Archive 81

[olivermoss]

Hey, one of the many audiodramas optioned for a show actually became a show! I was looking stuff up and saw that the Limetown show did actually happen, on Facebook Watch? What even was that? I didn't realize that the Limetown show even happened. I think a lot of people forget that it did.

A bunch of audiodramas getting optioned really messed up the scene and possibly derailed a lot of interest in the format. Optioned shows often stopped making new eps, but the shows also never happened. Also, once a few got optioned a bunch of suspiciously well produced audio dramas popped, only to go one season. Then the same creators would make a new show, that would also go one season. It's like a bunch of aspiring writers saw audiodramas as a path to get their idea picked up as a TV show and made a bunch of them without ever intending to continue.

Anyway, I started the Archive 81 podcast when it was on. I didn't keep up with it. I found a lot of things about it very stilted. The need for the plot to go a certain way ran roughshod over characters making reasonable life choices. The show has the same problem, but I will keep watching. It's beautifully shot. It's got a lot that audio drama feel, complete with fake commercials.

Also, it's about found media. A lot of people find found media to be a compelling story idea, but while the aesthetic draws people in those stories don't seem to deliver on the mystery with a solid plot / ending. I want to figure out how to do a found media story, or rather I want to figure out how I'd want to do a found media story. What sort of reveal would I find satisfying?

I did relisten to The Black Tapes a bit recently. I did so to analyze it. But honestly the writing is so contrived that my only take away is that people find found media to be really, really compelling. How do they hold back info on TBT to keep the listeners on the edge of their seats? By literally saying 'I'll tell you the rest later'. They start to explain something, stop just before the juicy bit, promise to explain and then never do. Honestly, going back to it I was scratching my head trying figure out how I got so into it.

tl:dr - there is something to audiodramas about found physical media and/or the paranormal that is compelling, but it's like no one's figured out how to put the pieces together yet. I want to take my own swing at it at some point.

Comments

[shipperslist]

I only found out about this yesterday when my friend sent me the Netflix link. Now, I absolutely love Archive 81, with all its stilted, body-mutilated horror. I have no idea how they’re going to do the following seasons (if they get the chance in the first place, I mean) but I’m extremely curious about this and will definitely watch.

Btw, I learned about the Limetown show some while back when I looked for info of a potential S2.

On other shows, Sarah Rhea Werner said Girl in Space had been quiet because of potentially being made into a show and ten it fell through. I’ve been following her since ep1 and am her Patron so I know the silence on the podcast feed isn’t just bc of the TV-show thing but I can only imagine how exhausting it must be and how disappointed the creators must feel when all that hard work turns out to be for nothing.

I’m not even going to start on Terry Miles. 😑

But if you want to take a look at some different found footage stuff, have you checked out Within the Wires? (And if you’re interested in more, I can rec stuff later when I’m not on my phone.)

[olivermoss]

Oh C'mon... start on Terry Miles :) I'm one of the idiots he got to crowdfund his projects.

I'm kidding... mostly. I've decided to chalk up most of the TBT and Tanis BS to him being bad at math / easily overwhelmed / something else sympathetic. How Paul Bae managed to parlay pissing off his audience royally and permanently into having his own TV show I will never fucking know.

Let me know what you think of the Netflix Archive 81 when you get a chance. It really is gorgeously filmed.

I'll check out Within the Wires. The only audiodrama I am currently following Malevolent, but I am a bit behind in it. That show deals with needing to describe surroundings in an interesting way.

I'll gladly take reccs. I may have already checked whatever show out, but if I haven't I'll always take a look at stuff.

[shipperslist]

*AHEM*

I wrote a bit about him a couple of years ago. And I'm so sorry about your wasted money. I have no clue how he's managed to gather so devoted followers but... *shrug*

I have a rec list here if you want to take a peek but I can come back to this later after doing some digging.

