D.J. Sylvis 0:03
(MTO theme plays) Hi, this is D.J. Sylvis of Monkeyman Productions. Welcome to our little creators chat. I wanted to come in for a brief apology to begin with: we recorded through Zencastr and, well, Leeman of course comes out as clear and mellifluous as ever, my voice was a bit… less so. But I hope you’ll enjoy all the secrets and spoilers we share anyway! Have a good time, thank you for listening. This is Monkeyman Productions, out. (MTO theme fades out)
Leeman Kessler 0:43
I’m Leeman Kessler, actor with D.J. Sylvis, writer and producer and we are not on the moon. We are on the planet Earth. (Deej laughs) But we’re here to talk about the moon, aren’t we D.J?
D.J. Sylvis 0:54
We definitely are. Hello, everyone. I am D.J. Sylvis. I am the writer and producer and somewhat sort of ham-handed technician for Moonbase Theta, Out.
Leeman Kessler 1:07
And as I mentioned, I’m Leeman Kessler and I play Roger Bragado-Fischer.
D.J. Sylvis 1:12
Yes. So we – this is a sort of a little bonus for all of you people who made it through the 20 episode countdown with us.
Leeman Kessler 1:23
Yay!
D.J. Sylvis 1:23
(laughs) We have a bunch of questions which people have submitted to us. We’re gonna try to get through those first – pulled up first, those as well. But first I wanted to talk a little bit about well, actually, it sort of ties into the first question. So do we just want to like start with that?
Leeman Kessler 1:39
Yeah, let’s just jump – Let’s just, let’s just jump right in. Alright, so our very first question comes from Ruckland who wants to know: what inspired the show? What outside things influenced the way you wrote and produced it?
D.J. Sylvis 1:52
All right, well, the inspiration for the show was a little bit of a sort of economic necessity. (both laugh) We… both Leeman and I were a part of Monkeyman back when it was – started out as a theatre company in 2008, and –
Leeman Kessler 2:11
Which makes it a very – very unfortunate that we’re recording this on World Theatre Day.
D.J. Sylvis 2:16
Well, that’strue. I hadn’t really thought about that. But we did start out with that back in 2008. Some friends of mine and I started, Monkeyman Productions as a theatre company to produce sort of Geek-focused theater. We wrote like sci fi stuff and zombie apocalypse plays and things like that, and Leeman was actually in our first production.
Leeman Kessler 2:38
It was – I guess, cuz I guess Monkeyman hadn’t started with the New Ideas Festival. That’s just the first play you guys all did together.
D.J. Sylvis 2:44
Yeah, um, we actually founded the company after that, but –
Leeman Kessler 2:47
Yeah.
D.J. Sylvis 2:48
But yeah, our first actual production was the fall of 2008. Theater of the Obsessed, which was a collection of short pieces, and Leeman played King Kong.
Leeman Kessler 2:58
And a werewolf!
D.J. Sylvis 2:59
And a werewolf – now, see, you ruined the surprise, there. But see, it’s – so the moon comes into it pretty much everywhere, I guess. But yeah, so we started out with that. We did theater for about eight or nine years. And things sort of took an economic downturn, we had a production that we unfortunately lost some money on, went into hiatus for a while. And coming back, I was looking for a way to keep telling stories and keep telling stories with people I was – I liked collaborating with. But we didn’t really have money to rent spaces. So we started looking at alternative media. We actually spent quite a while developing another podcast series that has yet to bear fruit, Whimsy and Wiffle’s World of Wonders, which there is information about our website on because we are still trying to develop it. But as that sort of stretched longer and longer in development, I said, Well, maybe I can write something smaller and easier to record. Just pull one person into my web for it and sort of get going. So I have to say that the outside things that influenced how we wrote and produced it was wanting to do something that was sort of small enough to create and sort of get our feet wet without the difficulties of producing a full, full cast show with full sound effects and everything. So.
Leeman Kessler 4:29
This whole situation reminds me of the time that I tried to plan this really like ornate and epic and like written out Dungeons and Dragons game, and just could never get the people involved around to do it. Like it just, scheduling never worked out, too many people working at the same time. But there’s like a smaller group, there’s like, you know, three of us who could get together regularly are like, Well, why don’t we – if no one else can get together, let’s get together and we’ll just do a kind of bullshit like seat of the pants game. And that was like an amazing campaign that like we had all sorts of fun adventures for because we could actually do it! And there was no planning involved. Like, I think a major plot point was that no one had ever seen the horse before. And so they were like (Deej laughs) people that, like, have horses, and they were these beautiful, majestic beasts, you know. So I mean, it was just really dumb stuff like that. But there is something for, you know, the the art that – just can be done, versus sort of the necessarily the art that you’re, you know, striving for or is the kind of, you know, the main thing you’re, you’re aiming at. Being able to just sort of sit down and get something on page, on film? I mean, I say this is a dude who has one of the most like lo-fi YouTube series that he’s been running for seven years.
D.J. Sylvis 5:44
(laughs) If by some chance you haven’t already checked out Leeman’s other project – other big main project, Ask Lovecraft, you should really go and take a look at that on the YouTubes.
Leeman Kessler 5:55
And I mean – and the only reason that got done was because it was so incredibly easy for me to do. Shoot it all in like one shot, have – be in front of a bedsheet for the like (laughs) majority of the early days. And I was right, I understood how I would work if I made it too difficult. If I made it too complicated to do, I wouldn’t do it. And so I made it very simple to do. And I have, like 1500 episodes of this ridiculous show, to look back on. For my children to see as their father’s legacy.
D.J. Sylvis 6:30
So yeah, I think that sort of carries us into the next question as well.
Leeman Kessler 6:34
Well, well, I think we – do you want to look about the outside things that influenced the specific way you wrote it like, like, choosing the – choosing the theme or choosing the, like to make it just kind of like a four or five minutes. You know?
D.J. Sylvis 6:46
I don’t know that – that requires me to pretend that a lot of this was, you know, planned out carefully, but –
Leeman Kessler 6:50
Fair! There you go. (laughs)
D.J. Sylvis 6:50
I think they’re (laughs) Yes. The influences as far as sci-fi is – like I sort of go back and forth. Like I said, the other story idea we were playing with is more of a contemporary story, more of like, sort of a paranormal thing. And I always seem to sort of alternate between stuff like that, and harder sci fi. So when I was thinking of something else to play with, naturally became – a cat jumping on the desk (laughs) it automatically became a sci fi story. And then the way I wrote and produced it again, I just wanted to try something that would sort of be little pieces, just something that we could sort of like play with, but not get too tangled up in. Again, I knew that the audio production side of it was going to be new to us as well. And so I didn’t want to get too bogged down in that stuff. So deliberately writing something that was one voice that didn’t require a whole lot of like, effects or anything at least to start with.
Leeman Kessler 7:49
All right. Espressionist wants to know: what was the easiest and hardest part of jumping into this new medium and making an audio drama?
D.J. Sylvis 7:59
Okay. I mean, we’ve sort of touched on a little bit of that. The easiest part, I think was finding you. (laughs) Because I already done that.
Leeman Kessler 8:08
Yes, I was. Yes. Yeah. (laughs)
D.J. Sylvis 8:10
But no, I think I think a big part, particularly as like, we’re starting to look at casting for season two in another month or two here. That already knowing – knowing that I had you on board made a big difference. And so that was definitely one of the easiest parts was finding my collaborator for the piece. Sort of the hardest bits were, again, learning the technical aspects, which I’m still learning at this point. And learning that there was actually a community out there. Like, it took me till about halfway through the series before I suddenly realized that, hey, (laughs) we’re not the only people in the world doing this.
