Earworm - A Ghostly Audio Drama Musical

Earworm - a ghostly audio drama musical

The Kickstarter for EARWORM is live!

A ghostly audio drama musical from Shadows at the Door featuring rap, hip hop, jazz and musical theatre, with the voice talents of David Ault, Professor Elemental, Ilana Charnelle, Erika Sanderson, Michelle Kelly, and Mark Nixon, with music by Tom Caruana.

Geoffrey Troughton can’t sleep. Music bleeds through the walls at all hours interrupting his paranormal studies. But something has crawled its way from the other side, a sinister earworm eager to sink its hook into the right host. As Geoffrey’s weary yet curious mind is hoisted into the darkness, will he surface from the shadows? Or will he be cursed to play second fiddle within his own soul? …And who will be next? 

So I see you all are exhausted by streaming services effectively recreating cable. I see you’re all tired of ads. Pirating is a great alternative, but I have another fantastic option for you all!

I live in Seattle. And in Seattle we have America’s largest physical media store, Scarecrow Video. They are a non-profit that has pretty much any film or tv show you can imagine. Like, everything. So much so that one of our local cinemas does a program with them called “Unstreamable” where they show a film from Scarecrow’a archive that you can’t access anywhere online. It’s a bit overwhelming to go to their store, which is two levels of every program under the sun.

ANYWAY, I bring this up because they recently started a Rent-by-Mail program. It’s pretty similar to what Netflix used to do. You can rent up to six titles (barring their super rare stuff and pornos) and they will ship it to you, then you return it in the included pre-paid envelope.

Why does this rock? Sure, you still have to pay money, BUT you are supporting a non-profit that is dedicated to preserving media instead of some corporation looking for endless profit. They can also expand your palette with their vast selection. And if you have a favorite piece of media, you never have to worry about it disappearing! All their stuff is there in perpetuity.

So this is all to say, now that Scarecrow has expanded their reach beyond the Greater Seattle Area, I implore you to check them out. If you don’t want to rent right now, the could always use donations to keep them afloat.

You can check out their catalogue HERE!

To get my upcoming audio drama I Need A Miracle off the page and into the airwaves, I decided against the indie production scramble where everyone donates their time, and against crowdfunding – and instead I basically sent the scripts to @wirelesstheatre and said "What'll it cost to make this happen?", then compared that number to my savings and said "Ok, let's do this".

(It was obviously more businesslike than that, but that was the basic maths of it on my side.)

Here's why I didn't do it those other ways this time:

Why not the indie production scramble?

Scraping it together on a shoestring. Buttonholing friends to perform, using whatever recording equipment I already have to hand, doing as much of the production as possible myself and begging favours for the parts I can't.

In some ways this would have been the easiest option. It doesn't rely on anyone else's approval, or involve putting any new infrastructure together.

But! For me, for I Need A Miracle specifically, this was the option of absolute last resort, for various reasons.

First and foremost, I already have one podcast (@merelyroleplayers) that I run on this basis. I already ask a lot of my friends to perform on that show for nothing, on the promise it'll be fun and I'll buy everyone a pint afterwards. I think you only get one of those, or you should only get one. If you run every project like this, especially if you're calling on the same people each time, it starts getting exploitative.

Second, I'm trying not to exploit myself either, by which I mean, I've put work into writing this series (admittedly on spec), I think it's worthwhile, and I'd like to see if I can make some money in return for that work. And if one person involved in a project is getting paid, everyone should be getting paid.

Why not crowdfund?

There are sub-options within this option: subscriptions and patronage-style funding (like Patreon, Ko-Fi or Gumroad) and up-front project-based funding (like Kickstarter, Indiegogo or Seed & Spark).

I actually have been weighing up the idea of a Patreon or Ko-Fi for a while, not for I Need A Miracle specifically, but for @foggyoutline in general. At the beginning it would effectively be a Merely Roleplayers subscription, because that's currently the only Foggy Outline show. But if enough people pay a bit a month for bonuses like uncut episodes, that could help fund new projects like I Need A Miracle, which could bring in more listeners and more patrons, whose contributions could help fund the next thing, and so on.

But the problem I would have with any kind of crowdfunding model is, right now I'm only pulling a small crowd! I'm an unknown writer, Foggy Outline is an unknown player at least in audio drama. And it seems like to succeed with a crowdfunding campaign, you really need your audience already built and poised to give you money.

If I Need A Miracle takes off and finds its audience, the kudos off that might make crowdfunding an option for the next thing. But I just wasn't confident it would succeed for this show, at least without a load of spend on a consultant and advertising (which then eats into the campaign proceeds).

So go on then, where is the money actually coming from

Me! Supplemented by my Foggy Outline business partners, who are also my Mum and Dad. But the majority of the production costs for I Need A Miracle are coming out of my savings.

This is one of the reasons I prioritised I Need A Miracle over other audio drama projects I'm working on: because it's simple enough that I felt confident I could cover the costs myself if I needed to. There's no dialogue (only monologues), so it's not a complex edit. Most of the episodes take place in one location, with little action beyond the character speaking, so it doesn't call for elaborate sound design. All the episodes are under 20 minutes. For a more complicated production, I would have had to bring in some funding from somewhere, or convinced a producer to take on the production costs themselves. This one was, to some extent, designed (by me) to be more affordable.

It's worth saying that getting started wasn't just a case of getting a quote from Wireless and agreeing to pay it. Producer Sarah Golding read the scripts and wouldn't have taken on the project if she didn't think it was worthwhile. So it's not pure pay-for-play.

So the plan now is:

Sell ads and subscriptions and see how much of the production cost I can get back that way after the fact (I expect not all of it, but that's ok, because...)

Also think of that money I've spent as an investment in both this and future projects – by spending money on an amazing production company that's making the show brilliant, I'm getting something that's hopefully going to make this whole process easier next time. Because next time I can point to Wireless' confidence in my writing, and the quality of I Need A Miracle, (and hopefully its success and acclaim and awards and all its fans), to get someone else to put their hand in their pocket instead, whether that's listeners, producers or sponsors.

What if this bird painted frescoes and was the biggest snob in fantasyland

Opening this July in the Studio

An odyssey in 5 acts

Natalie Winter takes the throne as the Goblin Queen

With Ellie Pitkin as Sir Barold von Branwick, a Knight of Yore

Helen as Linda, a horned beast

Strat as Winkle, a worm and Knight-Aspirant

And @merelymatt as Gundle, some kind of messed up looking bird muppet

Playing Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: The Adventure Game by Ben Milton (adventure) and Jack Caesar (rules), published by River Horse

Even Jareth can't wait!

bear witness. to my ascension - and my victory

genuinely what is the reason for the internet becoming so prudish?? who can i fight about this