So I love fiction podcasts (also known as audio dramas). With their history running back to radio plays–think Adventures of Superman and War of the Worlds–then to their more recent origins with Welcome to Night Vale kicking off the fiction podcasting genre, fiction podcasts have become a lot more popular a medium for up and coming story tellers. What’s nice about fiction podcasts is how accessible they are–unlike novels, tv shows, or movies, really anyone can make a fiction podcast and be successful. You don’t need a publisher to back you or some media giant (in fact, as it stands, in the fiction podcasting fandom, the media giant made podcasts are kind of frowned upon). A hundred dollar mic and you’ve got what you need for a beginner set up. But this also means that there are a lot of different ways creatives will go into sound production for their podcast all based on the style they’re going for and the budget they have. So, let’s talk about that.
Part 1; The Magnus Archives
The Magnus Archives is a podcast produced by Rusty Quill, and aside from Welcome to Nightvale, it is one of the most influential podcasts out there. Sound production wise, The Magnus Archives can usually be split into two parts: the statements (in which one of the characters will read out a self contained short story for that episode), and the interaction (in which the characters of The Magnus Archives talk to one another.
Each of these videos gives an example of the audio production in The Magnus Archives, with video 1 and video 3 being in the first season (this is important as they didn’t have as big a budget as say in season 5 which is a whole different thing), and video 1 and 2 being an example of an interaction style scene. The first thing to note is that the audio for the VO isn’t perfect–and this is somewhat intentional. While it is partly due to budget reasons–a lot of their beginning work was filmed under comforters and mattresses cause that was what they were able to use–The Magnus Archives is supposed to sound like it’s someone speaking into a tape recorder, found footage style. It wouldn’t make sense for it to be polished perfectly. So you mix that with the sound of a tape recorder going and some subtle nondiagetic music, and you’ve got the formula for a Statement style interaction. For the other style, there’s always multiple sounds stacked upon one another, with zero music and zero narration. Not only does this give to the found footage style of recording but it makes it sound more serious, as well. Moreover, despite the lack of a huge budget, they’re able to use what they have accessible to them to produce some really well done sound design.
Part 2; The Penumbra Podcast
Once having a pretty large following themselves, The Penumbra Podcast had a similar budget history compared to The Magnus Archives. They went from nobodies to one of the bigger names in the audio drama world, and yet, they’re sound design is a complete 180 to how The Magnus Archives does theirs. They use music often–it’s less subtle than in The Magnus Archives, with whole characters having themes and everything–along with narration, and kind of cheesy sound effects. But let’s look at some clips.
The VO is a lot more clean in TPP than in TMA. It sounds less like it’s in a room with things happening around it, and more like its part of, well, a story. Likewise the sound effects, as well as being cheesy, are pretty simple. There aren’t sounds upon sounds layered on one after another, but rather simple sound effects which signify distinct objects, coupled with narration. Then finally, you have the background music, which as previously discussed, is a lot more ‘in the fore front’ than in The Magnus Archives. With this, TPP is a lot more light hearted than TMA. It handles some dark themes, sure. But it’s able to handle them and still allow the audience to have a fun time in a space noir because of its sound design. It’d be a completely different podcast if it went about it’s sound design in the style of TMA.
I could go on with other examples, but this is already quite long, and I feel like these two do well in showing the variety in how one can use sound design to their benefit in an audio drama when being on a budget. It’s all about being creative with what you have and being intentional with what you use. Your sound design is half of how you tell your story, its the medium you use as a podcaster, so use it wisely.