[olivermoss]

Remember when the PNWS guys thought that fan art of their shows was a gift to them and they could use it for promotional materials? Without even giving credit? Ah, good times.

[shipperslist]

They did WHAT

[olivermoss]

You weren't around for that? It was done by the official accounts so I don't know if it was Terry or Paul, but they did a big PR push one day and used fan art to do it. The explanation was that they thought that art were 'gifts' to them, they hadn't kept track of who had don't what and it wasn't 'reasonable' to track down the original posts.

They couldn't keep track of a lot of things, like who they owed kickstarter or patreon rewards too. It was too much of a mess and waste of their time when they could be working on the podcast. Also, when we hit the crowdfunding goal for for TBT, we were told we hadn't.

The worst part is that I was late to the party. When I supported them, I had people message me saying not to because they'd pulled so much BS with crowdfunding, broken so many promised and treated backers horribly. I don't even know the whole of it. I just stupidly backed them anyway.

[shipperslist]

That's so fucked up. Holy shit.

I've only started supporting creators via Patreon a couple of years ago... I don't remember if Girl in Space or Fool And Scholar (The White Vault creators) that I supported first but I remember I checked out Tanis's Patron site out of curiosity and dropped my jaw when I saw they got like $7K per month. They hid the sum a short while after that, I think.

[olivermoss]

Was that amount recent? WTF... I know they drove off thousands of past backers and permanently burnt them, only to find more? Every time I seen Tanis even mentioned in AD spaces, it's to make fun of it.

Wow, I mean... they got hustle I'll give them that. It sounds like the novel is Rabbits is actually a complete story that got on some recc lists. He managed to get people to underwrite his endless wips until he got a finished product.

[shipperslist]

That was some years ago. I checked and their front page says they’re ”70% to the next goal” and ”if we make it to $5000 there will definitely be Season three of Tanis.” In reality, Tanis is in S5 atm so the Patreon is nowhere near up to date.

[olivermoss]

Ah, so that was around the time that we were explaining to them that we had hit goals and were getting rants in response.

Yeah, it was a mess.

Again, I've decided to assume it was them being overwhelmed or bad at budgets, but a lot of these messes really kneecapped an up and coming scene. My Patreon and KS passwords are references to PNWS to remind myself to be more skeptical.

[shipperslist]

What an excellent password rule! 😁

[mistressofmuses]

I love found media as a trope/theme/plot device, but agreed that a lot of times the frame story winds up not quite delivering exactly what I'm hoping for out of it.

(I definitely want to watch Archive 81, but haven't ever listened to the podcast.)

It is a shame that people seem to have started using audiodramas as like... an attempted TV pitch. I honestly haven't listened to very many (too many on my to-listen list...) but I remember reading that complaint before. That too many people started creating audiodramas when it was clear that wasn't the medium they actually wanted to be in, and that's frustrating.

I also never listened to The Black Tapes, but I am... very unfond of that particular device - the "we'll tell you later~" "jk, never telling you" format. I'm okay with cliffhangers, or missing info that IS later revealed, or an ongoing mystery where I do want to find out what happens next... but it has to deliver on that!

When you do take your own swing at it, I'll be very interested in what you do with it!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, people just saw a 'path less taken' to pitching a show and all ran at it. Some people even got actors like Lee Pace to do voice work for them. Some people were pretty blunt that they had no interest in doing anything but a short first season before moving on to the next idea they'd be a short first season of.

Found media is a lot like the paranormal genre, it's easy to set up a compelling mystery but hard to pay that mystery off. Some people set them up never intending there to be a payoff. I hope I figure it out, to me the main question has always been 'what would I find satisfying?'

[mistressofmuses]

I do remember what felt like a sudden trend in the ads for new podcasts (usually airing on episodes of the handful of podcasts I was listening to) having well-known actors doing voice roles.

I'm a fan of people telling the stories they want to tell, so if they really just want to do one season of a show, power to them... but idk, not my thing if those stories are being left incomplete by design.

