Presenting Randy Streu! Randy is a voiceover artist, writer, and podcast producer with over 20 years of radio experience. We talk about navigating guest interviews, how to take care of your voice, and some fictional audio dramas he's worked on, such as the Watch and Jake Muller Adventures.

Randy's Links:

• randy@randystreuvo.com
• https://randystreuvo.com/
• twitter.com/randystreu

Audio Dramas

• facebook.com/thewatchpodcast - FULL TRAILER AFTER CREDITS!
• https://www.jakemulleradventures.com/

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David Kalsow 0:00

This episode is brought to you by envision podcasting. Find out how Randy and envision can put more than 20 years of radio and podcasting experience to work for your next podcast. Email Randy at Randy Streu veoh.com for more. That's ra nd y STR eu vo.com. On to the show.

Randy Streu 0:20

I've always been a storyteller and I've always been somebody who also appreciates a good story. And for me a good story is always about the people involved. I'm David

David Kalsow 0:29

Kalsow. And you're listening to APC Presents Bri showcase independent podcasters from Northeast Wisconsin. Today I'm talking to Randy Streu. Grant he is a former broadcaster and currently operates freelance doing voiceovers podcast editing and producing audio dramas. As an avid fiction, audio listener and sound design aficionado myself. It was an absolute blast to talk to Randy. We talked about best interview practices, some of his current audio drama projects and how to take care of your vocal cords. Very important thing for podcasters. I'm pleased to present Randy Streu Alright, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. Randy. I really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule. Oh,

Randy Streu 1:18

hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, so

David Kalsow 1:19

you are a full time voiceover artist freelance podcast editor creator production audio guy in general.

Randy Streu 1:28

Yeah, writer as well. And yeah, add a few more things to add a few more things to that writer. Just random gadabout. Yeah.

David Kalsow 1:37

Paranormal Activity Tracker paranormal activity tracker in between? Yeah. So food critic. No.

Randy Streu 1:44

Go ahead. food critic.

David Kalsow 1:46

Oh, we'll talk about that. I'm bringing that back up later. Don't you worry. So why don't you paint us a quick picture of sort of your story. And I'll sort of ask some questions to hopefully fill in the gaps.

Randy Streu 1:56

My story? Yeah.

David Kalsow 1:58

So Where'd you grow up?

Randy Streu 2:00

David Kalsow 2:05

Okay, don't bring don't bring your writer mind too much and telling your story. One of my favorite intros from someone asked me that question. I was born at a very young age.

Randy Streu 2:15

Yeah, that's right. I remember it like it was yesterday. No, I grew up kind of everywhere. I spent a couple years in Ohio, we moved to Wyoming. Most of my childhood was spent in Central Michigan, however, so okay. Yeah, I'm gonna leave out the irrelevant parts. I hope. So stop, stop me if I start veering into crap that you don't need to hear. Fair enough. But we grew up in Central Michigan. And I mean, like literally from probably four years old until I moved and went away to college. And we had this oldies radio station that my dad would always listen to Birkin burns in the morning was was the morning show. And then it was Johnny and Blondie after burns left. But I always I would always listen to that with my dad. I mean, that was like the just this great time that my dad and I would have together as listening to the oldies morning show. And, you know, it was the classic morning show before they decided that, you know, let's get more songs in per hour. Let's not let the Morning guys do their thing. You know, before radio turned to crap, basically. We had we had Johnny Burke in the morning. And so like there'd be barely maybe two songs in our otherwise it was just Johnny and whose co host just be asking. And they had so much fun. And it just seemed like such a great time that by the time I got to college, I was like, Yeah, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna go into radio. So that was kind of how I got into doing media. Yeah, in general was listening to Johnny Burke with my dad, and just deciding it just seemed like a lot of fun. And then, as I was in college, and my parents were like, you know, well, you know, you should really have a fallback, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Yeah, I'm like, alright, I'll double major in business, which that lasted my freshman year.

David Kalsow 4:15

You got one year in your belt?

Randy Streu 4:17

David Kalsow 6:06

in a position somewhere. Yeah, just like me. That's right. Haha. Hey, I haven't sold my soul. I still do this.

Randy Streu 6:15

Hey, I will you know what, though, after we moved from Michigan, we went to New York to live closer to my wife's family. Our first job there, I spent three years selling electronics at Sears. Before I actually found a radio station and went in and I said, Hey, I've got some experience on how to do this. And this is teeny, tiny little town in New York. So they were just thrilled to have anybody with any experience, show up to want to do this job. They had actually picked the guy they were going to hire. And they're like, holy crap. You've actually been behind the board before. So they gave me the job.

David Kalsow 6:49

You can push your fader Great. Yeah, get out of there.

Randy Streu 6:51

Get out there, do it. So I was doing nights in Northern New York, six to midnight, at a country station, which I hated country growing up.

David Kalsow 7:03

So what was that like trying to be enthusiastic about country for six hours?

