In the past, Paul Geary has hosted many podcasts: the WRHS Book Club Podcast, the Holocron Vault, and the WRHS Marvel Podcast just to name a few. However, in 2023, he undertook another project: The Million Movie Podcast.
Joining Geary in hosting the podcast are seniors Luke Varelli, Jacob Savoy, Jeffery Guluzy, and Ryan Deptula.
Originally, the cast were enrolled in Geary’s Communications English class in the first semester of school. The course is one that covers how communication has evolved over the years, and what it means to communicate to others.
“[The class was] all the same ballpark of talking to people,” recalls Deptula, although interestingly enough there was “nothing specifically about podcasts.”
While the class wasn’t the first time the hosts had met each other, it was the spark that started the idea of podcasting together. Geary expressed that he’s “always looking for podcast ideas,” when asked about his previous podcast. Along with him, Savoy notes that Geary and he “have been talking about [the podcast] for two years,” having had Geary’s classes since sophomore year.
As seniors, the group wanted to make the most out of their final year at Woodland.
“It’s one of those things in high school,” says Savoy, “it’s your senior year, you don’t want it to be dull.” Being in the communications class is what finally kicked off that desire to make something big for the school.
The idea came more from the fact that the team would frequently talk about movies during the class, and the chemistry was evident from there. “We would just be talking about movies with Mr. Geary and we just slowly got closer,” says Guluzy, “and Mr. Geary said… ‘why don’t we do a podcast?’”
The crew were never familiar with podcasts; the only person having experience being Guluzy, briefly appearing on The WRHS Marvel Podcast. Varelli remarks, “I’ve never thought, ‘let me go out and start a podcast,’ it was definitely a new thought and experience.” Outside of podcasting, Deptula, Guluzy, and Savoy all have experience with live commentating. This live-conversation format is somewhat familiar to these three, but this would be the first time they would be narrating a podcast.
Previously, Geary and his co-stars would cover either books, a sport, or a specific movie or show topic. Reflecting on the WRHS Marvel Podcast, Geary compares the two, noting that the Marvel Podcast was very specific to marvel movies, while The Million Movie Podcast is more about films, both present and past. His new podcast simply covers movies as a medium in general. Varelli finds that the openness of the topic lends to the longevity of the podcast. “There’s so much you can talk about from this year or one hundred years ago,” he says.
This longevity can only continue for so long with the original cast, however, as all of the student hosts are graduating in the spring of 2024. The future of the podcast is still undecided, whether or not this crew will continue to make episodes online in college. The students and Geary agree, however, that the podcast should stay alive. Geary states that “There‘s no reason to stop, we could still definitely do this in college with the way technology is now.” The students, on the other hand, have mixed feelings about continuing to host the podcast themselves. Deptula suggests that he could hand it off to another group, continuing the podcast but moving on from the class of 2024 hosts. Guluzy adds that it doesn’t work with schedules in college, if they were to continue to host. Varelli, however, notes that Geary’s a very social media inclined teacher, and that he thinks a lot of them will stay in contact, not being too hard to manage and keep it going. Ultimately, the hosts would like to see the podcast thrive past their graduation.
