Speaker 1: And now Audio Theater Central.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to Audio Theater Central. This is the show
that explores family friendly audio drama through news, reviews and interviews.
I'm your host, JD. Setter. This is Episode two twenty four.
Happy New Year, Welcome to twenty twenty six. I hope
this is going to be a great year for you,
and I hope it's going to be a great year
for audio drama. And I'm pretty sure it's going to
be because We've got a lot of cool stuff coming
up this year. Well coming up in this episode. We've
got some feedback from Nate, Jonathan and Austin. We've got
a few audio drama updates here shortly, but the bulk
of this episode is going to be what is normally
my monologue segment. So here's what I'm thinking, but this
time I am joined by Christopher Green, and we're going
to have a conversation, sort of a look back back
on some of the highlights and things we learned about
making audio drama in twenty twenty five, and then take
a little bit of a look ahead at what's coming
in twenty twenty six. So I thought it was the
perfect way to start off this year. All right, Well,
let's jump into the updates. We interrupt this program to
bring you a special.
Speaker 3: Report and in other news tonight.
Speaker 2: A brief look at the headlines.
Speaker 4: Now they want exciting, fast piece news that's relevant and
entertaining like this.
Speaker 2: Quick reminder as always, if you have any updates on
an audio drama project you are working on, or even
if it's just one that you know about and you
want to let us know, head over to PFM dot
link slash atc News and send that over to us.
You can also click the button in the sidebar on
our website. Well, first up is just a couple of
quick recaps in case you missed them, as they were
posted on our website after our last episode. The Cricket
on the Hearth and The Haunted Man were new releases
from Average Romp, which is an audio drama company from
the UK that we learned about a couple of years ago,
and it's headed by producer and writer Jonathan Morris. They
had produced an adaptation of The Chimes, a Charles Dickens
story in twenty twenty two and we found out about
it the following year through an arrangement that they had
with a big finish and so ATC contributor Joe Pearson
reviewed The Chimes on our website back then. Well they're
back and they have released two more Dickens stories. And
I know we are past Christmas now, but if you
missed these, they are holiday themed, but they are fantastic.
I think they're well worth a listen. Check out the
link in the show notes of this episode to see
the review that I wrote on both of them. They
packaged both of these stories together in a single release
and it's about two hours of great audio drama, so
check those out. And another new release that we posted
about on the blog, Salt Light Media released a dramatic
audio production called The Lamb, which is again a holiday
themed Christmas themed story, but I still think it's worth
checking out. We're not that far away from Christmas at
this point, so it is about a forty minute dramatized monologue,
but it does have some sound design and some music elements,
so it's right on the line there. It's one of
those more hybrid style of productions and I think it's
worth checking out, So that is linked in the show
notes as well. Now for recent releases, Just Launched is
a show from Austin Peachey. It's called the League of
Ordinary Heroes. In a world of superheroes, ordinary people do
extraordinary things. Each act of kindness encourages the next, weaving
a tapestry of goodwill across the city and beyond. These
are the adventures of the League of Ordinary Heroes. So
this show began as a one off micro audio drama
from Austin a while back, and he ended up developing
it into its own series and it features Nathan Carlson,
who you may have heard before on Jungle Jam or
Adventures in Odyssey. He is the host of the show
and you're gonna hear many other familiar names such as
Rose Beasley, Betsy Nicholson, and Bethany Baldwin, just to name
a few. There are three episodes already out now and
they are called Ordinary Joe, Neighborly Stewart, and Merciful Meghan.
So that show is available now and it is on
Drama Fi and Window Seats, so you can go check
it out on either of those platforms. And lastly, this
was also a post on our website, but wanted to
mention here just in case you missed it. We put
together a post of upcoming releases for twenty twenty six,
so you can get excited about all the cool stuff
that we know about at this early stage of the
year that will be coming relatively soon. So that post
goes over all of the releases that we are aware
of and looking forward to in this coming year, some
really cool stuff. So go ahead and check that out
and let us know which ones you're looking forward to
the most.
Speaker 1: Testing one, two, three, testing, Dallas, just me talking.
Speaker 4: I do that a lot.
Speaker 1: Where's my speech?
Speaker 3: How long you're going to work up with it?
Speaker 2: That's what I want to talk about. So here's what
I'm thinking in this first episode of twenty twenty six.
I'm thinking about a lot of stuff. I'm thinking about
some highlights from twenty twenty five. I'm thinking about some
things that I'm excited for in twenty twenty six, some
highs and lows of the past year as a creative,
and so I thought, what a perfect time to bring
on the show contributor Christopher Green and talk about some
of these things together. And we're both indie creators. We've
worked on our own shows and projects over the last year,
and we have conversations about this kind of stuff all
the time, about what's working and what's not, and what
we're enjoying and what we're not, And so I thought
it would be interesting to let the community hear some
of what we talk about in this forum. So this
is not really an interview and it's not a monologue.
It's a dialogue. So welcome to the show, Christopher Green.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 5: Dialogue feels like a very appropriate thing for audio drama.
Speaker 2: So exactly. So, if you're unfamiliar with Christopher, where have
you been? But he's a writer, producer, actor, and we've
collaborated many times over the years. He's been on the
show before. But we're going to kind of break this
up into two parts. Part one, we're going to talk
directly about some of our projects from the past year
and maybe some of the challenges and some of our
processes as we work on these. And then part two
maybe a little bit more generally about the state of
the industry. So I think this is going to be.
Speaker 1: Fun, absolutely looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about Time Truck Chronicles
first of all, And you know, this is a project
that did not start in twenty twenty five. This has
been in the works for a while but correct me
if I'm wrong. But I believe the second season dropped
at the very beginning of twenty twenty five? Is that correct?
Or was it very very late twenty four?
Speaker 5: No, you're correct, it was very early twenty twenty five.
In the first season was probably I want to say,
like third quarter of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So that's what I was thinking. And I
know this is an interesting project. You worked on it
for Window Seat exclusively, but you created the show, you
did the casting, you wrote the scripts, and I thought
it'd be interesting to kind of talk a little about
developing a new series. So what was that initial process
like for you coming up with ideas? I know we
talked about this a lot as you were kind of
puzzling through how to build this series. Can you share
a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and yeah no, it's always fun to talk about
these things. We have these chats, like you say, but
it's rare to get to talk to everybody about this,
So hi everybody.
Speaker 1: But anyways, yes, you said, h oh, okay, good.
Speaker 5: Can you normally hear them JD? Should we be concerned?
Speaker 2: I hear them all the time.
Speaker 5: Okay, So that's the way we should be pitching audio drama.
I hear voices in my head. But yeah, anyhow developing
that series and how that came about is yeah, I
just had was having conversations with Windows, excited as they
were excited to be talking about their platform, and I
was excited as a producer to be hearing about their platform.
And big kudos to them. They were very invested early on,
as they are now as well, of course, but there
was a big push early on for them to connect
with existing producers of Audio Trauma and find out from
them their thoughts on the platform before it even sort
of launched.
Speaker 1: They really wanted to.
Speaker 5: Get the feedback of producers too, which I think is
key and says a lot about them as a platform
and as a team. And in having those fantastic, super
open conversations with them, I got to thinking about how
the idea of sort of exclusive content which wasn't really
something well, I know, I shouldn't say that they did
have exclusive content lined up, such as like the word
nerd and all that, but in terms of like audio drama,
it's they didn't really have any exclusive shows lined up yet,
and so I kind of introed that conversation with them
and said like, hey, you should have like an exclusive show.
