Improv and interviews

Hi folks,

We hope you’ve had a great week! Here at Rusty Towers all eyes are on December now as we work towards two significant events: The finale of Rusty Quill Gaming on 1st December followed by Gaming & Giving on 4th-5th December. While we’re on the subject of RQG, we’d just like to let you know that for the finale, episode 218, there will be no early access. Instead, an ad-free version of the episode will be released on Patreon at the same time as the public release. Subsequent releases on the RQG feed (and we have a lot planned, including an epilogue and holiday specials) will return to the normal schedule of Patreon release on Tuesday at 4pm GMT and public release on Wednesday at 4pm GMT.

As you know, every week on Fridays we release a piece of bonus content, exclusive to Patreon. This week, for citizens tier and above, we have something a bit different… a mystery! On Friday, we’ll give you a puzzle to solve; the answer will reveal a previously unknown, unused plot line to The Magnus Archives. Intrigued? Check back on Friday at 4pm GMT to see if you can piece the clues together!

Meanwhile, as well as dramatic draconic defence on Rusty Quill Gaming (the closer we get to the end, the less we can say in these teasers – we’re on the edge of our seats waiting to see how this will end!), over on Enthusigasm we have another great two topics this week: improv and Marvel TV! First up, on Thursday join Helen, Gabriel Garcia, Lydia Nicholas and Tim Meredith as they talk about improv! Then, on Sunday, you can enjoy Helen, Alexander J Newall, Hannah Brankin and Lowri Davies as they discuss Marvel TV.

Most of you reading this are fans of audio drama podcasts. With that in mind, we wanted to include a small section in this and upcoming newsletters to spotlight some of the talent and amazing podcasts within the audio drama space, both from within and outside of Rusty Quill. To start us off, we’ve got two short interviews to share with you today, from Lex Noteboom, creator of The Deca Tapes and Devin Shepherd, director of Cryptids.

Lex

1.    Tell us who you are and a bit about your podcast!

Hi there, my name is Lex Noteboom (good luck with sounding that out in your head), and I am a writer. Currently I’m working on a big story in the Netherlands that will consist of a novel and a podcast. Hopefully we will translate it to English soon.

But I’m here, in the world of Rusty Quill, because I’ve written and produced a mystery podcast called The Deca Tapes.

The Deca Tapes is an eight-part story about ten people locked into the same space together. Each member of the group has been assigned a specific role. So, there’s the leader, the cleaner, the communicator, the doctor and so on. But no one knows why they are there and why. Only The Cook wants to know more.

Each episode is seen through the eyes of a member of the group. And through that shifting perspective, we slowly learn what’s going on and how they can get out of there. Whatever ‘there’ is.

2.    What got you into podcasting?

I’ve always had two big passions: writing fiction and composing and producing music. Having written a number of manuscripts that ended up in a drawer amongst the rejection letters. And creating a lot of conceptual albums without ever really doing anything with those, I saw audio drama’s making a comeback in the form of podcasts.

A perfect opportunity to combine my two passions, and have complete creative freedom. I had been writing this concept for a story that almost all publishers would deem too ambitious or out there, and this was my chance to completely ignore all of that expert feedback.

So, I quit my job to work on creating The Deca Tapes for a year. And I hope to make many many more shows in the future.

3.    What are you most proud of within your podcast?

I love shows that throw bizarre and surreal twists at you. But a lot of the time, there’s no satisfying pay-off. Or more questions than answers. I like to think that The Deca Tapes can be pretty disorienting and bizarre, but in the end there’s answers to almost everything.

4.    If a movie was made of your life, what genre would it be?

It would be the genre ‘screensaver’, because if you make a movie about someone addicted to writing, you see a guy sitting behind his laptop sipping coffee and typing for ten hours.

And who would play you?

I would be played by the dvd logo in the classic screensavers, because it has to bounce around for hours before finally hitting the corner…. Am I taking this too far?

You can listen to The Deca Tapes at this link, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Devin

1. Tell us who you are and a bit about your podcast!

I'm the director and producer of Cryptids, a scripted sci-fi horror podcast. The show centres on Eve and Trevor, together on a mission to unlock to secrets of the afterlife... meeting monsters and aliens along the way of course. But Cryptids is also very much about how it is to grieve and question everything you thought you believed in.

2. What got you into podcasting?

I've been an avid fan of old time radio dramas since I was a kid. I would binge listen to classics like Suspense, Dimension X, and the Lux Radio Theatre. Now I work in film, but I was always looking for an opportunity to recreate the audio shows I loved as a kid.  When Alex Thompson brought my producing partner, Nora Unkel, and I his story for Cryptids, it was originally a play but I saw an opportunity for it to be an audio piece. We worked with him on adapting the material which eventually came to be the podcast.

3. What are you most proud of within your podcast?

The creature design. I'm a big horror person so when this brought the opportunity to make a creature I got very excited! I brought a bunch of ideas and visual concepts to our sound designer, Gina Zdanowicz, and we talked about how it would move, breathe, and howl. We also talked about what monsters scared us the most and why. I am so happy with what Gina ended up creating and I love that every listener has a different interpretation of what the creature looks like. To them, it's the form of whatever scares them the most, and that's why it's effective.

4. If you could hang out with any cartoon character, who would you choose and why?

Discord.

You can listen to Cryptids at this link, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Finally, please see our weekly transcript update. As always, this is also available on our website.

Update 15/11/2021:

This week we assembled a team from within Rusty Quill to work on reformatting Stellar Firma and The Magnus Archives transcripts into our standard template. This team will also work on updating content warnings on these transcripts, initially focussing on The Magnus Archives, so we can release these with fulsome and, where necessary, updated content warnings for our planned January release.

Enthusigasm continues to launch with transcripts.

Finally, we are working on an itinerary of Rusty Quill Gaming transcripts with the transcription company. This will confirm that we are on target for the planned January release date and catch any missed transcripts.

Here is our full schedule for this week:

Mon 15th November

EGSM 13 – Jazz (Public) (4pm GMT)

Tue 16th November

RQG 216 – Death From Above* (Patreon) (4pm GMT)

Wed 17th November

RQG 216 – Death From Above* (Public) (4pm GMT)

Thu 18th November

EGSM 14 – Improv (Extended Cut) (Patreon) (6pm GMT)

Fri 19th November

CITIZENS+ Bonus – Magnus Hidden Trivia Puzzle (4pm GMT)

EGSM 14 – Improv (Public) (4pm GMT)

Sunday 21st November

EGSM 15 – Wrestling (Extended Cut) (Patreon) (6pm GMT)**

*Provisional title, subject to change
**This is a correction from a previous version of the newsletter.

Have a good week all!

The Rusty Quill team