Gregg Taylor sits down with Jack to talk over the changes at Decoder Ring Theatre including the future of radio drama.
Tag: Black Jack Justice
Audio Drama is replete with people who put their nose to the grindstone. Many producers work extremely hard to produce incredible productions. But who are the hardest working producer/writers in the modern audio drama movement? To tunnel down the list, it’s important to keep in mind that many producers like Dirk Maggs (Perfectly Normal Productions) and John Ballentine (Campfire Radio Theater) take longer to produce very high level productions. To make our list of hardest working producers/writers we have to look at consistent releases, and a hand involved in all parts of the process from writing, directing, acting, and audio editing.
Here’s our list.
5. Bill Hollweg (Broken Seas Audio)
While Broken Seas has slowed down its production releases from their heyday several years ago. One producer remains tireless in his production grind. Working daily to produce everything from original shows such as Jake Sampson- Monster Hunter, The Saga of the Grog & Gryphon, to 2109 AD, to his beloved recreations and adaptations to Planet of the Apes, Battlestar Galactica, a certain unmentionable dark haired barbarian, and most recently Amity- Dark Waters, Bill continues to tirelessly provide entertainment to the BSA fan crowd. His dedication to all things audio drama extends to his love song to the old time radio days with Swagcast where he painstakingly works to get rid of the buzz from the poor recordings to provide clearer production sounds. Bill works several jobs, and natural insomnia has him up editing and writing late at night and early in the morning before his classic work day begins.
4. Pete Lutz (Narada Radio Company)
Deep into season three, Peter Lutz is following in the footsteps of his hero Orson Welles in creating the anthology series Pulp-Pourri Theatre. In three years, Pete has produced over thirty shows pulled from public domain pulp stories, classic theatre tales, and original scripts. Rumour has it, Mr. Lutz is working steadily on a long series of western stories to be produced by NRC. Award winning, Pete Lutz keeps rolling out more and more hour long and multiple hour long productions that he puts in archive.org for your listening pleasure!
3. Gregg Taylor (Decoder Ring Theatre)
Moving down from our solid second place spot is Gregg Taylor from Decoder Ring Theatre. Perhaps one of the most prolific writers in the modern age of radio drama, Gregg used to release a brand new show every other week. A release schedule that was only breeched once since they began eleven years ago (the same time as The Sonic Society by the way). Gregg has moved more recently to a monthly release schedule, but that doesn’t mean he’s become less productive. The author of over a dozen novels and comics, based on his iconic brands The Red Panda and Black Jack Justice as well as other stories, Mr. Taylor epitomizes- the now legendary mantra update- of “how to get to Carnegie Hall” for successful podcasts everywhere, “How do you get listeners? Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.”
2. Jeffrey Adams (Icebox Radio)
If there is one true innovator in the world of free modern podcast audio theatre it is Jeffrey Adams. Jeff created Sound Stages which began initially as a precursor to the Sonic Society and then transformed into the 24 hour, seven days a week live audio drama Internet radio station that you can hear today. Jeff’s original works became the award winning foundation of his stories that he set in “the land of the Icebox” near International Falls. Icebox Radio officially became a non-profit organization with memberships, donations and an executive council. Most recently, Icebox Radio has made the transition to Radio Icebox in which Jeffrey has taken his talented pen, directing skills, and production experience to run a continuous serial about a strange northern town cut off from the rest of civilization.
1. Jerry Robbins (Colonial Radio Theatre)
There are several talented audio drama companies, very few are driven predominately by a single writer, director, producer, and actor. For over two decades Jerry has written and produced hundreds of radio plays- first released on cassettes, then CD’s and now through downloads. Colonial Radio Theatre has been given dozens of awards, and has had the opportunity to work with personalities such as Ray Bradbury and Walter Koenig. Jerry has written and produced well over a hundred episodes of his western saga Powder River and their catalogue includes everything from children’s tales, horror, mystery, drama, comedy, action adventure, historical drama, fantasy, and science fiction. CRT has adapted classic novels, famous plays, comic books, and television shows. Jerry has also created such indelible original series such as Jerry and the Pirates, Beacon Hill, Royall House, The Dibble Show, and Ticonderoga. His production from William Luce‘s radio adaptation of the one man play Jerry became known for Barrymore tops this reviewer’s list of must listen audio. There is little doubt as to why CRT remains at the top of Amazon audio book charts month after month because they are always producing, and always releasing.
This list is far from complete. There are so many writers and producers out there that work extremely hard on their productions but may have more spread out release dates. Some are fairly new on the scene (only a year or two beginning). Many more take long deserved hiatus from their works, and still others find life interrupts their passion for making radio plays.
