BATHING IN COCOA - INTERVIEW WITH POD-UK-CAST
Find it here: https://www.rocksaltevents.com/podcast
NOTE: Doublings and stutters are cut to make this transcript easier to read.
PIP
Hello dear Amelia listeners, I have some exciting news. The Amelia project is returning on the 21st of September 2020. Season Three will be divided into two parts. The first part will run September to December, and we're still raising funds to make the second part. If you'd like to help us with that you can become a patron and make a small donation per episode. If you become a patron before September, you will be able to listen to the season three prologue before everybody else, and you can join us for a digital Season Three launch party on zoom on Sunday, the 20th of September. If you'd like to do that, go to patreon.com/amelia podcast that's pa t ar e o n.com/amilia podcast. Season three will pick up exactly where Season Two left off. So if you want to get ready for the launch, this would be an excellent time to re-binge season two. What you're about to hear is a behind the scenes discussion. A Stein and I had for podUKcast last year before season two was released. So this is a little throwback of sorts, but hopefully it will give you a little insight into the making of the show and get you back in the Amelia mood. Right. Hope you enjoy this chat and we can't wait to be back with brand new content very soon.
JESS
Hello, and welcome to the pod UK Podcast. I'm Jess.
CHRIS
And I'm Chris.
JESS
And today we've got the creators of the fantastic Amelia project joining us. Hi guys.
PIP
Hello. It's an honour to be with you. Thank you so much.
JESS
Oh, no worries. Thank you for joining us. We can't wait to talk all things Amelia Project with you. If you guys just want to introduce yourselves for our listeners.
PIP
Yep, sure. So I'm Philip. Most people call me Pip. And I'm co creator and CO writer of the Amelia project.
ØYSTEIN
And my name is Oystein and I am the other co creator of the Amelia project.
JESS
Now I just want to jump right in and ask you guys, the Amelia project. Where does Amelia come from?
PIP
Gosh, I think you've just started with a question that we can't answer already.
(LAUGHTER)
Let's put it another way. Why do you think it's called the Amelia project to you?
CHRIS
I immediately think of Amelia Earhart, when I hear the word.
PIP
A very good very good yes, I think that's probably what most people think or at least in the US that's what everyone sort of immediately thinks of. But I think we can't really go into much more detail than that. Can we? Oystein?
ØYSTEIN
I don't think we should, no.
PIP
Yeah, for four reasons that will become obvious as we progress in the series.
JESS
Wow, I started on a strong one there. All right, let's jump back a little bit. Let's let's go from
PIP
We'll try and be more forthcoming with other answers.
JESS
it would be quite fitting wouldn't if every question was just like nope, classified can’t answer that-
PIP
That would be you know, Amelia is all about the secrets, so.
ØYSTEIN
All about the secrets
JESS
Exactly, exactly. Let's try one that you maybe can answer. Tell us about the inception of the Amelia project. How did this all come about
PIP
That I can definitely tell you about.
JESS
Fantastic
PIP
So it all started when some cocoa lobbyists thought to themselves, how can we increase the international popularity of hot chocolate? So they put out a call offering a ton of money and we came up with this idea of a podcast that was on the surface about an agency that makes people disappear and that lets them reappear with a new identity. But in actual fact, is a cocoa commercial. So they paid us very handsomely, that's how Oystein and I both could afford our swimming pools, which we fill with cocoa, obviously. And yeah, and so that's what led to the podcast.
JESS
So you guys must be full of chocolate all the time if you're just swimming in these cocoa swimming-pools
ØYSTEIN
Well, you know, my wife's not too happy about it, but I like it.
PIP
Oystein, do you want to give a serious answer?
ØYSTEIN
I think there was such a genius answer that I don't really. But I will. The truth is, Pip and I've been working together for many years, creating theatre and for 11 years now actually, which was quite a while. And then because we've ended up moving to different cities or living in Oslo Pip lives in Paris, it was really hard to keep making theatre together which kind of necessitates that you're in the same space for a long period of time in the same country. So we were looking for another format to work in where we could work via Skype and via internet and more independently, but at the same time, keep working together and continue our collaboration. And then podcasting came up, it was Pip's idea that this is actually a way where if we move more into writing, that's something we can easily do via the internet. And that's sort of what sparked the idea of creating something for that medium. And then the idea of the Amelia project in particular again, was an idea that people have been carrying around for a long time. So that's maybe I don't know if you want to talk more about that, Pip, the idea of a company that makes people disappear.
