THE FREQUENCY OF FEAR
frequencyoffear.com In 2007, blogger W. Ralph Walters created a pod- cast called The Frequency of Fear in order to share his public domain OTR (Old-Time Radio) collection. He quickly introduced comedic wraparound adven- tures featuring his pseudonym Zombie Astronaut and a cast of colourful characters, including mad scientist Doctor Despicable, the eccentric Dr. Wil- heim Von Martinez, and crusty pirate Captain Bonemarrow. Since then, the tales and characters have grown into a hilarious yet reverent genre par- ody of all things horrific. TFoF recently began breaking up the OTR and their original mini-stories into separate weekly podcasts, while adding a spin-off series, Streets of Staccato. Aptly campy, TFOF is funnier than the average vaudevillian mon- ster team-up.
WORMWOOD: A SERIALIZED MYSTERY
wormwoodshow.com Set in Wormwood, California, this serialized pod- cast features a Blue Velvet-esque town with a Lovecraft bent. Occult detective Dr. Xander Crowe, his mystically powered “Hand of Glory” and his as- sistant Sparrow act as our gateway to a commu- nity overrun by ghosts, werewolves, the villainous Muddy Man and the powerful yet mysterious “ob- ject of Wormwood.” Packaged as twenty 30- minute episodes per season, Wormwood’s third and final season deviates from its previous format somewhat in favour of one-off stories about the series’ pivotal characters (each written in the pulpy, fantastical style of genre authors such as Robert E. Howard and Richard Matheson) before concluding the story arc.
WE’RE ALIVE: A SURVIVOR’S STORY
zombiepodcast.com We’re Alive offers little that is new to zombie apoc- alypse fiction. But it does boast solid voice acting and top-notch audio production values as it follows the efforts of a disparate group of survivors hiding from the undead outbreak in a fortified LA high-rise. Building on familiar characters – e.g. the shell- shocked soldier and the civilian trying to learn sur- vival skills – this podcast’s first 36-episode season affords the time to get inside the survivors’ emo- tional states and explore that central apocalypse question: if civilization were to end, how would we survive? Now in season two, the group has been displaced from its stronghold by a tribe of former penitentiary inmates, and the zombies are seem- ingly more intelligent than they appear...
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GM: Ashley Thorpe, who’s a British writer and director, has written a piece based on sev- eral [local] myths. His piece is called The Demon Huntsman and it deals with a phantom horseman and phantom dogs roaming the moors. Paul Solet has written a very disturbing contemporary horror piece in- volving plastic surgery. J.T. [Petty]’s story is called Johnny Boy. The tagline that he sent to me was “terror on the baby monitor” – it’s pretty grue- some, inspired by his newborn. Joe Maggio’s is called Man on a Ledge; It starts off where a man is about to jump twenty stories to his death and we hear his story. It’s almost like a puzzle box unfolding over time; it changes your perspec- tive of what’s really happen- ing. – We have a very wide range of sensibilities on the show so each episode is going to be something very different.
Will the episodes be pro- duced in a manner faithful to Old-Time Radio or will the production be incorporating newer techniques? LF:We will be full stereo, that’s part of our excitement. I would like to believe we’re going to bring more than the occasional footsteps and creak of a door. We’re really going to embrace this opportunity to bring the audience into our worlds. The idea is that everybody brings whatever level of enthusiasm, whatever con- nections they have to this project. Some of the film- makers really want to explore the idea of on-site recording and I encourage that. Yes, it’s radio and we have obligations to tell our stories [in ways] that make sense audio-wise. [But] we’re all versed in how to go out on location to make a movie, so I think there’s some excitement there, and it may have a creative sense of spontaneity we haven’t come to expect from the radio experience.
GM: I think it’s going to be very personal because a lot of the scripts I read – I think I’ve read ten of them now – they are all quite different. What’s in- teresting about it is that each collaborator is bring- ing to the plate what they find interesting about the challenge. When I figured out that this was actually going ahead, I was delighted to get back into my story Trawler, because it’s dripping with atmos- phere and I wanted to have sound become a char- acter in the piece. And I’m not just talking about background sound. There’s going to be recurring audio motifs that, by the end of the piece, will mean something to the characters and the audience. It’s almost like painting a picture in a way, just with sounds.
Why do you think there’s an audience for audi- tory storytelling, with the radio play being very
much a thing of the past? LF: Everybody you see on the subway in New York City is connected to their iPods; they’re probably listening to music, but they may be listening to pod- casts, and if not that, then why not a half-hour radio show? We don’t set out with two years of market research, that’s not how we’ve done our projects, but there’s an intuition there and a sense of looking around at what other people are doing and enjoy- ing, and we feel there is a market.
GM: Basically, people that are just into hearing a good story and I think there’s a pretty big market out there for that.
Let’s talk about the website, because although this is an auditory medium, there will be a vi- sual representation for each tale. GM: It’s something I know that I would jump at [as a fan]. On top of that, we’re working with Gary Pullin. I’ve been a fan of Gary’s artwork ever since I knew about Rue Morgue many years ago, so there will be some tactile elements to the show whether it’s T-shirts or postcards and so on. It won’t just end with digital files.
Can we expect more seasons of Tales From Be- yond the Pale? LF: Our ambition is to keep doing this. We’ve talked to some real players in the industry who just think it’s a fun idea, and that’s the thing… to keep it fun. If it gets bogged down with the business side, it may all dry up and this will be a great effort and that will be it.
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