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, J D. Sutter, and this is episode
two twenty one. Well, there is a lot of exciting
stuff to get to in this episode. We've got a
review of the victory of Joan of Arc from Air
Theater and I'll be joined by ATC contributor Michael Schrader
to talk about that. Really looking forward to that. Also
a whole bunch of audio drama updates to get to.
Some exciting stuff is happening, and I'm really looking forward
to sharing this information with you. And we've got some
feedback from Jeff and Jeremy, and I've got a monologue
coming up. I'm going to talk about some of my
thoughts on audio drama trailers. So I hope you'll stick
with me. Let's jump into the updates.
Speaker 3: We interrupt this program to bring you a special report.
Speaker 4: And in other news tonight.
Speaker 1: A brief look at the headlines.
Speaker 5: Now they want exciting, fast piece news that's relevant and
entertaining like this.
Speaker 2: Just a quick reminder if you are an audio drama producer,
be sure to send us your updates. There is a
link right on our homepage to our submission form, or
you can go to PFM dot link slash atc News
to let us know what's going on with your show,
or if you are a big fan of a particular
show and you haven't heard us talk about it, you
can definitely let us know as well well. The first
item I want to talk about real briefly is libro FM.
You've probably heard us mention that in the past as
an alternative to Audible, and I like libro because they
actually give you ownership of the audiobooks that you purchase, Whereas,
as most people already know, with Audible and other audiobook platforms,
you only get access in their app or on their website,
you don't actually own downloadable copies. But when you purchase
from libro fm, you actually get downloadable files that you
can save to your library. And because they are an
audiobook first platform, they are lower quality than you would
get if you were to purchase directly from a producer
who offers high quality downloads. But this is one of
the only places that I've been able to find where
you can legally acquire downloadable copies of many of the
BBC radio shows, and they have produced really high quality
stuff over the years, but it is not easy to
obtain here in the US, and so this is a
great option. Now. The other thing I like is that
they partner with local independent bookstores and your purchases go
to support a bookstore in your area, which is super cool.
So I say all of that to say, we have
partnered with Libro to put together what they call a playlist,
and this is a dedicated page on their website with
a list of some great audio drama that they offer
and that we think are worth checking out. So that
is linked up in the show notes, the Libro FMATC Playlist.
Go check it out and you can purchase one off downloads,
or you can join as a monthly member and you
get a credit to spend on any title you want
each month, and they frequently run sales. Sometimes they offer
two for one and things like that. So if you're
listening to this in the future, definitely click that link
and see what they're offering at the time. You might
be able to download two or three as a bonus
for signing up as a monthly member. But even if
you're not interested in being a member, you can purchase
one off titles and this is a great way to
access some cool BBC stuff and so I'm excited to
partner with LIBROFM and I think it's worth checking out.
This is an affiliate link and so we do get
credit for that, but it doesn't cost you any extra,
so your purchases there also help to support ATC. Next
up is an event that I'm super excited about once again.
Audio Theater Central is teaming up with Odyssey Geek for
the third annual Christmas Audio Drama Spectacular. If you're new
around here and this is your first time hearing about this,
this is an event where we put together a playlist
of great Christmas programming and we stream it live and
we have a great time getting in the holiday spirit
listening to some really fun Christmas programming. So this time
it's going to be taking place on December fifth, and
it will be simulcast on Portulid FM radio and on
the Odyssey Geek YouTube channel. It's about four hours of
Christmas themed audio stories hosted by me and produced by
Austin Peachee and myself. In addition to getting to listen
to the shows, you're also going to get some exclusive
behind the scenes content for all of them as well.
This is content you won't get anywhere else. Well I
guess that's obvious because that's what exclusive means. But anyway,
it's going to be a fun night, and I hope
you'll join us. There will be more details coming along with,
you know, specific links and a little bit more about
what the program will entail, as well as the specific
start times. That's all coming in the very near future
in a blog post on the ATC blogs, so keep
your eyes open for that. Austin and I both think
this is our best lineup yet, so it's going to
be a lot of fun. So I hope you can
join us on December fifth. All right, moving into to
the new releases, This one is one for the audio
drama voice actors out there. I recently released an episode
on another show that I do called Content Creation Musings
called eight Tips for your Audio Drama Demo Reel. So
if you are a voice actor and you're interested in
getting into audio drama, or you're already acting for audio
drama and you don't have a demo reel yet, this
is a resource that I think will be very helpful
to you as I break down what are the best
elements of putting together an audio drama demo reel, and
it's all in about ten minutes. In addition to the
audio podcast of this information, it is also available as
an article so you can refer back to it whenever
you need and so that is linked in the show
notes if you want to check that out. All right.
Our next recent release is from Venture. This is the
science fiction show from Eternal Future Productions. Episode three is
out now. It's called It All Started with an Itch.
It was released mid October and you can listen for
free on their YouTube channel, or you can head over
to the Eternal Future Productions website and grab a digital copy,
or you can purchase a CD that has all three
episodes and that helps support them so they can keep
producing this show and more Venture News. They are working
on a spinoff of sorts. It's called Venture Quick Trips
and these are going to be five minute parody episodes
of science fiction. Alisiha Hanson, who is the director of
the show, met with Glenn Haskell, the writer, and Lee Stang,
the sound designer, and they brainstorm some ideas. So this
is going to be parodies of not just Star Trek,
but also Star Wars as well. She says the possibilities
are endless here, so keep an eye out for venture
quick trips if you are a sign fiction fan. Our
next new release is the latest from Patch. The Pirate
is out now. It's called Switcher Snatchers. The official summary
is something fishy is happening in the seaside town of
till Apooch, but puppies are mysteriously disappearing, and in their place,
sea lions appear. Join the Patch crew as they uncover
the sneaky plot of the Switcher Snatchers and learn that
true identity and purpose come only from God. So that
is available as a digital download and on CD. Link
is in the show notes to grab your copy. And
now we move into upcoming releases. The first is Resurgence Now.
This one is also from Eternal Future Productions, but this
is their first feature length audio drama and it is
coming in mid to late December. Here is the summary.
A world class voyage pleasure or business. In the early
nineteen hundreds, many would have done anything to book passage
on this transatlantic expedition, but the struggle faced by Thomas
and Hazel Elsner as they bore the ship will bring
them face to face with some hard realities. Amidst danger
and mystery threatening to separate them. They must come to
terms with the possibility that not every story will have
a happy ending, and not every wish comes true. We
have talked about this before, and I've been looking forward
to it for a while. It's been in the works
and teased for quite some time, so I am really
really excited about this one. And what I'm going to
do is play the first three minutes of a preview
now in the show notes, it's a link to the
full preview, which is almost seven minutes, So I highly
recommend you go listen to the whole thing if this
grabs your attention. But here's the first three minutes. We
just didn't have time to play the entire thing here,
but here's a little taste, including the first scene.
Speaker 6: Ah, Detective Elsner, good morning, Good morning, sir.
Speaker 1: Everything.
Speaker 6: Well, I know Hazel wasn't feeling well on Saturday at
the picnic.
Speaker 3: Is she doing better?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, quiet, She was back to herself that afternoon.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: She thinks it was just something she ate and settled her.
She's actually enjoying a visit from her sister this very moment.
Speaker 6: That's wonderful to hear.
Speaker 4: Here you are, Hazel, just the way you like. It's
only a touch of cinnamon and cream.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Ruth.
Speaker 6: I'm so glad for your visit today.
Speaker 4: Likewise, I've missed you so much. It is good to
be missed. Are things still not well with you and Thomas?
Things are as they have been.
Speaker 8: He's still taken with work, always at the office, or
he brings cases home to work on into the night.
I know he means well trying to provide for us,
but it's almost as if he's seeking more work.
Speaker 6: Please sit down, and we've got a lot to cover today.
Sounds like every other day, quite right. However, this case
might be a particular interest to you.
Speaker 1: Oh how so well.
Speaker 6: We've recently had a break in the case of jewelry
heighst you've been investigating. We believe our thief is taking
a passengership on the Morrow, making their way across the
Pond in order.
Speaker 1: To escape fleeing to America.
Speaker 6: Huh, exactly right, Thomas, and we need you aboard that
ship to aid in their apprehension.
Speaker 7: Oh, I couldn't possibly jump onto a ship on such
short notice, and I would upset Hazel deeply me. I'm
she already thinks I work too much.
Speaker 4: But what about that trip you to have been meaning
to take.
Speaker 8: I hardly think he would even consider such a thing.
He almost seems to avoid being with me. I had
to practically beg him to attend the picnic this weekend,
and of course I ended up ill and we had
to leave early.
Speaker 4: Oh Dear. If anything, I think this only proves all
the more how much you desperately need some time together,
a reprieve from everything.
Speaker 8: I think he fears time together. It would mean facing
the issues at hand. I know he's disappointed. This is
not your fault.
Speaker 4: You think he honestly blames you for the fact that
you are unable to conceive a child.
Speaker 8: Who else is to blame?
Speaker 2: Man, I'm telling you what. I am super excited about
this one. I think in terms of shows that I've
known about for a while and been anticipating that haven't
released yet, this one's kind of at the top of
my list. I've the whole idea has intrigued me, and
after hearing this snippet, my goodness, it's pulled me right
in the acting sounds amazing and I am so excited
to hear this show. So again, the full preview is
available at the link in the show notes. But this
was written by Alicia Hanson, Jonathan Cook, and Glenn Haskell,
and it was directed by Alicia Hanson, with sound designed
by Oscar Corral and music by Drew A. Forbes, who
we know as the composer for Pirateers. And we've heard
Oscar's work in other shows like Jonathan park and things
like that. This is a great team and as I
just said, I'm really excited to hear this one because
it just sounds really really good. So our major characters
that we heard about in the summary and in that
snippet there, Daniel Cross plays Thomas Elsner and Stephanie Nimitt
Parker plays Hazel Elsner, and they are supported by a
lot of familiar names that I know you have probably
heard of, Bethany Baldwin, Jonathan Cook, Craig Hart, Glenn Haskell,
Jason Markowitz, Kara O'Brien, Tricia Rose, Duffy Weber, Matthew Warner.
So man, this I'm just repeating myself now, but I'm
really excited about this. It sounds like it's going to
be awesome, So again link in the show notes to
the full preview and to their website so you can
bookmark that page and when it comes out, grab your
copy of Resurgence also coming out soon and should be
very soon, within just a few days of the release
of this podcast one day in Aspen Creek. This is
the show that I'm producing. It is a micro audio
drama series. Episode four called Another Man's Treasure is coming
out very very soon. It's featuring Rose Beasley, Jason Markowitz,
and yours truly, and I don't want to spill too
many details at this point, but this is one of
my favorite ones of the few that have done so far,
and the feedback I've gotten from the cast has been wonderful,
So I'm really excited to bring this to you and
I hope you really enjoy it. Now, if you haven't
heard the previous three episodes, there is a link to
my website so you can go listen to those. They
are free to stream, and if you'd like to be
among the first to be notified when this episode four releases,
there is also a link to join my email list,
And all that's for is to send out notifications of
new posts and so I hope you will join me
over there for episode four of One Day in Aspen Creek.