PIP
Yeah, so I had just that idea, basically a company that specialises in faking people's deaths. That's something I've been sort of thinking about for a long time. But I didn't know in what medium or like what form to tell the story. So originally, I was thinking to turn this into a play because my background is theatre. So that was sort of just naturally the first thing I sort of thought of but I could never kind of quite figure out the right angle for it. And then I was thinking maybe it's more of a film or possibly a short film to start with. I wasn't really familiar with audio fiction, or at least not with this kind of, you know, I knew sort of classic British radio drama, but not the kind of this sort of revival of audio drama in podcast form that sort of more driven from the US I guess. And that only came when I stumbled across Welcome to Night Vale, which I absolutely loved. And I immediately sent Oystein a text saying you know, listen to this show, you know, maybe we should do something like this one day. And then as Oystein said, we then found ourselves in this situation a couple of years later that we both lived in different countries, and we're looking for a project to collaborate on. And so then we came back to this thought of, hey, why not? Let's do a podcast and then we kind of combined that idea that despite sort of been mulling over for a long time about this agency and doing it as a podcast, and those two things just immediately seemed to gel because by telling it in as a kind of as an episodic story with a new case every week, that immediately kind of made sense of like what to do with that concept of this agency. Yeah, I hope that was a bit of a long winded answer. But yeah, that's, that's the origin story of the Amelia project.
JESS
No cocoa swimming pools then.
ØYSTEIN
No... Not yet. We're aiming for it though.
JESS
You know, I do love that idea
PIP
Well, you know, Cleopatra, Cleopatra took baths in milk. So, you know, this is just an upgrade, isn't it? Although the real question is, what would you rather a bath of cocoa or a bath of Veuve Clicquot?
ØYSTEIN
Oh, definitely Veuve Clicquot for sure. Cause sure that's that feels like it would really cleanse my pores.
JESS
I feel really uncultured? I don't know what that second one is.
ØYSTEIN
Oh, champagne, it's yeah-
PIP
It's champagne.
CHRIS
So Those bubbles are cleaning pressure.
PIP
Basically, just think of it as like [a] bubble bar. Yes, it's just a different kind of bubble bath. In cool. It's a very fine French champagne, which is the interviewers- so, our main protagonist, the interviewer it’s his favourite type of champagne, which he always offers
JESS
I was about to say I can definitely see the interviewer having a nice bath in some champagne, I can definitely.
PIP
Well, I hope that after this goes out somebody out there creates some fanart of the interviewer taking a bath in Champagne. Whilst blowing bubbles.
CHRIS
Yes, that'd be great. I'm interested to know how you're in two different countries. How does the recording of Amelia Project go down? Like do you try and be- Are you involved in that or who mainly just do the writing and pass it on to recording people to like to do their thing at studios and stuff. But is it split between the two countries or what?
PIP
Oystein, do you want to start with that?
ØYSTEIN
Yeah, I mean, it's split really between many countries. Of course. Alan and Julia who, who plays the interviewer and Alvina They're in Vienna. So a lot of the recording takes place there. And actually, we try to go there when we can, when we can afford it when we've got the time but actually Alan does direct a lot of those studio sessions that are in Vienna. He knows the show, you know, backwards and forwards now. So he actually does that for us. But we do try to travel when we can. We have also recorded in London, a lot of season two is recorded in London. We've recorded in Oslo. There are some of the actors who live here. So then obviously I go to the studio with them. So it is sort of split between us because we need kind of interaction between the interviewer and the client. Alan kind of needs to be wherever the actual interview dialogue is taking place. We do try to fly Alan to wherever the other actors are or fly actors to wherever it is to make that happen, which obviously is a bit costly, but that really makes for great interaction.
CHRIS
Yeah, It makes it more realistic, I guess
ØYSTEIN
Yeah, they can really feed off each other. I mean actors love being in the same room and then when to play off each other and ideas and improvisations, little things kind of happen and I mean I with Alan and Julia, for example, who now know their characters so well, that we send them a script and they go in the student record and it always comes back with something that happened I hadn't thought of there's always a line in there. They just crack us up and we listen back to the recordings and that just comes from how they feed off each other and how comfortable they are. You know, in which is something you don't get to the same extent with if people are doing it, you know, by themselves. So that interaction is really important to us.