Randy Streu 7:08

Well, there was a good and bad about it. Because it turned out I actually didn't have to do that very much until I got a different job. Because for whatever reason, because again, this is Podunk Ville, USA. This is Northern, this is practically Canada, New York. So

David Kalsow 7:23

Niagara Falls kind of north of Niagara Falls there. Oh, gosh.

Randy Streu 7:27

David Kalsow 8:04

what did you grew up with this song?

Randy Streu 8:07

Yeah, exactly. And then we would play country music. It wasn't really an issue until I spent about two and a half years. At that station before I took over a morning show host position. In Ogdensburg, New York, it was the biggest, the most popular radio station in that portion of Northern New York and St. Lawrence County, New York. We had about 40% of our listeners were actually in Ontario, the radio station was literally positioned on the bridge in the Port Authority building across the river from Brockville. Ontario. So

David Kalsow 8:43

and I'm sure people commuted across the border on a regular basis. And so that was their, their station. Yeah,

Randy Streu 8:49

Well, I got to work on that. I'm gonna do a vinyl player for my birthday. So I'll do a Johnny Cash.

Yeah. But but but no, you know, just just through through through understanding the artist, I got to kind of have an appreciation of the music and so I wasn't pretending the whole time. Yeah, that I enjoyed myself, which made it a lot easier when I had to go out there and emcee live shows, trying to hype up the hype up the crowd. You know, I didn't have to pretend that I liked their music. To get them going. You

could actually, yeah. So you could see sort of past the art to the human behind it.

Right. Right. And, and that's one of those things that served me well, going in 2012, I accepted a position in Green Bay. Well, Appleton, technically, to the family, which is a radio station serving Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh. And then they also had a kind of different sister station that ran South Central Wisconsin. And I took over the morning show here in 2012. Yes. And that sort of ability to humanize people to really want to understand them, I got the chance to do a lot of interviews, which is still the, the fate my favorite part of having that job in radio was interviewing people and just talking to people, and being able to have those conversations and draw them out a little bit, maybe surprise them with a good question. You know, try and ask questions have conversations that every other DJ in America isn't having with them? Right. You know, so, you know, what was your inspiration behind this song? Oh, shut up. Nobody cares.

Yeah, go listen to every other interview that's asked that same question.

Exactly, exactly. And so you know, and that was, you know, to kind of go go in and dig, dig a little bit deeper into the person and be able to talk to the person behind the music a little bit. And I always kind of love that. And I always kind of loved being able to talk to my listeners, whether it was a one way conversation, which is 19 98% of it, or the occasions in which they would actually call in, you know, be able to have the conversations that way as well. So all of that's kind of a roundabout way. When I lost my job in 2000. Hell, what year is it?

It's 2021.

I want to say 2008. Teen late 2018. I think I lost my job. Yeah, the stations were merging. And the guy who had my job in this North Central Station, was also the program manager for the entire cluster. Mm hmm. And so he was going to take over the morning show for the whole for the whole cluster leaving me high and dry. So when I lost my job, and I started doing freelance voiceover work, which my wife is the one who kind of got me into that. I started doing some audio drama, which we can get to later, some audio books. And I called her I said, Hey, I'm at home. And at home, I shall stay. She said, What have you been

doing the work from home thing before? It was cool?

Yeah. Yep. And she said, Well, what happened? I said, I just lost my job. I you know, and I didn't know why at the time. And, you know, there was some anger and some frustration there, obviously. But she was great. She just said, you know, hey, look, you you've been, you've been starting to do some of this stuff. Kind of on the side, you've got a lot of creative projects that you want to get done. She's like, maybe now's the time. I've got a good job, I'm getting paid. Well, maybe now's the time to explore that and to and to really get into that. I said, Well, I'm gonna do I equipment. She's like, do it. So

that's awesome. That you can have that support for even when things seem to be low Valley can have that support right there with you to pick you back

up. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

You said that you just you, you love being able to sort of hear those human stories and be able to connect with people? Do you? Can you think of a reason why that is?

You know, it's it's interesting. I've always been a storyteller. And I've always been somebody who, as a storyteller also appreciates a good story. And for me, a good story is always about the people involved. You know, the action is sort of peripheral. You know, what the action does is that reveals who the character is. And so learning about people is has always been really kind of interesting and exciting for me.

Well, I think that is a great insight into sort of the changes of your of your life and coming from radio into the podcasting realm. But what made you want to stay in Northeast Wisconsin because that's like, that's not it's on the other side of the lake. for you for home, what made you stay?

A couple of things, the biggest thing that make that made me stay, and I'll be I'll be real. I dragged my wife here, away from her home in Northern New York, she finally got herself established, built herself a career that she loves. And when I lost my job, and I said, Hey, why don't I look into other radio stations? She said, No. You I mean, if you can find one here, great. But we're not moving again. You drag me out here, I found a job. Here's what we're saying. And I'm actually very happy she put her foot down on it. And the other thing is that I have not found too many communities that I like living in as much as Appleton you know, I'm from Midland, Michigan, which is like Appleton but snobby here.