And lastly, the Surround Bible. This is a project that
John Fornoff is spearheading and has been working on for
quite some time, and coming this year will be the
first installments from this project, and it's called The Real
Story of Christmas. The official summary is The Surround Bible
presents the Real Story of Christmas, an immersive audio movie
that places you at the heart of the most extraordinary
moment in history. Told with verbatim scripture, brought to life
by a cast of renowned voice actors, and enhanced by
a cinematic score and world class sound production. This is
more than a listening experience, It's a spiritual journey. So
the sound design is by Alan Hurley, music by John Campbell,
directed and produced by John Fornoff. And here is a
brand new trailer for the Real Story of Christmas.
Speaker 3: Before Santa Claus, before jingle bells and Rudolph, there was
an all powerful God who came down to the earth.
He created as a baby. This is the real story
of Christmas. Behold, the Virgin shall be with child, rejoice
highly favorite one.
Speaker 4: What can this be?
Speaker 2: And they shall call his name Emmanuel.
Speaker 1: God with us.
Speaker 3: The Lord is with you.
Speaker 1: The star stood over where.
Speaker 7: The young child was lying in a feeding trough.
Speaker 3: He was in the world.
Speaker 1: Mary, wake on.
Speaker 3: The world was made through him. We have to leave
the world didn't recognize him. Now please flee into Egypt,
for Herod will seek the young child.
Speaker 1: To destroy you. The Lord is with you.
Speaker 3: The Surround Bible presents the Real Story of Christmas a
powerful audio experience. Get your free download of the Real
Story of Christmas. Go to Surround Bible dot com. Surround
Bible dot com.
Speaker 2: M so good, so well produced. This is going to
be an hour long production. Now, as you heard in
that promo, you can get a free version that will
have the broadcast breaks and ads and things like that
in it. That will be entirely free. However, you also
have the option to go to the website right now
and pre order a digital download which will be the
fulk with no breaks and some bonus content like behind
the scenes photos and things like that. So you can
get that as a digital download or a CD version.
So both of those are available for a discounted rate.
If you pre order now. I don't know exactly when
it's going to be released at this point, but the
prices will go up once it is released. But in
any case, whether you decide to go with the free
version or the premium one, this sounds like it's going
to be a great, great show, a great addition to
the Christmas lineup. And I know this project is one
that is very dear to John Fornoff's heart, and I
know he's poured a lot of time, energy and finances
into this project. So you can help out by going
in pre ordering this, or you can also just donate
to the project if you want to help them fund
the next phase as they move forward, because the goal
is to produce the entire so it's a huge undertaking.
And if you want to help them out, go ahead
and check out that link. It'll take you to surround
bible dot com where you can donate, listen to that
trailer again, or pre order your copy of the Real
Story of Christmas. Well, speaking of great trailers, let's talk
a little bit more about.
Speaker 1: That testing one, two, three testing.
Speaker 2: That was just me talking.
Speaker 8: I do that a lot.
Speaker 3: Where's my speech now?
Speaker 1: Long?
Speaker 5: You've got to word up.
Speaker 3: With it, that's what I want to talk about.
Speaker 2: So here's what I've been thinking about quite a bit lately,
audio drama trailers. And I've got to give a quick
shout out to Ben Kimp for prompting this topic. He
asked a question not long ago asking for recommendations for
some really good examples of audio drama trailers, and it
really got me thinking because I realized I've been hearing
fewer and fewer audio drama trailers with new releases over
the last few years, and why is that happening? It
got me thinking about that, and even more importantly, why
are so few of these that are even being done
really good ones? And so I thought this is something
that I wanted to address here for both producers and
for listeners because I remember when we did our Audio
drama survey the first time, we had a significant number
of people who mentioned teaser audio or trailers being a
factor that would push them to try out a new show.
And I've always held the opinion that these are very important.
It should be an integral part of your marketing strategy
as a producer. And so as I thought a little
bit more about this and what makes a good trailer,
I sort of started breaking down some of the ones
that I've heard recently. And when I say recently, i'm
talking about over the last probably five years. They've just
been decreasing and decreasing, and the quality of the ones
that are are being produced have decreased, or people are
just opting to do previews or just sections of the
show of their production rather than a proper trailer, And
so that was the first thing that stood out to me.
A trailer is not just a snippet of the show,
like an audiobook sample is. When you go to audible
or one of these other places and you click the
button to play the sample. It's just going to take
a few minute chunk of the audiobook and display it.
A lot of times it's right from the beginning, but
not always, and it's just a section of the story
that's not a trailer. A trailer is also not just
a random assortment of bits of dialogue. It should be
an intentionally crafted audio production in its own right. There
should be much thought put into it, and it needs
to have a narrative arc for those particular clips that
are selected. It should be telling a story on its own. Now,
we don't want to give away what happens major plot points.
We don't want spoilers in the trailer. That is one
thing that I don't like for sure. So you have
to be very intentional, very selective about the bits of
the story that you choose. But they should not be random.
It should be introducing your major characters, the themes, the genre,
all of that kind of information should be conveyed in
this trailer. So this content will resonate with your target audience. So,
just like a logline for a script or an elevator
pitch for any creative project, the trailer is an important
and extremely valuable marketing tool that is too often being
overlooked altogether or not given enough consideration in my opinion.
And so I reached out to a couple of people
who are very skilled and have a lot of experience
at making trailers for audio drama, specifically to get some
of their feedback. And we're going to get to that
in just a moment, but just to show you how valuable,
how important this little tidbit can be, think about the
ways it can be used. Primarily, I think, in my opinion,
embedded on your website. I mean, that's very important, right
on your homepage, if it's your latest release and you
want to really drive traffic to it. But aside from that,
on the product page for that show, whether that's a
CD or a digital download, have that sample there, have
that trailer there to promote that project. Share it on YouTube,
post it on social media if you're distributing on digital retailers.
Like I mentioned a moment, go audible, but there are
several others out there that allow you to have a
sample of the show. That's another usage. You can use
it on radio. Lamplader Theater has promos for every single episode,
not just the feature link show, but every single episode
has its own promos that air on the radio. Some
stations put them throughout the week as it leads up
to the next broadcast, and then of course there are
promos that air in between segments. Things like that. You
can use your trailer as a promo for radio, even
if your show is not in the lineup. There are
radio stations out there that you might be able to
work out some deal and purchase some airtime to air
this as an ad spot. And then there are other
streaming stations that might be willing to play it, like
the Story Channel. Now I'm not saying one hundred percent,
but it's worth exploring that as an option. And of
course podcasts, whether that's free or paid. Now, we don't
charge anybody to play a promo or a trailer for
their show on ATC, but even if the show is
not dealing directly with audio drama, you can find podcasts
that have your potential audience that listens to that show
and you can reach out to them. I know lots
of independent podcasters are looking for content and they would
be willing to share about your audio drama and not
even charge you. But there is of course the option
of paying for an ad for your audio drama on
other podcasts. So, for instance, let's just take an example
of an audio drama that is aimed at Christian families
that have young children, and that is who their show
is aimed at. Well, you find podcasts that are also
catering to that audience and you reach out to them,
and that trailer is a great marketing tool. Now there's
a lot more that goes into that whole thing, and
it's too deep to cover in depth here, but I
just wanted to use that as an example. But you
can also just send the trailer as an email attachment
to friends and family and to help them get excited
about your project and ask them to help you spread
the word. It can be used as a free marketing tool.
That's my main point here. Send it out to your
email list. You do have an email list, right right.
So there are so many usages for having an audio
drama trailer, and many of them are free. So again,
this is an extremely valuable tool in the marketing of
an audio drama. So, as I was thinking about addressing
this topic, and I was already writing down some of
these notes, I thought, I've got to reach out to
some people, and so I reached out to Alan Hurley
because he has a lot of experience in reducing audio
drama trailers, and so I asked him, what are the
elements that an audio drama trailer, a good audio drama
trailer needs to have. So I'm going to list these
off really quickly, and then we'll go into a little
bit more detail on each one of these. So he says,
first a script, second, a great voiceover, three isolated dialogue clips,
four intentional pacing, five great music, and six multiple versions. So,
as I said before, a trailer is telling a story
on its own there needs to be an arc to it.
It's not just random snippets of dialogue. And if you
have a narrator, you know there are trailers that are
just bits of dialogue without having a voiceover, and you
can do that that that can work. I think, if
at all possible, it helps to have at least some narratisation,
especially at the end, to give the pertinent information about
the show. But I have heard some pretty good trailers
that don't have narration all throughout. But if you do
that or not, you still need to have a script.
Alan said. The script needs to effectively convey the tone
and mood of the drama, tell a part of the
story that really grabs the listener's attention or sparks their curiosity,
but without giving away the full plot. It needs to
have momentum. The trailer needs to stand alone as its
own story, which is what I said a moment ago. Now,
he said, one thing that he likes to do is
to intercut storyline, so kind of an A and B
plot that he cuts back and forth and builds some tension,
builds some momentum that works in conjunction with the announcer's
voiceover and each of these elements on their own are
moving the story forward, but when they are cut together,
it just takes it to another lefe. So that's point
one the script. Two, I think we understand a great
voiceover you need it needs to be a good voice Now.
I heard a trailer not long ago that the content
was pretty solid, but the voice that they had selected
to do the trailer just wasn't a fit. Not every
voice actor is going to be great for doing trailers,
so that's just something to keep in mind. So Third,
he likes he said he likes to have the isolated
dialogue clips, so he's not just grabbing chunks of the
produced show. He's taking specific sections of the dialogue that
doesn't have the related dialogue around it, so he is
free to use that however he wants. However that works
for telling the story. Again, he's trying to put together
a story here. For example, he can just completely mute
out the preceding dialogue from other characters or whatever whatever
he needs to do, and even without the final sound
design or music of the show, so he can do
whatever he wants to do in the trailer on its own.
So having those isolated dialogue clips is a really good
tip there to help elevate your trailer. And number four,
the pacing is so important all of those elements coming
together with the pace to match the style of the
story and build the emotion that's needed for that particular
style of story. So pacing is very important. Of course,
that is important in any kind of audio project. You know,
it's important in the show itself. But the pacing for
the trailer might be completely different from the scenes that
that dialogue is pulled from, because again we're trying to
tell a story here with just the selected bits of
the show, and so that pacing might be completely different
from what is in the final project, right, So keep
that in mind. And then fifth, great music, Yes, that's huge. Now.
One thing that I found was interesting is that he
said it's not uncommon for him to edit five to
seven different selections of music in a sixty second promo,
So he's bringing in and out different pieces of music.
It's not always necessarily a single piece of music that
just underscores the entire promo. So that was a really
interesting thing that I hadn't thought about. But whatever you
do with that, the music needs to be good music.
And so he said, even when he's cutting together multiple
selections of a piece of music. The edited project is
going to sound like it was custom scored just for
that promo. And then his last element, the last tip
was number six. Multiple versions. So, as I talked about
those different applications, you might need to have different versions,
a thirty second version, a sixty second version, a ninety
second version, And I don't think I would go, you know,
much longer than you know, a couple of minutes for
any given show. But if you're using these for broadcast radio,
they're going to want to standardize thirty or sixty second,
But all these other applications, if you're sharing it online,
you know you can have a little bit more wiggle
room with a duration there. But keeping them concise and
just pulling people in so that it only takes a
minute or two of their time and really grabs their attention,
I think is the key here. So having multiple versions,
not just with the link, but also with the call
to action information at the end. So depending on how
it's going to be used, if you're going to use
it as a promotion, as a promotional tool for radio
or podcast, you might want to include your website or
release date or the air date or all that kind
of stuff, Whereas if it's being used on your website itself,
you might not necessarily need to have of that particular information.