PIP
Yeah, all the best lines in the Amelia project are things that they've improvised and then Oystein and I take the credit for it.
JESS
Of course, of course, you're right. How about so these are some great characters you've got done the Amelie project the Interviewer is one of the most charismatic characters I've ever heard and all your job. How did you go about creating these characters?
PIP
Oh, yeah. So I think
JESS
Difficult one, eh?
PIP
yeah, it's, it's, I always find it really difficult to sort of really articulate where character ideas come from. I mean, I think the interviewer in a way, although he's very much, sort of, yeah, very kind of his own character. He is a sort of amalgamation of lots of lots of archetypes in a way. So I mean, there's a lot of Sherlock Holmes in there, in that he's a character who hates boredom. You know, he sort of… He operates on two levels. He needs these cases in order to keep his mind active and his mind alive. And so he's either in kind of full on case mode, or he's depressed. That's kind of very much a kind of Sherlock trait I think, Oystein, Do you have any others?
ØYSTEIN
You might as well just tell them the truth. We went to Grand character Central. We put out a system and he appeared. magically, out of thin air
CHRIS
Brilliant. You pull the lever
JESS
What about all the characters in the different stories? Do they have any particular inspirations or
ØYSTEIN
I think we look, we're looking for things and we're looking for characters wherever we go. I think Amelia is just kind of in our DNA in a way that now that whenever you're reading the newspaper or a book, or just out on the street watching people an idea for like, oh, this person probably needs to disappear. We'll just kind of hit you and so we kind of gather. Yeah, we've got this massive document of just ideas for people who may want to disappear for whatever reason. And then we try to pick the best to actually make into episodes.
PIP
Yeah, and in a way, I mean, you know, because the framework of the Amelia project kind of just allows for so many different ideas and characters and stories in a way it's been a project where we've kind of used loads of they're kind of just little ideas that we've kind of been making notes of for the for many years. So in the same way as the Amelia project itself, is an idea I'd been carrying around with me for a long time until I finally figured out this is the way to make it as a podcast. A lot of the characters are actually things that sort of just little ideas we've been discussing for a long time. So for example episode- I think it's Luke Dougal, the one which takes place in a hell in a hell theme park. So this is something that’s an old idea of Oystein's actually, and I remember him telling me about his idea for a hell theme park back in college, so that was like, I don't know, 10 years ago or something.
ØYSTEIN
The idea is much older than that. I came up with that idea. I started toying with the idea of what a hell theme Park would look like when I was 12. So it's a very old idea that I've been carrying around and kind of Yeah,
PIP
Yeah, we were walking back from the pub one night and Oystein was like telling me all about this hell theme park and all the rides that would be in it and so on. And then yeah, then 10 years later, I sat down and wrote an episode about it. And actually, often one of us has kind of an idea and the other person writes the episode. So in this case, this idea of a hill park was Oystein's idea and then I kind of took it over to write an episode. And it happened the other way around with Siiiri. So I became massively obsessed with artificial intelligence a few years ago, and I was just reading everything I could on AI. And I started just bombarding Oystein with links and articles. Kind of go you know, read this, this will blow your mind and we have to do a project about this one day and we were actually thinking of maybe we'll still do it one day, we came up with this outline for a play about artificial intelligence. And so then Oystein took those ideas from that play which we've sort of started brainstorming, and turned that into the Siri episode.
JESS
It sounds like the Amelia project is almost like a combination of ideas that you guys have had for so long. It almost sounds like it's like, I don't want to say magnum opus, but it almost sounds like that.
ØYSTEIN
I think that's kind of maybe what it's becoming. It is funny how when you find that really a great sort of serialised concept, how you can just pour ideas into it. That is just a sort of vessel that you can just like, oh, I can put that idea in there. I can put that idea in there and kind of Yeah, that it allows you to be creative over and over again and to have an outlet for it. As with theatre, you know when you have a great idea then you have to go through the funding process and then you have to produce that play and it's just this massive you know, massive undertaking but with the with an episode of a podcast is relatively much smaller and and we can fit so many more ideas into it. So yeah, that is a great fun thing about creating the Amelia project.
JESS
There is one idea that I need to come around to, which is the main character of course the Cocoa
ØYSTEIN
Of course. The cocoa.
