My interview with Dread Falls Theatre
Father Dagon is a serial fiction podcast based on the works of famous weird fiction author, HP Lovecraft.
Written by Victoria Snaith, produced by Dread Falls Theatre, and original soundtrack by Seesar.
Season One consists of six episodes which are released twice monthly, debuting Monday 3rd April 2017.
What are the 3 best things about working in Dread Falls Theatre?
I founded Dread Falls Theatre in 2011 as a touring theatre company. At the time of creation I had no intention of moving into digital media, but since creating the company six years ago I have been fortunate enough to create full scale shows, cabarets, walkabouts, music videos, and now a podcast. That would have to be my number one best thing about working with DFT; the chance to explore and experiment with an array of storytelling mediums.
The second best thing about working in DFT is knowing our work has influenced and touched people. Although our work is innovative and pushes boundaries; people respond positively to our work and we have developed a core group of loyal fans.
The third best thing about working with DFT is my team. Over the last six years I have built a strong and reliable team, and I look forward to working with them again and again on new projects.
What is your favorite thing about being a podcaster according to you?
This question is an interesting one because I don’t consider myself to be a “podcaster”. I always associate that term with the traditional, interview format of podcasting, i.e. the host of an interview based podcast would be a podcaster. I consider myself to be an artist/writer/director who is using podcasts as a way to tell a story. The reason I enjoy using podcasts for storytelling is because of it’s accessibility. Podcasts are accessible to so many more people than an audiobook or a radio play. Audiobooks cost money whilst podcasts do not. Radio plays may be recorded or live, but they often not available once transmission has ended; with podcasts however, the listener can download the episode and save it for later.
How did you stumble into the world of podcasting?
About five years ago an old school friend started a gaming podcast called Game Over Yeah. It is a traditional podcast in terms of formatting; one or two hosts interview someone and discuss a topic. The podcast was good, and it’s still going, but I stopped listening after a few episodes because the interview/biographical element isn’t my genre.
It wasn’t until relatively recently that I heard my first audio drama podcast, Alice Isn’t Dead by Night Vale Presents. I am a big fan of audio books and radio plays, but I had no idea that podcasting was moving into this area. I stumbled upon Alice Isn’t Dead when I signed up to Spotify and checked out the Podcasts section. I was astounded! A whole new world of storytelling was open to me, and it was from that moment that the seed for Father Dagon was planted.
What was the first podcast you listened to?
The first podcast to which I listened was a small gaming podcast called Game Over Yeah, started by an old school friend. The first audio drama podcast to which I listened was Alice Isn’t Dead by Night Vale Presents.
What is your writing process?
Father Dagon started it’s life as an immersive theatre play. It was multi-disciplinary but leaned heavily towards visual and physical storytelling. Choosing to make such a visual show into a podcast was, at first, a daunting task. Would the stories we told with movement be adaptable to spoken word?
The process of adapting the live show began with practical decisions, most of which were informed by the format of the podcast; writing a script for 6 x 15 minute episodes calls for a different approach than a stage play with two 50 minute acts and an interval, or writing an immersive show with no interval and multiple storylines.
Once I decided on the format of six episodes I was in a position to start adapting the story from the live show. Although the live show, as I mentioned earlier, was told through physicality, each of the characters had a written backstory. These backstories were unreleased to the public, they were purely for my actors, and were created to help them get into the minds of the characters. Actors love a backstory, they love motive, and telling a story through the medium of movement was often challenging for them; they needed something more concrete to aid them in their character development, hence the written backstories.
These backstories were what I used to create the podcast script. The original backstories looked at how the characters came to be in Innsmouth (the town in which the live show was set) and where the backstory ended was where the live show began. This gave me a great advantage when starting the adaption process; almost immediately I had six episodes, all with their own self-contained story but headed towards a converging storyline.
In the final stages of the script, once I was comfortable with the stories, I went back and look at the format of the individual episodes, as opposed to the format of the podcast as a whole. I decided on what I wanted to say in the opening and closing credits and when the podcast “jingle” would play. Once I had revisited these elements the script was complete.
What was the inspiration for Dread Falls Theatre?
In 2011 I created a one woman show. I presented this show as a play written by Victoria Snaith, no affiliation to a particular company. After the run was finished my dreams of becoming a theatre director were solidified, but I has no idea what to do next.
A week or so later luck would have it that I saw a production company advertising for cabaret acts. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I emailed the company and told them all about this cabaret act I could perform. The only problem was, I didn’t have ANYTHING. The company agreed to hire me for the show which was in four weeks. All of a sudden I found myself in this position of needing other performers, music, public liability insurance and a company name. I didn’t have much time to consider what to call myself, and I certainly didn’t think the name would be around six years later, so I chose the name Dread Falls Theatre.
Dread Falls Theatre is a play on words combining the Victorian pulp fiction known as “penny dreadfuls” and a type of hair worn by goths, who were the main audience at the cabaret at which I was performing. I wanted something that would stick in their minds and by instantly recognizable to them. Six years later the name as stuck!
What do you like about audio drama as a medium?
I like that there is no where to hide in audio drama, which might sound strange considering it’s a medium where the audience cannot see you. In film, television, and theatre your actors can hide behind the facial expressions and gestures that they make. In audio drama, if you are a bad actor, there is no way to disguise it. In this way, audio drama is an amazing medium for storytelling.
How does getting the script made into an actual audio drama work?
Once the script for season one was written I sent it to my voice actors and Seesar (my sound designer and musician forFather Dagon and Dread Falls Theatre). Each voice actor visited me individually for recording, even in episodes where characters speak to one another, everyone was recorded separately.
Once the recording is complete, the raw audio is sent to Seesar who makes some edits to improve the sound quality. After that, he and I will discuss the music. Once the music is complete, everything is put together, the tracks are mastered and they are ready to be uploaded.
How do you go about getting others involved? Particularly if they’re far away?
I have been extremely lucky when it comes to casting voice actors for the podcast; most the actors from the original play were available to voice the characters they originally played. This gave many of them great joy; being able to revisit these characters from years before. In the case of Katheryn Brown, her character of Ruth had no lines in the original show, she communicated with the audience purely through movement. Katheryn was delighted to finally give Ruth a voice.
Could you tell us a bit about the process to turn a script into a finished audio drama. Which part do you enjoy the most?
The process of getting Father Dagon from script to finished piece is a longer and more in depth process than the average podcast; this is partly due to the nature of the music in the show.
The raw audio voice recording is given to Seesar, our featured musician, along with the script. His first job is to edit the voice recordings. Each episode has between two and four takes. Seesar and I will listen to each of them and piece together the best parts from each take to create the perfect delivery of the lines. After this, Seesar tweaks the raw audio to make sure there are no clicks, pops or other imperfections.
After this stage, I take a step back and let Seesar work on the music. Seesar describes his music as “…dark ambient soundscapes… by performing on percussion from around the world using traditional and extended techniques, turning household items into musical instruments, and building new noise-making devices to generate unique sounds.” In laymen’s terms, Seesar makes music out random objects. These sounds are manipulated through audio editing software, and music is constructed with the sound files.
Each episode’s soundtrack is meticulously composed, with Seesar often recording new sounds for each episode. The music alone can take up to ten hours for one episode!
Once Seesar is finished with the music he sends the episode to me for feedback and corrections. This is my favourite part of the whole process. Aside from minor changes, the episode is complete at this point, and it is the first time in the whole process that I am able to hear our work hard come together.
You can listen to Father Dagon here: www.dreadfallstheatre.com/podcasts
You can donate to the podcast here: www.patreon.com/dreadfallstheatre