But the point is think about the particular use that
this version of the trailer is going to be and
then decide what information needs to be included by the
announcer at the end. So having the multiple versions is
a really big key. So I loved hearing that information
directly from Alan Hurley, who's an experienced producer, because it
really helped solidify and confirm a lot of these things
that I was already thinking. And I think it's extremely
valuable information for any producer out there to pay attention to.
These six tips here from Alan Hurley. Now we talked
about the script, how important that element of a trailer is,
and because they work together a lot, I reached out
to John Fornoff about that element. And John's typically the
one who writes the trailer scripts and then he works
with Alan on the audio. So here are John Farnoff's
tips on trailer scripts. First, go through the entire audio
drama script and look for short what he calls grabber moments,
short and poignant dialogue lines. Action lines or significant sound effects,
and then you select the top ones. Then you tell
the story with a narrator in a brief elevator pitch way.
This is the backbone of your script, he says. And
so then you weave together the narrator storyline with your
grabber moments from the production. He says, keep it tight,
short lines, quick moments, keep it moving. So notice he's
talking about that pacing in that momentum, just like Alan was.
He also mentions using music to highlight these particular moments,
which is what Alan said. He does. He takes multiple
snippets of music and weaves them together in different moments
of this production. John says, sprinkle with cool transition effects.
And this is really interesting too, because this is something
else that I noticed a lot. Again, what I'm hearing
from a lot of people these days is just a
random selection of bits of dialogue here and there, and
they're just cut together. And sometimes it's confusing because you
don't know are these supposed to be concurrent pieces of
dialogue here or are these different scenes are because we
don't have context, right, So the selected clips again need
to be telling a story. But as John points out,
which is extremely important use transition effects between the selected
bits of dialogue to help move this along and also
to signal to the listener, hey, this is a separate
This is a separate thing. This is the next section,
This is something else that we want you to notice,
so that the listener doesn't get confused about what's going on,
because again we don't have the full context. These are
all lines taken out of context that we're trying to
string together to make a coherent story that is going
to grab the listeners attention. We don't want to confuse them.
We want to pull them in. They may not understand everything,
but that line that was selected grabs their attention enough
to say I want to hear more. Right, So, using
those transition effects in between your selected grabber moments, as
John calls them, is very important. And his last tip
was add a call to action at the end, and yes,
super super important. So again, if you're posting this right
on your main homepage, you might not necessarily need to
have a call to action because they're already on your website.
You can have a button there says buy now, but
if this is going to be used elsewhere, having that
call to action, come visit our website at and then
you give the website and you know, let people know
how to get their copy whatever it is. But having
that call to action is often overlooked. So this was
a bit of a longer segment here, a lot longer
than normal. But I thought this was really really interesting.
I think it's fascinating stuff. And for all the audio
drama producers out there, I really want to encourage you
to really make an effort to start making these because
they are an invaluable marketing tool and I think they
are worth some consideration. Now, notice something from that trailer
for the Real Story of Christmas that we played in
the last segment. There were some little bits of the
announcer's voiceover and a few little select sound effects that
were not part of the actual show itself. You noticed
the announcer said, before there was a Santa clause, then
we have that little sound of somebody going ho ho ho,
whatever it is. That's not part of the real story
of Christmas, right, But they were making a point, and
so they use some sound effects or an actual voice
of an actor there to bring home that point. And
I think there were some bells or things like that's
not part of the biblical story of Christmas, but they
were using those elements to tell this story. So keep
that in mind. That is a tool that you can use.
It's not I don't think it's something you must do,
but it is something that you can do, so keep
that in mind. Now. I asked both of these gentlemen
for an example of what they consider to be a
really good audio drama trailer that they worked on and
independently of each other. They both they both named multiple ones,
but both of them specifically mentioned the trailer for The
Dragon and the Raven from the Extraordinary Adventures of JJ
Hinty from Herloom Audio. So I'm going to play that
right now. This is one of the selections from both
Alan Hurley and John Thornoff as a great example of
an effective audio drama trailer. So let's give this a listen.
Speaker 3: Then, from over.
Speaker 9: Field is spreading like shadows, seeking fame and cool.
Speaker 6: The Dames are now pouring over our boarders, laying everyone.
Speaker 4: And everything to waste in their path.
Speaker 3: Edmunds our world could be coming to an head.
Speaker 9: Only one king stands against them, Alfred, the young King
of Wessex.
Speaker 3: He stood m It's all raw. My father in heaven.
We look to you to raise up your standard.
Speaker 9: Discover the part of faithfulness and covenant. Discover the Dragon
and the Raven the exciting audio adventure from Heirloom Audio
featuring John Race Davis from the Lord of the Rings,
Helen George from Call the Midwife, and Brian Deacon, star
of the Jesus film Go to the Dragonandthraven dot com.
Speaker 2: Notice how that has all of those elements that both
Alan and John talked about. Also, interestingly, notice how that
is a sixty second promo and our announcer doesn't come
in till halfway through. They had an actor who was
a great vocalist, and so they could use him singing
that song as part of the trailer, and so the
vocal of that song was actually acting as sort of
a narrator there for a moment and sort of telling
the story along with the snippets of dialogue. And then
the announcer comes in and then at the end, not
only does he give the website, but he also mentioned
some of the cast. So a really really great promo,
really great trailer. It's a wonderful example of what can
be done in just sixty seconds. So producers I would
love to hear your thoughts on this. Listeners and fans
of audio drama that enjoy trailers, or if you don't
enjoy trailers, I would love to hear your thoughts on
this as well. What are your thoughts on audio drama trailers? Now,
if you are a producer and you just don't think
you have the skill or the time to produce an
effective trailer, you can reach out to both of these guys.
John Fornoff's website is circlecreativenow dot com. Alan Hurleys is
the AudioSuite dot net. Both of them are linked up
in the show notes and you can reach out to
these guys and you can hire them to help you
create a promo for your audio drama. But anyway, I
know this was a bit of a longer segment for
this show, but I thought it was really interesting and
I hope you did too. Hopefully it was helpful to
the audio drama producers out there as well.
Speaker 7: I remember her from that radio program what was it?
Speaker 3: A Western musical metodrama? You helped out with the kids
radio program and you were great.
Speaker 7: Another important tool of acting the opt of becoming shouldn't.
Speaker 1: We a or something for what?
Speaker 2: Well? I've wanted to get to this review for a
very long time, but life and all kinds of other
stuff just got in the way. And I wanted to
do it justice because these productions that Augustin Institute Radio
Theater put out, they're long. I mean, they're not just
feature length. These are extra long shows, and they pack
a lot into them. And I didn't want to just
do a cursory look over it, a little overview. I
wanted to actually get into the meat of the story
and the production and how it's put together. I wanted
to do it justice. And so we're finally here after
quite some time, and I'm joined by Michael Schrader, frequent
well not so frequent lately, but recurring guest hosts.
Speaker 1: At times a guest host. Yes, I'm pleased to be here, JD.
Thanks for inviting me back.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure to talk with you, and I'm excited
to talk about this show with you. So let's get
into it. The Victory of Joan of Arc from Augustine
Institute Radio Theater, released in twenty twenty three. Yes, I
know it's been a while, but this show is, as
I said, it's lengthy. We're talking about four and a
half hours, ten episodes, just a massive undertaking. And I
don't think it's wrong to start out this review by
saying right out of the gate that once again, production values, acting,
they nailed it. They really really did.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, all the quality you expect from the
soundhouse studios in London and the different actors, Paul McCusker
as a writer, all the sound design and stuff. It's
all top.
Speaker 2: Notch, exactly exactly, So let's talk about that. You said
Paul McCusker was the writer. He also directed it, with
additional direction by Todd Busteed who also handled the post
production along with his team at Gap Digital, and he
was also credited as one of the producers. And as
you said, these guys know what they're doing. They've been
in audio drama for a very long time and they
just do fantastic work. So I always know going into
a show that they are involved with that it's going
to be great in terms of the production values and
typically with the script as well. We know Paul McCusker's work,
We've heard it for years. I don't know if you have,
but I've read some of his novels as well, and
he's a great writer.
Speaker 1: I have he is a great writer. Yeah, Paul McCusker
is one of my favorite writers just all around the board,
like not just audio drama scripts, but or maybe I
should say he's one of my favorite storytellers because I
think he knows how to craft a story really well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And then we have the musical score, original
music by Jared Dipesqual and we've got a huge team
here also, I mean Mark Drury was involved in the production.
And then we have Daniel Philpott, who we've heard from
in the past on other productions that are out of
the Soundhouse in London. He did the He was our
casting director as well as the language coach. So these
are familiar names. Again, these are people that we know,
we know their work, we trust it. So I think
we know going in what we can expect. It's just
a matter of how the story itself resonates with us,
and we'll get into that. So before we get too deep, Michael,
would you do us the honors and give us the
summary I.
Speaker 1: Will declare to which she became a saint. Imagine it's
fifteenth century France. A seventeen year old peasant girl enters
the royal courts during one of the longest and bloodiest
wars in history. She claims she's been sent by God
to fulfill a mission, drive out the English enemy and
the true King of France on the throne. Meet Joan
of Arc in this powerful movie of the mind audio drama,
you'll hear the true story of how she rose from
an obscure peasant village to serve God and her country
in the most surprising and miraculous ways. The most experienced
politicians could not thwart her, the most seasoned soldiers could
not outmaneuver her. She was relentless in bravery, determination, boldness, passion,
and holiness, finally yielding to offer the ultimate sacrifice. Spoiler alert.
The Church calls her a saint, History calls her a hero.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, all right, well, let's give a listen
to the trailer before we get into our breakdown and
our review of this production.
Speaker 5: This is what I know from the voices that guide me.
I will break the siege of Orleans. I will lead
the Dauphin to Rance for his coronation.
Speaker 1: Jehan, Have the voices told you anything else about your future?
Speaker 5: What is your name? In my town? They call me Jeanette.
Since I came to Central France, I have been called Jeanne, Jeanne.
Speaker 1: How did God call you to be his messenger?
Speaker 5: He has been speaking to me through his saints since
I was thirteen.
Speaker 1: Open the gate, maybe, I beg you do not go
out there. It is an open field.
Speaker 5: You may come with me or not, but I am going.
Speaker 3: We are not dealing with a mere girl.
Speaker 2: The battle was lost until she arrived. I have seen
nothing like dinner my years.
Speaker 5: In God's name, we must go against the english Men
at arms, protect a maiden.
Speaker 10: Go now.
Speaker 9: The blood of France is spilling.
Speaker 2: Man. That music yeah so good.
Speaker 1: I saw on the credits that there's a flautist that's
credited Kim Flushaw. I don't know. I don't know how
to say her name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I can't remember how to pronounce her
name either, But yes, she's fantastic. And there's a link
in the show notes to a blog post on our
website where we did a deep dive into the score
and talked with Jared and he shared about his process
of working with Kim to bring in those real instruments. So,
you know, a lot of times composers these days typically
they're going to use all samples in software. But I
like how Jared will bring in actual instrumentalists that are
experts at a particular type of instrument that he wants
to highlight in a score, and it really kind of
just lifts up the whole piece. And so it's a
really cool article. If you haven't read that on our website,
be sure to check that out. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seems like he's the name, at least in
my mind, for any kind of epic score for an
audio drama. Jared Deepes Squall's the guy to go to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And in the last interview that I did
with him not long ago, we talked quite a bit
about this particular score. So if you haven't heard that yet,
that's linked in the show notes too, so check that out.
