Interview: Kevin Colligan of Well Told Tales (part 3)

Kevin talks about golden age radio and the Well Told Tales and some of the behind the scenes work that goes on . . .

Has golden age radio had an influence on Well Told Tales?

Not directly. I love the relicradio.com podcasts, but I only started listening after I started up Well Told Tales.

As I mentioned, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents are big influences. I LOVED the movie Creepshow as a kid. And I used to buy Fangoria magazine even though I couldn’t sneak into all the horror movies they wrote about. (For years I was dying to see the movie “Motel Hell” because of the Fangoria cover with the pig-faced, chainsaw-wielding maniac — I just caught it on Netflix recently and suspect I would have liked it better when I was 10.)

So I pretty much missed out on OTR.

Oddly enough, when I was a kid, my mom worked for a company that sold old radio shows on cassette. If she brought her work home with her, I may have become a vintage radio connoisseur.

Is the typical the Well Told Tales listener familiar with such classic old-time radio as “The Shadow”, “Green Hornet”, etc . . . ?

A segment of the audience absolutely is familiar with these shows — I’ve heard from listeners in their 50’s and 60’s who tell me the show brings back memories of the radio shows they used to enjoy.

Another segment — the iPod generation — either has no clue or is just learning about these classic shows.

On a semi-related note, one of our readers will soon be recording some classic, public domain hardboiled stories which we’ll add into the Well Told Tales feed. I don’t know about the copyright status of these vintage recordings, but I’d love to add in some public domain pieces as well if I could.

How do you feel modern pulp (as in what Well Told Tales is doing) compares to vintage pulp?

Modern pulp is heavily influenced, obviously, by vintage material. But Well Told Tales, in particular, tries to bring a modern sensibility to our stories. Aside from some cases where language intentionally evokes the hardboiled patter of old, our tales don’t have the stodgy, dated feel some of the older pieces have. (I mean, I love the film “Touch of Evil,” but some parts of it — like Dennis Weaver’s “night man” — have not held up as well as others.)

Like classic pulp, our stories tend to be plot driven. The pace nowadays is sometimes faster, of course.

Also, we’re pretty open to foul language. Listeners know we are well-acquainted with the F-bomb. Honestly, it’s just the way people talk.

I think that’s probably true for most modern pulp. There might be a bit more humor in it as well.

What kind of technical resources are utilized by the voice actors, directors and production personal?

Every reader has their own set-up, so it varies. I used to use a simple USB microphone (Samson CO1U, costs about $75) hooked directly to my cheapie PC laptop to record stories and intros. For software, I used the free Audacity program.

Nowadays, I use the Zoom H2 Digital Recorder for my intros (which is a great little tool — I used it for audio on a short film, as well), and the higher-end Soundtrack Pro software (Apple-only) for audio editing. Soundtrack Pro is probably more than I need, but I have it on my MacBook Pro, so I use it.

I know a lot of people who use Apple’s Garage Band and love it, and there is nothing wrong with Audacity — a lot of big-time podcasters swear by it (it seemed to crash a lot on my Mac, so I lost patience with it.)

Some podcasters have fancy mixers, and high-end mics. Usually, those are the people with radio experience.

I tend to keep things as simple (and cheap) as possible.

Is there much direction given to the voice actors?

Usually, I know the voice actor’s style already via another podcast or a sample reading, so I know what I’m getting. Someone once said 90-percent of directing is in casting and there’s a lot of truth to that.

My standard direction is to (1) read a bit more slowly and (2) emote a bit more than feels natural — or even comfortable. Believe it or not, no one has ever given me a story that is read too slowly or with too much emotion.

Some actors want more direction, and I chime in with my thoughts on a per story/per character basis. I have also had the actors talk directly to the writers, since we like to stay true to the writer’s intentions.

How many man-hours go into a weekly 30 minute podcast? (Including voice actors, editing, finding it in the slush, etc.)

Honestly, I’m not sure. It’s hard to break down the work that goes into finding stories in the slush pile, tracking stories and replying to authors — which is by far the hardest part for someone who is not incredibly organized — by each 30-minute podcast.

When I recorded and edited every story myself, it took me a good eight hours per show. Now, the tasks are distributed, so a voice actor might take 90 minutes to three hours on their reading. My intros, basic editing and site updates take a couple hours.

I have two great submissions editors helping me get through the never-ending tower of stories — Randee Dawn and Dave Jones. They read most every story that comes in (sometimes, I’ll grab one or two and save them the trouble) so they’re committing several hours per week to the site.

Randee and Dave rate the stories as pass, consider or recommend. If either of them rates a story as consider or better, I give it a read and generally make the call then and there. Sometimes, though, I’ll ask for another opinion and do a bit of soul searching before deciding whether or not to run the story.

So between tracking stories and reading, it takes me several hours per week. The administrative stuff, like paying writers, sending rejections, is usually done in spurts — and not nearly timely enough. (Though I do try to make sure writers are paid before their stories run — and usually keep up with that.)

Join us next week for our final installment where Kevin talks about other podcasts, and tells us how lurid is too lurid.

Tags: AUDIO FICTION, awesomeman, fiction, interviews, pulp, Well Told Tales