Cyber Made Human Case Study: How to Produce a Themed Podcast Episode
Halloween has just passed, and to follow up on the haunting season, we wanted to reflect on our first Halloween Special of Cyber Made Human and the process of how to produce a themed podcast episode.
Fittingly, host Alice Violet, with guests Charlie Kelly and Derek Ahmedzai, discuss the top horror stories in cyber and AI. Together, they look at some of the most notable digital scares that have occurred recently, such as the global CrowdStrike outage, M&S hacking, questionable AI chatbot advice and the controversial views of Elon Musk’s AI assistant Grok.
Having now been at Alice Violet Creative for a full year now, I have had the opportunity to work on several exciting episodes with some amazing guests! As a self-confessed horror lover, I was invited to lead the creation of a Halloween special of Cyber Made Human.
In this article, I’ll take you through the behind-the-scenes process of producing a Halloween podcast special and how you can apply this knowledge to create your own themed or festive podcast episodes.
The Concept
Learning more about cybersecurity and emerging tech has been one of the highlights of my role. Discovering more about the ever-growing capabilities of AI, the potential of quantum computing, and what digital forensics can reveal have been among my highlights.
However, what happens when it all goes wrong? Failure is a great teacher and can offer valuable insights into how something can be improved. Combine the high stakes with our dependence on technology in our day-to-day lives, and you have a sector where errors have significant consequences.
A key value of Cyber Made Human, though, is not to fall into the trap many cyber brands take of scaremongering and scaring their audiences into purchase. We always try to be balanced and factual, so we wanted to dive into some of the positives in these instances, such as what we can learn from their comms team on crisis management.
With this in mind, it seemed appropriate to do a breakdown of some of the most prominent cyber and AI-related incidents that have hit the headlines.
Why Make A Special Episode?
Specials act as milestones in your series. They highlight when a special topic, guest or theme is featured, thereby setting it aside from your usual episodes. Subsequently, they will have features that are normally present in your usual episodes. This can be as simple as the length of the video to a different visual approach, or adding in new narrative elements. As such they serve as a culmination of what is featured in your regular episodes, making this very effective for brand enhancement.
However, one of the most significant benefits of making a special is the discoverability potential. There are a few times of the year when the collective online community is all searching for the same thing. Holiday events have the effect of directing people towards viewing the same type of content. This, they may not do at any other time of the year.
As such, with the proper content plan in place, you can optimise your podcast and accompanying social media posts to direct new online audience members to your platform. Whilst they may not be searching for your podcast specifically, they will be searching for Halloween, Christmas or Valentine’s Day content. Ultimately, this will direct them to your channel and increase your audience figures.
To make an effective special, you need to review your content approach. For instance, every podcast episode will have a core theme, topic or question you want to explore. This will dictate which guests you have on the show, the questions you ask and the direction of the conversation. Taking this approach and applying it to notable calendar events requires you to consider your episode criteria and apply it to the relevant festivities you are creating this episode around.
Production
An earlier episode saw us have our first multi-panellist episode: Deepfakes & AI Ethics. In this conversation, Alice met with Richard Norton (aka Norts) and Derek Ahmedzai to discuss AI’s growing role in creativity. This format enabled more ideas and opinions to be added to the discussion, resulting in an in-depth episode with great onscreen chemistry between Alice, Norts and Derek. As such, I wanted to repeat this format for the Halloween special.
For our first guest, I wanted to bring back Derek. Now, a fellow team member of Alice Violet Creative and with his knowledge of AI and chatbots, Derek was a perfect fit for this episode. With our second guest, I wanted somebody who could provide a different angle to the conversation. Enter Charlie Kelly! Charlie has been working alongside team Alice Violet Creative at the Hub8 coworking space for the last few years. We knew for a while we’d love to invite Charlie on the show, and his background at Microsoft and CrowdStrike offered excellent insights into the outage they suffered last year, as well as broad knowledge of similar incidents.
As a final addition, I created a range of different thumbnails to help our episode stand out. This involved experimenting with a variety of spooky graphics on canvas to help convey the episode’s theme, as well as adding in the perfect shade of orange for that extra Halloween effect.
With production complete, we chose Golden Valley as this episode’s sponsor. We have worked closely with their team over the years on content and digital marketing, and this episode and its guests felt like a fun, educational, and community-oriented episode.
With our guest established, we chose to use Club Ocho as our filming location. As a luxurious private venue, it offered a stunning backdrop for recording. Utilising our mobile podcast studio, which includes a multicamera set-up, we were able to capture the episode using a range of creative angles to ensure the maximum number of options during the edit. Compelling visuals are key for the show’s discovery via short clips on platforms like YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram.
As this was a Halloween special, I decided to swap out the usual Cyber Made Human bookshelf segment for our favourite horror movie recommendations.
Be sure to check them out:
- Alice: American Horror Story
- Derek: The Thing
- Charlie: American Psycho
- (Bonus): American Werewolf in London
Golden Valley are a regional initiative with involvement from Cheltenham Borough Council, HBD and Plexal. The ultimate aim is to bring economic investment to Gloucestershire by creating a UK HQ for the cybersecurity and digital technology industry.
Their active involvement in the Gloucestershire cyber sphere and work to develop its future make them an excellent sponsor for this episode as we cover the most important aspects of ensuring better security for prominent brands and organisations.
How To Produce a Themed Podcast Episode: Summary
This has been one of my favourite episodes to produce. From covering some of the top stories in Cyber and AI to the technical challenge of editing with nine different camera angles, this episode has been a great way to utilise the full extent of my skillset!
If you have a podcast series and are looking for new content ideas, creating a special episode is a great way to try out a fresh creative approach that will enhance your podcast brand.
Be sure to keep your content engaging and relevant to the theme you are basing this episode around for the most effective results, and take full advantage of the visual opportunities. With an effective content plan in place, you can leverage your social media to capitalise on festive trending topics. Thereby improving your podcast discoverability and online engagement.
Work with us
Alice Violet Creative was named the Leading Content Marketing Brand for the Tech and Cyber Sector in 2025.
We offer end-to-end services, from creative direction to building your promotional strategy and professional podcast production, in Gloucestershire and Cheltenham. We also offer host and guest training, and can upskill your in-house team on editing and production.
JACK
Digital Content Producer
SPECIALISMS
+. Writing
+. Video editing
+. Photography
+. Social Media Management