Leeman Kessler 8:47
(laughs) No, that’s, that’s been fascinating to suddenly – you know, I joke a lot about, you know, being someone who’s been on YouTube for a couple of years now, you know, you feel like you understand what’s happening in the scene and like, what’s going on, and then like, you’ll hear about something, and you’ll go take a look at it. And it’ll be completely unlike anything you’ve ever seen, it will have a million times more views than you have. And you’ll be like what on earth? And you realize that there are so many little tide pools of content, and you may know your tide pool really, really well and even think that you’re in this huge tide pool. But then as soon as you kind of like, you know, crawl out and peer into the next tide pool over, it’s completely different. It’s a completely new ecosystem. And you know, there could be much larger like crab monsters in there than you ever thought possible. And that’s – that’s what it’s been like to kind of suddenly be plopped into the world of audio drama podcasts. You know, I’ve been a podcast junkie for about like a decade and a half, you know, like ever, you know… But the podcasts I listened to were usually either gaming related or comedy related. I never really listened to narrative podcasts or fiction podcasts. Like you know, I thought of you know, Welcome to Night Vale was sort of this kind of, you know, fictioney, written out kind of thing. But like even it really straddles the line of still kinda comedy and genre and things like that. And so to see this whole world of podcasts and people creating, you know, really intensive, you know, radio, you know, old timey radio plays, right? But – but playing with the genre and pushing the genre that’s been fascinating for me.
D.J. Sylvis 10:23
Yeah, there’s so much amazing stuff out there that I just had no idea about, until literally about halfway through the series. I was… I knew there was other stuff out there. And I was listening to a few things. But really, like, I didn’t even think about there being community out there for it. I was like, Oh, well, I just record this. And we push it to people who have always wanted to watch my plays, but weren’t in the same geographic area. And that’s all we do. And it wasn’t until I started reaching out, particularly on Twitter, and then eventually finding like discord channels and stuff about podcasting for audio fiction, that I started finding all these other people, and all these other shows, and just sort of diving into it. And that was when things really sort of took off. And if there’s one thing that I could change, this point would have been to immerse myself in that world before we started releasing.
Leeman Kessler 11:15
As – as the performer, I mean, one of the easiest things for me was that I was already somewhat familiar with the technology. You know, I’ve done podcasts for a while now, I’ve recorded audio books and Audio Stories. So like, you know, I know how to, you know, queue up audacity, I have a, you know, get my microphone set up, make sure I’m recording when my child is sleeping. (Deej laughs) But it was really, the it was the – the serial aspect of it was very new, and getting into the headspace for that, finding the kind of energy for that, was very different. You know, when you sit down to do a podcast like this, you know, we’re just kind of talking and having good time, and that’s, you know, you’re not… it’s not this kind of planned out thing. And when you’re reading a story, like it’s just you’re reading a story, you see – you’re looking at it, you’re following it, you kind of understand where it’s going. But a serial like this, where you’re hitting specific emotional beats. And you’re sort of repeating this – this, you know, because of the structure of it, you know, we there’s a lot of repetition, right, you know, we do the introduction, that – giving the date, the time, you know, the the ending it with the the message to Alexandre. You know, there’s, there’s all this… there’s this rhythmic nature to it, which takes a great deal of emotional energy to make feel natural and not just read off a page. And that I found very – I found it very challenging. It’s, it’s going back and re-listening… You know, it’s interesting how I’m like, oooh, like, you know, this was – there were points where I really felt like I was struggling. (laughs) And so it was – it was, it’s been fascinating to see the response. And that response I think we can look at in the next rather flattering question. From Oz-9 Olivia, who wants to know: D.J, did you build your story to the voice talent you had? Or did you… miraculously find the perfect voice to suit your story?
D.J. Sylvis 13:07
(laughs) Alright, well, can we can we cut the last part of that question out when we edit the episode?
Leeman Kessler 13:13
No. Oh, I guess you’re editing so you can do whatever you want.
D.J. Sylvis 13:15
(laughs) No, I mean to sort of briefly answer the question, I very much knew, like, before I wrote it that – I mean, you had agreed to the project. And so I was very much writing to you, and I had written – I’ve written to you quite a few times (laughs) over our joint careers. So I knew starting that out, but as well, to sort of, I’ll just sort of briefly talk about the process, and then I’ll hand it over to you because you created the character. But what we did was with every episode, I would do a first rough draft, send it to you to do a scratch recording of, and then I would revise based on that, based on things that you added to it, things that you brought to the delivery, that I decided that I wanted to expand upon. So.
Leeman Kessler 13:15
Yeah, and for me, you know, you say I created the character. I mean, I just read, I read the words that were there, you know? Like I, I very much, you know, I’m always as an actor, I like having dictators in my life to direct me and to tell me where to stand and what to say. And, you know, so, you know, for Roger, it was just kind of – it was just finding kind of where he was at emotionally at any given point. Right? You know, because, you know, there’s there’s a way you could sort of read the whole thing and make it this very aggressive, very, like, you know, screw the man… way of, you know, fighting against the the Enclaves and whatnot. Very verbally and very just like, rrrgh! But that didn’t, you know – I got much more of a sense of, this is a guy who does a job, he’s professional, he’s done this job for a long time, and he’s tired but he also knows that there are people depending on him. And that, you know, those that sense of responsibility, that sense of still finding occasional bits of wonder, even in the midst of his frustration. That, you know, lent itself to this, you know, more quiet… a bit more just – you know, the emotions are there, but they’re a bit more swallowed down, right? Like, it’s not just – and part of this might be the fact that I’m recording when my child is asleep, so I can’t be shouting screaming into the microphone. (both laugh) But I never felt the desire to you know, like it was…
Leeman Kessler 14:03
Yeah, there’s never really any, like, “noooooo!” moments for Roger, it’s just –
Leeman Kessler 15:33
“You blew it up!” Um, so, so yeah, so I think you know, and then the fact that everything was always returning to this relationship. Not, you know, not just the relationship with his crew, which, you know, I think you did a very good job of, of hinting at and playing with and having that be, you know, resonant throughout the series. But returning to Alexandre and having him, you know, really, almost switch, right? I mean, like, there’s, there’s a, there’s a switch in – there’s a switch in warmth, there’s a switch in tone for, you know, those recordings to Alexandre that I think are… I mean, that was very purposeful, right? I didn’t want it to just have the same –
D.J. Sylvis 16:11
Yeah.
Leeman Kessler 16:11
- matter of fact, cadence, you know. Like, it’s, it’s code switching, right? You know, when we, you know, it’s the difference of, you know – I’ve been in retail long enough that I understand how to how to talk to, you know, a rather hostile (both laugh) experience, or how you talk to a manager, or how you talk to a co worker, how, you know, then, you know, you pick up your phone, and you’re talking to your spouse about picking up eggs. And… but what I found interesting, was always ending with the return to the somewhat harder business-like, “moonbase Theta, out” as a button. I really, I like that, you know, because it doesn’t it doesn’t flow. You know, I think maybe once or twice, you know, I kind of do it, you know, in a similar sort of tired warmth. With – that I’m talking to Alexandre. But for the most part, it was this kind of return to that, that that structured, professional “moonbase Theta, out.”
D.J. Sylvis 17:04
Yeah. And I think that that – I mean, obviously, you brought that home every time. If I may compliment you just slightly. But –
Leeman Kessler 17:13
You may!
D.J. Sylvis 17:13
(laughs) But I, I do feel like you made that division really clear. And like, people have mentioned that quite a few times in talking about the show. That… there’s this immediate change in the warmth of your voice, when like, when you start, no matter, like what you’ve been talking about before that, all of a sudden, before they even know that you’re talking to Alex, they can tell by the change in your voice that that’s what you’re doing. But yeah, so, um… I did want to ask you as well, while we were sort of on this question – how much – how it sort of compares to the other voice over work you’ve done? As far as characters and stuff?