Yeah, it's not the up

that it's not the up. Yeah, Midland Michigan is where Dow Chemical is the the the, the seat, the corporate seat of Dow Chemical exists in Midland, Michigan. And if if you live in Midland, even if you don't work for Dow Chemical, you work for Dow Chemical. And so, it is it is the definition of company town. Yeah. And it's just it's so snooty. And like I loved I loved it, but at the same time, I was like, like, just kind of annoyed by it. Yeah. Especially because it was like, it was snooty in the sense of being uppity. Like, you look around the town itself. And you're like, you know, you guys don't really deserve to think as highly of yourselves as you do. You know, whereas you're coming to Appleton and you've got this great arts culture, you've got this community, this great community that really does engage in and and celebrate the arts, celebrate the entrepreneur celebrate the the person who thinks differently, and the community itself actually does that. And you can sense it throughout there. And yet, somehow they don't seem to have that sort of intellectual snootiness. Yeah, that you find in places like, like where I grew up. And so I just I love that. You know what, one of my favorite things. The first week I was here, I drove through and I went to Taco Bell. And I've never gone to a fast food place where somebody seemed to genuinely happy to serve me.

Yeah, I don't think like when I went to school in the Twin Cities Taco Bell was it was your taco? Yeah. And you were like, they're probably going back to take a smoker joint in the back room there and then come back and serve me my food. And I'm like, if they were like, Hey, welcome to Taco Bell. Okay, take your order kind of thing.

Yeah, it was great. You know, and it was it was funny, because like, every everybody who's who for that first year, like, it seemed like everybody who no matter where I went, if it was Taco Bell, Burger King, whatever. Anywhere I went, it felt like they were auditioning for the radio.

Hey, well, when you come on the other side of that, that broadcaster with that sweet, sultry voice of yours, I'm sure they perk up a little.

They just they'd get on the little microphone and be like, Thank you for coming to LA. Good. Yeah, like, I kind of want to tell you to chill, but I'm sort of enjoying it. So we'll just, we'll just go with it.

Yeah, it makes you smile. And they're hopefully smiling on the other end, too. Yeah, yeah. I think Appleton has that great balance of everything, because we have all of the arts but there's a lot of value in the sports as well. And I think that we're not overinflated in the other things, and I've only lived here half the time that you've lived here. So okay, the for three years. So I feel like I've gotten the same same ideas are feeling out of it, which is why I want to I want to say here, too. So you mentioned that you were a food critic at the very early on. Is it just Taco Bell that

I was kidding. But no, I am more of a more of a coffee aficionado, a beer snob, and I'm been learning more about wines and whiskies. So those are kind of more my more my speed. I love food. I have a huge appreciation of food and I watch a lot of Food Network. Same. So I'm kind of the guy that like when I get to the kitchen. I'm going okay, we're having macaroni and hotdogs. But then when I'm watching Food Network, I'm going no, you don't use that much truffle oil. You moron.

I've never touched truffle in my life, but you're using too much. Exactly. That's awesome or is the best place to get a beer in town. One of my

favorites is Apple and beer factory. Not only do they have a lot of great beers, which they actually have my favorite candy beer. Which is beauty more black.

Okay, I haven't been there yet. But I know you've told me about that before.

Yeah, they brew it. They're beautiful black is one of theirs. And it's just a great Black Hill. And they have outstanding food that goes along with it. So

well awesome. There's a little bit of Randy in a nutshell there, we'll have a quick break, and we'll see you in the next. Welcome to the Podcast Fast Class. This is checking number seven. If you're tracking with us in the class, you should be releasing your third episode. Today. I'll give you some kind of hurrah speech next week to send you off into the unknown. But for now, you're a boss, make sure to fill out the official signup form to be entered into the giveaway for the chance to win some free gear, a sure MB seven microphone and some sweet studio headphones, link in the notes back to the show. Now we're gonna talk about podcasting. All things audio, we got a little bit of your story, Randy of how you sort of got into audio with you're listening to all these stations with your dad. But now we're in a new era of audio on demand, how do you like doing all of your audio recorded now instead of live?

I like it a lot. As as a podcaster I sound a lot more intelligent as a podcaster than I ever did as a broadcaster. Because I get to edit myself, which is fantastic. I remember I was when I was working as a I was doing the morning show up in Northern New York, I did an interview with somebody and I kind of I kind of have this thing where I take some of my weaknesses and I sort of turn them into the character that I that I am. If you've been in radio, you know, you are yourself on the air but you're more of it. You're almost like a caricature. When you're on the air you're taking those pieces of yourself that are entertaining in your in your in your building those pieces up. And one of the one of my things is like when it comes to like talking to people, sometimes that can be very awkward. And I actually had a person I interviewed live. Tell me after the interview like you really, you really lean into those awkward silences?

And then you pause. That's right.