And so we got to talking and coming up with
an idea, and I bounce some things off of them,
and we really wanted to lean into a lot of
their target audience for children and for families, and a
big part of their target was thinking about like homeschool
families and that sort of thing, and so I got
to thinking about some of that audience and that sort
of thing, and what I might like to do that
would also meet what they are looking for, which is
I think something in a step in developing a new
series that is often overlooked oftentimes. I think as creatives,
we can really get into this space where we're like,
what would be really fun for me or what I
think is really cool, And that's not unimportant. I wouldn't
say that's on important, but we also have to think about, well,
who's going to listen to this and why and how
does it meet their needs? And in my case is
twofold because it wasn't just the audience as in the listeners,
but as in the platform. I was creating it for
what they're looking for, So it's kind of twofold. But
those were pretty overlapping, of course, but I've always liked
things like time travel and science fiction and these kinds
of things. I'd say it's pretty light science fiction, but
there's a science fiction element in the time travel aspect
and that sort of thing. And I'm a new father,
and so fatherhood is kind of on my mind too,
and so the idea of a father daughter team time
traveling through the Bible. Obviously Bible content was a big
thing they wanted as well, just kind of all came
together in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's it is a very good
point about trying to strike the balance between something that
I will enjoy and something that will meet an audience.
And this is something that we've talked about a lot
over the last couple of years, and I've kind of
wrestled with that myself as i've been developing one day
in Aspen Creek. Because that originally as people, as I've
said before, and I'm sure people are tired of hearing
me say that was originally supposed to be a one off.
But then I got feedback on it that people really
liked that story world, and so I thought, well, let's
see what we can build out of this and turn
it into more than just a five minute show. And
so trying to figure out, well, yes, I'm enjoying this
story world and I think it's fun, and I like
these characters and what can I do with them? But
what can I also do that's going to resonate with people?
And so it is something that you have to to
strike that balance. But there, I mean, I think there
are times to see I'm trying to think how to
phrase this. I think there are times to lean more
one way or the other, just depending on where you
are as a creative. What the goal is for the project,
for sure, and so it's just something I think it's
going to be a constant wrestling match if it is
an independent project. Now, something like Adventures and Odyssey, they
have very specific goals and guidelines, and so somebody who's
working on that show, you know, they they're working within
those parameters. But for somebody like you or me who
are working on our own projects, I think it's an
ongoing sort of consideration that we have to.
Speaker 5: Make absolutely absolutely, And I think whether you're writing or
developing with say a platform or a company in mind,
such as as when I was working with Windows Seat
to bring this about. Even though I did produce it myself,
it's a show that I own, it was a show
designed with them in mind, and so there was definitely
conversation about those things and recommendations from them that I
did use to adapt things. And I'll give one small
example is that like in the initial version of the show,
it wasn't a time truck, it was a time traveling airplane.
They were going to fly through the Bible. In fact,
the first few scripts, I believe even when I sent
you JD the first few scripts as Ji for those
who don't know, JD plays the father character Philip, and
I believe when I sent JD the first few scripts
as you were getting ready to record, like at that time,
it was actually, I think even in some of those
scripts still a plane and uh and we and we
changed it and uh. And part of the reason why
was because it was the show was originally called I
think Plane Jane, and it was meant to be kind
of like a play on words. But you know, being
we there was concern about, I guess, the negative connotation
of that expression and didn't want to seem you know,
and these are the kinds of things you have to
think about. It might sound like too much, but it
is what you have to think about. For a platform
that understands that a lot of their audience is homeschoolers,
the decision maker that's going to pay for that, even
though the audience is the kids. Say, there's layers and layers, right,
there's the platform audience, there's the audience listeners, the kids.
But the person who's paying for it is the parents.
And in a lot of homeschool families, that's going to
be the mom that is making the deciding factor of
are we going to subscribe to this because dad might
be off at work. You know, lots of different family dynamics,
but this is a common family dynamics, especially in homeschool families,
that it would be that mom home with the kids
saying I want to subscribe to this faith based show
for a platform for my kids. So understanding that there
was a high female demographic that would be decision makers too,
to kind of name the show after a lightly as
it is, but even so sort of negative connotation female
kind of like expression there. It just it seemed even
if it wasn't egregiously so it felt like maybe a
mismatch there, and so it was changed, and I think
I'm happy that that changed. In the end, I think
that it's kind of been that kind of a cool
thing from the sound design standpoint to mix in elements
of the trucks and this thing. So all of that
to say, kind of what I want to say in
that was that, like, whether you're doing it for a
platform like this, whether you are contracting to somebody else,
or whether you're doing it yourself and you're sort of
negotiating with your audience, so to speak, I think it's
a really cool and beneficial thing. Like we've talked at
length before about the benefits of limitations in art, and
in a sense, thinking about what your audience will want,
whether that's a platform, the kids listening, or whoever it's
going to be. Thinking about who you're going to be
playing that too, is a limiting factor in a way,
but it's a limiting factor that helps focus things and
focus decisions so that you don't end up with sort
of a blank page syndrome where you don't know what
to do kind of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's so much to consider. It's not
just like, oh I think this would make a good story,
let's go make it. I mean you can do that.
I'm not saying you shouldn't or you can never do that.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to start.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. So, I mean, here's another aspect of
this particular project is with Shadows in Daylight and with
Greenhorn Tails, we're essentially kind of going for a very
similar audience with those shows. Sure, older listeners teens, and
those shows were aimed at an older demographic. Now you've
done the Jimmy, Sam and Tommy Show, which was aimed
at probably a younger demographic too, But this time was
a little bit different. You're writing very specifically for a
young audience, and so you had to also tell good stories.
You don't want them to be annoying so that the
parents get tired of hearing them, but it has to
be for that young listener. So was that had a
challenge to figure out how to balance that and still
tell fun stories, because this is even for a younger
demographic than like Odyssey.
Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, I would actually say in this particular case,
it wasn't a challenge too much anyways. You know, like
one of our main characters, we have two main characters,
of course, we have Mirah and her father Philip, So
one of our main characters that sort of a POV
character in a sense, is a child, and that kind
of things similar to what you mentioned Jimmy, sam and
Tommy Show, which wasn't necessarily targeted at kids, but being
that it was child characters, it would lead one to
think that, which is I think part of why it
maybe didn't find its audience well, because it wasn't really
written with kids in mind, even though it had kid characters.
This was actually written with kids in mind. So perhaps
there's I'm not trying to sound insecure or anything, but
like perhaps there's a case study in there for the
audience of like what happens when you kind of confuse
your audience, you know what I mean, or don't have
that clear audience of who is this for? And I'd
say Jimmy, Samon Tommy Show was for me and my
sister who made it, and we didn't really think further
much further than that, and that's why it didn't go
much further than that.
Speaker 1: And that's okay sometimes.
Speaker 5: But for this, yeah, I very clearly knew that I
wanted it to be aimed for kids, and I kind
of I think two things made it come a little
bit easier for me is that you know, listeners most
likely don't know this, But I have a background in
youth and children's ministry in a church context, and I
kind of drew on some of those experiences in talking
to kids in Sunday School and VBS and all these
kinds of things, and hearing how they think and the
questions that they'd ask when we tell a Bible story.