JESS
Where did that come from?
PIP
Well, like it's not like a super like conscious choice, but I've been thinking about this recently and I think subconsciously it's to do with Twin Peaks. Because Einstein and I are both complete Twin Peaks obsessives and of course Twin Peaks has got a signature drink, which is black coffee. And so I think when I first wrote in the cocoa, it was kind of like Twin Peaks, I wanted to have like a signature drink. And so coffee tends to be like a big feature in a lot of like detective fiction and things like sort of blank, strong black coffee. And I thought, You know what, you know, something that goes in completely the opposite direction. Kind of quite an unusual drink, really. And then kind of cocoa, which-
CHRIS
Yeah, it sort of goes hand in hand with his little blowing bubbles and stuff as well as obviously like, like,
JESS
-life of luxury.
PIP
Yes, yes. He enjoys- He definitely enjoys the finer things in life. He's he's a big Francophile
ØYSTEIN
There Is something very childlike about Cocoa. One thing wanting the kind of candy and the sweet stuff and that's something that I really liked about this character as well as just how he allows himself to be a child if he wants to. The cocoa kind of epitomises that.
JESS
It kind of gives you this nice warm feeling, ‘cocoa’, even hearing the word it's kind of associated with like, relaxation and warmth and comfort.
ØYSTEIN
And Cocoa is actually full of, you know, it does actually calm you down. It does actually trigger your, your happy place. You know, it's with the theobromine and all the sugar and all the different things that are in cocoa. It's-
JESS
Yeah
ØYSTEIN (CON’T)
It’s, you know, it’s an addictive little thing.
PIP
And often when the clients first come in, they're really anxious and they're really nervous. And so he needs to calm them down so that they can tell their story. So there's that but then also the it's kind of quite a nice contrast to have like such a sweet, comforting childlike drink contrasted with a story which is kind of about grisly deaths.
JESS
It's a fun juxtaposition.
PIP
Yeah.
CHRIS
I'm interested in the- you have a sort of recording schedule that has all like, before every episode, you have like a prelude, a short, a short episode, if you will. I was wondering where the idea came to do that as opposed to just having that at the beginning of the episode or something?
PIP
Yeah, so that is really, like a happy accident, actually. And actually, just the creation of Alvina, who features in these preludes is a really happy accident. Because now she's one of my favourite characters. And I think she's for a lot of people. She's a favorite character. And she and this whole concept of the preloads was something that wasn't initially planned. We'd actually written the whole of the first season, recorded even almost all of the whole whole of the first season without these preludes and then we wanted to have a trailer to put out actually not so much just for having a trailer but more just for technical reasons, because we'd never uploaded anything before. And we wanted to just see, you know, we just wanted to have something to upload to sort of try it out before we actually uploaded our first episode, but at the same time, you know, we wanted it to be something valuable that we uploaded not just yet, so we thought okay, we need a trailer but I couldn't really think of a way of doing a good trailer of the Amelia project through clips. And anyway, I, you know, I think it's quite difficult to do an audio drama trailer through clips. I've haven't heard that many really, really successful examples of that. So I thought, let's, let's try and do something that's actually original content that that kind of serves the purpose of a kind of trailer that that kind of teases you with what's going to happen and kind of gives you a little taste of, of the world, but which is actually original content that's not in the episode. So yes, so I wrote this little minisode called Coco, which which features the interviewer and his colleague elvina We gave him this kind of female colleague who's one of the few people who's kind of at eye level with the interviewer who's kind of not threatened by him or threatened is maybe not the right word, but who, who can kind of hold her roses faced by Yeah, exactly. She can hold her own with him in the conversation. And that was a really fun thing to write. And so then after that, I sent and I thought, hang on, how about we just do this for every episode that every episode has got a little preload. So that's what we did. And then that way we also develop this character has now become a very important character of elvina, who only features in the preludes for season one, but then in season two will become one of the main players in the actual episodes as well.
JESS
Ah, interestingly, that brings us to our first Twitter question. So we had a question from Twitter user rosindear, who asks, do you plan on revealing more about the backstory of the interviewer and elvina? The small hints and tidbits so far have really piqued my curiosity.
ØYSTEIN
How to answer that question.