Thank you. Yes, I do. So yeah, that's the that's the kind of nice thing about on debate, you know, being more on demand, is it? Yeah, I can edit myself. I can sound I can sound smarter than I actually am, which is great.

So you've done a few projects of podcast projects. Since you left the radio business. You're not currently doing any though? Correct. Hopefully,

as of as of the time this airs. We'll have some stuff going on. But yeah, yeah, I did a couple of different, a couple of different podcasts. One of my earliest podcasts after being on the air, I actually looked specifically for something in which I could interview people because I really missed that part of radio. And so I started living freelance, which was a podcast for freelancers, by freelancers, namely myself. And I would interview freelancers, who had something of value to say to other freelancers. So for example, I talked to Katie Lane, who is a, she's a graphic designer in her own room. She's also an attorney. And as an attorney, she deals almost exclusively in the arts and in the creative, freelancing community. And so we had a great conversation about contracts and negotiation and sticking to your guns and all that. You know, I did one with a lady who was a freelance cop, a freelance copywriter, freelance ghostwriter, and she actually put out a book finally, in her own name, called the Freelancer Survival Guide to the Freelancers Bible. I have a copy of it right here somewhere. And so we interviewed, you know, so I interviewed her. And so that was kind of the the thing with that podcast, it lasted I think, a year.

Okay, yeah. Were you doing one episode every week? Or bi? Weekly?

I was doing bi weekly, I believe. Yeah.

So how did you prepare for those interviews compared to your radio interviews?

It was honestly very similar. Once I knew who I was going to be talking to I did the I did the research that I needed needed to do find out what they had going on. I wrote out my top five questions, which I then sent to them, to let them prepare a little bit. And then that was that was pretty much it. I you know, I always do a lot of research into the people that I interview before I before I even formulate my questions. And then then I formulate my questions. I do five, I don't do more than five. I don't do less than five. I do five questions. These are the five questions I'm sending you. And the reason I do that is because I'm actually preparing for a 60 minute interview a 45 to 60 minute interview, knowing full well that each of those five questions is going to have their own little rabbit trails is going to have other questions that I can ask about them if they're asked if they're asked correctly. And the nice thing about that is I spent 15 years learning how to ask questions correctly, too. created to develop a conversation. And then that's the other big thing is that when I interview people, and I tell them right up front, this is not going to be a q&a session. This is going to be a conversation. I'm going to have questions for you. But we're gonna slip those in organically and see how it works. And then I spend five minutes just talking to him before I hit record. Yeah. And then I just wrote a quick, okay, we're rolling. And then I just continue the conversation.

Keep it keep it natural, and keep it actually a conversation between two people instead of an NPR. Hello, we're here with Randy Streu. Randy, tell us about the time you got a dog. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Not those kind of things. So like, how do you ask those questions that may not because we started touched on this earlier, like, not just the what inspired you to do this? But how do you find those questions that are that haven't been asked before, through the

research, the degree, the digger. The deeper you dig into somebody's life, the more you find out about them. And the more you find out about them, the more questions you can ask. So I talked to I talked to a singer who released a book, and part of her book was how she got into, you know, a little bit of alcoholism and things like that. And she was very open about it in her book. And so, you know, I was able to kind of bring that around and say, you know, you mentioned how you kind of became an alcoholic and this and that, you also fell away from the music scene for a while. Can you talk about what that journey was, like, realizing that you had a problem and needed to step away? And then realizing that you are well enough to come back?

How often do you think that the interviewer fills that sort of therapists role almost, with helping people analyze themselves? Is that to say should do? Or is that something that should be left up? For the listener to the side?

It needs to be carefully done? It needs to be done with with a mind. And this is one of the reasons that I released my question in advance, so that I can tell them, hey, we're going to go here, if you're not comfortable with that, this is when you let me know. You know, you could also get advanced advanced notes from their agent or whoever the representative is, or from the artist themselves, or from the interviewee themselves, to say, these are the things I'm not going to talk about, these are things I will talk about, right. But you know, for me, somebody is doing you a favor, by being on your show. It doesn't pay you in any sense, to go after them, to surprise them to shock them, to confront them. Because ultimately, what I want from them is to enjoy the experience and to maybe want to come back someday. And also people who hear the interviewer who I might want to be interested in interviewing down the road. I want them to feel comfortable, like okay, this guy's not gonna attack me. Or come on. I have

some things in my past, or there's things that I've been out in social media.

Yeah, like, I'm not here to be. Yeah, like, I'm just I'm not here to be a yellow journalist. Right. You know, I'm here to get to know more about you and tell. Tell my listeners more about you and to give you a platform

and help you share your story. Yeah. So one of the things that you and I bonded when we first talked about was the the fiction side of that you have been doing the nonfiction like those interviews and everything. And there's a few other podcasts that you've done on the podcast, which is just a fully personal, right. It's just a couple of interviews thrown in there of Yeah, nonfiction scripted narrative. Yeah. But there's the whole fantasy fiction and the world of audio drama art. And yeah, I think you're the one of the few people that have actually been in it. participated in it participated in the voiceover realm. All of the other people in the APC are mostly on the business side of things or have a unique passion for other things. But like, we're you and I, you, you are in it for the art of it for half of what you do.