And oftentimes as we're going through these Bible stories, Philip
and me are kind of our guides. Philip is our
sort of authoritative guide that he knows, he actually knows
things we can trust about the Bible story. And Mira
is our inquisitive guide who doesn't know things yet, so
she's asking questions.
Speaker 2: She's the proxy for the child.
Speaker 5: Listener exactly exactly, and so she's asking the kinds of
questions that I would think a lot of these kids
that I've met might ask, sometimes more humorously played up
in the case of Mira and the show, but these
kinds of things. And then I think the other side
of it is again, I'm a new father now, and
I think it's changed.
Speaker 1: The way that I look at a lot of things.
Speaker 5: And obviously my daughter is still very young, much younger
than Mira in the show. But even so, I think
there's a lot of moments where I was writing it
or working on it and thinking like, what's the kind
of show i'd like her to be able to listen
to in a few years when she's able to kind
of take it in a little bit better, And those
are the kinds of things I was thinking of. And
I don't know, maybe having a childlike mine.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that definitely helps always keeping that sort
of jovial approach to things. And I've taught Sunday school
myself and that that would definitely help inform the way
that you present material. So I think that's those are
very valid points well.
Speaker 5: And to that, yourself and Christianna, who played Mirah were
both able to give me feedback as we were doing
recording sessions as well, where there was occasions that did
come up that even after kind of going through this
grip myself, where it was like, you know, where you
guys would become I don't know if a kid would
ask that, or I don't know if like maybe we
might want to phrase that slightly differently, And all that
feedback was super helpful where I'm going, oh, yeah, like,
maybe that's a bit above that age range in And
it's not about dumbing it down. Kids are smart. It's
about putting it in a language that they understand.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And that's another sort of benefit of having
live sessions for recording. I mean, obviously there's the obvious
benefit of the actors being able to play off of
each other. Now, of course we were not in the
same room. We're trans country here. It's not transcontinental. We're
all on the same continent, but we're across the border
from you Europe in Canada. She's in the Northwest, I'm
in the southwest. So we're all on a video session
and being able to play off and that was very
important for me, very beneficial, I think for me and
for Christiana to be able to play off each other,
because if you want that a real genuine feeling dynamic
between a father and a daughter. Sure, we could have
recorded them wild and we probably would have done okay,
but I think it just took it to the next
level for us to be able to play off of
each other, and there were some, I think some really
fun moments because of that.
Speaker 5: No, I absolutely agree with all of that and I mean,
so to my experience with recording sessions for audio dramas
started primarily with a group of people in the same
physical room primarily, and that wasn't necessarily because I felt
it was the best method at the time. That was
just like literally all I knew, like, yeah, this is
what I do. Everybody goes in the same room. And
then later on I learned about other methods that that
could be employed to include people that weren't necessarily in
the same room. For the show Shadows in Daylight, which
I produced the primary cast, especially in the first handful
of episodes, yeah, it was all they were in the
same room, but not in the same always the same time,
but the same recording room physically coming in. I'm physically
there to direct them through oftentimes somebody else in the
separate room recording for me, and I'm like in the
room with the actors, talking to them between scenes and
these kinds of things, and generally speaking, trying to get
as many of them in the same room at the
same time as possible, and where schedules couldn't make that happen,
you know, it might have been four people here, three
people here another day, and then mixing those together, but
at the very least trying to get the same people
who are in the same scenes in the same room
at the same time. And then as I connected to
more people in their space, I was able to connect
to more people who were in totally other places in
the not just the country, like the like the world
and everything like that, and are the content anyways and
record those ways, And I think I kind of shifted
more to almost like all just wilds I guess they're called.
Speaker 1: But with the project like this, like you said, that.
Speaker 5: Dynamic was so important, and it felt like it was
worthwhile to try and get us all in if everybody
was willing, which thankfully everybody was, and so so yeah,
you and Christiana all in this recording at the same time,
and and everybody else was kind of recorded wild and
then mixed in. I don't think I directed anybody else
in person, but I think that that worked okay for
the most part, because you know, you guys have the
bulk of the lines of the show, and so we
have that main sort of skeleton going through the whole
thing of all of that in terms of like voice
tracking and everything, and then everybody mixed in here and there.
It worked because it wasn't the bulk of it there
as well, but most of the there was. There are
one or two spots where as a not a perfectionist,
but as a as a producer, just going to being
kind of like, I wish maybe that was if they
were in the same room, this.
Speaker 1: Would have maybe come out a little bit better.
Speaker 5: But you do what you can and in some in
those kinds of scenarios, you know.
Speaker 2: And to go back to what I was saying a
moment ago, the additional benefit of that again because Mira
and Philip are the main characters, so most of the
is from them, and so us being able to feedback
to you directly because a lot of times I'm saying
this as a writer too. I even try to read
my scripts aloud on my own as I'm going through,
like the final in air quotes, final draft, just to
hear how it's sounding. And a lot of times you
don't maybe pick up on something until you get in
there and you start to record, and then you're like, ah,
that's really not it's not flowing right, And so being
able to make those little changes on the fly, we
wouldn't have been able to do that if we hadn't
been recording together. Now as an actor, sometimes I will
still record an alternative take of a line for somebody.
If I'm doing something on my own, I'll even say
in the recording, hey, what about doing it this way?
It's flowing a little bit better for me, you know.
I definitely still give them what they have on their script,
so they if they want to stick with it, sure
that's the that's the prerogative of the director or producer.
But just giving them another option another thing to consider,
because sometimes it just flows better for that character or
for the actor even absolutely.
Speaker 5: And I'll say, if if we have listeners who maybe
have less experience with that, what I would recommend to
them is, and I know you do this, but I'm
just saying this for the benefit of others. Make sure
you record the as is lines a few times really well,
with the equal gusto and passion, even if you think
that it should be said differently, and then offer your
alternates so that if the director producer is kind of like,
you know what, that's neat, but that's not what I
was going for, they have it. So just make sure
that the real ones there are not the real one,
but the one that they put on the page, and
then then add those other things as well, because those
things are helpful to hear. Sometimes is a totally different
take on things as a director. As a producer, I
appreciate those things. I appreciate when people get so into
the character that they're like, maybe this character would actually
say it this way kind of yeah, you know, And
if you're doing an ongo and going series, you get
that benefit to where somebody can say I have. I've
definitely experienced this with Shadows in Daylight, particularly with Abigail Bourne,
who plays Ley. I've had a number of times where
we've recorded. She's one that I usually I do usually
for the most if she as long as she has
a sizable role, I do usually direct her over a
video call and all that kind of thing too, even
if it's not alongside everyone else to get the recording.
But I have a number of times where she's like,
I was reading this and I don't know that this
feels like lay in this in this scene. Now, because
she's got now into a second season of playing this character,
she can say that now if she If you're a
brand new actor in the new well I just read
the script one time and I don't feel like that,
just just go with the director. But if if you
get that equity with a director, that can be helpful
to them. And I've had a few times I like,
oh yeah, yeah, No, I don't want them to be
right about this, but they're right and I need to
change this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's kind of going back to what
I was talking about with Paul McCusker in the previous episode,
is not being too precious about your writing, because sometimes
there are some better ideas in the room and you
got to just set aside your feeling and let it,
let it take its course and figure out what what
might work better.