Leeman Kessler 17:50
Yes. Well, you know, and again, it’s – it’s difficult. It’s been, it’s been really difficult, right? Because it’s the same character hitting a lot of different emotional beats. Having that sense of repetition. You know, when I’ve done – when I’ve done audio books, and – short audio books, you know, they’re, you know, short stories, that’s – that’s pretty simple, right? You know, there’s a handful of characters, you figure out, you know, two or three voices. You know, I just, I have to – you know, usually I have to decide, am I going to narrate this mostly in my regular Leeman, Kessler voice? Or am I going to do the somewhat more clipped HP Lovecraft voice. You know, if it’s, you know, because sometimes that’s what folks want, they want it to kind of flow, you know.
D.J. Sylvis 18:24
That’s what they pay for.
Leeman Kessler 18:24
And – precisely, and then, you know, if I, if I’m doing a longer like a novella, I don’t think I’ve done like a real full novel. But I’ve recorded now, I think, two, two novellas. And you know, there you have to keep a list of the different characters and how they sound and like, you realize, oh, that character sounded like this at the beginning and sounded way different at the end, so I have to go back and re record (Deej laughs) those parts at the beginning to actually make it match… Some point they became Spanish. I don’t know how that happened. But it’s – but it’s, it’s Yeah, it’s a very different process. You’re, you know, you’re reading a longer story, it’s – it’s going on, uh, on one long, big narrative. Whereas this was a lot – this was 20, short narratives, all feeding into one long narrative, but, you know, in these – these kind of four minute chunks. And that was, yeah, I don’t know, I found that process to be very different, despite the fact that it’s, you know, in many ways similar, right? I’m sitting down, I’m reading a script. But also the fact that it’s, it’s also performance, right? I’m not narrating I’m not going yeah, Roger sat at his console wiping his brow, wondering (Deej laughs) you know, because that would be – that would also be different, right? You know, if I was narrating what he was doing, and then, you know, going into like (radio voice) “this is Roger Bragado-Fischer and I’m here I’m on the moonbase, don’t you know?”
D.J. Sylvis 19:37
(laughs) And there are definitely podcasts that do that as well, that do narrative and do it well. I just really sort of felt like we needed the verisimilitude of this being – like even the way we start, I wanted to start with just the static and going right into his report instead of starting with theme music or whatever.
Leeman Kessler 19:55
So yeah, it’s similar just in terms of the actual you know, physical thing of setting up the microphone and (laughs) you know, pressing play on Audacity. But as far as the real getting into the character, having just one character, and trying to make it feel immediate, feel… I mean ’cause it’s weird, right, because it’s not just that easy. You know, stuff is coming off the top of head, he is also reading reports and he is like, you know, I had this idea of, there were notes he was referencing that he could pull off of. And there were times where I did want there to be a slightly mechanical, clipped read quality, you know, because he is just sort of going down a list of things. So that when he’s being more passionate about something, or talking about relationships, or talking about his frustrations, it contrasts, right?
D.J. Sylvis 20:42
And that was actually something we had to sort of work out through the development as well, which was different from our theater work. I was very much used to, as a playwright not putting a whole lot of cues in the script to because directors don’t like that. Stage actors don’t like that, because they work it out in rehearsal. But for you, you sort of felt like, you’re missing a little bit more guidance as far as, like, what Roger was feeling in those moments.
Leeman Kessler 21:09
Yeah, ’cause there’s not… There’s not a whole lot of stage direction. (laughs) You know, where you can kind of work out some of these things. I mean, yeah, so I did. Yeah, that was really early on in the process, I asked that, you know, you at – you at least let me know what emotional beats you were, were thinking. Like you, I think there, there are probably times I read them, and other times when I just read them and didn’t necessarily obey them.
D.J. Sylvis 21:34
Oh, yeah, for sure. (laughs)
Leeman Kessler 21:35
But at least gave me an idea. Like, okay, where’s D.J’s head at in this? Okay, that makes sense. And I can play with that. And I can go from there. Because, again, you know, so there’s so much subtext. And there’s so much like, you know, because I also hadn’t read all 20 episodes when – I before I was recording. I didn’t want to –
D.J. Sylvis 21:51
Well, I mean, we didn’t have them all. (laughs).
Leeman Kessler 21:51
Yeah, yeah. And yeah. And I actually don’t know, if you don’t know, if you ever sat down and told me all that you were planning on doing? I don’t know, if I knew a whole lot –
D.J. Sylvis 21:54
No, I don’t think so, either.
Leeman Kessler 22:03
So, you know –
D.J. Sylvis 22:04
I definitely don’t think early on that you knew, like, where it was going, or where we were gonna end up, so.
Leeman Kessler 22:10
And there were certain relationship surprises that sort of, like crop up from time to time. So yeah, so being able to, to have those little moments pinged for me, so that I could be like, Alright, so I can adjust and go up or down. And it wasn’t huge things, right. Like, it’s not suddenly he’s just like, I’m angry! Or I’m on top of the wooorld. You know, it was just little things to let me temper and – and play with the subtle variations. And I think – I think that worked. I think having that direction definitely helped me as a performance, and I hope it comes across more clearly to those who are listening.
D.J. Sylvis 22:47
Yeah, no, I definitely think that worked out. I also think that we’ve spent 25 minutes at this point in the first three questions. (laughs)
Leeman Kessler 22:54
Well, just, y’know… if we need to if we need to come back, and do you know, Q&A number two? The next question goes to goes to me, it’s from Elan Ruskin. Who wants to know: did I record all the episodes in a single session? And I did not. I would often -because it was, because it was a much more taxing process than I expected, I would record only a couple in a go. Yeah, yeah, it just it was – for whatever reason, I just, I found the process of doing – of doing this… There was – there was an emotional toll I wasn’t expecting. So I had to pace myself. And I think it worked. I think, you know, I don’t wind up sounding exhausted. Although I was under you know, there are time restraints, ’cause I could, I could literally only record when my children are away or asleep. So finding the time to do it. And you know, if I wait too long at night, then my voice is just tired after, you know, a day of yelling at small children. Yeah. So it was – it was interesting, finding the times and finding the moments because again, they’re not – it’s not long to record. They’re only five minute chunks. But yeah, I had – definitely had to kind of chop it up. What about for editing? Did you find with editing and playing with these things? I guess you just sort of edited them as you got them? (laughs)
D.J. Sylvis 24:00
Yeah, I added them as you gave me the information. And I certainly only edited one at a time. It didn’t take me that long being as mostly what I was doing was adjusting pauses, clipping out a few little bits here and there. But I mean, you gave me the recordings pretty clean as well. I’m sure you cut out an awful lot of goofs and stuff before you gave it to me. Or did you? (laughs)
Leeman Kessler 24:24
I yeah. So yeah, I have a – if there’s an egregious error, then I, I know what to do to – I have a system in place where essentially I can clap to indicate that oh, I screwed up here. And then I go back and erase where I see the giant clap spikes. And that way, that way, I’m not just sending you a whole bunch of audio with a bunch of errors in it and you’re stuck having to kind of clean that up.
D.J. Sylvis 24:46
As much fun as you know, it would be for creating a blooper reel now. But… But yeah, for the editing. And this is something that I’ve only been learning doing the bonus episodes because I’m starting to mix in some ambient sound and some sound effects that take longer. But for the regular season it was all… I would, I had a couple of specific filters that I ran your voice through to make it sound like it was sort of more broadcasty and more being filtered, being sent down from like, through a satellite and everything. And then of course mixing in the intro static and the outro effects and my voiceover. So, yeah, it only took me maybe, I’d say 20 minutes or so for most of the episodes, to do the actual editing. And then I started working on the bonus episodes and doing the other stuff. And, as you guys will hear in a few weeks, the second bonus episode, which goes through three or four different scene changes, all of which have their own sort of ambient noises in the background, took me quite a while (laughs) to put together.
