind.

And those who've have been listening to the pockets have noticed that there have been gaps in episode to episode long gaps. And that is on me, and I wanna take accountability for that. I. But going forward with this new plan and this new kind of restructuring of how we record episodes, it is going to allow me to be free to focus on other things as the podcast needs.

So we'll be able to essentially. Record about a good chunk of content within a day and allow us to edit and then streamline, those episodes on a consistent basis. And this goes pivots into, when we decide to upload episodes, we are still going to be committed to a Friday upload in regards to our podcast episodes, but we're also looking into maybe adding an additional day of Saturday.

Saturday is going to be, unique as is going to pertain to new content that we're looking to actually create for the podcast, which I'm excited to announce a little bit later. But we will be sticking to a Friday schedule of uploads. Now the intro and outro of the music that you hear at the beginning at the end of the podcast will now be handled by Epidemic Sound.

This is a website or a company that has access of our catalog of royalty free music and soundtracks and sound bites, which. In the past, for those who don't know, we've been going through a lot of growing pains and trying to find a unique intro and outro that fits our personality for the podcast. And for those who know, it can be hard trying to find, royalty free type music or just any music in general that you can use without getting a copyright strike or videos or content claimed.

And. Epidemic Sounds is a company that you know, we pay. Subscription. Two, we might pivot to a year subscription that allows us to have access to music, but also protects the podcast for those type of incidents of copyrights that any content creator might, encounter in the future. And we like that.

We like that we'll be able to have our podcasts, our. Twitch, our YouTube, any type of media that we have that we're utilizing for the podcasts overall will be detected under their brand for music that we utilize going forward. And we're excited because in the coming weeks you'll notice the change in music that kind of.

Fist the personality of the podcast. And I'm very excited. We've been testing the waters a bit to see what works, what doesn't work, and we're really honing in and tweaking. And I feel like what we have now is going to be the best representation of personality overall for the podcast going forward.

This, I would think is gonna be our biggest change to the podcast. And it's typically for a topic that I'm very passionate about, but I felt like it needs to happen and that is going to be, us reviewing anime, we would normally. Do a whole serious review once an anime was completed, which worked for a time, but overall, with so many new animes coming out, there was just no way to cover them all in, the timely manner that we needed to, and a lot of anime that we were interested in watching and reviewing just, just fell to the wayside.

And this new structure that we're gonna be implementing, I feel like is the best way to move forward in regards to anime and how we talk about 'em and review 'em on the podcast is our solution, which is we're going to, instead of reviewing anime series as a whole, we're gonna be doing, one episode reviews and.

Which may sound weird, but typically for anyone who watches anything, you, within the first episode, you'll know if you're gonna continue watching that show or anime or not. And I feel like this will be the best way to move forward and how we are approached in regards of talking about anime. And so that is something that we'll be implementing.

You'll start noticing an, anime that we talk about that we'll be implementing. The one episode review we're also going to be implementing in those episode what we do with our Nick Cage movies is that we'll be. Bringing in, I'm talking about users from my anime list who've also watched the anime and give their review and their, what they, give the anime overall.

So that is something that we're pulling from our movie reviews for Nick Cage, similar to what we do with Letterbox, we will be doing the exact same thing with anime, my anime list. For when we do our anime white episode reviews, and I feel like this is the best way forward in how we review animes because me personally, there's a lot of animes that come out that you, that look interesting, that you'll then market it very well and you watch that first episode and then it turns out the anime wasn't that great.

So this will be our path going forward, and I'm excited because it'll allow us to cover a lot more anime than just waiting for the entire series to be done. Binge watch the entire series and then, discuss it. There are a lot of content creators who do, they'll watch and review an episode day by day, provide commentary, and that's fine.

Or they'll, do the whole. Series as a whole, and that's cool as well. But unfortunately for me in the podcast, it's not beneficial for us going forward to keep doing that type of that type of implementation that we've done in the past. So that's something I'm very excited to talk about and I'm excited for you guys to, listen to, 'cause there have already been some anime episodes that we've already implemented this in, and I'm excited for you guys to listen to those episodes. Now, one thing that's also going to be changing is the overall podcast, isn't going to just focus on one singular topic anymore. I know when I first started this that we've been so heavy weighted.

And just movie reviews. There's been a lot of movie reviews we've done, and not saying that, movie reviews are gonna go away, but when I first started this podcast, I wanted to talk about all things, in pulp culture, the things I'm passionate about, and it just seemed to just fall on, reviewing shows that we watched, so what's going to happen is that.

We will be spreading out the topics. There'll still be movie reviews, anime reviews, things like that. Actually we'll be leaning more into the topics that I essentially wanted to talk about, which is anime, video games, TV shows. And then other topics that we're looking to maybe get into is book reviews, convention reviews, maybe certain tech, not too sure.

Comic book reviews, what we're, reading, what we're listening to, what new, comic books to book to pick up. For those who don't know, I used to read a lot of, I mean I still read a lot of comic books and read, but I used to utilize Amazon and they no longer their compo cap is no longer sustainable or can be utilized.