But that summary is a pretty good one. It's about
two minutes or not summary, but the trailer there, and
it's an interesting one because there's a lot of space
in there, like they really just allow it to breathe
and move through and just give little highlight points without
you know, a lot of trailers, it's just like dialogue
boom boom boom boom, boom. They didn't do that with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and nlike the audio drama itself, there wasn't a
lot of narration. It was just a lot of snippets
of dialogue in the trailer.
Speaker 2: Mmmmmm. Well, so we're going to talk about some of
the cast members as we as we go through this,
but we'll talk about the main ones real quickly, and
that is Heather Forster as Joan of Arc or Jen
Dark as she's called in this show. We have Harry
Lloyd as Mushar and Finty Williams as the interviewer. Now,
Finty we've heard in a lot of stuff like Lamplighter,
and I think she's been in some of the Heirloom
audio stuff as well. These are really really skilled and
talented actress that they always work with in these shows.
So in terms of acting, man, this was exceptionally done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought the actress who played Joan or Jean
or Jan or however we need to say it, but
I thought she did such a good job. And I
thought she had a great blend of like courage and
like she sounded young. I think she is young. I
think when she recorded it she was like eighteen. I
heard an interview with Paul McCusker about the story. And
I think so, I think she was a teenager anyway,
the actress, and I thought she just nailed the character
and gave gave her so much sympathy. Yeah, I really
enjoyed her performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was phenomenal. I mean I was blown away
by her performance. I think I've mentioned it before, just
in passing. I don't know if it was in an
actual public episode or if it was on backstage, but
she did such a great job. So here's the interesting
thing about her. I don't think she was quite that
young because she's married. Yeah she is young er, but
she's not as young as the character. So here's the
interesting thing about her. So her name is Heather Higher.
She's credited as Higher or Hayer. I'm not sure exactly
how you pronounce that. I think she's done some stage
stuff under that name, but she got married and her
married name is Forrester, So Heather Forster is how she
was credited in this audio drama. This is her first
role credited as that name. But we have heard from
her before because she has performed under stage names in
other shows that I know you have heard. So she's
performed under the name of Lily Milton. So she was
in radio theaters Le Miz as Young Cosette.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: And she was Mary Lennox in Radio Theater's Secret Garden.
Speaker 1: Oh no way, she was like a child after Prodigy.
Those are like the heavy hitters.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And she was also the mouse in the Last
Battle from radio theaters Chronicles of Narnia.
Speaker 1: How funny.
Speaker 2: So so all those three roles were credited as Lily Milton.
Then years later she worked on Lamplighter Theater and she
went under the name Zoe Thorne. So she was Jessica
in the Basket of Flowers, and then she played Jesse
and Brittania in a Peep behind the Scenes.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I know all of those. Yeah, all of those,
and all of those are great performances that I really enjoy,
So that's very cool.
Speaker 2: She was also offered roles in radio theaters all over
Twist Heirloom Audios, The Dragon and the Raven, and air
theaters The Trials of Saint Patrick, but she had to
decline for various reasons on those, so she would have
been in a lot more shows that we are familiar with.
Speaker 1: Wow, I definitely didn't realize that she had all that
experience prior to doing this role, but it showed. Because that,
I feel like this wouldn't necessarily be the easiest role
to play. I think it could be easy to go to.
I don't know, she's she's such a separated figure, so
I think it would be easy to lose like humanity
like her, you know, but she doesn't. She kept that
really well and you can hear the emotion is like,
I think it would be easy to play her flat,
I guess, is what I'm saying. And I don't think
she did at all. So and it would be hard
to listen to if she wasn't such a good actress,
because she's through the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Her performance could have made or broken this show. Like, yeah,
if you didn't have a good actress as that lead role,
the show is gonna be.
Speaker 1: Terrible, right, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you're right. There are so many layers to
this character because we see her in a lot of
different situations, and of course when we get to the end,
just extremely true. I mean, I can't even imagine what
somebody would be feeling going through, you know, that sort
of situation, being imprisoned and all this kind of stuff,
which we'll get to, and I want to say a
couple of things before we get too much further. You know,
we might give a few slight spoilers on this one.
Our our typical strategy for our reviews is to stay
spoiler free. But this is a historical event. I mean,
we all know the end of the story. It's not
going to be a surprise to anybody that Joan was executed.
I mean, that's history. We know that, right, So even
if you're not super familiar with her story as I wasn't,
you know, everybody at least knows that bit of it, right,
So yeah, we might reference some of the things that happened,
but again, this is all historical records, so.
Speaker 1: Either everybody already knew it or they just found out.
Speaker 2: So we'll try to just stick to things that we
don't think are too much of a surprise. But we
want to again, we want to do this justice and
kind of go in depth on this show. So and
the second thing is, you know, I'm not Catholic, and
this is obviously coming from a very Catholic point of view,
and obviously somebody who is Catholic is going to really,
really love this. There's a lot of Catholic doctrine and
things like that that are in the show because it's
coming from that point of view, and that is the
religion that these characters were a part of, so that
makes sense for it to be part of this story.
But I think as someone who is not Catholic, there
is still value here in these sorts of stories because
of the historical perspective in that coming at it from
that point of view, and I think there's things that
you can still glean from this courageous girl's life regardless
of what religion you have, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I think it's important for us to
write little bit stories like this from history because even
though there are elements probably that were you know, added
in in order to make it flow smoother or whatever.
Like Luchard, I heard Paul McCusker say that was a
character he made up in order to facilitate the telling
the story. But Joan of Arc in particular, there's a
lot of first hand accounts because of the transcripts of
the two trials that she had that are available from
the you know, fifteenth century, and so there's a lot
of documented evidence about her life and the things she
did from like eyewitnesses at the time, and so these
are events that actually happened. And I think it's important
that we wrestled with some of this because I'm not
a Catholic either, and one of the things that is
a little uncomfortable is hearing about like saints talking to
her and stuff. And yet I really appreciated the way
that it was handled because Paul McCusker could have written
the story starting off with like us hearing the voices
of the saints talking to her when she's thirteen or whatever.
That could have been a way that that he approached it. Yeah,
But instead we're not in the position of her hearing
the voices. We're in the position of the other people
that are around her, and we're hearing the claims that
she is making and that she did make, and we
have to wrestle with it just like they did about
you know, what's really going on here, because she she's
doing these things and she's saying she's sent by God
and she But anyways, it's I think that was a
good storytelling choice because it allows us to wrestle with
it in the way that people would have had to
wrestle with it if they were there, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: It kind of it puts the listener in that same
quandary and same point of view of like do we
take her seriously or not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I found myself during a lot of moments
where I was completely rooting for her and on her side.
And obviously it's written very sympathetically towards her, but there
were there were also times where I was sympathetic with
the people that were maybe not supposed to be sympathetic with,
you know, like the people that are testing her to
make sure because and we even you know, one of
the guys that's testing her, which may not be a
great character. When everybody says, like, you know, the Bible
says we got to test every spirit, and I'm like, yeah,
it does say that, and yes we do. And even
some of the points they were making from scripture to her,
even things like like she's kind of an icon for
non Christians, even like a feminist icon because she went
into battle with soldier's clothes instead of wearing women's apparel,
which was, you know, very unusual at the time, and
she cut her hair short so she could go into battle.
And some of the arguments were like well, the Bible
does say that women shouldn't wear men's apparel or cut
their hair. And the Bible does say that, you know,
in First Corinthians eleven and Deuteronomy twenty two, like that,
those are actual passages and people can debate about how
to apply or interpret those things, you know, and so
and yet there's this we still have to wrestle with,
like what she did and the things she accomplished even
through all that. So I thought it was I do
think it's very valuable to say all that, and what
stands above all of it, It is her commitment and
sincerity to do what she's saying that God is telling
her to do, and then it has an effect. And
I think the way it was written allowed us to
do that without like, you know, insisting on certain doctrinal points.
I think it just presented the story in a good way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I like what Jared said in an interview
that I referenced a moment ago. He said his role
as the composer was to help the listener come to
the conclusion that Joan was sent from God. That you know,
you can come at it from the perspective of she
was crazy or she was doing what she was supposed
to do, and he said, you know, it was his
responsibility to help facilitate that perspective and help the listener
come to that conclusion. And I thought that was interesting.
And so you talk about the storytelling device we have
here with we have the chronicler, Mushar, and then we
have the interviewer who we don't know anything about for
a very long time. She just kind of pops up
here and there throughout the story and she's interviewing different
people to get their testimony of what happened all throughout
this And you're right, Paul could have started the script
with her family back in her little town and learning
about all of her family and the life in that
small village and all of that, but he doesn't. He
starts it at a very particular point. And so it
is an interesting way to tell this story through these
two perspectives of this chronicler Mushar, who is sent along
with her to just take down everything pretty much, you know,
And it is a really interesting way to do it. Now,
the downside of that is you are bouncing around a lot,
and it does make it a little bit harder to follow. Sometimes.
It definitely requires much more of an active listening experience.
Elements are intertwined here in and so I'm not necessarily
saying that it should have been done differently, but it
was an interesting choice and I'm pretty sure that it
was done deliberately. It's one way to tell the story,
and I think it worked. But again, there is a
downside to it. I think that it can be easy
for somebody who's not paying full attention to get lost.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I'll say that the beginning, like the first
fifteen minutes were hard for me to engage with and
understand what was happening. And I think if you had
some understanding of like one hundred years war going into it,
then you would maybe be able to jump in there
a little easier. But I mean, that's not a period
of history that I'm super familiar with, even though I
knew a couple things about it going in, and so
until Joan comes on the scene, it was hard to
invest in the story. Once she shows up, then I mean,
I know it does start with her, like the first
scene is the interviewer talking to her, but then it
jumps into like the battle scene, and it's jumping back
forth to different dates. He's like Mushard's writing about the
different dates during a scene at the castle where different
people are coming in, but it keeps cutting to him,
like describing things that are happening through that scene. And
so that was hard for me to understand what was
happening at first, and also like because I didn't know
who he was or anybody, like the only person you
know anything about coming in really is like you may
know some of the some like the Kings and stuff,
and then you'll know Joan of Arc. You know, those
are the people you know. And so then and Mushard,
like the way he was introduced, I was like, okay,
so I like this, it's a you know, a chronicler,
and it'll help us to know what's going on with
some of these battles and stuff, which would be hard
to just put, you know, like just scenes and stuff.
So I think that was helpful. But then when that
guy that Peter Morton plays that one of those French captains,
he says he's talking to him and he's like, who
are you? Are you a spy for one side or another?
And there was almost this like creepy like I'm both
here and I'm not and I'm in the shadows. Oh yeah,
who is this guy? And then and then it just
went on. I'm like, Oh, he's just like you go
along telling the story, you know. But I thought that
was a weird introduction because it put me on guard,
like with him and I was like, Oh, I guess
he's not a bad guy. He's just just showing up
and telling the story. But I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was funny. I did I remember that that moment.
I was like, Oh, he's getting all sinister on us here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, what is happening?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you talk about the historical context, and that's
that's a good point, and I had that in my
notes too, like, this is a complex story. This is
not your your average biography of a of a person's life,
Like there is a lot of historical context that's required.