Leeman Kessler 25:46
(laughs) No, I mean, as someone who, you know, has both done podcasts and has edited his own podcast, like editing, just simple sound cleanup can be a real process. And you want to put out a call, especially for something like this, where it’s, you know, it’s – it’s a fiction, and there’s, you know, the stuff you leave in can be Oh, is that, you know, is that weird blip meant to be a plot point? You know, is there something breaking through the communication, you know, like, it’s, you have to be careful because that can that can really take folks out of it. You know, it’s…
D.J. Sylvis 26:15
Yeah, it was probably one of the like, greatest discoveries for me, one of those sort of like thunderclap moments, was when I realized that I could adjust your pauses if I wanted to. (both laugh) Because, because that’s always like those things that as a playwright, you’re standing backstage listening to the performance, and you’re like, just hold on a minute, just hold on a minute. And to actually be able to adjust those things was kind of amazing.
Leeman Kessler 26:39
Yes, I can – I’m happy being your voice puppet. (Deej laughs) These next two questions both come from Practicing Human and they’re related more to writing and backstory. Practicing Human wants to know: what inspired Roger to go to the moon in the first place? And just wants to know what the backstory on him before he went and whether we’re going to learn more about that in season two?
D.J. Sylvis 27:01
(laughs) And I can’t say a whole lot about that, because it is going to be a significant part of season two, learning more about Roger’s origins sort of, and why he came there. But I will say that he did make a very specific decision to be there. Because he wanted to be on the moon, his work had always been as a communications officer with the Enclave on earth. And so having the chance to go to the moon, he just couldn’t say no to that. And I think, again, that sort of ties into the sense of wonder, we sort of hear from him when he talks about helping with the astrophysics work with the – with the like observational work. And talking about like being out on the surface and looking out into space. I think these are things that he really wanted to experience. So I definitely think that –
Leeman Kessler 27:53
Very nice!
D.J. Sylvis 27:53
- that was a deliberate choice. As far as any more backstory than that, I think you’re gonna kind of have to wait. A lot of the journey in season two, I think I’ve mentioned before on Twitter that season two is going to be more set sort of behind the scenes of the 20 weeks we’ve already heard. So it’s going to go through the same sequence of events, but we’re going to hear from other characters, we’re going to hear more personal logs instead of the official reports. And so a lot of Roger’s journey – and Roger is the only one who gets to show up in every episode, because I mean, you are the lead – is going to be about his life on earth and about his relationship with Alex, and sort of going back and forth through that struggle. So.
Leeman Kessler 28:32
Inspector Virlo Morton Lee pod wants to know that – well, they know the base is on the dark side of the moon. But they wanna know if there was a specific site where you have placed the base?
D.J. Sylvis 28:42
Alright, and first of all, just to be a bit pedantic, there is no dark side of the moon.
Leeman Kessler 28:45
Oh snap!
D.J. Sylvis 28:46
They are – they are on the far side of the Moon. Because the moon, of course –
Leeman Kessler 28:51
So there’s cows and women with beehive hairs, and uh…
D.J. Sylvis 28:54
(laughs) But yeah, both sides of the moon go through two weeks cycles of light and dark, I did choose a very specific place where I think their base is. And it’s the the Daedalus Crater, which is just about in the center of the backside of the moon, far side of the moon, and is one of the places where in my research I learned that they’ve talked about would be the best place to put a radio telescope. Because inside the crater and specifically on the far side of the Moon is – there’s the least chance of radio interference from Earth. So if you want to hear stuff way out in deep space, you want to be somewhere with the least interference at all. And then when I was coming toward the end of the series, and Roger makes his trip to the close side, I had to figure out okay, so if you’ve got bases on the close side of the Moon, how long is gonna take him to get there and back? So I had to sort of like plot out a route for him and everything.
Leeman Kessler 29:49
And I do want to – I want to put D.J. on blast a little bit here. You know, he’s – he’s joked about you know, not really planning things out and sort of seat of the pants, but the truth is he actually did a lot of research. Like when we – when we were starting talking about this, like he sent over, like a, just a dump of links about the moon and about, like explorations to the moon, and like, you know, like all this research. So this was – yeah, this was very thoroughly, you know, thought out and – again to, you know, you’re not gonna listen to Moonbase Theta, Out necessarily, you know, learn a whole lot about lunar astronomy. But like, that was in the background, and I think definitely allowed there to be some verisimilitude. You know, to the point that I have friends who work in aerospace, who really loved the show, and aren’t like just yelling at me about like, how we got, you know, important details wrong.
D.J. Sylvis 30:36
Well, I tried. And I mean, I certainly never intended it for it to be like, hard sci-fi to the point where it’s sort of the Heinlein effect, where he spends three pages talking about physics and says, you can skip this if you want to, but I’m gonna tell you. (Leeman laughs) But I definitely wanted to get the details, right. And I mean, I just find that stuff fascinating anyway. I always – I tend to do my research on the fly while I’m writing an episode. And so I would always get like, go down this rabbit hole of reading about like radio telescopes or reading about tardigrades. And just all of a sudden, an hour later, I’m like, wait, was I writing something at some point there?
Leeman Kessler 31:12
Queen Jess wants to know: did you intend to parallel The Rime of the Ancient Mariner from the beginning? Or did you realize it was perfect later on? And how about the other poems?
D.J. Sylvis 31:22
The poems were an interesting choice. Um, I don’t think I went in expecting to do that? It sort of came out of the Roger / Alex relationship, and just wanting there to be something a little more sort of romantic. I don’t feel like – and we’re gonna learn more about like, where that came from in season two as we explore their relationship more – but I feel like it was… started out as really deliberately, like Roger’s attempt to sort of reach out to his husband and say, Here, I’m being romantic. I’m doing the things you want me to do. And so the poems I sort of chose the other ones, I mean, the shorter ones that I use a few times, I think it’s like four times in the regular series, and then the final episode, the shorter ones I chose on the fly, as I was going through, I just sort of like, okay, a poem would be good here. And I went, read some things, is it okay, that kind of clicks. But Rime of the Ancient Mariner I think I got about halfway through this series, and I was starting to think about what the final episode would be like. And I just sort of realized that’s where he’s at, at the end, he’s in that same position where he is the sole survivor. Well, I mean, not really, sole survivors, ’cause everyone’s in stsis. But he is the sole – like where he comes and is telling the story. And so it very much made sense to me that when he reads that piece in the book of poetry, that that’s what he latches on to for the end. And I guess I kind of wanted to be a little bit, you know, snobby and pretentious as well.
Leeman Kessler 32:49
Nice! I like it. Espressionist hits us up with a couple questions here: was there anything you wanted to include – scenarios, details, character tidbits – that you ended up taking out or couldn’t make work?
D.J. Sylvis 33:00
I think a lot of – again, I don’t want to go too far into this because, while I had a bunch of notes that I didn’t use for Season One, there are – a lot of them are going to be integrated now in season two. But I feel like again, it sort of came down to a lot of my research, I would get so excited about like, all of the intricacies of how radio telescope works, or how hydroponic farming would work on the moon, and want to like, cram that stuff in there just because I knew about it. Where else, the research I did for the genetic archives bit… So there are a bunch of those things where I wanted to sort of show off. (laughs) I was like, okay, that has to just be for me.
Leeman Kessler 33:37
If the crew played Pokemon, what would their starter be D.J?