PIP
Well, I think what we can say is that you will be learning a lot more about the backgrounds of certain characters in season two, as well as learning a little bit more about the functioning of the Amelia project as an organisation. So there is a bit more kind of background info on both the company and characters in season two. And certainly, in terms of the whole series, there will be many more reveals about them.
JESS
As certainly a kind of build up at the end of season one isn't there towards something.
ØYSTEIN
Yes, it's which is very,
JESS
Very interesting for me personally,
ØYSTEIN
every episode, Yeah,
JESS
it does make me wonder. And if you can't answer this, I absolutely understand. But is Season Two going to keep the same format of an interviewee of the week? Or are we going to see more plot driven episodes or something else entirely?
ØYSTEIN
I think we can answer that question, Pip. Honestly. I don't think that's a giveaway.
PIP
Okay, okay. Okay. Answer it.
ØYSTEIN
The answer to that is that the structure of clients of a week is very important to us and we are going to keep that structure. Whatever happens around that is another question. Yes.
PIP
Okay. Yeah, that's Yeah. Yeah. We really like-. We really liked the interview format. And we like it because it gives us rules. You know, we've set ourselves very kind of strict rules in a way of like we tell each episode as an interview, and it conforms to a unity of space and a unity of time. You know, so it has kind of very clear parameters. And we like that because that means that we can then not break those rules, but kind of tease those rules or kind of stretch those rules. And that's something we've kind of always enjoyed doing is kind of having fun with format playing around with format. So it's a very simple interview format. But what happens when you put an AI into that format or what happens when you put a time-traveller into a format that is, you know, that has unity of time, and then suddenly you can start cutting around in time, or what happens when you put a character in there who's aware of the artificial format he's in so yes, so we like giving ourselves we like this interview format because it gives us rules we can subvert
JESS
Now we've mentioned the word Season Two a few times now. Yes. Is that recording still in progress? Is it finished now?
PIP
The recording itself is finished. Pretty much
ØYSTEIN
No, that is not true. I've got one more recording date in Oslo. That's next weekend. But, that should wrap up the recording of season two.
JESS
And then we should see a season Two in 2019. Maybe?
ØYSTEIN
We are definitely hoping to get it out. This year. That is our aim. Yeah. But we haven't set a date yet.
PIP
So we're doing- because basically you want to get everything finished before we release the first episode because for season one we were sort of producing and releasing at the same time which got a little bit stressful. So...
ØYSTEIN
That's to say the least. How many episodes was it when it was supposed to come out the next day? And it was like, like 11:30 at night, and we were on Skype in different countries and we were like, but we've got this problem with the episode. Are we going to postpone? What are we going to re-record? What are we going to do? How are we going to solve it? There were too many of those. And we're not doing that again.
PIP
Well-
ØYSTEIN
We're not putting ourselves through this again
PIP (CON’T)
I remember particularly with the episode, I think it's episode four. Nathaniel McBride. I remember when we were literally up until the minute we pressed like submit on Lipson. We were still debating on whether that needed changing or not. So yes, so this time we want to get everything done and then start releasing, which is kind of put us into a curious position now because in a way, the main part of Oystein in my job is kind of done. So we've recorded Yeah, sort of 98% of the season, and I've actually already edited all of it as well. But now the ball is kind of in Freddie's court. Freddy is our sound designer who still needs to do the whole design and make music and that sort of thing. So which obviously is still a big job, and so that'll still take a few months. But so for Oystein and myself, there are still some bits and bobs, but we've actually now started with writing season three.
JESS
Wow.
PIP
So we're sort of well I'd say about five episodes or something into Season Three in terms of writing.
ØYSTEIN
Yeah, that sounds about right.
PIP
So yeah, so we're sort of, it's quite, it's quite funny. We're sort of talking now about season one. We're in the middle of post production for season two. And we're in the middle of writing season three
JESS
Do you have any idea how long the Amelia project is going to go on for, do you think?
PIP
About 83 years?
JESS
What I mean by that question is do you have like a overarching story that you know, all the beats have, and you have kind of an idea of how long you want that to take? Or is it kind of making itself up as it goes along, so to speak?
ØYSTEIN
To break that, yeah, we'd have to break that question down into its individual parts. Do we have an overarching story that we kind of know where is heading? Yes, definitely. Do we know exactly all the beats on the way to getting there? No. We don't. We know some of them, but not all of them. There are a lot of gaps to fill in and do we know how long that's going to take? Absolutely no idea, maybe 83 years.