So I had to find a new pivot. And this is something I'll talk about a little bit later in this podcast, but. Those are things I also wanna talk about as well. So the main focus of the podcast topics will stay the same, will be revolving, on a strict structure of the episodes that come out Friday.

But the podcast itself isn't going to have mainly just be about movie reviews. We'll still be doing, our Nick case of the multi, through the multiverse. That's not gonna go away until we've completed all his films. And then we'll find something new or new movie content. Just know that.

How we done it in the past is going to change. I used to wanna talk about a lot of different stuff and I've noticed that the podcast itself has just become a movie review podcast, which I never intended it to be that it was just I wanted to do something and it just fell into that.

Because. It was the most easiest thing to talk about. But over the course, the growing pains of the podcast I want to expand on things. So we do have our main topics and then within those topics, we will have, other topics, subtopics that we'll talk about. There are still related to the main core of what the podcast is and its personality, and that's what I'm getting at, is that the podcast itself will, change over the course, but in a good way. And this brings me up to, another change is that we're gonna be overhauling how the podcast sounds and the structure of the podcast episodes going forward. In the past, it felt like more so that I would just, have a mic and just talk about my opinions for.

20 to 30 minutes, and that has worked for a long time. But I've noticed is that it simply is just me just rambling on into the darkness. And what changes that will be made is that we're gonna be using more notes and scripts a bit just to keep, the podcast episode's on topic, there will be times that will ramble on, or I will ramble on a bit, but I've noticed over the course, it's just, there hasn't been no structure and I wanna bring it to semi structure.

So every episode going forward, we'll be utilizing a script that. Will help us keep on topic and they, that may make me sound or us sound. A little bit more robotic or, professional in some way. And that's the key. Not to say I sound like a robot, but I want to pivot the podcast to be more structure in some way and only when it applies to us doing, movie reviews show reviews and things of that nature.

When I do episodes with the Nick Cage podcast, or not Nick Cage podcast, Nick. Nick Cage throughout the multiverse is my cohost. We utilize a script that keeps us on task and I felt like that should be applied to everything that we do going forward. And it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Just didn't have the motivation to actually pull the trigger, and that's something that we're going to do 'cause. When I started this, I wanted to learn a new skill. I started this as a hobby and I didn't know how it was going to, how I wanted it to go going forward. And now seeing that people are listening to the podcast, new and current listeners we're nearing a hundred episodes and I couldn't be more grateful for anyone who has taken the time to listen to us to listen to the podcast because again.

I am just someone with a mic who has no professional training, who's just doing this as a hobby, and it, makes me happy that people do take the time to listen. I will admit that our podcast is nowhere near as a big scale as any other podcast out there. We. Are small, we probably put up barely double digits, nowhere near in the hundreds or thousands in downloads.

So I'm very fortunate that we have people who listen and I wanna say thank you. Now, those are the changes that will be implemented in the podcast. What are some content, which I'm excited to talk to? Bring to you. So this is something that's we've been workshopping a lot, but what is new content that we're gonna bring to the podcast, which I talked about may be on a Saturday upload is going to be Drunk Blind Trailer review slash recaps, where me and a co-host are going to essentially select.

Trailers, they can be current or old trailers, and one of us will be drinking and we will watch these trailers and give based on, after we watch the trailer, our own recap or review of what that trailer is or the movie is. And this is something that we've, I've been wanting to do for a while. We just haven't had a time to implement it.

But this is something we'll be working workshop, which is, blind, drunk, blind trailer reviews. We'll change the name for that, but this is something that I've been wanting to do for a while and I feel like it might be fun to do. We. We'll see if, we are on the mark of what that movie is, or we totally miss it.

And I think that's gonna be the most entertaining part, is just seeing the craziness that we get into when we have to watch these movies now not movies when we watch these trailers. Now, with that, if you're, I can already hear it. People talking about, will these trailers be current trailers?

Yes, but they'll also be old trailers of movies we probably are that are already out and we probably never seen. So we'll be doing new trailers and old trailers of movies in the past. Because Louis's come out. Very so often, and I feel like if we only do current movies, then we would run out of things to talk about.

So we will be doing new and old trailers of films that have already been out for a while. That way we'll have the content and see, you know what craziness. And for those who are maybe wandering. This might be a version or a game of telephone. Which I can't wait to do. I'm glad that we'll be able to.

Bring this as new content. Now will this be something that we'll be doing regularly? That's to be, that's up in the air. We're gonna try it and see how frequently we can get this content out there. It might be something that we will probably do once or twice a month if time allows, or maybe frequently, but our Saturday uploads going forward that we'll be doing will be this content.

That will we be putting out there and we're excited about it. I touched upon this a little bit, but one new content that I'm excited to bring, bring is book reviews slash a book monthly book club. I've been doing some digging and I found an app that will allow us to create a book club, and one reason why I am interested in doing this is that.

I read a lot and I listen to a lot of audio books and. Some of those books I want to discuss with everyone and see what, you the listeners are reading or listening to and see what your guys' tastes are. And you guys can get some insight onto what books I enjoy reading.