We have political and military angles on top of this
personal journey. So there is so much going on, and yes,
you do have to invest in the story. And it
is a little bit slow to get started because you're
you're you're kind of just floundering around. I'm trying to
grasp these pieces. And as I was thinking about this,
I was trying to figure out was there a better
way to do this? Is there a different approach that
would have made it simpler or easier? And I couldn't
arrive at a solid alternative. So I'm not trying to
say that I could have done any better or that
it should have been done differently. It's just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I Yeah, I agree, I don't think I could have
done better necessarily, But as a listener, would I like,
you know, far be it from me to give advice
to people better write experience, But as a listener, I
think what would have helped me is if it did
cut to a scene with like, I'm glad that he
doesn't let us hear any of the voices that she's hearing,
But I would have liked an earlier cut to Joan
of arc. I would have liked to see her like
trying to get an audience with that guy or whatever,
and then cut back to the battle. Stuff like that
would have helped me because once she's there, then I
have a through line that I can attach on to
and all the other stuff around her. You know, she
harries the storyline obviously, but I think that would have
helped me out a little bit. As if it had
cut a little sooner to her. And I was thinking
even one like a specific place was where I thought
it was going to cut. And it didn't. The Duke
of the Duke of Dunoirs or whatever. He the guy
who's protecting Orleon, and I'm going to butcher all the
French pronunciations, so we'll just we're just gonna run with it.
But they're obviously like surrounded in the siege, and and
the one guy says, well, what are we going to do?
And he says, hold on for dear life and pray
that God sends his help. And I thought for sure
that was going to cut to Joan, and it doesn't.
It like cuts into another like battleface. So I but
if it had cut just at some point through that
first like fifteen minutes or whatever, to her, to give
a little human angle, because it's hard to know who
even to be rooting for at the beginning, because you
don't know who's who or anything.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's true. Yeah, I also struggle with with
some of the French names and places and stuff, and
it was it was a little bit tough for me
to keep track of some of that stuff, just because
I don't know French and so a lot of it
it just kind of sounds samey to me to my ear,
so that was a little bit difficult well.
Speaker 1: And to provide a counter so that may be why
they did this part. But one of the things that
just I don't know how if they could have avoided this,
but it just struck me as odd that, you know,
we're listening to a story about the French from the
perspective of the French fighting the English, and every single
person has an English accent. Dude, there's no French accent
except when they pronounce a French name.
Speaker 2: You know, Dude, I have that exact same thing in
my notes.
Speaker 1: Which I think it would have been harder to follow
if everybody did have French accents, you know. But it
is funny because I thought there was a guy later on,
like the Bishop, that was British, and then I realized that,
oh no, no, he's not English, He's he's French. Yeah,
but they all have English accent. And the only thing
I could see that differentiated the English the French characters
from the English characters was like the English characters seemed
to have more Cockney accents and the French characters for
like Queen's English accents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I had that exact same thing, because
it's like we have this war between the British and
the French. They're all played by English actors and they're
all like bashing the English the whole time. It was
just like it was tough to tell whose perspective we
were in, Like most of the time we're coming at
it from the French, but there are both times where
we're hearing about these these English characters. So I had
to keep reminding myself, this is France, this is France,
like because I'm not again, I'm not hearing any French accents.
Speaker 1: So and what reminded me was when they would say
like a French name and they and then and then
they must have had a person guiding them, you know,
in pronunciation and stuff, because their French pronunciations were very
good when they would do it, but they just didn't
It just it was like when you hear somebody talking
in Spanish and all of a sudden they say hamburger.
It was like a completely American accent, Like wow, well
what was that? That's what it felt like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, and I think that's one of the
roles that Daniel Philipott had as the language coach because
he works he does that sort of thing for a
lot of different shows, so I'm assuming that he was
the one who helped out with that. But yeah, and
it didn't help things that there is a huge cast
of characters, not just physical cast of actors, but like
a ton of different characters, and it was a little
bit tough to keep everyone straight again because some of
those French names are tough for me, and just the
sheer volume of characters that are only they only appear
in a scene here and there, or sometimes only in
one scene and then you don't hear from them again.
And so there was just a lot. There's a lot
going on. So again you have to be an active listener.
I think in this one you have to be invested
in the story or you're going to just be lost.
Speaker 1: And the good thing is that the one person who
is always like very clear and easy to differentiate his
joan herself exactly, and so it kind of works because
there's all these different voices and stuff, but then you
hear her voice and it's kind of the I don't know,
it's that that ring of clarity throughout the story with
all these people that have all their different ideas and things,
and I could always tell, well, maybe just because they
would always address him as like my gentle doufun or whatever,
but I could always tell when you know, with the King,
and I could usually tell like Muschard, but there were
a couple of times where you know, like the different
captains and stuff, they sounded real similar to like the
Chamberlain and one of her captains, and the duke that
was like the protector of Orleons. They all sounded pretty similar.
Even though I met Peter Morton at the Lamplighter Guilt,
so I could always, i like, recognize his voice. But
if I if I hadn't met him, I don't think
I would have been able to tell the difference. But
I do. I love his acting. He's got a great
voice and he's a great actor. But and then of
course at the end, I recognized Philip last Bro or
Philip Sherlock as his acting credit is. And I what
I kind of had to do, especially at the beginning,
was like, Okay, there's a lot of battles and stuff
that I'm not keeping track of, and I don't know
who half these people are, but I know that they're
under siege and they need help. So there's my takeaway.
And now we're moving on like Oka, and I know
they're trying to go to the place where the're gonna
get theim crowned. Okay, so moving on to that part
of the story. Yeah, yeah, which after that first episode,
I felt like I was able to track a lot easier.
It was just the first one that I have trouble
with the most. But even though there was and you
know something else that helps me at the end of
the first episode as far as like keeping people straight,
is there's a Muchard has a conversation with the Dauphin's
mother in law and she says, you know who we
got to watch out for is the chamberlain and the archbishop.
And I was like, all right, I got my bad guys,
and I'm gonna I know that every time I hear them,
like I know where I'm at.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've talked about this before
generally not being a fan of narration, but I think
the way that Paul usually does it with these Earthia shows,
they are a character in the story and so it
makes it a little more natural, and it's not even
like with the Ga Hinty series, we have Brian Blessed
as Hinty, who is not really a character. He's narrating throughout,
but he's not actually in the story, whereas here we
have Mushar and he's actually in scene as well, several times,
many times, yeah, all throughout. So I think that was
a really smart move because it would have been much
tougher to track everything.
Speaker 1: Yes, I do think the narration was a good move.
And Mushar is like even so he's chronicling it, but
then he's also a good character and he's he's usually like,
if there's a funny line, it's usually him that's, you know,
saying it. So he was a good, like through character.
And like the first one of the first times I
laughed out loud was when you know, he goes to
the guy that Joanavarc's first going to who of course
I forgot the name of, like Robert day something court,
I don't know. He goes to him, you know, he's
asking who he is and he says, well, have you
ever heard of Chaucer? And he says no, I haven't.
He goes good because I'm nothing like the man man,
And that line made me laugh out loud.
Speaker 2: We are on the same page, because I had that
in my notes as well. Yes, yeah, I literally did
laugh out loud at that it was and the way
he delivers the line, yes, oh good because I am
nothing like the man. Yeah. I was just like I
loved it.
Speaker 1: And it was good too because like Chaucer was like
around the one hundred years more like a little earlier,
so it was like perfect historical like shade and everything. Yeah,
very very well played well.
Speaker 2: And of course he's French and Chaucer was English, so
there's a little bit more perspective there too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. One more thing I just want to say about, like,
so the interviewer. I think that was helpful for telling
the story, and she was like talking to different people
and getting what they were thinking, and it was actually
one of the things is my wife and I were
listening to it that were like We're like, oh, who
is this interviewer and we're noticing different things. And I
really thought that the way it was going to play it, well,
I don't know, I don't know if this is a
spoiler or not, but it's not really a spoiler because
nothing happened. But I was expecting the interviewer to be
like somebody involved with the trial or after the trial
that's gathering the information. And at the end, unless I
missed something, it just seemed like like they didn't go
anywhere like that. She wasn't anybody like she was just
some it was just a storytelling device. It wasn't actually
like it didn't seem like she was actually part of
the story. And one of the things that made it
even like it detached her even more, and it was
like a deliberate choice is that her voice echoed a
little bit and the other the people she was interviewing
did nots be in your notes too. Yes, sorry, I'm
taking the points before you. Yes, so, but what did
you make I do want to hear what you made
of that cause her, you know, it like detached her
a little bit as her voice was echoing and theirs wasn't.
I was like, that's strange, like who is she? And
then and I was kind of engaged with it, like
I wanted to see how it ended up, like how
she played into it, and I felt like I didn't
get that payoff at the.
Speaker 2: End exactly the entire time through, I'm like waiting for
the reveal you know, like, what is the context of
these interviews here? Where is this happening? Because as you
point out that that effect on her voice, there's a
lot of room reverberation, and then in every single scene,
whoever she's speaking to, it feels like we're right there
next to them, there's no reverb on their voice, right,
and it's very intentionally done on hers. So, yeah, I'm
still at a loss as to what that was supposed
to be because you're right, there is no reveal. We
don't know who she is, like what.
Speaker 1: For sure it was like one of the sources that
he used or something. And even just like her voice
is really cool, like Finty Williams is her name, Yeah,
Finny Williams voice is really cool. And so she was
very engaging, like the way she was asking the questions
and stuff, and so as we were getting to the
end and then it was getting passed, like the point
where I would have thought she showed up, seem like
the would have been a good opportunity to do that
because of all the questions and the trial and the
documentation that was done at the time. It seems like
there would have been a way to incorporate that in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I still I mean I've listened to this
thing three times all the way through. I still don't
know who she is, where she you know, how does
she fit into this? But yeah, you're right, her Finty
Williams performance was great and so like she's very neutral,
like and I don't mean in a monotone, boring sort
of way, but the way she asks the questions, you
can't tell like is she leaning this way or that?
You know, you don't know whose side she's are, right.
Speaker 1: I know I was excited to find out, but I didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we should say that Harry Lloyd as
Mushar was fantastic too. You know, they are the three
main characters, main voices throughout this. We have a whole
lot of supporting characters, but they were the one ones
that carry the story, and all three of them just
a fantastic job.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, So.
Speaker 2: We're still on episode one here.
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry that was a lot of like a stage settings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there is a line like in the latter
part of that first episode where somebody says something about
Joan being a divine messenger and I loved her her
come back to that, she says I am not a
divine messenger, only a messenger from the divine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was really good. She had a lot
of really cool lines that I was I was kicking
myself for not writing down more of them, because there
was a couple times where my wife and I looked
at each other like that's good. Yeah, and now that
was one of them. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that out.
Speaker 2: So we'll We'll not spoil exactly what happens here, but
as we move into the next episode, there's I should
set this up a little bit, as you said in
the in the summary, and I think he is even
referenced in that trailer that we heard her. What she
believed her mission was was to get to the prince
or he was, the heir apparent to the throne. They
call him the dauphant, which is in French the word
means dolphin, but that is a title that they give
to the heir apparent to the throne and do Yeah, yeah,
gentle dolphin. I don't know exactly how that started. I
was if it started as a term of endearment or what,
but I had to look it up to see what
it actually meant. But yeah, it means dolphin. But anyway,
that was her mission to get to him, help him
to end the siege of Orleans and get him crowned.