Also no shame in hoping your story gets optioned for TV, just like no shame in a book being turned into a show or a movie. (Even if adaptations themselves are very hit or miss.) But it feels cynical and cash-grabby to make something in one medium with the SOLE intent that you really want it to be adapted as something else.
I guess that's the capitalism, but there's a sad little part of me that still wants there to be artistic integrity, lol.

It's always hard to set up a satisfying payoff to a mystery. Part of the joy of a mystery is being surprised, but also having it well-supported in the end. And that can be a difficult balance. (Personally, I'd rather guess a twist or the ending rather than have the ending be surprising only because it came out of nowhere.)

[olivermoss]

When I rewatched Season 1 of Dexter I remembered that I guessed a few things early. A mystery being guessable doesn't mean there is no tension. When will the idiot main character realize? How will things play out? Still lots of tension.

It's also easier to set up a creepy aesthetic than to make a satisfying ending, especially since paranormal endings are statements about how the world works in the story and reflect moral and other ideas on behalf of the writer.

Yeah, I got very into audiodramas for a while, but the scene become a mess. Lots of shows ended on cliffhangers. Lots of the people involved didn't really want to be doing the podcast format.

Things might be better now, but the AD scene is tricky to navigate and lots of fans are way too over-eager to pimp people into their shows even if it's the opposite of what's being asked for. I loved Victoriocity and would support a 3rd season. Malevolent is interesting, but I am not fully caught up in it.

ADs could be such a happy medium between books and TV, since they cost way less to make than a show and can target more niche audiences. But most of the time I try to get back into ADs it doesn't go well.

[mistressofmuses]

Same! Realizing the ultimate twist or ending doesn't sink my enjoyment - instead I enjoy putting the pieces together and seeing how the characters figure it out. (Exception being when it's something that feels painfully obvious, and the plot gets stupidly convoluted to try and keep the characters from finding it out... but that's bad writing, not just a twist I saw coming.) It's the same way that I can still feel tension and want to see how something works out even if I know the story broadly will end well. I may know that the main character of an ongoing series is going to pull through... but I can still want to know HOW they get out of the danger they're in.

Very true. Part of the creepy aesthetic IS the mystery - that unsettling feeling of not knowing what something means, of having the creepy thing be just out of sight, of not understanding why something is happening... So actually SOLVING that mystery can kind of wreck the vibe, if most of the tension came from a fear of the unknown. I think it's a really tricky thing to pull off, to find an answer to your mystery that is just as creepy as the mystery itself.

To me that's one of the most frustrating things - when the people involved don't want to use the format they've explicitly chosen to use. It's different if a creator discovers after giving it a go that they don't actually enjoy it. But people who straight up don't like the format, but use it because they think they can get something out of it... rubs me the wrong way. I feel like it's sort of insulting to the audience they're counting on finding. And again, feels cynical in a way that like... morally offends me, lol.

Ugh, I have absolutely noticed the over-eager fan thing. I'm in a Magnus Archives fangroup on FB, and there are several posts a week asking for recs of different ADs to listen to. Sometimes people will straight up say "please don't suggest XYZ; I didn't care for it" and there will still be four or five "give XYZ another listen because it's so great! Maybe you just didn't get it!"
Or "please only suggest things that are completed, or at least have a concluded arc" and then every suggestion is "well, this one is just halfway through the first season, but I really like it!" or "this one ended on a cliffhanger, but..."

They really should bridge that gap super well! You can do things in an AD that you can't in books or TV. No limitations of visual effects or set... but also the chance to utilize a cast of whatever size you'd like, in a serial format.
I need to go back to the ADs I was enjoying, and then maybe branch out to a few more. There are some I've heard good things about, but... ugh, I never feel like I have *time*.