Speaker 5: I would say that something that I have learned over
the years is that treat the script like it was
written in ink if you are an actor, but offer suggestions,
you know, within reason. If you're a writer, treat the
script like it's written in pencil. Like you mentioned the
final air quotes draft. Because when I especially if i'm
writing something for someone else that I'm not directing and producing,
when I send it off to them, I fully expect
that they are going to probably change. The directors going
to want to take things differently, change some things up,
not just interpretation, but even whole lines and scenes if
they feel that that's necessary. I look at the script
as a blueprint. At that point, you know, you get
it as finished, you do your best job as you can,
but you recognize that that director does not see this
as gospel, but they see this as a blueprint that
they can reinterpret the way that they want to. And
that's okay, Like you said, not holding it so closely,
because these are your collaborative partners. These are not your
Lackey's going and making.
Speaker 1: The show for you.
Speaker 5: You are making the show together, and you can't treat
it as your baby only.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean we've done that, even a little bit
with Greenhorn Tails. I mean, you and Michael are the
primary writers. But those drafts come to me and then
I do a little polish. I mean I don't go
through and just wholesale change a bunch of stuff, but
there are little tweaks that I make here and there,
and it's fun, and some of them I'll go back
and forth with you, like can you explain this line
here because I'm not quite figuring it out, And then
you'll say, well, this is what I was envisioning. I'm
like Okay, okay, I got that, and so we might
tweak it a little bit. But talking about working with
or writing projects for somebody else, and another project you
did last year was the Potion of Power for Heart Matters,
and this was a little bit of a different situation
from the window Seat arrangement. This was where you were
contracted to write this full length script and then I guess,
similar to to Green Orent Tales, that script goes off
and then they can make changes for sure, and then
all the production and everything else is on them too,
So you're like the first point in this assembly line
of production. But what was that like for you? Working
as a contract writer in that sort of a situation.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it quite
a bit.
Speaker 5: I've thought about it quite a bit too, in the
signs of like I'm a trying to find the way
of saying this that doesn't sound like a flex it's
not meant to be. But a multi disciplinarian as it
comes to audio drama, whether it's right, you know, some writing.
So I don't really consider acting to be among my
stronger areas when it comes to audio drama, but I
have fun doing it when I have the opportunity but
writing and sound design, voice track editing, and I've i
gained this not a strength therea but occasionally I've done
a little bit of scoring on my own projects, that
sort of thing, as in musical scoring. But what was
really interesting about the experience is, you know, I wondered
when I was going into it, like, am I going
to feel as attached or as proud of this project
that I only wrote, I did also do voicetrack editing
on it, but that I wrote versus the ones like
Shadows of Daylight, where where I wrote it and I
directed it and I did a lot of the recording
and the sound design and blah blah blah. And I
have to say I felt just as much sort of
not in a negative sense, but pride in both types
of projects. So I think that really helped me see
more and more that as much as I do have
other areas that I enjoy and I, at the risk
of hubrist think I do a good job on in
audio drama, that it really showed me how much I'm
connected to the writing side of audio drama and that
kind of thing. But yeah, it was a great enjoyable
process and working with Austin who produces all this stuff
at heart matters and he does a great job. And
Austin is a keen eye who goes through everything with
a fine tooth comb, and so he's he It's cool
working with someone who's going to get into your story
as much as you are and and then be willing
to go like, hey, does this, does this work? Does
this make sense? Should we keep this? Should we change
change that? And Austin is one of those people that
I feel like he gets the stories. Obviously, he's also
an ATC contributor and he spent much time analyzing audio
drama and so that's a huge asset as a writer
to work with someone like that who can get into
it and they're not just changing things for the sake
of changing things, but because they really care about your
story just as much as you do. And yeah, that
was a really fun experience to work together on that.
Speaker 2: So another thing that was a little bit different on
this one is again your experience primarily was with Shadows
and Daylight, Greenhorn Tails, and Timetruck prior to these, those
are all shorter. Now of those three Shadows and Daylight
are is the longest. But this is a you know,
essentially almost a feature length it's an hour long show.
Did you have to sort of approach that any differently
or how did that work for on the writing side
of writing a longer show and also working in the
fantasy genre. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So.
Speaker 5: The interesting thing about long form writing like this is
that depending on the kind of stuff that you've worked on,
the kind of series. If you've worked on series and
now you're doing a long form thing, depending on what
you've worked on, it's a shorter story. And what I
mean by that is like, if you take something like
Shadows in Daylight that the first season arc is all
one story, that's a good point twelve episodes that are
all approximately twenty to thirty minutes, So you know you've
got well, I mean, let's do a little math here.
Let's say twenty five as an average times twelve, that's
three hundred minutes.
Speaker 1: We'll divide that by sixty.
Speaker 5: That's five hours, so as a five hour story to
a story that's about just under an hour about fifty
I think it was fifty minutes, so in a sense,
that was a much longer story. And so doing something
and in between, say something like Greenhorn Tails or timetruck
chronicles that is about five to ten minutes in an episode.
Self contained story, but simple focused stories not that complex
by design, and this is a bit more complex. So
I think the biggest challenge was the middle of the story.
The ending at the beginning very clear, but then figuring out, like, Okay,
how much time do we have to live and breathe
in this section and what is the consequences of that.
If I go too long in this section, then I
only have so much time in this section, and that
sort of thing, Like specifically I'll put these in real
world terms without any major spoilers, but the recruitment section
and the battles section. Wanting to spend more time in
the recruitment section, it was like, Okay, now I have
less time to work on the battle section, and then
trying to weigh if we've straight to, you know, too
much one two or the other. If we wanted to
stretch out, I would say I'm with the final product.
If I could have spent more time anywhere, I would
have probably spent more time in the battles lengthen a
little bit more of that to kind of show more
of that transformation. I'm trying to be semi big here
to not give a way too many spoilers, but you
work within Again. Limits are a good thing because I
think the average person that I've heard feedback from hasn't
felt like any particular section was too long or too short,
And so maybe if I had had more freedom with
the length of it that might have it might have
become meandering. I don't know, so yeah, I think in
terms of structurally or specifically, when it comes to writing
a long form thing. If someone is listening and they're
thinking of writing a long form thing, first ask yourself
the question doesn't need to be that long. If there's
a good reason for it to be that long, then
make it that long. If there isn't, don't. Don't stretch
it for the bragging rights of making a long form
thing a short form one.
Speaker 4: Will.
Speaker 5: Do you know there's a famous quote. You're a well
read person, JD. You'll probably know who it is, even
though I've forgotten who said it. I think it might
have been Mark Twain, but you can correct me. But
it was something like I didn't have time to write
a short letter today, so I wrote a long one.
Speaker 2: I'm familiar with it, but I can't remember who said
it either.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it's so true because it doesn't take much
to just meander on the page. It takes a lot
to revise and be intentional about what needs to be
kept and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, I think.
Speaker 5: That's a skill. I remember as a kid watching DVDs
and they'd have these deleted scenes as a bonus, and
I'd be like, even Odyssey's had a few of those
two deleted scenes in some of their album CDs and whatnot,
and I remember always being like, why did they Why
did they cut it? There seems to be like nothing
wrong with this scene. But now, as with a bit
more experience, I've gone like, yeah, but I've cut scenes
now too where I'm like that that's cool, that's fine,
but it doesn't really serve the story in any meaningful way.