D.J. Sylvis 33:41
(laughs) See, and I sort of like cheaped out on this. And my response to that was there are no PokeStops on the moon. But, um.
Leeman Kessler 33:49
Well that’s interesting, right? I mean, I think you know, this – this speaks, this speaks to that, that you know, how alive you made these characters feel, despite the fact that we never hear from them right? Like, but they come alive in the memories, and the sort of the reminiscences and the bitching (laughs) from Roger.
D.J. Sylvis 34:06
Do you have opinions on what your starter would be?
Leeman Kessler 34:09
I mean, I would only be able to speak to like old classic, you know, Gameboy, Gameboy Color Pokemon, because that’s when I stopped playing. I don’t know, I feel like Roger’s a Squirtle guy, you know, he’s a soft boy.
D.J. Sylvis 34:21
(laughs) That’s fair. Yeah, I really don’t know. Honestly. It’s been so long since I was involved in one at all I know that they have –
Leeman Kessler 34:29
In that world? (laughs)
D.J. Sylvis 34:30
I know, they have the classy new starter three that people are picking from or whatever, and I have no idea who I would assign those to, so.
Leeman Kessler 34:38
In a similar vein, if the crew could have one meal in space, what would it be?
D.J. Sylvis 34:43
Well, naturally, it would have to be vegan, because what is it? I say at the front – first time, at the beginning, three or five of them are vegan. And then – this is actually, the person asked me that question is actually our friend, Tina, who is going to be helping out with some things, you’re going to hear in the series eventually. But she sort of pinned me down when I was talking to her about backstory. And she wanted to know exactly which cast – which crew members are vegan, because I sort of go back and forth with… she was like, well, Roger can’t possibly be because he talks about drumsticks and talks about all these things. And I’m like, but sort of, in my real like, story in my head, I sort of decided at one point, that pretty much everything. And she sort of like copy on the dairy milk thing, too, because she was like to talk about having dairy milk and dairy milk is not vegan, which is true right now. But who knows in 2098? So I sort of decided that things like meat, they – I’m kind of interested in how the whole vat-grown meat thing is going to play out in the long run as far as how vegetarians and vegans consider that, because it’s not really an ethical issue anymore. So it depends on what your reasons were for choosing that. So, yeah, I think that they could sit down at a table together and pretty much have a normal meal. I think a lot of it would still be sort of homegrown vegetables and stuff, because we talked about Nessa doing – taking care of that in the farm. But yeah, my, in my world of the future, vegans can eat meat without feeling bad about it.
Leeman Kessler 36:18
Elina wants to know: how much of the universe and its events did you build before writing? Did you build it more while writing? They love to see the tiny windows into this universe. And they’re wondering just how big that iceberg is below.
D.J. Sylvis 36:30
I actually – I put a note in this because I was trying to make sure that I got the pronunciation right. It’s I think it’s Elina? So I’m gonna go with that. And then she can crack my knuckles for it afterwards if I got it wrong. (Leeman laughs) But yeah, sort of answering the question. I did a lot of thinking about the world building as I was starting to put it together. Decided that it doesn’t really make sense. I mean, I don’t really in my everyday conversations with my friends or family or at work. I don’t talk about politics most of the time, I don’t talk about the state of the environment and everything. So I decided it was going to come out and bits and drabs. But I very much made sort of the big decisions in my head. That definitely like, we’re in a state of environmental disaster, the oceans have risen considerably. And in my decisions, as far as like what enclaves there still are, we mentioned a few of the other ones in an episode here or there, that they had to be ones that were fairly well in land. (laughs) Because a lot of like, cities on the coasts are gonna wind up underwater in the long run.
Leeman Kessler 37:37
No, and I like that, I – you know, I’ve, I’ve always been a sort of less is more as far as kind of world building goes. I mean, like, I like fun, sci-fi, fantasy worlds and whatnot. But being able to see glimpses of them is fun. And yeah, in a setting like this, you know, we – yeah, it’s true. We don’t just sit around, “as you know, Bob, but we are in a bicameral parliamentary democracy, which,” you know, like, you know, just doesn’t, you know, that just – that rings hollow.
D.J. Sylvis 38:01
Yeah. And I mean, these things that, I mean, like the way that things are run, like feel sort of feel different to us, but I mean, to them are just everyday now. Like the fact that there aren’t really countries anymore, there are enclaves which are owned by like corporate partnerships in various places. And it’s more sort of like a constant system of mergers and acquisitions, than any sort of like political jockeying as it happens now. So yeah, I definitely made those decisions, I made a lot of decisions about what the base was going to be like and how it was run. I read a lot about sort of the plans for moon bases in the future, things we wanted to do as far as mining, things we wanted to do as far as research efforts, that I tried to very specifically like focus their, effort their organization on. So yeah, I think I did a lot of it. And there’s a lot of stuff that’s still inside my head, too, that I never really wrote down. I have a pretty significant amount of notes piled up. But you know, now that I’m working on season two, but there’s a lot of the world building that still just lives in my head.
Leeman Kessler 39:08
The next few questions are more – less questions and more threats. Karen just says there better be a second season. Queen Jess says: how dare you?! (Deej laughs) – but then follows will there be more?
D.J. Sylvis 39:20
I think the “How dare you” is pretty fair. I know that, particularly as we counted down the last few episodes, there were people who were getting quite upset with me. And I think an awful lot of people really expected that I was going to sort of pull Roger’s feet out of the fire in the final episode. And of course, that’s not what happens at all. But yeah, there definitely is a second season coming. As I said, we’ve sort of announced it a bit ago on Twitter and I’m developing it right now. I’m hoping for maybe like mid summer to release. Right now I’m just getting to the point where I think I’m ready to write the first episode of season two soon, I want to get the first three or so in first draft form for three episodes, so that I can start, like casting. Because like I said, my creative process for this with you, and I hope to continue this with other voice actors as well, has been to do a rough draft, send it to the actor to play with a bit, and then sort of use that scratch recording to inform my revisions. And I’d like to keep doing that. So I’m hoping that I have time to create and work with some voice actors and still be able to release season two by mid summer or so.
Leeman Kessler 40:34
And it’s nice, right? Although it is a bit of a cruel trick (Deej laughs) because I think when people say, “will there be more?” they’re hoping that they can find out what happens to the rest of the story. So yes, we’re having a season two! We’re going right back to the beginning to see how everyone else is suffering! (Deej laughs) I love it. I love bringing pain to people. And yeah, it’s been… It’s so funny, right? ‘Cause, you know, we recorded the, you know, we recorded and edited these, like, months ago, like, you know, and… so you know, and I mean, I remember just the process of going through it and reading it and, you know, finishing it up. But like, by the time they started actually being out there and people were responding to it? And again, because you did such a good job of like keying into these communities, you know, in that sort of the second half of the run? Yeah, I got to sort of see in real time people listen to the episodes and responding to the episodes, which I hadn’t seen before. I was telling people, hey, I’m doing the show, like, you should listen to it. They say, Oh, okay. And, you know, sometimes they’ll do it, sometimes they wouldn’t, but I wasn’t, you know, quite into -I wasn’t… It was, it felt like throwing it into the vast open chasm and hoping that, you know, there were – people were enjoying it. But to go to, you know, the places online where people are doing things, but are also talking about their enjoyment, which is very nice to see. Like, I understand Goodreads a lot more now, and (laughs) things like that, you know? Where there is that kind of immediate response, which, you know, I mean, I get comments on my YouTube episodes. But – but this, I don’t know, this, this, this felt much more visceral. And so to see, especially in those last few episodes, how people were responding, that was rewarding. That was I was not expecting that much sense of satisfaction and creative fulfillment. But it was, it was spectacular.