And I mean, can you imagine a teenage girl just
kind of forcing her way into the upper crust of society,
not just a teenage girl, but a peasant teenage girl
who used to mind livestock, you know, I mean, yeah,
the audacity, you know, it's just like it's such a
remarkable thing, and he rightly wants to test her. And
so there's a really cool scene where that happens when
he first meets her, and I loved how that played out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good scene. And it does feel
like something that God would do, you know, in order
to bring about a great victory, use the most unlikely person. Yeah, no,
use a peasant girl, a teenager, in order to lead
the army to victory. Like that feels like a god thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, And also it is kind of a literary
device too, right, Like I mean I'm reading through The
Lord of the Rings again right now, for like this
fifth or sixth time, and that what is that all about?
But having the lowliest of peoples of Middle Earth, the Hobbits,
be the ones who end this massive war, the reign
of the Dark Lord. Nobody thought that they were going
to succeed, right, and plenty of people didn't want them
to succeed, But you know, those two little hobbits crossed
the entire continent, you know, to complete this task. And
in some ways this feels kind of like that sort
of a story, and it's the underdog.
Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, yeah, it's yeah, it's very David and Goliath.
That's how it feels.
Speaker 2: So. And there are all these things that as you
as you alluded to earlier, there are historical records for
some of these things that happened. I'm assuming that Paul
had to do a ton of research into all of
these things and make sure that he's including the right
historical references and the dates, because we have dates that
are mentioned all throughout, and so there are witnesses to
a lot of these things. But the one of the
crazy things, aside from her actually being accepted by the
would be king and actually taken into his confidence, the
whole thing with Catherine's sword. I don't know if I
should spoil that exactly, but that was an amazing thing too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was there was there was a lot of
really cool like sign things that is like this is
too good to be true. Did this really happen? You know?
But yeah, that was very cool and just one of
the as part of the tests, like she says she's
going to tell the king or the prince something that
only him and God know, and it's something that he
prayed when he was by himself that he hasn't told
anybody else. And there's like three very specific requests and
I loved the request. They were so humble and genuine
and since like and if he really prayed those things,
then it makes sense to me also that God would
want to put him on the throne, you know. Like
that showed a lot about his character, even though now
I don't know a whole lot about him historically, and
Muchard makes some references to like people in the castle
that makes me think there was like a lot of
messed up stuff that was going on at the time
as well. But that part of it where the way
he prayed and the way she uses that as a
way to show that she really is coming from God
was really neat to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and we should say, just in case you're
not familiar, this is Charles the seventh of France.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Charles the seventh. Do you know much about him
other than this?
Speaker 2: I don't. Man, history class was such a long time
ago and I haven't kept up on it all well.
Speaker 1: And it is funny because I do feel like I'm
usually more of an Anglophile than a Francophile, even though
like technically I have, I have no English in me
like genealogically I have, and I do have French in
me as so you know, this was bringing out my
French roots, you know, me rooting for the French in
this series. But it is funny because like Henry the
Fifth is a really well known story from Shakespeare, you know,
and it's the English, you know, when they when one
hundred years wor starts and they mentioned it in here,
like the Battle of Agincourt, And when I hear that story, like,
I'm totally on the side of the English, you know.
I listen to this, I'm like, oh man, they're the worst. Yeah,
but it's very interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, and I don't mean to muddy the waters too much,
because I did want to talk about this a little
bit later on too, but I mean that that does
sort of bring up the whole idea of how do
you know whose side God is on? In history? Like, yeah,
that's a that's a tough, tough call to make, like
when you look back. I mean there are sometimes sometimes
in history there there are very obvious things that are
you know, absolutely right and wrong, and other times you're like,
it's a little bit more on the gray area side
of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And I think this is a great story
to wrestle with that with. And one of the things
I liked about the way this played out is like
how many times jan keeps trying to get the English
to repent and surrender, like, and she keeps giving them
chance after chance. And there's this moment lay way later
on in the trial where they ask, you know, does
God hate the English or the is are all the
English going to hell? And she says, she says, God
will chastise any of us. He'll chastise all of us
for our sins, regardless of victory or defeat. Which was
a great answer, you know, And I think that that
was born out God was reaching for everybody. And sometimes
history does like you know, nationalities and stuff, it is
muddy and gray, but there is a clear like I
don't know, I don't know the exact right of way
it is, but I feel like there is a clear
call to anybody in any nation or any side of
a war or anything to be right with God, you know.
And that's that's the clear message that comes through even
in this audio drama, like even more because it really
wasn't even though it's like, you know, obviously she's saying
that God has ordained the you know, Charles the seventh
to be the king and all this stuff, and yet
there was still this I felt like there was like
some love for the English.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's a point where she's like crying on the
battlefield because they did they hadn't had a chance to
confess their sins before they died. And she's like, make
sure our soldiers are confessing their sins, you know, before
they go. And I think that it's cool that those
elements were brought out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, and to that point, once she actually
gets control of an army, she sets down these ground
rules all right, no more swearing, no more women around,
which is funny because she was a woman.
Speaker 1: It's a certain kind I know.
Speaker 2: And you have to go to church, like yeah, she's
I mean, she put on all these rules in place,
and you're like, well, yeah, those are all good things.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite things for that scene is she
said she said no swearing and no blasphemy, and Peter
Morrion's character goes impossible, which is like totally like a
battle art and guy would say, yeah, his captain's name
meant like hedgehog. I think that he was prickly like
a hedgehog, which oh so perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think about that today modern soldiers like,
it's it's a shame that it is this way, but
they're they're they're rough, rough dudes. Most of the time.
It's like telling them not to swear as they're in
battle and you have to go to church right right.
Speaker 1: Well, and even the day they want to press the
attack and she's like, no, we got to have church
out on the field. And they're like the English will
come and kill us, and she's like, or maybe they'll
join us. Yeah, which was that's another like in line
with what we were just talking about. You know, that's
another evidence of the focus being on doing what's right
before God for her versus like all the counselors and
stuff that are it seemed like such a clear thing
all the time, like they have all this worldly wisdom
and battlefield strategy and stuff like that, and then she
has this consistent like, well, we got to be honorable
to God, you know, over.
Speaker 2: Over, yeah, and yeah. She says that this line in
this episode, episode three, after things are finally getting rolling's
she says, I was born for this. I believe God
is with me. And I mean just the confidence, like
I was that confident at eighteen nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: Man, well that's because you weren't hearing from saying Catherine
and sant Margaret.
Speaker 2: That is very true.
Speaker 1: No, sorry, no, but yeah, I agree, Like that is
the thing that stands out so much about her is
her confidence and boldness and yeah, and that's why people
follow her because she's unwavering and she's consistent, and she
doesn't have any guile, you know, there's no political ambition
or anything versus like there's other people that are representing
like the Catholic Church in the in these episodes, like
the archbishop that is one of her greatest antagonists, you know,
who's clearly not he's more motivated by political things than
he is by serving God, you know, at least the
way the story presents him. You know, I don't know
him personally or anything, but you know, and he had
like that nasally voice, So that tells you something right
right off the bat.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But anyways, like that, and I like how there
was an acknowledgment of like, you know, where people are
putting their focus in their trust versus where she was.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And and there's there's an interesting dynamic too. We
talked about the layers and the nuance to this character
that Heather really had to bring to make her believable,
and that is like she's both naive and bold. Like
the way she speaks to the group who made those
plans without her in that one scene in episode four,
You know that that's the bold side of her. And
then the way she expected to just be able to
write off into battle without even having any training or equipment,
and then just she expects that the opposing force is
going to just heed her her letter that she sends
to them, right, you know. So there's the there's the
naive side, and then you have the other contrasting the boldness.
And and I guess that that sort of begs the
question sort of what we mentioned a moment ago, is
like where's the line between faith and God and naivete.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, I think I think faith and God
does come across as naivete to a lot of people. Yeah,
and I think there is a simplicity that comes from
being confident that God's on your side. And that's dangerous
if God's not on your side, but it's the most
logical thing if he is. You know, Like some of
the things she was saying, it's like, yeah, let's charge
forward and will win. And they're like, well, but they
have a lot more people, and she's like, yeah, but
God's with us, So what do you mean you know, Yeah,
that's and like you know, the Bible says the righteous
or as bold as a lion, and and so there's
there is an element of that, but that only comes
from really being sure that you're right with God, you know.
Like that kind of boldness I think has to be
connected with holiness. You know. If it's not, I think
that you're gonna have a lot of doubt and second
guessing and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And for the most part, she never does, I
mean we we There is a moment towards the end,
but all throughout, when she's in the thick of it,
she moves forward unquestioningly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is there are times where you can
tell she but like one of my favorite moments, she
she's being very insistent on something with a Dove fan
and he says, did your voices tell you this? And
she says no, you know, like she kind of hesitates
and then but she's honest enough to say, no, they
didn't tell me that, you know. Yeah, And I think
that's important for us to we can really get carried
away with our you know, strong opinions. So we have
to be able to distinguish what's a strong opinion from
God and what's a strong opinion from us.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, yeah, Well I wanted to point out
a cool little thing in episode five. So there's a
scene where we have this battle going on and Joan
is climbing up this ladder, climbing up the wall, and
there's this English archer who is at the top of
the wall. She's climbing up, and he says, I see you,
little cock Sparrow. That was Todd Busteed.
Speaker 1: Oh it was Yeah, there was something so distinctive about
that voice. I didn't know it was him. He disguised
it well. But now it all makes sense why it
resonated so strongly. You got to be the archer that
shot Joan of Arc.
Speaker 2: Yeah, little cameo there. He talked about this in a
panel discussion with Paul at Sonic Con, and I can't
remember the specific story, so I maybe getting this a
little bit wrong, but as I remember it, what happened
was he's in the edit there trying to get this
scene together and either something happened with a line from
the actor in the studio or the pacing was just
needed something there, and so he said to Paul, I'm
gonna go ahead and record this voice or something like that. Again,
I may be mixing it up slightly, but it was
something like that, and so he ended up recording that
and putting it in there, and it ended up in
the final mix.
Speaker 1: So that's well, if he's doing the final mix then yeah.
But he said that has zonagon. Yeah that's fun.
Speaker 2: And so right after that, there's that that whole scene
with where she gets wounded. We have that that cauterization.
The sound effects there, Yeah, oh my goodness, it was
grimace inducing, like fantastic job there with the sound effects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that was rough.
Speaker 2: So you know, things do pick up in the her
half of the episodes and start moving a little bit quicker.