So that is something that I'm looking into doing. And maybe testing the wires a bit and maybe have, a book club that's still in the works. We just have to figure out how we're going to implement it. But I'm excited and introducing that type of content to you guys. So you guys can, see, or can I see you?

You guys can get an idea of what I read, you know what genres of books I'm reading. So that's something I am, I. And new content. I'm excited to announce. The next thing is that I wanna say we're launching, this can be considered new content, but one thing that we're gonna be doing, or I want to be doing is that we'll be doing like a a news update and essentially what it's going to be, we're still workshopping it, but I'm calling it the round table.

Essentially what it. Will entail is that it will have, updates on the different topics of like news. So anything from video game to anime movie, TV show. Et cetera, giving you like what's going on in the world of those topics. And I'm excited to talk about that because again, there's so much things in.

The world of video games and movies and TV shows that's happening that I don't see anyone discussing about. And if they are discussing it, it's mainly only just one topic. So we're still workshopping on trying to see how we can implement this, but essentially it's gonna be a minor. Like charcuterie board of just things that have already happened that it's in the news today for like those topics that I mentioned.

And I'm very excited about this because again, instead of doing an episode talking about those type of updates, we felt it best to just encompass everything into one episode. And an example would of this would be. The video game, awards of video game gets announced. A new movie that's coming out, changes with that movie, a TV show gets renewed, or up a new TV show gets announced, a new video game.

And so these are just examples. But over the course, I've always wanted to cover this. But it was always very hard to do because it would come up and then people would talk about it day of, and then by the time I wanted to like maybe get around to doing it, it already passed. So I felt like this is the best way to kind do that or implement it.

So I'm very excited, to doing that. Now will this be in rotation to our Friday uploads? It will. It will and it won't. I'm thinking that because this is going to encompass a lot of different, topics into one, that this will just be a once a month upload. Depending on how much content there is to go over amongst those topics, it will mainly just be a once a month upload is what we're gearing at for this type of content.

Otherwise, I could talk, we would have to be putting out episodes upon episodes, and it would just be never ending. And we don't want to do that. So once a month uploads for what I'm tagging, the round table discussion or updates. We'll workshop those. We'll be a once a month.

Upload. We're still workshopping it now. Why these changes? The reasons for these changes and updates is that I want to pivot the podcast from, its. Initial format to when it first started to where we're going. As I mentioned before, we're about reaching a hundred episodes and the podcast itself has gone through a lot of growing pains, and I want to expand on the current topics that we talk about now.

And also introduce new topics and create new content for the podcast. As I mentioned earlier, the podcast first started and just fell into this movie review wasn't my intentions, but that's what. It was built upon and I just ran with it. Now that, I've had a lot more experience with creating the podcast, I want to, pivot into more complicated, topics and discussions over the course of episodes that we do, and make it more professional.

And I feel like with these changes that we'll be implementing, it'll bring us into, I would say, this new stage of where the podcast is at and a new stage for myself. I do the point I. What I'm trying to ho what I'm trying to do, and I hope we can achieve that, is that we want to grow the podcast listener base and downloads than what we're doing right now.

And hopefully with these changes it will allow us to get more listeners and engage within community of people who listen to our podcast. Because that's one thing that we want to do is that engage and also build a community of, around our podcast, but also in the topics that we talk about.

'cause you guys make everything possible. You guys, help me, keep going on the podcast. Just knowing that people are listening means all the world to me. And so with. These changes, I'm hoping that it could, propel the podcast into a new level. One, make us more professional.

If, podcasting can be professional, but professional enough and hopefully offer a unique and quirky, approach to these current topics. Again, there's a lot of different podcasts to choose from. We hope that we wanna be able to stand out and be the black sheep of this little area that we've carved out for ourselves.

And it just comes down to we just want to deliver the best contact possible and we feel like these changes will help us implement that. And what we want to do is engage with you guys. So if you like these changes or have, suggestions on what we can do to improve, we'd love to hear from you guys.

You could always, send us a message on our socials where you know, we'll have, available for you guys to click on and just tell us your thoughts. Anything good or bad? Criticism is always, beneficial for us. It lets us know what we're doing and what we can do to improve.

I also forgot is that one new type of content that we'll be trying to introduce is interviews. We'll be trying to interview people within certain industries or people who go to conventions or content creators over the course of convention meetups. Those who are in the industry of movie film comp books.

So that's something I almost forgot to mention is that we will be pursuing a way to do interviews. So my bad for forgetting. And with that, I'd like to thank you so much for tuning in and for your continued support. I'm really excited about these, this new chapter for our second emulation and I can't wait to share it with you.

Until next time, take care and stay awesome. Bye.

 📍 Okay, wow, that was so much fun! Your host totally nailed it, right? Like, how amazing was that? Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode—because, honestly, why would you? And if you loved it, leave a review or, like, tell your friends. It’s, like, the nicest thing ever. Thanks for listening, and remember: stay fabulous, stay emulated, and I’ll see you next time! Byeee