Illustration by Shaun Snow
As intriguing pitch letters go, Adam Baugher hit the mark when selling a story idea about A Beginner’s Guide to Interplanetary Destruction. Wrote Baugher, “It's a podcast, or an audio play to be more exact, and thematically it's a sci-fi comedy with notes of sword of sorcery.”
Well, then! Let’s talk!
The initial season’s run of ABGID has begun this week, with a February 1 “release” of the first episode. The very end of this round-robin interview tells you where you can listen to that show, as well as those upcoming. Between here and there, we get responses to all sorts of questions about the show’s genesis, production and marketing. The answers come compliments of four of the show’s five principal contributors: Baugher, William Mead, Ian McGowan and Daniel Williams. (Only missing here from the core group is talented voice actor and writer Todd Roth.)
Some 101-level questions to start. How did this collective come together?
Williams: Adam and I are co-workers, and had been kicking around the idea of a podcast for a few years. He had the basic idea of a sci-fi/fantasy adventure show, and podcasts are way cheaper to produce than live-action or animated shows. He's been longtime friends with Bill, and worked with Todd on the Comic Geeks web series. Ian and I have been longtime friends/bandmates. We're all nerds in some way, so it was pretty easy for everyone interested in the idea.
Baugher: Daniel and I discussed creating a radio drama back in 2009, but it wasn't until early 2013 that we decided to move forward with it. Daniel brought Ian into the fold, and I asked Todd and William to join us.
McGowan: We came together and started the project in June 2013, although both Daniel and I, and Bill and Adam, have known each other since our high school years.
Mead: Adam had mentioned to me a long time ago he had wanted to do a radio serial, maybe out of his romanticism for vintage gothic radio theater. I never heard much after that, then in June of 2013 he asked if I wanted to be a part of what is now Interplanetary. I believe Adam and Dan had discussed it on and off for a while and decided now was the right time to be able to focus and dedicate time to work on it. I'm just happy to be a part of it.
How was writing for the project handled? Who was involved, and for how long?
Baugher: The five of us started meeting once a week in June; our early gatherings consisted of fleshing out the characters and outlining the first six episodes. After those elements were in place, we wrote episodes 1 and 2 together, and then we split up the remaining adventures between us.
McGowan: All of us share writing responsibilities. Most of the time we'll divide the episodes up among ourselves (for example, Daniel and I wrote episodes 3 and 4, with Todd, Adam, and Bill writing episodes 5 and 6), although for the bigger episodes (1 and 2, 7, and 12 of season one) all five of us will write together.
How many episodes are scheduled? And how long, roughly, would a single 20-minute piece take to produce?
Williams: The seasons will be 12 episodes long. Overall, we're planning on 24-36 episodes. There's an epic mythology/back story that will be revealed at the end of season one/beginning of season two, and that might facilitate the need for 36, but we definitely don't want it to drag on. I can't even give you an accurate production timeline! We aren't experienced writers (and we were starting from scratch) so it took us a few months to write the first six episodes. We recorded all of the voices for episodes 1-6 in about 10 hours over three days. When I sit down to put the pieces of an episode together that takes about 22 hours.
Baugher: There are 12 episodes planned for season 1, and each episode takes over 40 hours to produce when you factor in our time spent writing, rehearsals, recording the actual episode, musical components, and the time Daniel spends engineering.
Perhaps this is most interesting to audio nerds, but talk about the production a bit. What types of mics were used? Recording software? And who handled the final sound 'n' feel of the episodes?
Williams: Eh, the mics and software aren't that interesting. Most of the work is done in an older version of Cubase, and some of the editing was done in ProTools. As far as mics are concerned, I used two Aventone CK-1s, a Blue Bluebird, a Shure SM-7b, a Shure SM-58, Electro-Voice PL-20, Behringer B1, an Oktava MK-319, aaaaaaand... one more I can't think of. So, basically whatever I had on hand. I do all of the audio work. The recording, editing, mixing all falls to me. After I've put an episode together, we all sit down and have a final listen-through.
Mead: Dan’s sound design is clean and well put-together. He brings a lot of depth to the production when you listen to it, especially when it's just people saying all the crazy dialogue we wrote.
How do podcasts like this find an audience?
McGowan: I think a podcast like this already has an audience; they just don't know it, yet. There's always a massive nerd population out there (of which we're included as writers/creators), so I think it just takes time to tell our friends and families about it. Also, stuff like this with stlmag.com goes a long way, too!
Williams: Excellent question! We have no idea. We're starting with [the] standards, though. Facebook and Twitter. Giving folks that we think would be interested sneak peeks. We're also reaching out to various "nerdy" communities like comic book shops, tabletop game nights, other podcasts, and hoping those that listen from the beginning like what we're doing, and share it with their friends.
Baugher: We have an uphill battle when it comes to introducing our show to a larger audience, but we're hoping positive word of mouth on Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, and YouTube will help us attract new listeners.