And sometimes a meaningful way can be that it's fun.
But it was like, you know, I've caught stuff now
where I'm just like, yeah, we didn't need that, we
didn't need that. And I think that's a good skill,
even if you're writing long form not so it's not
just like long for the sake of long.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's so true, and especially when you're doing
a really short form project like you and I have
done some several micro audio dramas, you have an even
shorter time, yes, and so every second counts in that
sort of a project, So you're making sure that you're
progressing the story with every every single second of audio
that you leave in. It's got to be there for a.
Speaker 5: Reason, yes, And this what made this a good candidate
for a long form story is that it was key
to the story itself that we see the main character
go through a big change in transformation throughout the story,
and so it's very difficult to illustrate that effectively in
a super short run time. So that's that's what made
a story like this makes sense in long forms. So
like that's what I mean, Like people got to think, okay,
what what is the reason it should be long? You know,
you think people talk about Lord of the Rings movies
being like four hours long. It's like, well, it's a journey.
They're going on this huge journey, and it's not like, Okay,
we're just gonna do a hop, skip and a jump
and we're over at Mount Doom throwing the ring and
we're done. Kind of thing, like there's no movie then
there's no there's no story, you know, so it is
the story of the journey. So it's important that that
journey feels long and earned in that case, because to
feel the grandeur of it. Yeah, I realized I didn't
really answer your question about working in a fantasy genre.
So that was relatively new space for me. I'm much
like probably anybody else who was a homeschooled Christian growing up.
They read Chronicles of Narnia and you know, probably sat
down like I did. Many others probably sat down did
and try to write their own kind of fantasy things
because they're inspired by that. And if we looked back
on it now be like this was a little too
close to the same thing. But you know, I was young,
But yeah, writing in the fantasy genre here was a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1: And this is a I would consider.
Speaker 5: Light almost like storybook fantasy in a sense that the
elements are not there's not like a deep you know,
it's not like a Brandon Sanderson deep complex magic system
kind of fantasy. There's just some elements that wouldn't happen
in our real world kind of thing, but mostly possible
in our real world. And so yeah, that was a
lot of fun to work in that genre, as I've
not done that as much, and it's kind of inspired
me in some other things too as a result afterward,
and I think it's also shown me kind of Another
thing that I like about in writing is most lee grounded,
with some small element that maybe wouldn't happen in our world,
whether it's a comedy thing like it's, okay, this is
relatively believable, but there's one thing that's just a little
suit too silly to be real. But most of it's
grounded enough that we're still gonna excuse the one thing
that makes the story possible. You know, same thing in
this fantasy or in science fiction. So you know, the
Time Track Chronicles is similar to that in the sense
that it is mostly believable. We get a fairly believable
father and daughter and a fairly dynamic for them. We've
got true Bible stories that they're experiencing. But then we've
got this one thing that conveniently allows them to be
in these Bible stories, this time traveling truck, which clearly
couldn't happen in the real world. But most of it
is generally grounded. There's a reference in the Jonah episode
where Philip makes a remark about making a rocket ship
out of a refrigerator and Mira's like, wait, seriously, you
that and he is like, oh, well, you have a
time traveling truck. Why couldn't I.
Speaker 1: But then he pauses and he's like, no, I'm just
kidding you.
Speaker 5: Of course, not kind of thing, right, So like it
establishes sort of a boundary of like, we're gonna do
a little bit of unbelievable stuff, but we're not going
to that ridiculous. And I think that's what makes the
one untrue thing believable if everything else is properly grounded.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I
think five has had seen some pretty cool stuff come
from your brain and two our ears please, so i'n't.
I've definitely enjoyed obviously playing a part in Time Truck,
but also just getting to hear them and seeing them
come together and really enjoyed potion of power from heart matters,
And it makes me kind of think about some of
the broader things that we're seeing in independent audio drama
as we move into this more neural section of this conversation.
You know, I think there has been a handful of
fantasy stuff overall in independent audio drama, but the majority
of it that I've checked out hasn't been all that great,
and until this year, I've not really heard all that
many fantasy shows that I'm like, man, this is really
really good. Of course, there's the old BBC adaptation of
The Lord of the Rings, which I think is really fun.
Some people don't care for it because it was done
so many years ago. It's not quite up to par
to our expectations as fans of high quality audio drama.
But then this year we had the Road to Quay Luma,
which was a pretty high quality show, straight up epic
fantasy there, and then of course Potion of Power. But
are there any other trends that you have observed in
terms of in terms of genre or style. You know,
we've talked about long form stuff, and we've talked about
micro audio drama, which I'm really loving to see so
many people jumping on that bandwagon the last couple of years.
I think the super short format can be really fun.
It's a challenge, but it can be really really fun.
So any thoughts on any of.
Speaker 5: That, I'd love to see that become more of a trend.
I love to see more first time producers try something
like that. It's analogous to the short film, where you
have a lot of film producers that are brand new
trying to make a name for themselves to do a
short film oftentimes, and short doesn't mean not as epic
or interesting or all those kind of things as we've
talked about. Sometimes short means that you've thought through it
more about what really needs to be to be on there.
And I think this happens a lot in film because
making something long is so it's so expect that is
such a non starter for a small time independent producer,
Like even if you just it's one thing to be
a YouTuber, you know, film yourself talking head at home
in your living room and talk about a topic and
you can make it look good. It's another thing to
film a short film with a lot of you know,
with a bunch of people. And so, going back to limitations,
one of the limitations that doesn't exist as much in
audio drama compared to film that we've a lot of
us have talked about as a great advantage is that
it's so much cheaper than it is film to do
something of that equal length or scale. But the downside
of that is you could be brand new and your
first foread at the gate could be ten hours long.
And you know, I even look at myself with shadows
in daylight, and I wish that my first fore aat
a sort of public at a gate was something shorter.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I've always given my metaphorical flowers to Ben Kemp, producer
of A Bit of Time Travel, for starting out with
an anthology series that was just one off stories loosely
connected in theme and building up from there. And now
he's doing The Church at Trussel Falls, which is a
series with recurring character and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But he wisely chose to start out with.
Speaker 5: That anthology, this one off sort of approach, and I'd
love to see more people do that. So that's not
a trend that I'm necessarily seeing. It's a trend that
I want to see but more of. And I love
short form audio drama. I think in our busy world,
where short form content on the video side has a
rise in popularity, I think there's an opportunity for that
in the audio side, especially as cultural conversation seems to
be shifting at large about having less screen time and
being able to put your phone down and not look
at the screen and just listen to something real quick.
I think there's a huge market for that, So I
think it's it's a trend in the audience that I
think is happening. But I don't think it's a trend
that is altered done to the producers yet that hopefully
it will more Otherwise, I guess, you know, JD and
I can just eat that market with you know, asking
Creek and Time Truck and Greenhorns, and we're fine to
do that. But yeah, if you all want a piece
of the pie, you know, you better step up.
Speaker 1: I just say it.
Speaker 5: But other trends I guess that I am seeing is
tell me if you agree with this. But a trend
that I feel like I am seeing in Indie family
friendly space is ironically, despite the name, edge of your content,
edge of your content in the family friendly space. By that,
I don't necessarily mean anything on savory well well maybe yes,
but I don't mean distastefully, So I just mean that,
you know, example as heart matters, particularly the production Princess
is probably the most clear example that they've done as
something that definitely touches on some really sensitive subject matter.