D.J. Sylvis 42:16
And honestly, I mean, when I started writing this, you know, I very much expected this 20 episodes to be it. Like I thought this was going to be a self contained arc, we’d be done, I’d be ready to like work on the other series, which has still sort of been like moving further and further in the future for me right now. But I very much thought that 20 episodes were gonna be it, we were going to leave him abandoned on the moon, and no one would ever find out what happened from there. (Leeman laughs) But certainly the audience’s invested. And I’m very invested in like the character in the stories at this point. And I know in my head, I was telling a friend of mine this about this the other day that I have the entire thing plotted out from beginning to end now. I know, however many seasons it might wind up down the road, where it would end, what would happen to everyone. It’s just sort of figuring out all the stuff in between. Deciding at one point that the – when the point came that we decided to move forward, and it was only like, maybe three quarters of the way through the season that we really made that decision, I sort of had to talk had to decide, okay, not only how am I going to write myself out of that corner, but when. And I decided that it was really important for me that people know, the rest of the crew a lot better than they get them in the first season. Because really, you only get like bits and pieces of them, you only get Roger’s impression of them. And I decided that if I wanted to tell the fuller story, I needed to give them more of a sense of who these people were as well. So I decided to spend the second season focusing on that, focusing on character building. And then if you know, God is good to us, and we all get to season three, then that’s when we would actually move forward in time.
Leeman Kessler 43:54
So there we go, folks, you got to keep on listening! Keep on watching the skies!
D.J. Sylvis 43:59
Yeah, and again, like who knows, like how long that would take if people were only – if you if – if you folks are only mildly interested, then I can wrap everything up in season three. If you decide that you want to hear more and more and more about these people like sure. I can you know, drag things on into tedium if necessary.
Leeman Kessler 44:17
That’s when Kyle Katarn shows up. (Deej laughs) C.D. Rice wants to know: How is all this Alexandre? What – was he getting the messages? What’s happening?!
D.J. Sylvis 44:26
(laughs) Okay, again, some of that is going to sort of be – sort of go into Season Two spoiler territory, but I think it’s fair to say he definitely like, has been getting the messages. I think there’s a point at which he doesn’t anymore, because there’s a point at which things are obviously breaking down on Earth.
Leeman Kessler 44:43
Well, this was something, yes, as a performer, I had to figure out okay, is he actually receiving it? But then every now and then there would be responses – he would be responding to things that were responses to stuff that he had sent. So I was – I was sensing there was back and forth. And it wasn’t just like, “I am talking to a dead planet Earth!” (both laugh)
D.J. Sylvis 44:58
Yeah, and again, one of the the things that I’ll try to make a little clearer in season two and sort of go into more of the mechanics of is how the messages were being conveyed back and forth. Because in my head, the idea has always been that the corporation just sort of like, takes their time with delivering purely personal messages back and forth. They get them and they’re like, well, we’ll get around to sending that to your family when we want to, which is why Roger decided to do like add into his contract that he could tag little personal messages to his official reports, which had to be distributed. Yeah, I think it’s fair to say that Alex has been getting the messages, I think it’s also fair to say that there is a point at which he is not going to anymore. And of course, there’s that emotional moment where Roger tells him to leave. And so then he’s definitely not gonna get any more at that point.
Leeman Kessler 45:47
The Inspector wants to know about funny and interesting anecdotes that happened during the writing and recording and how are we responding to the success we have achieved?
D.J. Sylvis 45:57
(laughs) See in my, in my notes next to that, for responding were: “I’m counting on Leeman for some anecdotes,” so go to it.
Leeman Kessler 46:06
You know, it’s the, the absolute, most farcical thing that kept happening is the fact that D.J. and I can’t agree on how to pronounce the word spelled D A T A. And as a result, like most of my edits, were me having remembering halfway through “crap, he wants it pronounced dah-ta, when obviously it’s pronounced the day-ta,” (Deej laughs) and, and having to go back and – and do whole like lines, whole sentences, because, you know, he’s – after a while, I suspect you of just putting that in there just to troll me. (Deej laughs) But yeah, that was that was the most like farcical – farcical thing was the fact that Yeah, I was –
D.J. Sylvis 46:41
It wasn’t so much that I thought that was the accurate way to say it. It’s the way it just felt to me, like the way Roger would say it. So. And, you know –
Leeman Kessler 46:49
I see. Well, (laughs) I mean, as – as Roger, I –
D.J. Sylvis 46:53
(laughs) Speaking as the creator of Roger, I feel like I know how he would say data (Deej pronounces it “day-ta” here).
Leeman Kessler 47:01
See, it’s it flows! Day-ta. Anyway. Yeah, that was that. That was just that was a funny, they just sort of kept happening. And then yeah, and then just there were – I mean, it’s funny right? You’re talking about the success we’ve achieved? I mean, what’s been hilarious is to see the response from people and to have friends, you know, you know, be like, Oh, sure, I’ll listen to this. And then, like, a day later, being like, what, where’s where’s the rest of it? (both laugh) I need more!
D.J. Sylvis 47:24
Yeah, it’s really been amazing. Um, I’m so incredibly grateful for like, the way people have shared links to it, have promoted us on Twitter, the amazing reviews we’ve gotten. I think every review we’ve gotten has just said really nice things about it. And the few times that had sort of pointed out issues, they were issues that I wanted to know about and wanted to, like work on making better. And just the enthusiasm people have had for the story is really like the main reason why I’ve stayed with it.
Leeman Kessler 47:56
The best – the best… My favorite part, one of the reviews we got was from a podcast on podcasting.
D.J. Sylvis 48:01
Oh, yeah.
Leeman Kessler 48:01
Nice and meta. And half of their review was just freaking out at my name (Deej laughs) because my name, Leeman Kessler, got used by The Adventure Zone for a dead character that one of their players impersonated. So for like, two or three episodes, they just kept referring to one character as Leeman Kessler. And like, you know, this is the thing they were doing. Like, if you tweeted at their show, or tweeted about the show, they would use part of your like, Twitter, Twitter handle, you know, and make like an NPC out of it. And so you know, there’s a lot of characters, Davenport and Carrion. And lots of folks who are, you know, became famous characters on this show. But they all always just had one name. And the fact that Leeman Kessler, like they just said Leeman or they just said, Kessler, I think it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But the fact that they used my full name to the point that like, I genuinely suspect there’s some people who see my name online and think I’ve named myself after this character. Because I’ve come across people who have Leeman Kessler built into their like, avatar names, and I’m like, Oh, hold up, hold up. That’s me.
D.J. Sylvis 49:05
(Laughs) See, and that was the same review where my writing was compared to MAS*H. So I think, you know, that was sort of (Leeman laughs) the high point for me as well. No, I think that’s really been the biggest thing is… I don’t know. I try not to compare to other people. So I try not to compare like download numbers and patreon supporters and things like that. But just the enthusiasm of the community for the work we’ve done and the really nice things people have said about it is the success that I just can’t get over.
Leeman Kessler 49:34
No, it’s been pretty remarkable. And, and again, because it was such a slow burn, right, because, you know –
D.J. Sylvis 49:39
Yeah.
Leeman Kessler 49:39
We released – we started it to little fanfare. You know, I think some of our friends in Toronto were like, Oh, yay! But like there wasn’t this sort of kind of big rollout. And so to then suddenly see it, to see it explode. So by the end, you know, my mentions were blowing up as folks were talking about the show and I was getting really amazing compliments about the show. About my performance, you know, that, you know, going all to my head, which I deeply appreciate. Thank you everyone. That, you know, that was that was remarkable, you know, because, and this is this is the type of collaboration that I don’t – I’ve never really done before, you know, you know, podcasts are one thing, you know, the type of podcasts I’ve done, which are usually kind of pop culture reviews sort of things are horror reviews, stuff like that, interviews, you know, that they’re a whole other beast from something like this. Which is also very different from a from a stage play, right? You know, because, you know, when most of the plays that we work on, you know, we work on it for weeks, and weeks and weeks and weeks, and then it goes up over two, maybe three weekends, if we’re lucky. And then it’s tear down. Whereas this, you know, was, you know, weeks and weeks of prep, and then weeks and weeks and weeks of response. And that’s, ah… that’s been really remarkable.