JESS
So what we're hearing is Amelia project fans can be expecting a lot more content.
ØYSTEIN
They absolutely can yes
JESS
I mean, that's good. That's what you want.
CHRIS
You mentioned that sort of the whole audio drama podcasts thing sort of came to your light with Welcome to Night Vale. I was wondering if there were any other podcasts that sort of inspired you even like writing like season two and Season Three like Why have you ever been listening to that sort of inspired the way that you do things?
ØYSTEIN
There are many that we kind of fallen in love with? I mean, there's a lot of the comedy ones. Victorocity is a massive inspiration. I love Alba Salix. I love wooden overcoats, in other genres Girl in space I think there's fantastic, love and luck, the Australian one I think just I love the simplicity of that format and the stories that they tell there are so many. Munchen Minnesota is a great one.
PIP
It's a good show. It's one that's unfortunately, like not very well known. It should be much better known than it is but it's such a great show. And in fact, that's a show that we discovered. So when we went to Austin Film Festival to the Amelia project was a finalist at Austin Film Festival two years ago, and a lot of-
JESS
Oh wow!
PIP (CON’T)
-the and so a lot of the kind of audio drama creators we met there are people who've become very influential in our lives. And so that's where we met Justin Glanville, the creator behind Munchen Minnesota. That's where we met, so I can skip from line town. So line town actually has been very inspirational as well. Long term. So we Yeah, yeah. And they just gave us a lot of advice as well. I think what they told us kind of really informed how we launched the Amelia project. Ashley and Deck the halls with matrimony, it's another comedy sort of a rare example of a romantic comedy that that I kind of go back to again and again,
JESS
I've got to say I haven't heard of these ones. You all found them all through the Austin Film Festival.
PIP
Yes. So these are all ones where were the creators were also invited to to Austin
JESS
Is that how you guys got to Austin because I was going to ask how did the Amelia project enter with the Austin Film Festival? That's pretty impressive.
PIP
So the Austin Film Festival has now got a fiction podcast track which started two years ago. That was the first time that they did this so they alongside screenplays and TV drama, and theatre plays. They now also have a whole competition dedicated to fiction podcasts. Yes, so we submitted the script for the first two episodes of The Amelia project and we were one of four finalists, which meant that we actually got to go to Austin and attend a writers conference for a week. And we got to do a reading of the show in front of a live audience. So we had a really wonderful time. And in fact, I went back again last year with a new show that I'm making, which is still very much in the sort of writing stage. There are no production plans for that yet, but yeah it's a great do check out the Austin film festivals fiction podcast track because it's really, really exciting. And they really, I think that kind of get the real kind of pioneers in that space. They really organise a fantastic conference. And it's really, really inspiring and exciting.
JESS
Yeah, it's interesting. We have kind of similar things over here. Like we've certainly got the podcast festival in the UK, the British Podcast Awards, and not to toot our own horn, but we've also started our own convention and things. But it sounds like the way the Austin Film Festival is doing it is quite different to how anything over here is being done.
ØYSTEIN
It's a film festival that's been around for many years. So when they started a fiction podcast track, it sort of slots into the same sort of format that the film festival and conference has had Writers Conference has had for many years. So they're building on a concept that works really well there but it's because it's this different context because it's inside of a much bigger festival which is about writers in all mediums that really creates a different kind of energy and makes it a very different kind of meeting place, which is very exciting.
PIP
I mean, but it's crazy because- also obviously, as the podcast is at that festival, you kind of feel like this kind of weird, like the kind of weird punk track of the festival because everyone else is kind of, like, a you know, they're filmmakers or TV writers. And then you speak to a lot of them and they go like what so ... podcast? You know, they don't really (.) sort of instantly know where to place you when you say that you're a writer of podcasts.
JESS
I was gonna ask; how was the podcasting section of the Austin Film Festival received because we have certainly come across this in that podcasting is still a... in its infancy, almost it's been around for so long, but it's really starting to come into its own nowadays. So how was it received? Was it popular? Did you have a good turnout in Austin? Yeah.