[olivermoss]

How to solve the mystery and not wreck the vibe is not something the genre has figured out yet. The solve can have so many implications about what the author thinks about religion, the true nature of the universe, which culture's myths are correct, etc. The aesthetic has universal appeal. The solve has niche appeal. That is why I focus so much on what I might find to be an interesting solve. Since I'd be the one writing it, I'd need to be the one selling it as interesting. Also, what I find creepy or not will set up certain vibes and the ending has to go with that. So I feel like making it work needs to be a very personal thing. That is my working theory at least.

Someone making an AD wiki refused to list whichever AD it was that has Lee Pace in it because they 'obviously didn't want to be making an AD'. I got in trouble for even reccing it because, well, I like Lee Pace. He's Thranduil! But the wiki creator did have a point. It was a project clearly meant to be bait for TV execs.

Oh, yeah, you've dealt with how over-eager the AD fans can be. I've had people tear into me for pointing out that TBT isn't completed. If the reccing scene didn't suck so much I might be into more ADs. Ironically them being so over-eager drives me and a lot of people off.

You are too busy posting amazing word counts to spent time on ADs :) I like to listen while gaming or cleaning. I can't listen to an AD while out on a walk. A lot of people do, but that doesn't work for me. Maybe if I had really aggressive noise cancelling headphones, but, oh well.

[mistressofmuses]

Definite agreement. Even thinking about things outside of the AD format, you get stuff like Lost or X-Files that do a lot of great story and mystery setup, set up rising stakes... but wind up feeling like let-downs once they try to answer it all.
And I think you get it exactly - the general creepy vibe has a way wider appeal than any of the routes that solve it or tie it all together. But I don't think it's impossible to have a satisfying ending by any stretch... but starting from a point where you know what you're building to, and doing the work to keep the interest of the audience, and set up the solution as something that flows naturally from the work itself and builds on the right themes... those are all important things that not every show manages.

I like Lee Pace, too! But I do kind of understand the wiki creator's point, and not wanting to acknowledge or reward that type of thing. (Though I'd personally be torn - it IS an AD, even if it's a cynical TV-bait AD, so it seems fair to list it if you're allegedly putting together a wiki devoted to ADs.)

The over-exuberance of some fans definitely gives me more hype-aversion than desire to listen to whatever they're trying to promote!

I wish I was better able to multitask! I usually need background noise while I do other things, but if I get interested in listening, then I don't get my other stuff done. Or if I focus on the task at hand, I miss things happening in what I'm listening to. Cleaning is a good time for it, but I always think about it too late, haha.
I think I'd get too distracted trying to listen while on a walk, too.

[olivermoss]

X Files also had to deal with not knowing how long the story would run. At a few points it could have had an 'alien are real' or 'aliens are a distraction from shady US Government stuff' endings a few times, but then they kept not being able to do the endings because the renewals marched on. I actually kept on top of all of that plot threads for way too long.

Yeah, I think a creepy paranormal or found media story needs to have the ending vibe with the flavor of the story from the start. Even small details like whether the protag's house was the same as the others on the street or in a contrasting style, all those things need to thematically build. Even choices made by the writer unconsciously.

Multitasking can be draining, tho! I need to do something when listening to audiobooks or ADs, though.

[mistressofmuses]

That is a definite factor with X-Files. (And I *loved* X-Files, and still honestly do, even with some of the iffy directions it later went in.) I think that ties to a different issue with ongoing series, which is another thing that ADs can avoid: Knowing how long the story will be, and ending it there. Not worrying about "is another season going to be ordered, in which case we have to keep upping the stakes to an almost comical level" or "is this show going to be cancelled before we reach the end we want, thereby never solving the overarching mystery."

So with an AD, and especially one that features found media/paranormal aspects, knowing your end *should* impact the whole story. Knowing what you're building toward is going to make the whole thing stronger, rather than trying to figure it out as you go.

Yeah, I struggle with finding things that give me the *right* amount of multitasking. Sometimes I read transcripts along with what I'm listening to, just so my mind doesn't wander. But anything I do decide to do has to be pretty repetitive or simple so that I don't switch focus and miss stuff!