Mead: In my opinion, it's lots of marketing, lots of social media marketing and word-of-mouth. Creating excitement then delivering on that excitement, which I hope we do. Obviously I think we'll find our audience online, since it's a digital medium, but I think we've discussed spreading out some flyers/postcards to various places that would have a customer base who would be interested in our show. I think it'll be slightly more difficult than marketing for a web series or anything in the visual medium, but I also think at the same time it's easier for people to access. I see people shopping and listening to their iPhones/iPods all the time, so it's beneficial our content isn't just limited to a TV screen or computer monitor.
To what degree has this project been fun, as opposed to labor? Are there aspects that are purely enjoyment? Creating voices? Writing one-liners? Other elements?
Baugher: Getting together with the entire cast for rehearsals has been a great deal of fun. It's interesting to test the waters with those not involved in the writing process; their performances often elevate what we've written, so we're cracking up over lines that were written months prior.
Mead: The whole project has been fun for me, personally. I'm happy to have met Ian and Dan and gotten to know them and work with them. They're both very talented individuals. Dan's a great studio engineer/musician and Ian is a great musician/writer. Adam and Todd are both brilliant gentleman and hilarious to cap it off. I can't imagine how this wouldn't be fun for anyone. You get to hang out with friends, write some fun, bizarre and often times questionable dialogue, create a whole universe, develop crazy voices, and watch it all come together.
McGowan: Personally, and I imagine the other guys feel the same way, I don't think of this as laborious at all. Writing, voicing, producing, and in my case writing a lot of the music, is a blast. We seriously spend a great deal of time laughing our asses off, even if it's not all totally productive.
Williams: Honestly, this has been one of the most creatively fulfilling things I've ever done. It marries things I've been doing for years like playing/writing music, recording, and telling dick jokes with brand new ventures like writing and comedic performing. I put in a ton of hours, but I've enjoyed nearly every single one of them.
What are common influences within the group? Which is to ask: are there certain movies, comics, board games or other cultural touchstones that everyone can reference?
McGowan: It's cheesy, but I think we all just like a good story and witty writing. The other guys are waaaay more into comics and video games than I am, but I played D&D as a kid and Todd still does something similar. We all like Batman and Star Wars and Star Trek and Game of Thrones and things like that, plus Archer and Arrested Development and Community.
Williams: In general, I would definitely say Kevin Smith is influencing our dialogue and character interaction. We've also been trying to have fun with pop culture tropes. But more specifically there's Dungeons & Dragons (obviously), Blade Runner, old westerns, sci-fi and horror movies. We're all of a generation that has just consumed so much pop culture that it's all going to make it into the stories eventually. Right now we're working on pirates!
Mead: I think for the most part we all have similar interests. They all may not be exactly the same, but they come together well; it ends up being a great mix of cultural/pop-cultural knowledge to draw from for inspiration. Todd's our go-to-guy for D&D. Adam and Ian will pull great wisdom from the depth of their beards, and Dan seems to be a comic book savant.
Baugher: We tend to wear our influences on our sleeves, and they include table-top games like Pathfinder and Twilight Imperium; shows like Doctor Who, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Red Dwarf, and Sliders; movies like Conan the Barbarian, Indiana Jones, Goonies, and Clerks. All of us, to some degree, are interested in video games and graphic novels.
What's the best-case scenario for these pieces? For lack of a more-direct phrase, what do you want them to do?
Williams: I just want people to listen and enjoy the episodes. Share them with their friends. Then I want Adult Swim to pay us a huge sum of money to turn it into a badass cartoon. But for now, I'll settle for hanging out with my dude friends, making each other laugh, and writing these ridiculous stories.
Baugher: Listening to an episode of our show invites folks to take an active role in building the world that they're hearing, and we'd like the series to not only elicit laughs, but also trigger the parts of your intellect that are active while you're reading a good book. If we can manage that, along with a steady stream of dick and fart jokes, we'll be proud.
McGowan: I think the best-case scenario for something like this is to push narrative-based podcasting to another level, to more prominence. As far as we know, there are only a few things out there that are remotely similar. Most podcasts are just people interviewing each other, and although that's fine, I think it gets old. I know that we'd also totally like to get rich off this thing, because who wouldn't (an animated series, perchance?), but I think as long as we can show that podcasts are not equal to interviews all the time, we've done something worthwhile.
Mead: The goal is simple: A listener coming forward and saying they peed a little in their pants while enjoying a sci-fi adventure. Preferably this happens during their 9-to-5 job, and they have to use the bathroom hand dryer to erase any evidence of bladder leakage.
Anything I'm missing?
Williams: I don't know if you want to mention that Ian's band, Ian McGowan and the Good Deeds. Some of the [members of] Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and I performed the theme song (which was also composed by me and Ian), or that The Rats and People, Tok, Humdrum, and Tight Pants Syndrome have all contributed music to the show. And if other bands wanted to contribute, they should get in touch with us at harbingersofcalamity@gmail.com.
Mead: Local artist Shaun Snow has done most of the artwork for our website, and we've also had some art contributions for our show from our narrator Hams McChowin.
Episodes of A Beginner’s Guide to Interplanetary Destruction will be available through iTunes, and at harbingersofcalamity.com. For more info, go to facebook.com/interplanetarydestruction or twitter.com/CalamityCast.