PIP
So I mean, it's actually really popular and a lot of the panels, especially on podcasting, were actually packed with filmmakers and TV writers. Because, you know, a lot of these people have been like working on scripts for years and years and years, which never see the light of day which you know, get maybe you know, get get optioned and then go into development and then you know, that it just it takes so long for a TV idea to become reality. You can be working for decades and not actually see your work on screen. And, you know, in podcasting, you can go from idea to having a finished show that goes out to 1000s and 1000s of people, you know, within within the space of the year, you know, and Jason and I were kind of talking about, you know, how many ideas we've sort of built up over the in our many discussions over the course of the years and I think that's the same is true for for all writers. So these panels were kind of packed with people who obviously have all of these ideas but who are working in a medium where at very best they can maybe turn one of these ideas into reality. They're very, very lucky and it'll take a few decades. So I think that the festival is creating a new generation of audio dramatists, who can get some of their ideas out there by making them as audio dramas instead of making them as TV shows or feature films? So that was a very long answer to your question, so I think it is. Yeah, it's very popular at Austin Film Festival. And I think it's getting a lot of writers interested in this genre,
JESS
Which is fantastic to hear. I mean, one of the things that we've certainly noticed by doing pod UK is that the audio drama scene in the UK is booming at the moment. And there are so many creators who I think one of the things that we heard a lot mentioned is that a lot of these creators heard about, or were interested in BBC radio plays and things first and then realised that they could do their own and so it kind of went down that path. And I think more and more creators are going down it which is great. We're seeing so many creative minds getting together and making their own podcast.
PIP
Absolutely. Yeah, it is. A really exciting time in fiction podcasting.
CHRIS
I think like you said podcasts so open up the door for people who are struggling to get their their creative project out and bought and stuff like that and it gives them a way of like, of giving that to the to their audience like without having to go through all the red tape that TV and stuff has to go through. There's a couple of podcasts that I listened to one called the dead pilot society, which is basically a bunch of TV writers like well, they'll like perform their, their TV pilots that never made it through the system. Out of that a couple of a couple of people have have realised that you know what my show could work as a podcast and they've actually gone and created it as a podcast and is there now like creating like, weekly episodes and stuff like that, and it's just because the whole medium of podcasts allows them to do that.
ØYSTEIN
And I think it's amazing as well that how the podcast medium- It's such a kind of it's a great democratic tool. It allows people there's such a diversity. This is almost a form in formal invention, but there's also a diversity of characters, a diversity of stories, that is very kind of contemporary that really kind of hits the nail on where we were at in terms of inclusiveness, which the mainstream media struggles to keep up with. And that is something that really inspires me as well. While listening to the different audio dramas out there.
JESS
Absolutely. I think the podcasting space is definitely a safe space for the LGBT community. Yes, and for other minority communities. It's such a fantastic thing to see!
ØYSTEIN
As somebody who consumes a lot of stories, which I mean a lot of people do nowadays, finding stories that tell you something new or something that is about an experience that you haven't already heard described or played out 1000 times. It's actually quite rare. And the podcast medium is wonderful in that sense. The audio drama, neither was one of them that says that new experiences and new stories are actually kind of coming out of it because of that diversity. And that is something again, as an audience member that that I get incredibly excited but
JESS
you're kind of finally seeing yourself represented whereas maybe you're living in TV, that kind of thing.
ØYSTEIN
Yeah. I mean, it's about seeing yourself represented, absolutely. But it's also about discovering new characters that you've never seen on TV that you've never seen on film, which I think is wonderful.
JESS
Speaking of all these people who listen to your podcasts, how have your fans been? Tell us a bit about that.
PIP
Oh, I mean, it's, it's been. For me, one of the most surprising things about this whole journey has been the intensity of reaction to it, because I sort of thought when we were starting this, that sort of coming from a theatre background, I thought I really want to do something like this partly because theatre is so ephemeral, so you know you make something or you work really hard on it for like, one or two months, and then it's gone. And you know, doing something like this year you're creating something which you know, will be around for a much longer time. But I thought the downside of it is that in theatre, obviously you have an immediate reaction. And I thought with this, you know, we're going to make something we're going to put out there but we actually have no idea who's consuming it. You know, who's actually listening to it apart from getting reactions from our friends but apart from that, in terms of like the wider world, you just kind of put something out there and you don't really know how it's received. And one of the lovely things with theatre is obviously that you do get that instant reaction and instant feedback. And, gosh, I was wrong.