D.J. Sylvis 49:44
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing, too, is that it just keeps on going. Like for us, we wrote and recorded all this stuff last like September. Last August, September, we literally had the entire season in the can before we started releasing them. And so to –
Leeman Kessler 51:03
Yeah.
D.J. Sylvis 51:03
- all sort of, the way things have grown from there. And really all we’ve been doing is I’ve just been like, putting it out on Blubrry every week. (both laughs) And just posting the links.
Leeman Kessler 51:15
But no, but – But you I mean, you really began upping promotion. And I think, you know, at one point you made kind of a pivot to Twitter, which is weird, given like, what a – what a nightmare hellscape Twitter can be. But there are again, there are these tide pools, and if you can find them, and if you can, like, and if you’re not eaten by giant crab monster, or they’re not, you know, full of white supremacists, then it’s amazing. And so far audio fiction doesn’t seem to have that particular problem.
D.J. Sylvis 51:40
For sure. Well, I mean, some of it too, was I’ve… I started out the same way, I always went – promoted from the, for the theatre company, which was mostly focused on Facebook and through – and then just our website. And neither of those was getting us anywhere. Facebook is (laughs) almost useless now for getting news out about anything. And, of course, our website, our website was like only followed by the people who have seen our shows. But yeah, definitely, finding Twitter was just like the breaking, the – I mean, the huge, like, sort of crest of it for me. And that was when everything really sort of turned around for us as far as getting some attention, getting some really real listenership out there. Like the first half of the season, we literally had, I think it was 700 downloads for the first 10 episodes. And now we’re at like, 8500. So. (laughs)
Leeman Kessler 52:32
Yeah, and that’s nuts. And that’s phenomenal. Right? And and yeah, you know, the, the unfortunate thing about making content on the internet is you sort of you reach a milestone, and it goes from being like, the thing you were hoping for, and loving and needing, and then it immediately becomes, well, this is garbage. When am I going to do the next step? What am I going to get 85,000? You know, so I think – I think we are, luckily, have stayed grounded enough to do really appreciate where we’re at. And it’s a nice place to be at, where you – you are receiving a decent amount of attention. And it hasn’t just like, become, you know, the rung behind you, and you’re grasping for what’s above. And I’m excited about what comes next. And Inspector talks about, you know, what the stresses that are now involved with, you know, these expectations. And, and I had very few expectations when this started, you know?
D.J. Sylvis 53:20
Yeah, for sure.
Leeman Kessler 53:21
I wasn’t sure, you know, like, Okay, this was this was a fun project. I like working with you. I like working with Monkeyman. It wasn’t, it wasn’t a particularly, you know, aside from it being kind of emotionally different and difficult tasks, just, you know, doing the recordings and making sure they were to kind of my standard, I didn’t have like this massive expectation of either response or audience or, or anything. So it’s been, it’s been remarkable to – to see that response, and how it’s… and how it’s kind of fed itself and played, and continues to build.
D.J. Sylvis 53:52
Yeah, I really think the, the main stress I have right now, as far as expectations is just wanting to like keep serving the story in the ways that we have already in expanding to the additional characters and everything. As I like, sort of stack up my notes for season two. It’s just really been wanting to find ways that I’m going to talk about these other people that feel as natural, feel like they’re still set in the same world, but so they all have their own stories to tell as well as Roger, so.
Leeman Kessler 54:23
Well, should we jump into that? Should we jump into what’s – what’s going on?
D.J. Sylvis 54:27
Yeah, so um, those were sort of all the formal questions. I think there was an Inspector Virlo Morton Lee Pod, which Inspector Virlo Morton Lee is another podcast that I might like sort of throw out reference to you there that’s worth checking out. It’s sort of a detectivey thing that’s one of our friends on the discord channel is puting together and there’s… we’ll put it a little plug here for the discord channel as well. The podcast junkie discord, which is pretty well advertised around Twitter, and I’m sure if you do a Google search for it, as well, you’ll find has a Moonbase Theta, Out channel where we post a bunch of stuff about the show and has channels for a bunch of other audio fiction that has really been a great community. But they also asked about the tech. And all I’ll really say about that, because again, I’m still learning, is that right now I’m really still, I’m using Audacity, which is like the sort of stepping stone for people that are doing this sort of thing that everyone wants to move beyond, and not really using much as far as plugins or anything, I’ve just been doing some very basic filtering with with Roger’s voice. And as we get into the bonus episodes, which was my next talking point, anyway, I’m starting to play war with sound effects. So yeah, stuff that comes next. We have two bonus episodes for season one, which are going to come out on April 15, and April 29, respectively. The first episode, first bonus episode is titled “Twenty-one” and it’s the week before the series actually starts, the week before the episode “Twenty”. And then the second bonus episode is titled “Minus One” and it is a week after the final episode of the season. I don’t know there’s no – of course, again, don’t want to give – giveaway any spoilers, but I think both of them add in pretty significant ways to what you’ve heard already in the main season. And sort of give you a little bit of a taste of what we’re going for next season as far as more personal logs, more personal recordings, more relationship details. And then yeah, I think I’ve talked a lot already. I had sort of put in here as well “talk about season two,” but I think I’ve already talked a lot about that in answering the other questions as well. Did you have anything on either of those points? Do you want to sort of insert or tease?
Leeman Kessler 56:41
I mean, at this point – yeah, at this point, I’m following along. I’m excited to see where things go, you know. (laughs) D.J. does a very good job of keeping me in the dark as well as you guys. (Deej laughs) So yeah, no, so yeah, I don’t I don’t have any – I don’t have any secrets to share. It’s, it’s, you know, you know – and as an actor, right, like, I very much I appreciate the effort D.J. puts into this, right? You know, I think as a team, we’re both playing to our strengths. You know, I I have no desire to like, you know, take hold of the reins and make Alright, here’s what we’re gonna have Roger do and here’s when he gets his, you know, pet raptor that he’s going to run around with Gatling guns. (Deej laughs) You know, I, you know, my creative, you know, I have enough fun, you know, doing my creative work through Ask Lovecraft, and, you know, playing Dungeons and Dragons. So I very much defer to writers. And I’ve been very lucky and fortunate to be able to work with D.J. for almost, no, for over 10 years now. And I’m really excited to see where – where things go.
D.J. Sylvis 57:41
Yeah. So we are, again, at this moment sort of creating – well I’m sort of at the moment at the point of creating Season Two, and again, the notes are stacking up. I – we are going to hear from all of the active crew members throughout the – throughout the 20 weeks sequence. So the other four who are – have stayed awake with Roger, and we’re going to hear from Alexandre.
Leeman Kessler 58:06
Are we also going to hear from the tardigrades?
D.J. Sylvis 58:08
Um, we’re going to hear about the tardigrades?
Leeman Kessler 58:11
No no, hear FROM the tardigrades, because like (Deej laughs) I’ve got a series of – I’ve got a series of cute voices, which I really think can help (Deej laughs) launch our program into the next, the next stage, you know? Moonbase Theta, Out Babies.
