By Sadie Hunter
For a year and a half, Kate Chaplin has been the sole proprietor of Kate’s Take, a weekly online radio show and podcast where Chaplin and her co-host, Wil Derringher, delve into themes of popular movies.
For example, in one episode, Chaplin and Derringher discuss Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” drawing comparisons of its themes to the Iraq war, for her specifically.
“My husband was in the Iraq war, and when he came back, the first movie we saw as a family – we had a brand new baby – was ‘Finding Nemo.’ In ‘Finding Nemo,’ it’s a little fish trying to find his dad,” she said. “Well, while my husband was away in the service, my little baby was trying to find her dad.”
In addition to the “Finding Nemo” episode, Chaplin said some of the show’s most popular episodes are “To Kill a Mockingbird” (and how relates to compassion and following your own moral code) and “Whale Rider,” (or what it’s like to be a female filmmaker).
“I’m a filmmaker first. So I was doing filmmaking stuff, and as part of the promotional side of that, you get on podcasts,” Chaplin said, and the idea sprung from there. “The idea for the show is a book that I’ve never finished. It was like my life told through the movies that I saw, and I thought, ‘Well, I’m never going to finish this book, but I could take one movie each episode and do it that way. So, it just kind of came about.”
Overall, the show has 52 episodes and more than 10,000 listeners.
“We started with once-a-month episodes, and then we went weekly,” Chaplin said. “It was just supposed to be a happy for me. I don’t know where these listeners come from at this point.”
But while Chaplin says she doesn’t really know why her podcast has taken off, she said she does understand that a significant amount of new listeners have been brought into the podcast world in the past few years.
Very popular podcasts like NPR’s “This American Life” have always stayed at the top of iTunes’ charts, but the introduction of the NPR-backed, WBEZ Chicago podcast “Serial” has changed the game since it was launched in Oct. 2014. According to Edison Research, 47 percent of (nearly 150 million) Americans ages 12 and older listened to online radio and podcasts in 2014, an increase of 20 percent from five years earlier. Seventy-five percent of those ages 12 to 24 listened monthly, and 64 percent of the same age group listened weekly.
“I like connecting to people. Making a movie, especially now because I’m making features, they take about two years of your life before you’re even showing to anybody,” Chaplin said. “But I can record a show on Friday, and on Sunday, it’s out to the people, and I’m already connecting with them. I make a lot more time for ‘Kate’s Take’ than I do anything else.”
“Kate’s Take” will celebrate its two-year anniversary this October, and the show’s 52nd episode, “Superman: The Movie” (starring Christopher Reeve),” premiered Monday.
Meet Kate Chaplin
Age: 38.
Lived: Born in Minnesota, raised in Michigan and lived in Georgia and California before moving to Indiana in 2005. “I’ve done a circle tour of the Midwest, but I’ve been here for the last 10 years.”
Education: Attended high school in Michigan. Attended college at UCLA.
Family: Husband Josh, two daughters, 13 and 8. Parents live in Geist.
Kate’s Take Co-host: Wil Derringher appears on nearly every episode. For one episode each year, Chaplin and her husband Josh host the show together and change the name of the podcast to “Josh’s Take.”
Films: Has made 18 films – four features, 14 shorts.
Not-for-profit: “I run a not-for-profit called Gals Guide to the Galaxy. I get women together to share better ways to navigate this galaxy,” Chapline said. “It’s kind of just getting started. We were meeting in my house, and now we’re going to be doing events at Nickel Plate Arts. Meetings are now at Launch Fishers. We’re talking about, in the future, doing a big symposium.”
Production company: Karmic Courage (karmiccourage.com)
Awards and recognition
For “Kate’s Take”:
- 2015 INDY Podcast award for Best Geek Event
- 2015 INDY Podcast award for Most Entertaining
- 2015 INDY Podcast award for Rookie of the Year
How to listen
“Kate’s Take” is available on a variety of platforms:
- d20crit: Accessible at www.d20crit.com/podcasts/kates-take. This is where the show gets the majority of its listeners. The site is a collection of 30 podcasts, and “Kate’s Take” is the most popular on the site.
- iTunes: Accessible via the iTunes store or the Podcast app on your iPhone. This is where the show get’s the second-most listeners behind d20crit.
- YouTube: Accessible via bit.ly/1RgU8yx or on the YouTube app.
- Stitcher: Accessible via stitcher.com or the Stitcher app.
