The Australian Museum has partnered with podcast production company Audiocraft to launch an immersive original podcast series on nature, the two companies have announced.
Using Audiocraft’s immersive sound design capabilities, Nocturnal Worlds uses field recordings from the Australian bush to tell the stories of three of the country’s most iconic animals - the powerful owl, the red-crowned toadlet, and the long-finned eel.
“Nocturnal Worlds enables listeners to connect with nature in their own space, to hear the sounds of the bush and learn about Australia’s unique night life in a calming podcast,” said Australian Museum head of digital Megan Lawrence. “The writing and sound design by Audiocraft is poetic and peaceful. We are thrilled with this new storytelling venture for discovering the habits of our native animals while relaxing.”
To capture the underwater field recordings, sound engineers from Audiocraft used special tools like an underwater microphone to record sounds under the ocean like whale song and frogs at the national park. Scripts for each episode were written based on research provided by the Australian Museum, which has an internationally-renowned reputation for natural history expertise.
The podcast launched 12 August as part of National Science Week 2023, with the first free episodes out on all podcast platforms. It is also planned to feature at the Sydney-based institution’s Nights At The Museum programme on 16 August, with a presentation held at 7.30 pm to meet the makers of the podcast.
“Nocturnal Worlds has been such a dreamy project for Audiocraft,” said Audiocraft CEO Kate Montague. “It’s not every day you get to tramp through a national park at twilight looking for frogs or drop a hydrophone mic into the ocean to listen for whales.”
“It’s projects like this one that really fill our creative cup… and fill our brain with facts about the mysterious mating rituals of eels! That’s the sweet spot for us - where creative storytelling and immersive sound design meet. The result is a project that we’re super proud of and we can’t wait for listeners to dive in, listen deeply, unwind and reconnect with the marvels of nature.”
Audiocraft has worked with a number of companies and brands to create podcasts including Audible, Spotify, The Guardian, Red Bull, Sydney Opera House and many more.
Nocturnal Worlds is also not the Australian Museum’s first podcast project, with other series including Live at the AM featuring audio recordings of events held at the museum, educational podcast Five Things hosted by Australian ecology experts, the Explore podcast which goes behind-the-scenes on expeditions, exhibitions and the lab, and history podcast Listen to the Treasures hosted by veteran journalist Charles Wooley and Australian Museum director and CEO Kim McKay.