D.J. Sylvis 58:25
There we go (laughs) We definitely need sort of stuffed tardigrades for the Merch shop (Leeman laughs) with maybe with little like, you know, Moonbase Theta, Out T-shirts or something. (Leeman laughs) But no, um, things are coming together, I have a pretty good idea of the character – each character’s arc at this point. And yeah, I expect to be writing actual episodes soon. But yeah, the – the last thing that I wanted to sort of touch on, and then we can sort of make up some sort of – gracious way out of here. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the finances of this whole thing. I know that it’s not always a cool thing to talk about. But again, full transparency, we posted a while ago on our website, and I shared the link around sort of talking about our finances from 2018, and just exactly the hole we dug ourselves into getting set up for podcasting, as far as buying – buying recording equipment and getting stuff for hosting and all those things. And I’m fine with that. But one of the things that I really want to sort of step up our game in season two is to be able to pay the voice actors some. I hate asking people to give me their work for free. I don’t do it to the visual artists that I’ve asked for artwork from, I wouldn’t do it to people like who I was trying to support their like their arts or crafts. I wouldn’t say hey, give me this for free. And I really want to be able to give our voice actors something – something back as well. So we have a Patreon right now. And you can find the links to our Patreon, pretty much everywhere on our – either our Twitter or they’re on our website. But I’m really starting to try to push that to sort of help build up our financial support for season two. I know a lot of podcasts will do a separate Kickstarter or something like that. I honestly, with putting together the notes for season two, with writing the scripts and everything, and with running all the promotional aspects of the show, I really didn’t want to take on – I’ve done Kickstarters before. And that’s a whole project in itself. So I’m really hoping that if you like the show, if you want to see more of it, that you will think about… the way I look at it is if people would come and see one of our plays, certainly the ticket would be more than like, would be like 12 or 15 bucks. And that’s supporting us for a year at the $1 level on Patreon. So hopefully, some people will consider helping us out with that as well. And if you don’t like sort of the recurring aspect of Patreon, there’s – I never know how to say this. I know it’s supposed to be just coffee, but the Ko-fi page thing KO hyphen FI, which we have a link to as well, where you can just give like a little one term – one time $3 donation to us and just buy us sort of “a coffee,” which ties into our support as well.
Leeman Kessler 1:01:24
Yeah, and this all I mean, you know, I’ve, I’m someone who, you know, has been doing a web series for a long time, and I eschewed, I eschewed advertising for it just, you know, kind of made that business decision. And, and I’ve been using Patreon for a few years now. And, you know, Patreon is a remarkable way to be able to create art and – and see it be supported and to support art, you know. Like, as D.J. talks about the – being able to, you know, have stuff that’s out there. That’s quality, that supportive, you know, this is something that – that we’ve really prioritized for a long time, you know, even when we were doing kind of, you know, theater, that was largely passion projects, you know, those of us in the company weren’t, weren’t getting paid, but we always, you know, we tried to make sure that either outside artists, tech people, you know, other folks that we commission, you know, we… we don’t want to take this stuff for granted. And we don’t want to make sort of assumptions about, you know, Art and Art wants to be free! Well, yeah, but people also have rent and, and, you know, this stuff matters, and we’re proud of it, you know – something I had to learn way too late as an artist was to not feel embarrassed, or that I needed to apologize for my art and for wanting that art to, you know, be recognized and… and rewarded is a weird word for it, but supported, Right? And I think this is – this is an amazing… This has been an amazing show to work for. And to see the response to it shows that it you know, the story, we’re telling, the… you know, the kind of tales that we’re getting out there do matter to folks. And the support we’ve already – I mean, we you know, the patrons we already have, we’re incredibly grateful to. One of the main bonuses that Patreon has over like a one time PayPal payout or Ko-Fi is that it gives you an idea going forward. Okay, this is the support we have, this is what we can plan for, because we know we have these funds there. And yeah, it doesn’t take a lot, you know, $1 here, $2 there, you know. Stuff that, you know, I’ve been supporting podcasts, my you know, for almost a decade now. And it’s – I feel really good about it. I feel a sense of, of not just ownership, but that I have contributed to stuff that I love and help make sure that it stays on the air because I know I – I’ve loved a lot of podcasts that eventually sort of, you know, wave farewell. And that’s always a – that’s always a sad thing to see it on your on your subscription list and never get the little like blue icon to show that new episode is ready. So I really do – if you if you like the show, I really encourage you to think about what you’re able to… for any level, even one time still helps us to – to put the show out there, to… and to show our appreciation for the people who want to work for us right? To let them know that they’re valued, and that their work is worth paying.
D.J. Sylvis 1:04:15
Yeah, and I’ve – we try to make sure that we like sort of give back to our Patreon supporters as well. We’ve put a lot of interesting sort of snippets out there. I’ve done interviews there with some of the other creative people involved. We’ve posted – I posted the scratch version of Episode 12 which had you doing the Moddy Sarah voice which was amazing to hear. Did you know that I posted on on Patreon?
Leeman Kessler 1:04:38
Ooh, well!
D.J. Sylvis 1:04:40
But – But I did post that at one point. Um, yeah, we have… I wanted to actually, again as a sort of way to say – to say thank you to them again, sort of read off the list of the Patreon supporters we have now and immortalize them in this recording. So our current Patreon supporters – and these are their Patreon names. So If this isn’t necessarily how you want to be memorialized, this is what I’ve got. So it’s a Ninth World Journal, which is my friend David Dear who sort of does that podcast, he sponsors us. Alex Kirk, who is from the Mysteries and Urban Legends podcast. Angela Eldred, Bianca Woods, Carolyn Mooney, Elan Ruskin, user Gregarious, Irfon-Kim Ahmad, who is my friend If who actually did Theme music for us, Jessica Best the Patreon user MAM which is my friend Marianne, Matt Keeley, Melissa Hartman, Nitsa, Samwise Crider. Anyone who uses the username Samwise makes me happy. Sarah Day, Shaun Davian Den Otter, Tom Rylence, Valerie Coop, Victoria, McCabe and patreon user Witchfaced. So yeah, those are all people who are backing us right now. And we are so grateful for their support. And yeah, I hope you’ll think about joining them at one point.
Leeman Kessler 1:05:05
It’s a good feeling y’all!
D.J. Sylvis 1:05:58
So yeah, I… that sort of was where we wanted to end. I don’t think we have – we don’t, we ran through our questions, we ran through everything we wanted to talk about. Again, I would just sort of end by saying thank you for listening to it for giving it your support, for sharing the links and the reviews and all the wonderful attention that we’ve gotten on Twitter and Discord and… Yeah, just keep an eye out. Keep following the feed. We’ve got the stuff coming in April we’ve got… I’m sure we’ll start releasing promos for season two as we start recording that. So yeah, I’m just really looking forward to the adventure from here. Did you have a little P.S. there at the end?
Leeman Kessler 1:06:37
Yeah, I think I think we’ve we’ve touched on everything. You guys have been amazing. Everyone listening to this show, everyone who has shared this show, everyone who has taken just a second to send word over Twitter, over Discord, Facebook over message or even just to sort of touch my shoulder and say hey, like I actually listened to that. That was really good. Like, I didn’t know you could do good things! You know like, that… That’s amazing. That’s what you live for as an artist and to everyone that we’ve made cry. I’m not sorry.
D.J. Sylvis 1:07:04
(laughs) Neither of us are sorry for that at all. There is no apology. Okay, thank you very much folks. Keep an eye out for us on mostly Twitter but occasionally other places as well. We are at Monkeyman Prod (PROD) for productions on Twitter. We’re gonna say that’s not Monkeyman prod. (laughs) And there is a Twitter account MoonbaseThetaOu as well because the character limit cut off my T. And yeah, look for us on the Podcast, Junkie Discord. Thank you very much, folks listening, and we will talk to you again soon.
Leeman Kessler 1:07:33
(theme music fades in) Thank you so much, guys!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