Yeah, I'm so excited that that we're able to bring this up, because, yeah, you know, like, the more I talk, you know, the more we've been talking, I'm like, man, and we haven't even gotten audio drama. Yeah. And that's really kind of my been my passion right now. You know, when when I got the job at the radio station, I drove out here, and I left my family behind for two weeks. And my wife knowing what happens to me when I drive, ie, I tend to fall asleep, knows also that if you can keep my mind engaged, I'll stay awake, and I can drive. I can drive hours, as long as I have something to keep my mind engaged. And because I love driving. And so I drove from Northern New York to Appleton, Wisconsin in two days. And to facilitate that my wife bought me a bunch of audio dramas. She bought me the baker street doesn't it was a 12 Sherlock Holmes audio drama. Oh, nice. Yeah. And then the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy audio drama I'm sick. And so I do somewhere, somewhere, somewhere anyway. And I had heard some audio drama before, you know, being in Christian radio, which I was in college because I went to a Christian college. So, you know, I'd heard like Adventures In Odyssey, which is one of the few people in America who are doing it, who are still doing audio drama. In fact, I, I've, I've said this before, and I mean it with every, with every ounce of sincerity, that Adventures In Odyssey and radio theater, both of which came out of focus on the family. Whatever you happen to think about Focus on the Family as a organization, the Focus on the Family is almost solely responsible for keeping audio drama in America on life support for the last one year for the last really 30 years. Up until we started doing it,

the podcast life. Yeah,

yep. But so I knew something about audio drama, because of that, you know, because we'd have to prep the tapes, or whatever, for airplay on the radio station. So I knew they existed. But it wasn't until my wife got me though, because we had been listening to audio books, for drives and stuff. And audio books were nice. And I'm not I'm certainly not going to poopoo audio books, I've done over 35 of them. And they've been the bulk of my career for the past three years, so I was gonna say

I was looking at your audible credits. And I was like, oh, Randy's got Yeah, got it going. So yeah, we got to get a few on there. What's the difference? Maybe for people that may not understand that difference between an audio book and an audio drama?

Sure. An audio book is a narration. It's it's and that's literally what it is. Now, there are two kinds of audio books and one of them leans more into audio drama territory. But for the most part, an audio book is a narration. When it's a nonfiction audiobook, it's literally it, the narrator basically takes on the role of the author, and then acts out that book, from front to back. In the fiction sense, the narrator takes on all the roles, and it's a lot like reading to your kids. Now, your your delivery is going to vary, obviously, you know, you're not going to read a book geared towards adults in the same way that you're going to read Treasure Island to your to your 10 year old. But there's a lot of the same kind of mindset that goes on behind that. So you're narrating the story. You're maybe you're doing voices, maybe you're just tweaking your voice, just a little tiny bit to make to differentiate between who the characters are. But you're kind of acting that out in a an audio drama. It's really a movie or a TV show taking place in your mind. And what we're doing is we're supplying the soundtrack. So you've got music, you've got sound effects, you've got a multitude of actors, taking on the roles. And really using that medium to tell the story. It's like it's literally watching a movie or a TV show without the video.

Yeah. How, as a writer, does that change for you? Then? You started in film? So you knew how what a visual would look like? What Yeah, what does that gap?

You know, it's interesting, because I actually started writing short stories, when I was much younger. And I've gotten I've still I've got several stories, several short stories published in various magazines, and anthologies and things like that. And what I've noticed, basically, what you're doing is you're taking what you see on the screen, you're taking these visuals, and you're turning them into audible cues. And you kind of look at it like short story writing or novel writing. Where, you know, here's a set of what happens. Now, how am I going to translate that, knowing that people are just going to listen to this, and a lot of that doesn't even come necessarily in the writing process, but in the sound design process afterwards. And a lot of the pen depends on the writer. One of the projects I'm working on right now with a gentleman named Darby Kern, who has written for, oh gosh, the left behind audio drama series left behind kids audio drama series, GA Henty, audio drama series. There's a new app called a spire. He's written some stuff for the Aspire app. He and I are co writing the watch together, which is our new audio drama that we're working on.

Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Oh, yeah,

sure. But yeah, the point with with Darby finish your point is that he will, he will write out the action in the script. And he might put in a couple sound effects here and there. Like if we need gunshots, obviously, bang, bang, those are important bang, bang, whatever, but he'll put out the action and then he'll leave it up to the sound designer to make that come alive. So doesn't necessarily even show up in the script. We just let the sound designer know hey, this needs to show up somehow. So that's the scripting of that.

