I sometimes watch
this guy on Youtube. He has 8 million subscribers, talks with enthusiasm, and never shows his face. If he has to show his head, he wears a helmet. It's more of an image thing than a privacy thing though: he shows his house and family members on his channel.
My point is: when done in the right way, I don't find it annoying as a viewer, and it even took me a while to realize he hides his face on purpose. I actually prefer it over Youtube tutorials where the guy is just showing his own head for the first 5 minutes.
I think I've watched some of those videos myself, but never really clocked the guy was intentionally hiding his face. More focused on the content. Some people build it into their brand, there's plenty of examples. Plus, I will stand by my statement of it adding to the intrigue. For example, one of the most interesting artists in the UK, is called Banksy. I don't think his artwork is overly impressive, like its good, but I feel like it's the fact that he's anonymous, that the public are so interested, plus he tends to do his artwork on public locations, rather than traditional canvas'.
There's plenty of examples on Youtube, I know there's plenty of gamers that build the fact that they are anonymous into their brand. I mean if you think about it, if you've ever watched Top Gear, what was the allure of the Stig? It was the fact that no one could really confirm who it was at first, and that created an allure. If they had Ben Collins just show up on screen, and race a car around the track no one would be overly impressed. The fact that his identity was a mystery, and there was room for speculation is what caused his popularity. Top Gear played that well.
Point is, I'm totally fine (and I would completely understand) if the interviews would only be in a podcast format - I think the interviewer would be more comfortable while also providing us with a good opportunity to learn more about who's behind this community. It's a win-win scenario for both sides from my point of view.
Hell yeah! Sadly I'm not able to contribute in that way to the channel due to my deeply lack of "creator" graphical skills, but if there's any need of human help in the future regarding this project please let me know as for sure I would like to help in way possible. Looking forward to see what comes out of it!
Yeah, I would say that any video would complement it. You're basically covering all basis then, since certain users won't want to just listen to the podcast, and won't watch unless there's a video. At least if you provide both, your hitting all target audiences.
However, plenty of podcasts actually do animation work along with their podcast, and while that probably isn't suited here, you can see its not always about filming the people talking, but just having something to complement the sound. Although, I think even if guests wanted to keep their anonymity then that would work fine.
That said, I think its best that the Youtube channel focuses on other content before approaching the podcast idea. There's a lot of logistics in setting up a podcast, and this is especially true if you want physical podcasts. If you want to do it remotely, then there's issues with quality assurance, because not everyone will have a perfect setting for a podcast. Loud house, kids, pets, bad mic, and generally bad acoustics.