(LAUGHTER)
You know. I actually think we've had better and more valuable and more passionate-
ØYSTEIN
(AGREEMENT)
PIP (CON’T)
-and more articulate statement on this than with anything else we've done. And it's completely blown me over just in terms of, I mean, especially from Twitter. I wasn't even on Twitter before the Amelia project. Yeah, just I mean, you know, we haven't really released anything for you know, season one. finished last summer and still pretty much every day we get some kind of nice message from somebody who you know has been enjoying the series. We get fan art, we get reviews, and I'm just completely blown away by what an active and passionate community of fans there is out there. It's absolutely wonderful.
ØYSTEIN
And just getting fan art like that's never happened to me in my life before and even just having anything I could actually call having a fan, having a fan base of you many fans, that again, doesn't really happen in theatre like famous actors get it. Companies that have been around for a long time and really built, I mean, we've been around for a while. But we were kind of a small company. But through through this Yeah, meet the having fans, I think is just magnificent and the love that they pour into the project spurs us on they just makes us want to do this and keep going for 83 and a half years even
JESS
I'm glad to hear it. It does seem like you've got such an incredible fan base, such a passionate fan base. I'm glad to hear that is the case.
ØYSTEIN
Oh absolutely. Ya know, our fans are amazing, and we really discovered that we are doing this for them.
JESS
Speaking of your fans, I'll finish off with this one final question from Stu town 2583 which is does Philip have any connection to a secret agency is that-
PIP
Oh, absolutely. I mean, oh, sorry. Maybe we should have started with this. But they'll obviously I mean, the way that we fund the Amelia project is that as a sideline we offer actual disappearances. I mean that that is actually our business model for the Podcast.
JESS
Of course.
PIP
So the podcast brings people to our disappearing business. Because of my first answer, about the cocoa business, you're probably going to think I'm being facetious but this is absolutely true. So if you go to our website, if you go to our website and you click on merchandise, or webshop I think it is and if you scroll to the bottom, you'll see that you can add a disappearance to your cart. You can fill out a purchase form to organise an interview. They're not cheap. I think they're currently going at about 50,000 euros then we will fake a suitably spectacular deck for you. And you will surface with a completely new identity. And that's basically how we fund the Amelia project. And that's also going back to how we get our ideas for clients. So well we probably shouldn't really admit this, but it- many an idea has come from our actual real life clients. I mean, I you know,
JESS
who cares about client confidentiality when you've got a podcast to make up.
PIP
Which one was your I think for me, my favourite one was doing the case for Zale Indigo Raven, Raven heart one. Which one was your favourite Oystein, your favourite real life case?
ØYSTEIN
I think I think actually the real life AI that we had in our office but it didn't turn out exactly as it did in the podcast. She started threatening to destroy the world already when she was there. During the interviews. I had to run and get this big mallet and smash it. I think that was my favourite moment.
PIP
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so to anybody listening to this do head over to our website Ameliapodcast.com. And under merchandise you will see that we do actually offer genuine disappearances. Maybe us if we if we sell a few more of those then maybe at some point we can afford those chocolate Cocoa swimming pools
JESS
bought it back bought it back, which does lead us nicely on to so where can our listeners find you on social media?
PIP
Yes, so our website is Ameliapodcast.com, which is where you can find all of our fan art and lots of info on the show where you can find us on Twitter where we're at Amelia underscore podcast. And I'm also on Twitter. I'm (at) Pip Thorne. That's Pip Thorne.
ØYSTEIN
And my Twitter handle is at Oystein Brager. And you can also find us on Instagram again just search for Ameliapodcast, we should come up, and on good old fashioned Facebook.
PIP
Oh yes. And of course if you want to listen to our show if you haven't listened to it yet, we are on most places where you can listen to podcasts apart from SoundCloud. We're not on SoundCloud. And it's the Amelia project and it's the one with a logo of a phoenix rising out of a cup of cocoa because there is also something else called the Amelia project which is not us. But we're the one with a black and orange logo of a phoenix rising out of a cup of cocoa.
JESS
I didn't know that. Phoenix from a cup perfect All right. Well, thank you very much for joining us today guys. It's been great talking to you.
ØYSTEIN
Thanks for having us.
JESS
I've been Jess, (at)@aomyuu
CHRIS
Chris (at)@paintedtwit. And you've been listening to the pod UK cast and this podcast hasn't been happening.
JESS
Hang up now... Goodbye!