Yeah. Work your art and your magic as the sound designer. And right. Have you done the one on the sound designer role,

I have my very first audio drama, which only part one is available anywhere. And I'm probably going to pull it so I can, so I can do the rest of it. And do it up, right? Because I've actually recorded the entire thing. And I actually produced it while I was working at the radio station. It was called Shoo fly. And it was based on a short story that I had had written and had been published in Adam Jack magazine. And it was about an apocalypse brought about not by zombies or a deadly disease, but by mutated houseflies. Classic. Oh, yeah, class. Oh, that old trope. That was my first real foray into doing sound design. And I took it seriously. So I wanted to kind of play with some things that they weren't really doing yet. And I was doing it all through editing. Now especially like binaural sound design, which is a, which is a thing now and all this other stuff. They'll do that in the recording process. But I wanted to play with it just using my I was using Adobe Audition. And I wanted to I wanted to play with sound design using Adobe Audition. So I have a scene where there's a fly a single house fly buzzing around your head. And so I've got it, I've got it panning from left to right and your headphones and fading out as it goes behind you and fading back in as it goes to your left ear and all this. I've got a giant swarm of flies coming in and it does the same thing. It starts in your left ear very quietly. And as it starts to fill your left ear, you start to hear and your right ear and then it's just your entire headphone headset is just filled with the sound of flies. And then they fade out the same way they fade it in. So I do have some sound design. But the guys who are doing it professionally, are like these guys are Picasso and I do stick figures. Yeah, there's a gentleman named Todd buss steed. He works out of gap digital in Wheaton, Illinois. And we've worked with him on some various things. There's, there's a Robin Hood, audio drama available. And he did the sound design on it. And he was telling you, he was mentioning how he did the arrows. And he said each arrow from each bow has its own character. And so he said, you know, for this one, I took the sound of an arrow. This is how I got the swing. This is how I got the whoosh as it zips through. I also layered in some sounds of like wind and bees and like all this random crap that you would even think about Yeah,

throw throw a screech in there somewhere. But dude, it down just enough. So she's barely audible. So it's just like, it adds that character to it. And that's where it's like becoming a master of the craft kind of

Absolutely. Because you know, that's the thing like you're, you don't have the visual. So to put the right visual inside the person's head. You're it's all about sound design. Yeah. And so there are guys who are really masters at it. I am not that person. And I don't want to be I don't have time for but um, I wanted to mention that we were talking about the watch. Yeah. Well, our sound designer on the watch is a guy named Micah to Shea, who is a brilliant, award winning Sound Designer. In his own right, yeah. And we're very, very fortunate to be working with somebody of that caliber for the project.

Very awesome. And I don't think I think we sort of went back to the technical stuff. So what is the watch about overall?

Okay, so the watch is a police drama. And what had happened was I gotten this idea. And I don't remember why. But for some reason, I was in my car and I heard a last call. I heard an end of watch call. Now if you don't know what an end of watch call is, when when a police officer dies at their funeral, they'll do an end of watch call, where they will give out the officer's name, shield number card number, whatever it is, as though they were trying to contact him. And then they'll see no no response from such and such, such as such as 10 Seven, which means that they're basically they're dead or they're out of out of range. And then they'll sort of eulogize them you know, Officer so and so ended his watch on January of blah, blah, blah. And it was just such an impactful moment. As I was listening to it and there was even the dispatcher who was reading the end of watch call there was a hitch in her voice as as she was doing it very emotional. And I'm sitting there driving gone, you know, you can't make me cry tears Make the Road disappear, you

need to see and it

was just it was such an such an effective moment and just such a Beautiful sort of moment in its own way. And so that idea kind of stuck with me. And I thought, you know, I would love to do a police drama called the watch. And my friend Darby who I mentioned, I had done a project for him, called the Jake moto adventures on identified I played one of the characters. He came to me and said, You know, I really want to do something where we can kind of give you a starring role and and really showcase what you can do. And I said, Well, I've got this idea for a police drama called the watch. And it just so happened that we were driving two days to a conference.

Yeah, Sadiq Khan, Sana Khan, and audio

conference, the family friendly audio drama conference. That was the first one, the second one's happening this year. Oh, Stan, I'll be back. But so you're on your way there. So we're on our way there, and we're just talking about it. And just shooting ideas back and forth. By the time we got there. We had the idea almost completely fleshed out. By the time we got back. We had the bones built. We knew where we were going. And the pilot came together in a matter of days. Really. And once we had the pilot together, we then went through it. And I think that took another couple of weeks to tweak it. We sent it to our technical advisor who was an actual Milwaukee city police police officer, because the watch is set in Milwaukee.

Yeah, do a nice local story.

Absolutely. So we sent it to our technical adviser who had some tweaks and things like that, send it back, we dealt with all of that. So the watch follows three cops, a police detective, a dispatch officer, and a beat cop, as they kind of go through their lives and sort of deal with the, I guess the conflicts that arise between job and personal life.

What ties all of the characters together, you're following these three characters with their each individual stories, what ties all the stories together?