This list is not meant to overlook the fantastic community of which I happily belong, nor suggest that one radio drama production is arbitrarily better or worse than others, but rather to give my thanks to those who work and release consistently and unendingly in their pursuit to provide to us- the listeners- their audio dramas.
Thanks to all, and may the list above inspire you to get more productions out there!
Favourite colourful metaphor, Gregg Taylor!
One of my treasured times in the morning is the early ride to school. Once the car windshield has been sufficiently scraped, and the engine makes its protesting chugs to start, on goes the ipod, and the car stereo plays the only music worthy of a car ride- radio drama.
This morning was As the Northern Star- episode three of season 11 of Black Jack Justice. In a genre that’s already littered with modern greats like Harry Strange, The Scoop Sisters, TamLynn P.I. and Jim Nolan among others, after eleven years Jack Justice and Trixie Dixon still top the charts.
Detective noir dialogue can be unnecessarily stilted and in danger of parodying itself. Taylor has both an ear for the lingo of the age, a quick wit, and an understanding that characters need a reason to bust a few chops. The chief reason is the often boredom-staving opportunities the protagonists have to lean on a proverbial sore spot.
Taylor makes the writing easy. He’s said in the past (go look up our annual round table events), that keeping Justice and Dixon quiet after a while so they don’t crowd out the plot is more of a challenge than writing witty repartee. Taylor’s style is so effortless, that one would think that Dash Hammett would be wiping the tears of joy from his priority podcast feed (Of course some folks think Dash’s liver is still alive and fueling up using regular at some rundown dive in the Big Apple).
Of course, the success goes to the Decoder Ring Theatre team. Andrea Lyons as Trixie and Christopher Mott who voices Jack along with Taylor and his talented wife Clarissa Der Nederlanden Taylor make the solid base that so many friends from their days on stage complete the powerful scripts.
The upshot is, as I work on Phillipa Graves (arguably older than those Justice and Dixen kids), it’s really important to remember consistency and talent are what drives the best modern pulp detective show out there. So raise a cup of Joe!
Jack sits down for his annual chat with Decoder Ring Theatre’s Gregg Taylor to talk the Red Panda, Black Jack Justice and a pile of actual written copy as well as the normal audio fare. Entering into the eleventh season, Gregg speaks about what’s going on with DRT and podcasting audio drama.
There’s an old adage that success leaves clues.
There’s another less popular adage in the audio drama crowd that goes something like this: “You know audio drama hasn’t made the big time because of everyone who comes out saying they are going to ‘bring radio drama back!”
The amount of proclaimed experts in modern audio drama is roughly the same number of people who claimed to be a “Social Media Consultant” five years ago. The actual number of experts in the field could probably be counted on one hand. When I say ‘experts’ I’m speaking about people who are making money selling radio drama regularly. I’m not talking about favourite free audio dramas, or the superb award winning single or even small series audio plays, but actually who makes audio plays for a living.
Ask anyone as to what it will take for radio drama to be profitable, and you get a lot of head scratching. Some people focus on modern story telling techniques; others on high quality sound production; and still others say that subscription services are the way to go.
But, as I said before, success leaves clues. So let’s pull out our deerstalker and do some detective work!
1. Classics
Look at the Amazon Best Seller list and consider some of the key information here. Certainly it is updated regularly, but let’s try to get past the audio books, multi-cast recordings, hybrids, and focus strictly on audio dramas. They are there.
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (BBC)
- Powder River (CRT)
- Father Brown Mysteries (CRT)
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (CRT)
- Doctor Who (BF)
- Treasure Island (CRT)
- Twelve Angry Men (LAT)
- A Raisin in the Sun (LAT)
- Jeeves and Wooster (CRT)
- Perry Mason and the Case of the Velvet Claws (CRT)
- Hamlet (BBC)
- Invasion of the Dalek Empire (BF)
- The Prince and the Pauper (CRT)
- Animal Farm (BBC)
- Dracula (BBC)
At my count of this current snapshot of the Top 100, Colonial Radio Theatre has seven of the thirteen available. The BBC has four, L.A. Theatre Works has two and Big Finish has two as well. Let’s let that sink in for a moment. The incredibly well funded BBC, only has four shows in the top one hundred, nearly half of CRT.
Beyond that, what’s the other obvious commonality between them all.
Not one of them is a new story. The most recent would be The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and that was created for radio in 1978. Nearly forty years ago. Certainly Big Finish’s stories are more recent but they are creating tales from Britain’s most popular science fiction hero for the last fifty years.