[olivermoss]

I loved X Files. Just don't talk to me about the revival seasons they did later on.

One advantages of ADs is that with the lower production commitments, you can make a story as long or as short as it needs to be. You don't have quite the same flexibility as text works like a book series, but there is a lot. That's a huge advantage to stories that do poorly with filler or lettings the plotlines get more complicated to suit a typical season order. Mysteries, paranormal, found footage, etc all really need to let the length suit the story.

Constantly upping the stakes gets so annoying. I am so done with paranormal stuff just not finishing or collapsing under the weight of bad story decisions.

[mistressofmuses]

Oh, the revival seasons. Oh... the revival seasons...

I think that is a definite strength of ADs that not everyone has taken advantage of. If you pre-plan (which I think you very much should), so that you know what ending you're working toward, you can also plan out what smaller "season finale" type things you want (unless you intend it to be a single season.) You have flexibility in the length, and where to stop, and when to actually *reach the end*. You don't have to do filler episodes, you don't have to overcomplicate things just to hit an episode count. While you do have to figure out a length and a production schedule, and a consistent release schedule as well, you have a lot more control!

I hate the constant upping the stakes. Dragonball Z was maybe one of the most classic examples that was popular when I was younger, but it just got plain *silly* with how dramatically worse they had to make the villains each season, and what new omg-never-before-conceived-of powers the heroes would have to master... When that's your formula, I don't think there's a way for it NOT to start feeling silly after a while.
Supernatural seemed to do a similar thing with the ever-rising stakes, though I didn't watch past the second season, so my knowledge comes from the background radiation on tumblr, lol.

Bad story decisions absolutely crush a lot of paranormal stuff. Whether it's just an unwillingness to let a story end when it should, or that desire to just "make it bigger" or "more complicated equals better, right?" ...ugh, no thanks.

[olivermoss]

The main structural thing ADs need to deal with is that 45 minute long episodes seems to be a real sweet spot for people. 30 mins is too short to really get into things. A hour is just a bit too much. Mini-sodes can be very compelling in the right hands, but for the most part that seems to be a really solid length.

I didn't watch DBZ, but I did watch Bleach. Bleach when nuts with the stakes as well.

The background radiation of SPN in inescapable. I still like the early seasons, but the show got derailed hard. Some of the story choices just ... no.

The problem is if an IP makes money it must be flogged to death, or beyond in SPN's case. Some stories need to end. Moonlighting-style will they wont theys can take a lot of filler and renewals. Paranormal / mystery / puzzle shows are just shredded by that.

[mistressofmuses]

I would agree on the 45 minute episode length being ideal. 30 minutes is definitely too short for anything plotty, and an hour can drag. (Sometimes a longer episode can work, but not as the standard runtime.)

Oh yeah. Pretty much any shonen series that ran for long enough were prone to it. I was very into InuYasha when I was in high school, and it got frankly SILLY with the new powers and weapon upgrades and stuff.

Yeah, I only saw a couple seasons, and I genuinely enjoyed the early stuff... but then I kinda lost track and by the time I considered trying to get back to it, all the plot bits I heard about were just... ugh. No thanks.

That's definitely one of the downfalls *especially* of network television. Arguably long-running book series, to an extent, if a publisher wants to order x number more in a series, but at least there's more control by the original author, with fairly few exceptions. Those exceptions... mostly being when it's an IP that is owned by a company rather than the author.
Not to be all "capitalism is the death of art" but sometimes capitalism is the death of art, lol.

Will they-won't theys and episodic procedurals can absolutely deal with a fair number of new renewals and some filler in between big plotlines (though sometimes procedural shows suffer from the "rising stakes" issue too, getting too over the top for a bigger badder case). But when it comes to paranormal stuff? It's very hard to credibly one-up a previous "conclusion" without getting silly. (Unless it was written that way from the start, and the initial mystery intentionally leading to a greater one.)