I think depending on how you define family friendly content,
I would still consider it family friendly or family sharing
family values.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way.
Speaker 5: It is espousing and speaking up for family values. In
so doing, it has to not revel in but make
the audience aware of some things that are not so
family friendly. And they did it as tastefully as they
could while still being very clear about what was happening.
I'll be honest, it was hard listen. I could not
listen to it all in one sitting. I would not
recommend that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't recommend the show. Heart Matter is doing great things.
I think it's important stuff that they're talking about, super
important stuff that people need to be aware of.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we have to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: And sometimes art, good art doesn't make us laugh, or
sometimes it makes us really really uncomfortable so that we
want to do something. I think of something like Alliver Twist,
that was a novel that actually inspired change for orphans
in London because it made people really uncomfortable when they
realized that this was going on. Yeah, and so there's
something powerful in that. And you know, I also think
of Jake Muller as another area of Edgier. It is Christian,
it is espousing Christian and family friendly values, but it
is doing so in a way that sheds light on
some dark areas that people need to be made aware of.
So I don't know if if you would agree with
that as a recent trend or or a bigger trend,
or just maybe there's a few isolated incidents.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think it could qualify as
a trend because it's something that we've talked about, even
back in the early days of atc Roy and Andrew
and I would talk about wanting to see more clean
audio drama, family friendly. We've talked about those terms before,
but you know, stuff that is appropriate but aimed at
an older demographic. We love Adventures, not Ice. We love
a lot of these other shows. They're great, they're fun,
but you know, I'm not twelve years old anymore, and
so getting to hear some stuff that is challenging. But
it's a well told story. Yes, I think it's really
great and it kind of makes me think it sort
of started well. No, Jake Muller had already Darby has
had the idea for Jake Muller for a very long time,
but one of the first ones that really came to prominence,
I guess would be what River Cross was doing with
those things, tackling some of the similar topics that Heart
Matters is today, but just in a different continent. You know,
they're talking about these from the perspective of Africa, and
here we are saying, well, trafficking and those kind of
things are not just happening in another country in a
foreign land. They're happening right here in our own nation
and our continent here of North America. And so I
guess Heart Matters sort of kind of just brought this
stuff home and saying, hey, this is happening, this is
something that you need to be aware of. And so
Jake Muller is a sort of a different thing. It's
definitely not as well, I guess. It's more on the
spiritual side of things, and it's a not quite as
dark and disturbing as some of the topics that Heart
Matters and River Cross sure we're dealing with. But yeah,
I'm I'm really glad that these types of shows are
being made these days.
Speaker 1: No, me too.
Speaker 5: I mean, in a way it kind of picks up,
like to the things that I really enjoyed before this
kind of more recent seeing this happened is I've made
a no secret that I'm a big fan of the
Novacom Saga and Adventures and Audissey, which is maybe not
as edgy as some of this stuff, but it was
still I mean, I don't know when I first heard
it was like, oh, man, like, we're we're getting into
some like darker territory than we would with AIO normally,
you know. And then also the Father Gilbert mysteries and
the two very distinct things. But I would say probably
the closest reference point to Jake Muller would be something
categorically would be something like Father Gilbert in that sort
of like supernatural sort of element, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would totally agree with that. And it's
like it makes me think of back in the day
those novels from Frank Peretti, the Darkness Duology that he did,
Piercing the Darkness and this Present Darkness. It's sort of
like that's that style, that sort of content, but much
more updated. Of course, it's it's a contemporary that Jake
is dealing with now. But yeah, so I'm really liking that.
I think that those are those are great. We talked
about a little bit some of the things we'd like
to see a little bit more on the micro audio drama,
more people embracing that. Now. You and I have other
members of the Audio Drama Alliance have Glenn Haskell with
First Acts Audio Productions. He's really gone all in on
that short form and then.
Speaker 5: And whatever he's put in in his coffee. I'd like
some of that because his output is insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I'm really liking that. I'm sure there
are other people that are slipping my mind right now,
but those are the groups that I'm seeing really working
in that in that format. So yeah, I would like
to see that a little more. One thing that I've
kind of thought about a lot lately is the idea
of when to end a show or do you start
a project with the intention of ending it at a
certain point, or do you just go create this thing
and then just let it run for as long as
you think it should be or you know, I know
we've talked a little bit about this. I've talked with
Austin about this in the context of Adventures in Odyssey,
and you know, it's been running for almost forty years,
but I think there's a lot of value in saying
this thing has an end date on it. This is
not going to be running indefinitely, so real quickly, you
just thought I'd toss that out to you and see
if you have any thoughts on that.
Speaker 5: Oh, I agree, I think, you know, for speaking personally,
when I started out with something like Shadis in Daylight,
I really didn't think about where it was going to end,
because I you know, I was young, didn't really know
what I was doing, and my reference point was Adventures
and Odyssey and I was like, well, I've been going
for like decades and they don't seem to have any
indication of when they stop, so we'll just see where
the train takes us too. And I think that in
retrospect that wasn't the best approach. I think, first of all,
odyssey is you know, unless your odyssey or unshackled, you know,
like it's few and far between, and it's a good
idea to do you have a sense of where you're going.
I mean, I'm blanking on any audio dramas that did this,
but I can think of a lot of TV shows
where they didn't necessarily. Maybe it was funding, maybe it
was this or that, but the time, the ending that
they wanted to have and the ending that they got
because the producers wouldn't let them make anymore or whatever
didn't work out. And people have seen some of these
shows and go, oh, this was so great and now
it's it never finishes, and it's it's frustrating, you know,
it's frustrating to an audience kind of thing. And there's
lots of shows. I'm sure there's audio dramas, you know.
I don't think the Last Chance Detectives. I don't think
they did too many of those, right, And so it
would be great to see more of these things, you know,
And I think, yeah, you know, to be not to
over spiritualize, but you know, I think of like Jesus
saying that you know that a builder is going to
consider before he goes and builds, like the materials and
how much he needs and how much it's going to cost,
or a king going to war whether or not he
can win, and all these kinds of things, And so
I think it's prudent to think about where something is
going to where and when something is going to end,
and think about that from the beginning. I mean, it's
the same thing in an individual script. Generally speaking, I
would say most people understand or should understand where the
story is going to end before they start writing. You
should have an outline. I'm a big firm believer in outlines.
Even if you don't have an outline, I like bullet
points in this. You should have an idea of at
least beginning, middle, and end before you start writing.
Speaker 1: Otherwise they're just going to be going all over.
Speaker 5: The place and who knows what. It's the same thing
with a series, even if it's not a series with
an overarching plot. Having an idea of how long you
want to try this or it lets people know what
you're expecting too. If you're doing audio drama and you
have actors, it lets them know, like do you expect
me to do this for the next fifty years? Do
you expect me to do this for the next year,
Like I don't know if I can commit to this,
you know. So it'll help you have people with commitments too.
If you can say, like, hey, I'm looking for you
to do this for this many episodes, you know, and
that's going to happen over this period of time, you know.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point to consider. I hadn't really
thought about that, you know, at this moment. But yeah,
if you, especially if you're working on these smaller budgets
like you and I are, sometimes even on zero budget
on just a passion project, Yeah, you need to communicate
to everybody involved the duration. So yeah, I think that's
a great point to think about when working on your
own projects, and just keeping in mind that it's probably
best in most cases to have some sort of roadmap
of this is where we're going to wrap this thing up.