And there's not like a ton of things that we
can get into too much without getting into little bitty
plot points and start spoiling things. But the gist of
it is that, you know, she has become this respected leader,
like the general populace of France. They love her. She
has become this icon of the resistance against the English.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is this interesting shift that happens where
she goes from you know, winning these great battles and
having it and to where now she's the hero. But
it's almost as if she's not being listened to. She's
being like listened to less, even though she's a proven
you know that she was able to help win these
great victories. But as they're trying to get these political
things uh sorted out that don't end up handing out,
there is this interesting shift that happens in and that
it wasn't just the same thing over and over through
the story And obviously like that's that's because you know,
based on the history of how things went down, but
it also helped to keep your attention as you went
further through the storyline. That as things were changing, you know,
it wasn't just a battle after battle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So I wanted to talk a little bit
about the music because all throughout like it fits like
hand and glove, like it's so tightly integrated into this
production that it doesn't make itself really known. It's easy
to miss because it's done so well. But there is
one scene in episode seven, about five minutes in, there's
a scene where the narrator he starts to talk about
some of the infighting in France, and there is a
cue there that Jared wrote that, Oh my goodness, it's
just amazing and I absolutely loved it, and I mean
talking about it here like it's it's not like you
can picture it, you know, it's not a scene that
you can have unfolding in your mind. But I thought
it was worth mentioning just because it was a good
illustration of how it just fits so nicely. Now, there
are a couple of moments that are really stand out,
like where the music really does sort of step up
and almost take a center stage, but it works so
well with the dialogue and sound effects that yeah, hard,
it's just at all. Yeah, it's just very good.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it does carry the emotion very well.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One interesting spot with the music was when her parents
show up at the court and like the music, it
definitely huges you that this was like a little bit comical,
you know, of her like peasant parents coming to visit
the king. And that's one of the places where the
music like jumped out of me as being very different
than everything else in these episodes, when her dad's like
asking if he can talk to the king about a
tax break or whatever. Yeah, and the music like it
was definitely like a break from everything else. Like the
music like changed dramatically to where, you know, it was
almost I don't know how to describe it other than
that it like had a comic feeling to it of like,
well this isn't really the point, you know, but I
don't know how to describe it. But that was a
place where the music got jumped out of me in
a different way, like yeah, it just changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And there are times throughout and of course,
again this is a biography, this is about Joan of
Arc and so her theme that that Jared spent a
lot of time crafting is woven all throughout and it's
just done masterfully. But I highly recommend if you love
music and scores, you can listen to the entire the
entire soundtrack of this this show on its own, and
it's just absolutely gorgeous music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, And of course I at the at
the very end, well, you know, as her story is
wrapping up, and there's the part that's just so lands,
so heavy when she's crying out the name of Jesus
in different ways, and that was so good and it
could have like gone on just so long, but it
felt like every time she said it packed like a
different emotional punch, and the and the music around it
and stuff really really had a had a powerful that
was like where you know, obviously it's supposed to be
like that climactic moment, but I guess it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so we talked about the you know, our
our core cast members of Heather and Harry and Finty
as Joan Muchard and the interviewer, but a couple of
others that they stood out. You know, you mentioned the
Dauphin Tom Byrne is I think how you say that
he was great And also another one you already said
as well, the Archbishop Roger May Oh my goodness. He
was so good. So this guy's like a bit of
a weasel and he's he's just played perfectly, especially in
this scene where Charles sends him with Joan and he
you know, you can tell he does not want to go, right,
but he cannot say no to the king, right, and
so it just the hesitation in the way he delivers
the lines that just you can you can absolutely hear
the wheels in his brain turning as he's trying to
figure out how to get out of this but he can't, right, Yeah,
in any way that.
Speaker 1: The guy who plays the Chamberlain like was playing off
of that, like they were playing off each other, and
he's like, well the archbishop can do it, and he's like,
oh ah, well, uh yeah. Yeah. Just just the little
noises that he made to indicate he was feeling about it.
It was very good. Like I could see his facial expression,
you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, it was so good, so good. So I
guess that brings us to things. Things start wrapping up.
You know, Joan is captured, and I love her spunky attitude.
She's so dismissive of the Duke of Burgundy, Like this
guy's a trader. Right, and just the the little snippy
things that she says to Yeah, yeah, it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had some lines done and now we can't
find the find some of the lines that I was
gonna bring up. There's a part where somebody is talking
to her and pretending to be her friend and is
clearly a spy, you know. And afterwards he's trying to
get her to just say something and she won't do it.
Then he finally says, well, I've done all I can,
and she says as a spy or as someone who
claims to be my friend, and it just reveals like
that she knew all along what he was up to.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's the other thing too. And I'm not
sure how much creative license Paul took and how much
of this is actually from the historical records. But like again,
we're talking about a pretty young girl. Yeah, even though
back then people of late teens were much more mature
than they are these days. Sure, but she still had
such a way about her that she seemed like she
was much wiser than her age should have allowed her
to be.
Speaker 1: There were a couple moments of failure towards the end,
if that's if that's the right word for it. That
did surprise me, which I don't know that somebody would
have necessarily included if that wasn't what it actually happened.
You know, Yeah, like a couple of moments of weakness
and despair. But it made it. She did illustrate that
she is a teenage girl and all the stuff that
she's going through. How could you even process through all
these things? And it did it brought out her humanity?
Yeah quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Well, you referenced him earlier. But Philip Glasboro slash Sherlock,
he plays the scribe monchan is how you say it?
I think, man, I begus how to pronounce the name.
Speaker 1: That sounds exactly right.
Speaker 2: But this the scene that he appears in for the
first time, I think is in episode eight. And this
is the scene that we actually got to play just
the voice edit of at the senecas a couple of
years back that Paul allowed us to share that NIK
preview of the show, and so it was really kind
of cool to hear contrast just the voice track that
we heard back then with the final scene here and
you know, the sound effects and everything in place, and
the full context of what's going on in that scene?
So that was really cool, and it's always great to
hear Philip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has such a like soothing voice that
when he comes on, you know, you were like, okay,
he's going to be well, I don't know if his
this probably isn't. I feel like I'm like disrespecting his
acting to be able to play evil characters. But when
I heard his voice, I'm like, Oh, he's a good guy.
You know, he's I could trust this guy. And I
really feel like his character was purely to establish why
the court records are true, even though the people that
were running the court were so obviously corrupt. But then
his characters like, we've got to make sure we write
down exactly what happens and what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the quality assurance guy.
Speaker 1: He's the quality assurance guy. Yeah, for why we can
trust the sources. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and he did a great job with it too.
And he's such a like a guy full of integrity, right,
So it's like a check and balance to all this
other stuff, because we know that there was some crazy
stuff going on there. But you know, talk about Philip
and his ability to do villains or whatever, one of
my favorite roles that he ever did was in Lamplightder Theaters,
was the great question.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my goodness, that's a point, and that that
works even better because of his soothing voice. You know
that he drew us all out there. Yeah, that was
he did a great job with that. That evil character,
that's true, Yeah, so good. Yeah, I'm not saying he
can't play evil people. I'm just saying he has a
super voice.
Speaker 2: Just shows his range. What a talent. Yeah. So, so
her trial begins in February of fourteen thirty one, and
it was a really interesting way that because this thing
goes on and on for weeks and weeks, and so
what Paul does here is he writes this sort of
montage scene where we have all these interrogators asking questions.
So it's just a summary of the trial with a
montage of questions there, and there's no responses until we
get to like this last question, and then we get
a response from Joan. You know, it was just just
cut together really nicely, just a way to show progression
of time and not just have to make us go
through the entire shing as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and At the same time, he's also illustrating the
repetitiveness of this stuff because they're trying to trip her up,
trying to catch her in things. So they're just rephrasing
things a little bit or asking it slightly differently, just
to try to get her to mess up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. And the strength of what
she does say when we do get answers from her
is it its simplicity. You know, she just sticks with
she knows and this isn't during the trial, but there
was a point where she says, why are you baiting
me with this question? You know, Archbishop in an earlier scene,
and well, one of the great lines came from this
that I really loved, where they asked, so you believe
you were in God's grace? And she said, if I
am not, may God put me there? And if I am,
may God so keep me.
Speaker 2: Mm oh that's that was a good one.
Speaker 1: That's a great line. That's a great piece of wisdom
to live by, you know, great attitude to live by.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and my goodness, like towards the end, she
was treated like an absolute dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, horribly.
Speaker 2: So this trial, at least the first one, it lasts
like three months.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't even realize that from just listening.
Speaker 2: From February twenty first to the day where they actually
decide that they're going to go through with the execution
was the twenty fourth of May.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that is a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so that brings us to I mean,
there are a few other things that transpire in between
that date and then her actual execution, which was the
thirtieth of May. And I tell you what that scene,
My goodness, you mentioned it earlier, when she's screaming Jesus. Yeah,
it just grabs you. And yeah, I am not ashamed
to say that I was tearing up for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That was probably the most emotionally impactful, and rightfully so.
And it's the way, it's the personal way that she
was crying out to Jesus. That's why it hit me.
It wouldn't have hit quite as strongly as she was
crying out some other name, but the way she was
crying out on the name of Jesus is really powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it kind of I mean, they're very different stories,
but it kind of brought to mind the Heirloom audio,
the g A HINTI story of William Wallace and his execution.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, that's a good parallel.
Speaker 2: But that scene was very impactful to me when I
first heard it, and then so it sort of came
to my mind as I was I was listening to
this one, and my goodness, I mean, and and again
we've already said this, but Heather's performance like it. It's
heart wrenching in those moments there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And the way in which you talked about this earlier too,
the music and the sound effects and her performance kind
of are are weaved together so expertly. The music comes
in when it needs to, it goes out when it
needs to to let the scene breathe and just really
hit home. And there's a there's a moment, I mean
several seconds where all you hear are the flames.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if anybody's feeling, you know, uncomfortable with that,
because you know, you you know what's coming up, so
you kind of get a little I got I get
a little apprehensive when I know it, seeing like that's
coming up. But I think it was handled hastily. I
don't think it was grotesque or no, I don't know
where I'm looking for, but it wasn't it wasn't overdone
in focusing on like the pain and the gore, But
it was the emotion of what was happening with her
that was what came.
Speaker 2: Through for me. Yeah, it wasn't gratuitous.
Speaker 1: Gratuitous that's a great word.
Speaker 2: And so then you know, that was in fourteen thirty one.
It wasn't until fourteen fifty six that she was absolved.
Just crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's interesting that they did it when there
was still people alive apparently that were witnesses of what happened,
you know. Yeah, So in my head, I kind of
thought that it didn't happen until like the nineteen hundreds,
to be honest, like that she was absolved. I didn't
realize that it happened so soon after.
Speaker 2: Well that was the canonization that happened in the twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Twenty it was Okay, okay, that's what it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it was I mean, that's a long
time from fourteen fifty six to nineteen twenty, right, So yeah.
Speaker 1: But they had a trial that absolved her in the
fourteen hundreds. You're saying, yeah, okay, okay, like twenty years
later or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2: But I mean It just also goes to show, like
there's some illustrations from history where these people were supposedly
on the side of God themselves, they were supposedly on
the side of right, but they did a horrendous thing here. Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because even the people that were in charge of
the trial were like French traders, you know, they were
they were cited with the English, but they were still
the you know, the French people, right or am I
misunderstanding that, like the there were the Burgundians I'm guessing
because it was that duke, and it was the that
bishop was a French bishop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they were being influenced by the English like
it was the English. I think primarily that were they were.