It's, it's a weird kind of just a friendship that they have the cop and the Beat Cop and the dispatch officer went to school together. And they became friends between them and another car. But I don't want to get too much into the story of what ties them together, because we're going to answer a lot of those questions at the end of the pilot episode of the watch, which we're still putting together and will hopefully be very soon.

So this is gonna release mid summer. Late, hopefully. So hopefully, the watch may be out already. If not, go follow Randy wherever he on the internet and be on the watch for the watch.

Yeah, and the the big thing with this is, is we've got professional actors who are involved in this, we've got professional sound design, we set out and got a got a got a theme song produced for us by a professional composer sick. The upside is it's going to sound great, hopefully, it's going to sound better than 90% of audio drama podcasts that exist. I mean, free content, you kind of get what you pay for. And we're looking at releasing free content that sounds like it's not free content. But it costs money. Yeah. So we're hoping to release the pilot episode and a trailer. And then once those released, we're going to start hitting people up again, for some crowdfunding, we're going to put together some great packages for people who want to be part of it. The podcast will still be free content. Yeah, but we're gonna have some, you know, maybe some early access to commercial free episodes for backers.

Gotcha. Things like that. So yeah, that is one of the things that many of the audio drama podcast people run into is like, how do we monetize this content? Because not, not everyone wants to put ads on their stuff. So you're, you're taking a little mix of the both of potentially doing some ads on there, as well as doing like a Patreon or basically a private, private community. Exactly. Exactly. Very cool. So yeah, I'm looking forward to to listening, and I can't wait to hear hear the pilot and trailer and everything else. And so if someone wants to start an audio drama of their own, where would what advice would you give someone?

Well start at the beginning, start with a script. You know, get the dialogue, get the dialogue, write a story. And the dialogue is the is the most important piece to that. Write the dialogue out first. One thing that you can do is look at look at TV and movie scripts. You can also find sample audio dramas scripts to just kind of give you an idea of what that looks like. Yeah. But the point is that you're not doing anything without a script. So write that first write the story first, write the script first. From there, decide what it's going to take to get it put out there how you want it to sound. You know, it doesn't have to be anything. You know, again, it's if you're looking at doing a podcast, it's free content. It's harder and harder every year to get seen to get noticed. because there are a lot of podcasts out there. So don't maybe be discouraged if you've got 50 listeners in your first month or your first year. Because it's it's tough to get noticed. But keep plugging away at it and keep doing what you can do and make it better and better and better each time you go. And eventually, you know, don't be, you know, try not to be immune to criticism. Listen to what the people who listen to people who want you to succeed, are saying to you, as you as you move forward. Yeah. And if you can feasibly make those changes and keep getting better and better, then then do it and keep growing.

That's some great advice, I think, for that first half, specifically, the audio drama and the second half to really anything.

Yeah, really anything you do. Yeah.

So what I want to touch on another aspect of podcasting and audio in general, because I think you're one of the few other people in the group that actually thinks about it. So many podcasters have, we've got tons of different tools, software, microphones, audio interfaces, but our most important tool is our voice. So how do you take care of your voice?

I don't take care of my voice at all. No, the the main thing is, keep keep lubricated. I drink a lot of water. I drink a lot of lemon water. I try and stay away from sodas and since I'm trying to lose weight as well, staying away from sodas works on a multitude of levels. Getting that sucrose in there coding. Anything you can coat your throat with generally speaking is not good. Yeah. With one exception, there's a tea called throat coat tea. That I recommend to literally anyone who wants to do voiceover work. Yeah, you can get it you can find it at most drugstores. Some grocery stores have it but it's it's really lubricates your throat nicely.

Is that why my voice is not as low because I haven't been drinking?

No. Okay, so I'm going to age myself a little bit. I'm, I'm a generation Xer. I grew up with with Generation X music I grew up with 90s music, like the crash test dummies in the crash test dummies are no, their most famous song is called. And it's an acoustic song. And this guy's just got this deep, deep, deep voice. So Waltons there was this queued? Eva DVM that right? And I remember I was listening to an interview with a guy and they said, how do you get your voice so deep? And he said, Well, it's the third testicle. Alright, so it's

genetics. Yes. Genetics

era. I mean, honestly, it is. And there's the probably a little cigarettes, a little bit of whiskey in there as well to for a lot of those deep, deep voice people. But it is honestly genetics and like, there's your some people are basis, some people are baritone, some people are tenors, and everything in between. But I think it's, it's important to know that, like, everyone's voice is unique. It may not be the thing that everyone is that directors or people are looking for all the time, but like you have your own voice, and that's unique to you.

Absolutely. And that's and that's a great, that's a great point. And it really anybody who wants to get into voice work in general or into acting for audio dramas. You know, the biggest thing to realize is that, number one, you're going to spend hours every week auditioning, and you're going to do 2030 Auditions before you pick up a job. Probably. And you need to understand that it's not personal. I've heard from a couple people who don't like my voice, but in general, if I get turned down from a roles because it's not because they don't like my voice. It's not because they don't like what I'm doing. It's because I'm not right for the part. Yeah. And you know, the main thing with with anything that you're going to do an audition for when it comes down to is you're either right for the part, or you're not. And you know, you mentioned you I've got this deep booming bass voice. Well, that's not right for every part.