So I think that's really good. Well, well, speaking of
wrapping up, we probably should wrap this up here, but
I wanted to get your feedback a little bit on
maybe some of the highlights that you've seen or that
you've heard, some of your personal favorites two or three
audio dramas of twenty twenty five that you really enjoyed.
I'll give you a couple of minutes to think about that.
I'm going to say, in terms of micro audio dramas
or short form things, I think my top favorite from
twenty twenty five was Ben Kimp's at his Bedside, just
a really crazy few minutes of audio. I mean, if
you haven't heard it, listener, there's a link in the
show notes. Go check it out. I'm not going to
say anyth about it because I don't want to spoil anything,
but Ben Kimp is such a great writer, and I
think he has really been able to dial in that
short form and just tell a crazy story in just
a few minutes. So that's probably my favorite short of
the year. A couple other longer ones. I really really
liked Stand Firm that Craig Hart with LRT Media produced
for Daniel Gibbs science fiction story. Just a really, really
great story that just pulls you in. That's one of
my favorite releases of the year. And then right at
the end I heard a brand new show from Average
romp Over in the UK, their adaptation of The Cricket
on the Hearth from Charles Dickens. My goodness, what a
phenomenal audio drama. So those are a couple of my
favorites from the year. I mean, there were so many
really good releases, but those kind of popped in my
mind as some of my favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, those are all those are solid. I am.
Speaker 5: I promise the audience that I am not sort of
just trying to pump the tires of the host here.
But I have really enjoyed the Aspen Creek series, thank you,
and getting to listen to those. I love a good
micro audio drama. I say it again, audience, if you
are aspiring producers, please make some of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will gladly listen to those.
Speaker 5: But yeah, no, I really enjoyed listening to those, and
all the things coming from from heart matters.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff from a heartman, as we'll say that.
And the enjoy is not the word. Yeah, that's not
meant to be negative to them.
Speaker 5: It's just the content is not necessarily meant to be
enjoyed in every case, like something like Princess. But I
think Princess was ambitious and so and I'm glad it
came out and can make a difference. And I was
also excited to hear some of the people that I
heard in there in it, and particularly I was excited, well,
I mean again, I'm biased from Shadows in Daylight, but
I was glad to see out here Abigail Born in
there that I think that might be be said some
Lamplighter Guild stuff and Shadows Daylight that might be the
only thing she's else she's done in audio drama space
so far yet, So that was really cool to hear.
And Lifetime, which also came out this year from them,
was a game, very ambitious and hearing Rose Beasley man,
there's there's someone to watch out for. I feel like
she's been in a bunch of stuff this year and
I've been impressed with everything that she's done, and right
alongside Bethany Baldwin in that, and Bethany's been all over
the place to this year, and they've been together in
more than one production now, both in Princess and Lifetime
as well as I believe this was this year from
Glenn Haskell with Wednesday's Weather Yea, I believe it was
very early this year, I believe, And they were both
together in that too, which you know disclaimer I was
also in that as well, and that was a lot
of fun to hear them play in that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: There's there's been some great stuff and some great stuff
that has been worked on in this year that has
not come out yet that will hopefully come out next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, I'm glad you said that about some
talent to watch because that was something that I had
planned to bring up and I had forgotten yeah, I
would agree with that. Rose Is She's so good. She's
so good. Bethany. Everything I've heard from Bethany is really good.
Christiana Thomas. I mean, these are people that I know,
I know in real life.
Speaker 1: I wanted to I was hoping you had mentioned Christiana.
Speaker 5: She's done great and done stuff opposite you a few
times now, not just time talk Loomis and the daffodils
and that sort of thing too. I think she's underrated.
I've heard her do some voices that maybe haven't been
into final things yet that are different, So I'm excited
to see her do more things as well. And not
even on the acting side, but although he is a
fantastic actor as well, throwing out there a dominic trice
that man is like what they used to say, a
triple threat or.
Speaker 1: Something like that.
Speaker 5: But like, yeah, he's talented, producer, sound as I'm editor, composer, actor,
Like just we're just gonna let him do everything, I guess.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, he's great too. Yeah, and we'll hear
him hopefully this year everybody in the Hardy Boys, So yes,
that's gonna be coming soon hopefully. But yeah, I mean
there is some really great talent in this space. I've
realized that I said mostly females and mostly ones that
I've worked with, but it is because I am able
to work with a lot of these people and I
get to see firsthand how good they are. And I'm
starting to think I don't think I've done anything that
ended up in a released project directly opposite Bethany in
a live sort of situation like I have with Christiana
and with Rose because we record Aspen Creek in a
live session as well. Though I did a table read
with Bethany for a project in the audio drama Alliance.
So I've got to play off of all of them
and just to see how talented they are. It's so
so fun to watch, and so yeah, I think there's
some really great talent in this space.
Speaker 5: And just to throw a couple, if I may, just
throw a couple more more out there. Jonathan and Alicia
over at Eternal Future Productions, not even just from an
acting side, but directing. I've had the pleasure of being
in a production which was Heritage, not in twenty twenty five,
but in twenty twenty four that Alicia directed, and she's
definitely a talent to watch out for good. Director pulled
things out of me as an actor that I didn't
think I would be able to achieve. In the final thing,
it takes the right kind of person as a director
to be able to see things in the actors they
don't see in themselves, and so she did an excellent
job with that. And of course Jonathan is everywhere as well,
so you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and aside from the acting and directing side, in
terms of writers, I think I want to watch is
Ben Camp. We've already mentioned him. I mean, yes, I've
really enjoyed a bit of time travel, but what I've
heard from and about what he's got planned for the
church at Trestle Falls, I'm really enjoying that and seeing
him write in a little bit of a different style.
I just really like pretty much everything he's ever done.
Speaker 5: So I've gone on record as calling him a modern
day Mark Twain, and I'll stand by it. He's a
fantastic writer. I'm pretty sure I told him this before
that if he wrote a grocery list, I would read it.
Speaker 1: He's he's a great writer.
Speaker 5: I mean, we have the benefit of both being part
of the Ada, which Ben Kemp is also a member of.
And in our own chats with other members, even just
the thought he puts into a message that he sends.
I always joke I see and it's like, okay, I
see Ben is typing. Wait another thirty minutes and it
will be there.
Speaker 1: Because he's thinking.
Speaker 5: About what he says, and that shows the character of
person that he is, and he brings that approach into
his writing. Nothing is haphazardly placed in his scripts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so true. Well, a lot of cool stuff
came in the last year. Now kind of looking at
what's coming in this year of twenty twenty six, my
top I mean again, lots of stuff that I'm excited about,
but probably the ones I'm most excited about at this
point that we know of resurgence from Eternal Future, I'm
really excited to hear that, which should be coming very soon.
Welcome to Hope Springs from Augustine Institute, the Finnian Jones
story from lamplightder Theater. I'm really excited about that, and
the next Jake Muller. So there's four that I'm really
looking forward to. There's going to be some other stuff,
I know, but those are the ones that are kind
of at the top. Of my list of anticipated releases for.