They didn't want to let it go. They wanted to
they wanted to make a lesson of her, right I think,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and because she was a figurehead
that's why, you know, how can you keep fighting a
war against somebody that everybody you know is believing is
from God. So you have to proclaim her as like
a witch or a heretic or whatever right in order
for your cause to be just. But what she does
it does seem like, you know, just in broad strokes
of history. You know, my wife and I were having
a conversation like so like of what she actually accomplished,
and I'm like, well, the English don't control France, you know,
like there was an effect like that claim was that
the English monarch should inherit the thrones of both England
and France. You know, so that there was an effect
through this, Like I think this was towards the end
of the Hundred Years War, and now I feel like
on shaky ground because I can't exactly remember when the
Hundred Years were ended. But and you know, there was
an interesting part. This is going all the way back
into episode one, but where we shard he's just like
musing to himself about, you know, who's going to care
in a one hundred years that we've been occupied all
this time by the English? Who's going to care in
five hundred years? You know, like he was he was
like bringing down It felt like a almost a break
heat of the fourth wall, like reaching out to like,
you know, here's why you should care about this, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't pick up on that. That's
a that's an interesting point, and you know, it's kind
of interesting to we reference William Wallace different time here,
but they talked about how the Scottish were supporting the
French in their resistance against the English.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I noticed that, like there was there was
Scottish bagpipe players that I can't remember what ceremony it
was for her, but they were there supporting her. It
is an interesting the alliance. You know, the enemy of
my enemy is my friend or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that's
the idea there.
Speaker 2: I think, Well, you know, we've we've touched on a
lot of different things and the bottom line I think
that I walked away with from this is just like
you definitely need to examine your own life and to
make sure you are in line with with the Word
of God and with with what God wants you to
do in your day to day life. We need to
be bold to share the gospel, but we also need
to make sure that we are our footing is firm,
we're in the right place, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, to be sensitive enough to hear his voice
beyond like the conventions you know of our time, and
also to recognize when God is doing something. God does
a lot of times does stuff out of the ordinary,
because that's what shows his glory, you know, the most strongly,
and I do think there's a warning in here for
us to make sure that we're not on the side
of it. You know. It kind of makes me think
of like Gamaliel with the Apostles talking about if this
is of God, then we can't overthrow it, but if
it's not of God, it won't come to anything, you know. Yeah,
and just not be so entrenched in our own ideas
that we can't recognize when God is moving in an
unconventional way, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, being willing to let him do what he
wants to do, right, right, exactly. So I guess I
don't I'm still conflicted, Like when it comes to general
I don't know. I don't really know where I stand
on the whole thing. But I think there's still huge
value in listening to her story.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I am unsettled by it, and it's the
unsettling parts of it that that I think land the
I think that's why the story is so powerful in
some ways, you know, because there are things that make
me uncomfortable about the story, and that causes me to
check myself in different ways too, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sort of insites self reflection, and yeah, that's
always a good thing, I.
Speaker 1: Believe, yeah, right, and not just.
Speaker 2: Self reflection, but also, as you said, you you've been
having conversations with your wife, so it gives you opportunity
to discuss these different points with your family. And for
people to have kids who are of the age where
you know, they start thinking about these sorts of issues,
you know, typically going to be like teenagers or whatever,
but you know, it's good to have discussions about this
this sort of stuff. So yeah, I think it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Even when I was praying earlier this week after
listening to it, and I was just thinking about her
devotion to prayer. And there's this part where she says
to the captains, like they say, well, the council met
together and we decided blah blah blah, and she says,
you have been at your counsel and I have been
at mine. Yeah, And I thought that was a great line.
And the commitment there is just to having a genuine
relationship with God, and that's something that we can take
from this, no matter you know, what we think about
some of the other parts of the story, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I think to wrap this up one
quick note on the music there too. That final closing
cue right before we get to the credits just just
superb like, absolutely amazing job there. Sound design, as we've
said throughout, Todd Busted and his team with all the
folly and stuff, just an amazing job. The score was phenomenal.
And I think it's worth pointing out here that Augustine
Institute Radio Theater is like a masterclass in story framing devices.
And I think I did talk with Paul a little
bit about this at Sonic Con, but we didn't get
to get into it too deeply. I would have loved
to have picked his brain a little bit more about this,
but it feels like to me that he has been
he's been using these shows to be a little bit
experimental with his approach to storytelling. Obviously, Adventures and Odyssey
is very constrained, like there are certain things you just
don't do in an Odyssey episode, right, You have certain
parameters that you have to work within, and radio theater
a lot of those were adaptations of classic literature. I mean,
there were some originals like Father Gilbert and things, but
for the most part, those are the stories that you're
trying to tell. Well, this is something completely different, and
so he was able to do some different things. And
I think I've referenced this on the show before. I
know I've said it in conversations with people, but each
one of these releases has tackled storytelling from a different
sort of way. So with Francis, each chapter of Francis's
life was told from the perspective of a person who
interacted with him at that time of his life. So
we had these different points of his life, and so
that was the framing of that. Then with Patrick, we
had this whole framing device of the interrogation of these
church officials who are basically grilling Patrick on all these
things that he's done throughout his life and the choices
that he made and all this kind of stuff. Then
with Cecilia we have this whole setup of the different
muses that helped set up the whole production. And then
with Robinhood we have the troubadour narrator who sort of
presents this story as as this sort of traveling, you know,
storyteller kind of vibe. And then with Joan we have
the chronicler of Mushar and the interviewer who kind of
set up everything and they carry the whole story all
the way throughout. So each one of these he's done
different things, and so again I think it's a it's
a masterclass in how to write audio drama and do
it in different ways, and overall these are world class
productions in every regard. This is top notch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was my first Augustine Institute Radio Theater
drama that I've heard. In full disclosure, I don't know
if that was a requirement to listen to any others
before it came on this show, but coming in hearing
this one for the first time, it was, you know,
it was very easy to just jump in and listen
to it because obviously their standalone stories. But I think
this was a great representation of the of the quality
and it makes me want to hear some of these
other ones too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just fantastic stuff, So kudos to Paul McCusker
and the whole team, the entire massive cast. Just a
fantastic story. Now, you know, there's some intense moments and
there are some references that never get graphic, but there
are some adult themes of hints at things that are
that are happening. This is not one for little kids,
and frankly they probably be bored by it. Anyway, they're
to be able to follow what's going on, and that's
not the point of this. This is not aimed at
at children, but they're they're just extremely well done. So
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and again, even coming from a
non Catholic perspective, I think these are are fantastic audio dramas.
Here here well, link is in the show notes. If
you'd like to get your copy, and I think you should.
It's available as as a podcast. This is something they
did for the first time with these releases. It was
released as a podcast and in a couple of different
meditation apps, so it's freely available, but links are in
the show notes. It's also available on CD, and if
you want to grab your copy, those links are available. Michael,
thank you so much for coming on the show. Again,
I appreciate it. It was a great discussion as always.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. I always enjoy it.
Speaker 2: And by the time you hear this, Michael will likely
be a father, So congratulations to you and your wife.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you. Yeah, we are anxiously awaiting this podcast
recording was touching go because we don't know when the
baby's going to come, but she held off for you
the ATC community. My wife's rolling her eyes.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for holding off their little one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this is.
Speaker 2: So much more important. So are you think of the show?
Speaker 3: Please leave your message after the zone.
Speaker 4: Hi, Audi Theater Central.
Speaker 3: Hey guys, this is awesome Peach.
Speaker 5: Hello, jd Royan Andrew Minum is Victoria Now.
Speaker 8: Yesterday I received a letter from a big fan.
Speaker 3: No time to Josh.
Speaker 2: I've got an email.
Speaker 1: This another package for me today? No exactly, just your mail.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is that time to hear from you, the
ATC listener. Thank you so much for always sending in
your feedback. You can reach us at feedback at Audio
Theatercentral dot com. You can comment on the show notes,
or you can send a text or leave us a
voicemail at six two three six eight eight two seven
seven zero. Well. First up is a comment from Jeff
on Spotify. Actually you can actually leave comments on Spotify,
but he left a comment on ATC one eighty seven,
the interview with composer John Campbell. Jeff says, would you
mind put the announcements at the end. I'm a first
time listener and I came here to learn about production
design for Adventures Odyssey, and I immediately felt very confused
about what I had gotten into. Well, first of all, Jeff,
thank you for checking out the show. If you're still listening,
hope you are. But if there is a reason why
I put the news updates at the top, because that
is the most timely information of each episode, I want
to get to that stuff first. And each segment is
clearly marked. There is a segment transition. Each one is
marked in the show notes and on the website show
notes with a timestamp saying what each segment is. So
if you want to skip to the interview, you can
absolutely do that. If you want to skip to the
feedback segment, whatever the case is, those are there for
your usage with the timestamps on the website version and
on the show notes in your app that you're listening in,
soe free to skip around. I mean, obviously my preference
would be that everybody listens to the full episode, but
if there's something in particular you want to hear, feel
free to skip around to whatever segment you want. But no,
we're not going to move those Generally, there is a
reason for the flow of the content in each episode,
but I do appreciate the feedback and thank you so
much for listening. Jeff next up as an email from Jeremy,
and he says, I hope the Audio drama Camp was
a big success, and I hope it will continue for
many years to come. Yes, I hope that that event
does continue as well. He continues, I really enjoy the
clever titles that the nick guy Private Eye comes up with,
and I hope to check out this audio drama soon. Absolutely. Yeah,
I've said it before. I love Frank Ughley's sense of humor,
and not just the titles, but also in the dialogue throughout.
He's always there's always layers to the humor and I
always appreciate that as well. So yeah, I think he
should check it out. Jeremy says, I also really enjoy
listening to focus on the family radio theater, and I
might check out some of the other old time radio
theater when I have time. I have also noticed that
the Sugar Creek episodes also sound like they are older episodes. Yes,
that those were all produced quite some time ago. The
majority of the programming by Moody was from decades ago,
and some of it from a very long time ago.
Like the Ranger Bill shows, those are quite old. Those
are technically that part of the old time radio era.
So yeah, Sugar Creek those were They were done quite
some time ago, so they're not quite as immersive as
some of the more modern audio drama productions, but I
still really like them, he continues. Would the Sugar Creek
Gang episodes be available to download or to get on CD? Well,
they are not available on CD as far as I know,
and I don't believe they ever were. But good news,
they are available for download. In fact, they are available
to download for free. So quite some time ago, Moody
made the decision to put a bunch of their old
audio drama programming available for free download. So they set
up a website Moodyaudio dot com, and there is a
bunch of great stuff there that you can download for free.
We did an entire post on our website about some
of the content that is featured on this site, so
I've linked that post in the show notes for this episode,
so you can go see what is also available in
addition to Sugar Creek Gang. But I also have a
link directly to the page on the Moody website for
the Sugar Creek Gang show, so you can go directly
there and download that show if you want to check
it out. So thank you Jeremy for the feedback as always,
and I would love to hear back from you if
you check out more Sugar Creek Gang or if you
listen to Nick Guy, well that's going to do it
for this episode. Thanks again to Alan Hurley and John
Fornoff for sharing their expertise about audio drama trailer, and
thank you to Michael Schrader for joining me to talk
about the victory of Joan of Arc. As always, show
notes with links to everything we talked about and discussed
in this episode are at Audio Theatercentral dot com slash
two two one. If you'd like to get in touch
with us, head over to Audio Theatercentral dot com slash contact.
All the ways to reach out are listed there. It
is the fall. We have Thanksgiving coming up here in
the US at the end of this month. I hope
you have a wonderful Thanksgiving time and I will see
you next time. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 10: Hi guys, this is Kenny Sargent from Sergeant Family Productions.
I'm here with my friend JD. We're live from Audio
Drama Institute, about three thousand feet higher than Colorado Springs.
Audio Theater Central is a production of Porchlite Family Media.
The theme music was composed by Sam Avendanio. The show
is produced and edited by my friend JD.
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Speaker 10: Website, of course, is audio Theatercentral dot com.
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