Right? Well, there's maybe there's a part for like an eight year old kid. Unless it's a comedy part or like, and now Jeffy over here, little Jeff, he's gonna speak.

I don't know what you're talking about. I've sounded like this since I was seven.

I'm sure you have. I'm sure you do you have any warm ups that you do before you go into audition or an interview like this that you're just to prep your voice? You know,

I'll do I'll do different vowel. Different vowel things. The main thing you want to do with any kind of vocal prep is to loosen your lips. That's to me more important than warming up your voice. Your voice is what it is. Keep it lubricated. Treat it well. And it will it will serve you where you get into problems is when you start mumbling when you start failing to articulate so I always tell people you know, use consonants use you know, Rubber baby but you know see can't do it. Rubber baby buggy bumpers, red leather yellow leather, Irish wristwatch, Irish Irish Irish wristwatch is a good one. Yeah, but yeah, tongue twisters are great. Because the point is that you want to get your mouth to do what you want it to do when you want to, when you want it to do it. Yeah. And there are. And by the way, I don't care who you are, you're going to come across sentences where you're going to redo those sentences 18 times, I don't care how prepared you are. It's just, there are forums I belong to on Facebook, where we literally have a tongue twister of the day of just somebody something that somebody had to read that for whatever reason, they just could not get their lips and tongue around it.

Yeah, cuz your face has muscles in it. And you have to work those muscles warm up those muscles. And if they're not warmed up, Irish massage, toy boat, unique New York, all of those other words are going to come out unique in the UK, or they're going to mumbled together. And that is going to lead to retaking to many more hours spent on it. And that's why people hire professional like you because you can do it efficiently.

Yeah, and by the way, you mentioned unique New York, and I mentioned red leather, yellow leather, and all of those, don't just say him sing them. You know, these are all things that you learn in choral classes, choir classes, music classes, you know, it's not just unique New York is unique New York, unique New York, you know, you need new, unique New York, you're seeing you know, and you're going up and down with your voice. And that's just as important. Because if you are in a monotone, I don't care if you have a deep voice if you have a higher voice. If you can't change pitch, if you can't alter the dynamics of your voice, it's not going to sound great. Whether you're doing a podcast, it's maybe especially if you're doing a podcast, you need to be able to deal with the dynamics of your voice, you need to go up, you need to go down you need to write, get louder and quieter. Because if you just talk like this, it's going to sound like you're reading and nobody is going to listen to you for longer than five minutes.

Even if it is for a comedy bit. I'm not certain thing. But like, and that all goes into what you do as a voice actor for audio dramas for everything else. So I appreciate the quick little class that she started took us through.

Yeah, certainly varying speed. By the way, these are all like, again, dynamics are so important. Yeah. Because they can't see you. They're not looking at anything. Your voice is what is taking them through this journey. And so, you know, you need to be able to dynamically guide them through their journey.

And so whether you're doing an audio drama, where you're trying to step into someone else's shoes, or you're talking to someone else, and trying to get them to open up, these are all really important tips and things that we can do as podcasters to be better.

Yeah, there's a there's a guy on YouTube, who I cannot listen to. I'm not gonna say his name. He gets a lot of crap. Rightfully so I think it's funny because like, the the subject of his videos, I'm actually interested in I don't ever watch his video because I cannot listen to the guy. And because you know, he's not he literally, he sounds like and then you're going to do this. And then sometimes this happens. And one time this thing happened and it was interesting.

Randy, I just want to thanks for taking the hour to talk about podcasting, interviewing, broadcast media and sort of everything else in between the art of the Fox Valley area. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I just I apologize, man. You have to sit down and edit all of this and my mind goes 87 directions I know from experience that this is going to be a mess for you to add it and so no thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah.

You can just hear the molasses dripping off Randy's voice. Stick around after the credits to listen to a full length trailer for the watch audio drama. And while you're listening to that, go follow Randy online and check out the watch on Facebook at the watch podcast. The logo is a blue W on a white badge link in the notes for all that as well. They'll be starting up a crowdfunding campaign soon so please be on the lookout for that. Your voice may not be as deep as Randy's but it's still unique. We want to hear it. Head on over to Appleton Podcast Co-op COMM For community support and resources To start your very own podcast and share your voice. If you do, you could win some free podcast gear. If you know someone in Northeast Wisconsin who likes to podcast share this show with them, and if you've made it this far, please rate and review the show on pod chaser or go to the nearest person and whisper at the bottom of your lungs, your review in their ear. I'm David Kalsow, your neighborly podcast nerd and thanks for listening to this trailer of the Watch

Transcribed by https://otter.ai