Classics sell. If you want to make money in audio drama today. Classics are what will get the attention. Even most of the audio novels that make up the large grouping of top 100 selling items are William Shakespeare, Milton, and Homer among other classic authors. Your audience are buying classics.
2. Volume
I once asked how to get on to the now defunct Sirius’ Book Radio with my audio drama. The answer was simple. “We don’t look at anyone who doesn’t have at least a hundred shows”. Because, what are they going to play next week? If you want to sell your work, you need to get out there and make A LOT of audio drama. Don’t worry about getting it perfect. Worry about getting it good and done. There’s really only one person in the studio produced modern audio drama free world that I can think of who has the consistency and the track record of ‘radio ready’ plays ready to go out with far more than a hundred under his belt, and that’s Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre. Between Black Jack Justice and The Red Panda, not even including his summer special series, Gregg has almost two hundred shows that could be sold to a radio station today. They are all formatted perfectly for radio, and all consistent in their time and quality. Gregg’s work has gotten him tens of thousands of fans that buy his original books and comics as well as listen to the regular adventures.
Colonial Radio Theatre has made over six hundred recordings in twenty years.
If you want to sell radio drama. Don’t have that “perfect” short series. Think about how you can make your first one hundred episodes as a bare minimum.
3. Approach
A lot of people don’t consider this. But look at those who are successful and how they do it.
– Big Finish made its name for continuing the Doctor Who adventures with the retired actors even when the show was off the air. Fans of the television series not only buy books, but they buy up the audio tales as well.
– Radio Repertory Company of America managed to create a new series but did so by gaining a following on NPR, so that fans can now go to their main site to download the latest adventures.
– CRT and Jim French Productions’ Imagination Theatre developed their fan base through a mixture of radio coverage and good old fashion sales of cassette tapes and CD’s working with a mix of classics and original work to gain a following.
– Dirk Maggs created his signature style through arrangements with the BBC which had all of Britain as a captive audience.
So if you really want to sell your work the clues point to the following routes:
- Get on a public radio station and go coast to coast with your show to gain a following
- Get on your comfortable shoes and start selling your works in stores directly. (CRT began with selling their historical tales at forts and gift shops!)
4. Respect Your Audience
Some years ago, I had parents contact me with concerns that the audio dramas didn’t have a rating system. So I built one based on the famous movie rating system and called it The Audio Drama Rating System and asked Jeremy Yenser to include it in his Audio Drama Rating System. While I wasn’t expecting everyone to use the system, I hoped it would start producers considering that our listeners want to get an idea what they could expect in a play. Many companies adopted the system directly, and many others had their own systems from the start. What I wasn’t expecting was the backlash against me and those who could see the value in giving parental guidance warnings. I was surprised at the angry reaction, and confused. Even iTunes has labels for recommendations so that people have choices. I took the time to get some great actors to provide a number of free audio clips to put at the beginning of radio plays to help provide clarity in the story telling techniques from harsh language to adult situations and violence. I think in the end, it’s a question about respecting your audience to let them have the tools to make the decisions about which shows to listen to, and which content will be appropriate for which situation.
So, you still want to make money, making radio drama? It’s possible, but it’s not easy. You’re going to need to look from the people who are successful. Big name actors can be helpful, but they aren’t necessary. Great production is a bonus, but it’s not key. A modern take on normative culture, feminism, and post-modern ideas bring freshness to works, but they aren’t the factors in what sells wider distribution. If you want to make money making audio drama, produce lots, find a national public radio station to play your shows coast-to-coast, hit the streets and sell your work the old fashioned way, make your radio shows sound great in a monophonic car radio, and look at producing your own take on the classics.
You just might be one of the handful of folks who make it!
Addendum: Powder River was originally created in 2004 and is one of the top sellers of Colonial Radio Theatre. However, PR took off after its run on Book Radio!
Starti
ng off the inaugural interview is none other than Gregg Taylor, chief architect, writer, producer, director, and audio auteur of the amazing Decoder Ring Theatre. We talk about Gregg’s passions and Jack’s reactions to the recent DRT change in broadcast release announcement. Remember Sonicateers, don’t ever drive angry.
Jack and David find themselves in a never before seen fissure in the Podverse and while they explore, they are going to rely on good ol’ Black Jack Justice from Gregg Taylor’s Decoder Ring Theatre and Room 503 written by Seth Bramwell and brought to us via Allan North! Plus a special Jack and Ginny conversation Easter Egg Public Service Message.