Hi folks! It’s already been a week, but I’m back again with some more news from the world of We’re Alive. First, you may remember from last week that Kc will be at Austin Film Festival this weekend. If you are planning on attending, here are the details of Kc’s panel schedule with links for a little more information. And even if you won’t be able to make any of these panels, make sure to say hi to Kc if you see him out and about!
Kc’s Austin Film Festival Panelist Sessions
Saturday, October 28 – 2017
9:00am Podcast Track: How to Make a Podcast
(This is the big one, large presentation, so get up early!)
12:30pm Podcast Track: Mixer
2:45pm Podcast Track: Writing for Audio Fiction
4:30pm *Roundtable: The Art, Craft, and Business of Podcasting
Next, let’s congratulate Kc on his imminent book release! Over the years of working with audio entertainment and perfecting the production of “theater for the mind,” Kc found a lack of resources available on the creation of such projects. So, he decided to write the textbook on it himself!
Bombs Always Beep – Creating Modern Audio Theater is scheduled for release on Monday, October 30th as a celebration of “World Audio Drama Day.” I’ve personally read a bit of it, and I can confidently say that this is going to become a crucial resource for aspiring audio drama-ists, writers, podcasters, and really anyone remotely interested in audio production. If you’d like to receive updates in regard to the book’s release, head over to bombsalwaysbeep.com and sign up for email notifications. Regardless, congratulations and many thanks to Kc for sharing his expertise with the world!
My last bit of news that I’d like to touch on today (no, it’s not Goldrush…no updates yet!) is in regard to one of our newest projects, We’re Alive: Archive. Archive is a video and audio production which we started in conjunction with our Patreon. You may have seen our social media posts about live streams, asking for fan questions, and hyping up the special guests we’ve had on the show thus far. Based on that, you’ve probably assumed it’s a bit like Apartment 2C. There are indeed a few similarities, but I’d like to provide you a more formal answer to one of the most popular questions I’ve encountered on our social media profiles:
What Exactly is We’re Alive: Archive?
We’re Alive: Archive is an audio and video production in which Kc, a special guest from the cast, and our editing/production team sit down and listen to full chapters of We’re Alive, one by one. Last night for instance, Nate Geez/”Saul” was with us, and he and the crew listened through all of Chapter 5 “Lady and the Tink.”
As they listen, the crew discusses everything from the motivation of the characters to the logistics of zombie poop. Seriously, there was a 5 minute conversation last night solely about zombies and if/how they poop. This isn’t just your average director’s commentary! With frequent pauses throughout, the team takes their time talking about the series’ creation and reminiscing on being in the studio, sometimes even listening to some alternate takes.
Additionally, Graham Beightol (voice actor of Max in We’re Alive and Archive’s “Avatar of the People”) is listening to the series for the first time! It’s really exciting to hear him make predictions and figure things out along the way, and it’s actually quite interesting to hear his fresh perspective on the series. Sometimes, his intuition even leads Kc to confirm new information that he hasn’t revealed before.
Remember the zombie poop I mentioned? Yeah. That’s canon, guys.
It was exciting news to all of us in the live stream chat as we erupted with jokes and requests for more details from Kc. And the best part is, that wasn’t even the most shocking new information we learned about the We’re Alive universe last night….
After the crew finishes listening to the three parts of each chapter, they’ll dive into fan questions gathered from Patreon and across social media. Text questions are great, but we love video questions too, because then you’ll get to be a part of the show (we’ll play your video live during the stream)! And if you’re present for the live stream, you can feel free to ask away in the chat too, behind-the-camera producer Shanti Ryle is always standing by to make sure the crew hears from us.
And of course, no behind-the-scenes show would be complete without some bloopers. We make time for those too, and any other never-before-heard stuff the crew can dig up. But because this show is recorded live, spontaneous things can happen too (like zombie poop). This week, Nate and Kc played a fantastic game, which I’m hoping becomes a staple of every episode of Archive. Nate pulled a random chapter script of We’re Alive off of Kc’s shelf, and read a few lines of dialogue. The challenge for Kc was to guess which chapter’s script Nate held, based off those lines. Would you believe his guess was only one chapter off, and that the live stream chat guessed it before he did?
This is just a quick run-down of some of the happenings during a We’re Alive: Archive live stream recording session, and I hope it gives those of you who are curious a better idea of the project. But remember, it’s not just a live stream, Archive ends up becoming a podcast in the end! While the recording/live stream of each episode takes about three hours and covers an entire chapter, we split the audio episodes into three, for all three parts of the chapter. We then do a bit of editing and refining of the audio and add an intro, of course.
If you are interested in catching up on Archive, you can do so for just $1 through our Patreon. That will get you access to all of the past and future podcast episodes of Archive, with an easy RSS subscription feature.
To take part in the recording session live streams, that’s just a small upgrade to the $2 tier and that includes access to all of the podcast episodes too, also entry into a monthly merch raffle. If you’re curious about the details, take a look at patreon.waylandproductions.com , or feel free to leave us a comment.
Archive is very much a fan-inspired project. We wouldn’t be able to pull off all the things we do without your passion. The intimate, director’s commentary format is a fun way for Kc and the rest of the crew to geek-out over the story like we all do, and we hope you’ll check it out.
To sum up if you just scrolled to the end, We’re Alive: Archive has been providing some spectacular insight into Kc’s universe that he created, and has allowed us to catch up with old friends from the cast. And it’s a great time for us fans to enjoy speculating, reminiscing, and having public meltdowns because Kc mentioned the existence of vegetarian infecte–wait, forget I said that…