Speaker 5: Me, definitely the top of my list, somewhat selfishly so so,
but not entirely for that reason is Hope Springs with
Pauma Cusker there. Very excited to hear that get out
and and I am allowed to say at this point
that I did help with some of the voice track editing,
which is, you know, a small thing in the grand
scheme of things, but it means that I have heard
some of this show already, and I am not going
to give anything away, but I will say it's very good.
It's very different from something like Odyssey. But if you've
enjoyed Odissey, and I think, if I may, if you
enjoyed Odyssey, particularly at the time period that maybe you
or I may have been listening to Odissey the most
heavily and not for the sake of reviews. Yeah, yeah, nineties,
two thousands, maybe early early two thousands. I think within
that space, then you'll really like this show. Not to
say in any way that it is copying any of
those things, but I think there is a certain essence
that is similar in a broadest, broadest sense.
Speaker 2: Of yeah, there's a similar vibe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's some great characters, very interesting storylines. I'm very
excited for that to come out, for people to hear
it and to hear what people think.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, Yeah, So man, I've enjoyed chatting about this
stuff with you, kind of looking back at some of
the stuff that we've both been involved in working on
over the last year. What we've got coming up. I
know you've got some shadows and Daylight stuff you definitely
want to get to this year. I'm going to try
to get a few more micro audio dramas out. We'll see,
we'll see where we go with Aspen Creek. So there's
a lot to look forward to, lots of stuff on
the to do list, but it's always fun to kind
of talk nuts and bolts of making audio drama. So
thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Okay, so, if you're going to tell people to one
thing that you want them to go listen to right
now that you worked on in twenty twenty five, well.
Speaker 1: Okay, before you qualified that, I was going to say
Aspen Creek.
Speaker 2: But that's right in the first episode.
Speaker 1: Oh there we go, Then there you go. Technically I'm
in two episodes, that's true.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's a there's a little easter egg
of me singing a song in.
Speaker 2: The background of the third episode.
Speaker 1: Third episode. Yeah, I was gonna say, but yeah, no,
do do go listen to that.
Speaker 5: But if you're talking more to the spirit of the
question of something that I worked on in twenty twenty
five that I'd really want people to.
Speaker 1: Listen to one thing, okay too, only one?
Speaker 5: Okay, If it's two, then I'd say Potion of Power
and Time Truck Chronicles.
Speaker 2: Okay, they're both linked up in the show notes, so
there's no excuse. Window Seat. You can get a free
trial if you're not already a member, so it won't
cost you any money to go check out Time Truck
Chronicles and Potional Power is available on the Heart Matters
app for free, so there's no barrier to entry on
either of those.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 5: Go to Starbucks once one less time per month, and
you can get some great audio drama from Window C two.
Speaker 2: So that's true. All right, Thank you so much, Christopher, awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Let's see what do we have in the mailbag?
Speaker 2: It looks like letters are something.
Speaker 1: Is that your phone?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Yeah, hello, I just sent you a text. You've got
tons of comments on that entry.
Speaker 2: You're like famous, Oh, let me get to these comments.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, what number are you calling?
Speaker 2: Well, if you would like to get in touch with us,
you can always send your emails to feedback at audiotheatercentral
dot com. You can comment on the show notes, or
you can give us a call or send a text
message to six two three six eight eight two seven
seven zero. Love to hear from you. Well. I mentioned
them earlier in the update segment and in the discussion
segment with Christopher, but average Romp released those two productions
right before Christmas, the Cricket on the Hearth and The
Haunted Man, and the producer for our Average Romp emailed us,
Jonathan Morris and said many thanks for taking the time
to review the release, and I'm very glad you enjoyed them,
So thank you for the feedback, Jonathan. And yes, as
I said earlier, one of my favorite releases of the year,
so really really good stuff. Looking forward to the next
projects from average Romp. Next up is a comment from
Nate Jones. If you're not familiar, he is a sound
designer for Adventures in Odyssey and for other projects like
Welcome to Hope, springs, which we talked about with Paul
McCusker in the last episode, and he commented on our
post about that interview with Paul and said referring to
our discussion about creating audio drama with intentionality and hoping
that the listeners will listen with intentionality, and Nate said,
we do mix with intentionality. Thank you for posting this
from Paul. So I really enjoyed that conversation with Paul,
and of course getting that confirmation from Nate Jones because
we did mention how that is the goal to mix
and do just overall, create audio drama with intentionality. I mean,
we should be doing everything with intentionality, whatever that might be,
but particularly when you're making art. That's what this stuff is.
We're making art. We're not just creating stuff for the
sake of creating stuff. We're doing it with intentionality and
so being aware of all the details that go into
every single aspect of making good audio drama, like I
talked about earlier with Christopher, making every single second of
your show count. It's so great to know that there
are creators out there like Paul and Nate and Todd
Busteed and all those people who work on the air,
theater productions and Odyssey. They're thinking about the little things,
the details matter. So thank you Nate for that feedback.
Really appreciate it. And speaking of that interview with Paul McCusker,
we had a comment from Austin Peachey. He said, what
a great interview. I seem to always learn something new
when I hear Paul doing a talk or interview. Loved
every minute of it. Thank you Austin for the comment.
Definitely agree. It is a joy to speak with Paul.
He is such an intelligent man and you can tell.
Speaker 4: That he really does love the work that he's doing,
and it shows in what he says and in what
he does because he, as I said just a moment ago,
he cares about the little things, the details matter, and
he always does his best to put out a high
quality product.
Speaker 2: So thank you Austin for the feedback. Now, lastly, this
is just something that I wanted to ask you if
you want me to address in more detail. A few
people have asked me about the adventures of Odyssey art
and logo change or updates, whatever you want to call it,
however you want to term that, and I thought about
doing a segment on that, but I wanted to see
from you if that is something you want to hear
me talk about in a little bit more detail. If
your unfamiliar Adventures Odyssey has recently updated all of the
character designs and they changed or updated the show logo,
and there's been a lot of discussion all over the
fandom about it, both pros and cons and all over
the place. So if that's something you want to hear
me talk about a little bit more in detail, definitely
let me know. Well, that's going to wrap it up
for this first episode of twenty twenty six. Thank you
so much for listening. If you'd like to get in
touch with us, head our audiotheatercentral dot com slash contact
and the show notes are at audio theatercentral dot com
slash two two four. Links to everything we talked about
are listed there. And also I wanted to real briefly
mention that the quote that Christopher mentioned about writing a
long letter because you didn't have time to write a
shorter one, I did look that up and it has
been attributed to Mark Twain, but it seems like it
is much much older than that, and there have been
lots of people throughout history who have said some sort
of sentiment along those lines. So it didn't originate with
Mark Twain, but he definitely said something similar. So the
in the show notes is a link to an article
kind of diving into that. I found it really interesting,
and I thought you might be wondering about that too,
because it was niggling at my brain trying to figure
out where I'd first heard that saying before too. So anyway,
that's linked in the show notes as well. But again,
thank you for listening, looking forward to what's coming in
twenty twenty six. I will see you next time.
Speaker 3: Hey everybody, this is William Chad Newsom. I played Joseph
in The Surround Bible by John Fornoff, and we are
here at the Audio Drama Institute in Beautiful Colorado Springs.
Audio Theater Central is a production of Porch Light Family Media.
The theme music was composed by Sam Avandanio. The show
was produced and edited by the Great JD.
Speaker 2: Sutter.
Speaker 3: Find the website at Audiotheatercentral dot com.
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dot com