Podcast as The Advance Audio Storytelling Medium Creating IP into Visual Storytelling Adaptation
Case study of Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast to The Midnight Gospel, a Netflix Adult-Animation Series.
The term podcasting refers to both the process of producing and listening, it is much more than the delivery of audio content. Podcasts are an intimate medium that specifically deliver the narrative and the sense of closeness between the host and the listener. Podcast are consumed during commute in the train, bus or in the car, walking in the public place, even as background noise while cooking in the kitchen. These are some moments when people cannot check nor scroll their phone but consuming the audio podcast with earphone which simulates the interior and creates an intimacy with the listener is possible. The narrative audio designed to take up time, to accompany the listeners, to slow build a commitment, and to a sensual ambience. It advances the narrative essay into multitasking. In the American style, it describes as the ‘hand-held’, ‘spoon-fed’ and ‘host driven’ which influence the global style of podcast rather than the classic European or poetic style of crafted audio feature. Furthermore, it is subdivided into genre and form. The interview podcast with deeper conversation and storytelling of the guest create the sense of being a part of the conversation. Every listener will create their imagination of the room. This essay provide the analysis of non-fiction audio podcast transformation into visual storytelling such as Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast which successfully transformed into an adult-animation series called The Midnight Gospel in Netflix. It is breaking the form of podcast adaption which usually fiction or non-fiction podcast such as Serial or Homecoming as well as medium transformation of audio interview podcast.
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Source: Netflix.com |
The special production and consumption aspects of podcasting have opened up ‘a new and interesting space for media and cultural interaction’ (Berry, 2016; Wrather, 2016: 44). Since the beginning of time, humans are more familiar with oral storytelling rather than written narrative. It can outline experience and expressing the emotion. In various cultures, the storyteller is responsible for tabulating the history, and conserving local knowledges, and tradition in their communities. In 2015, the great years of podcast development was coming, however millennial and gen z produce and consume more video storytelling. It marked by 100 million download of megahit podcast series Serial followed by The Medium with its first interview with US president. Attention and the popularity increasing up to 24% of regular audience. In a previous study, podcast users’ pattern by 354 podcast audience resulting the indication of rich and well-educated people. Most listeners like to hear the podcast via mobile device and approximately 90% of them using the download feature as well. Reference building, entertainment, and time-shifting are the motivation of people hearing podcast rather than the advertorial content. There is implication of moving to another podcast they listening to podcast with too much ads however the creators need financial support from sponsors. Social aspect influence people as well. Especially if they have circle who listening to certain podcast shows and discussing about the topics in social settings and at cafés . The intellectual elite creating the lifestyle and influence people to follow their discussion as well as creating a community who tend to follow the term of ‘people like us do things like this.’
“We want to be respected by those we aspire to connect with, we want to know what we ought to do to be part of that circle.” (Seth Godin, 2017:Page)
Podcasters could express their hobbies of telling a rambling monologue on their interest and preference of various topics, well-crafted and researched narrative storytellers which usually accessible as both broadcasts and podcasts, to investigative journalistic, and then get thousands download per month and more. Numerous podcast listeners connected and engaged on social media forum to share their personal interpretation towards the podcast.
[…] what may make podcasting successful is not its status as a radio distruptor (as some of the early discourse predicted), but rather as a platform that has breathed new life into established and in some ases largely forgotten trioes and forms. (markman 2015: 241).
Giliberty forecasted in his article on Forbes (2016) that podcast will develop as the most important storytelling platform in the future based on trends of investment, content, talent, distribution, and technology. The escalation of investment shown by the increasing number of diverse podcast company in the world has given podcasters the freedom of programming new content. Podcasters can emphasize it to be fiction or non-fiction series. There is no editorial department or program controller, so creator has freedom to explore diverse content. It creates opportunity for new talent and expanding the audio-based professionals. The interaction of the audience transforming the text into a more lucrative commodity, creating new stars, and well-paid speakers, opening the advertising window such as adlibs and spot, and also involving fans to sponsor the podcast by clicking the link. Numerous distribution sites providing different tools and access to the audience, such as Anchor, Apple Podcast, even Spotify which expanded podcast content to living alongside music. 44% of radio listeners which identified as car users move to podcast while the car’s bluetooth enable them to play podcast from their mobile phone to the car’s speaker. Virtual reality in order visualizing the host as the avatar have possibility to meet the fans to the host with virtual-live and Q&A.
My God, what a feeling of liberation! We no longer wrote about a subject; we recorded the subject itself. We were acoustic cameras, shooting our sound material in the wild, then combining it into productions, we called these documentary works “acoustic film”. ([199] 2004: 4).
The documentation of sounds creates various style of podcast. From the monologue to dialogue, random topics to well programmed interview, directed drama audio to investigations, limited series to continuous shows, etc. Both fiction and non-fiction narrative get bigger since 2006. Podcast was classified to some genres to help creators targeting ready-made audience. There is no literation about the specification of podcast genre but based on the platforms, podcast divided into comedy, drama, gameshow, health and fitness, investigative journalism, news, politics, pop-culture, spiritual and religion, self-help, sport, and true crime. Otherwise, genre commonly describes as a fluid classification because it will develop and change following the practice in the present and future. Compare to radio broadcast, the duration also has flexibility such as less than 15 minutes up to more than two hours. Creators have freedom to release the content as long as they have time to produce and release to the listeners. There is no rule but each podcast has its own listener behaviour that can be a consideration to customize the content. The behaviour can be analysed from their audience analytics report if it is constantly uploading the new episode. The most important thing to do for the new podcaster is selecting the style, genre, and theme of the podcast following with the topic than can be developed in the way.
Since 2014, Duncan Trussell, an American comedian and voice over constantly upload a weekly salon-style super show. He is interviewing his guests about their experiences outreach multiverse, spirituality, and philosophy to find the meaningful life that unexpected yet beautiful. Based on the genre, this podcast described as spiritual and religion but also comedy podcast. Spiritual and religion podcast discuss about faith, spiritual, and religion. In the usual religion podcast, the host usually lead the audience to pray, answering audience questions from email or comment in social media, and also breakdown the scripture from the holy book. Meanwhile, comedy podcast focus to make the audience laughing. The content could be a discussion panel or stand-up session of the host but normally it combining with another genre such as drama, pop-culture, or game show. In DTFH, combining humour in spiritual dialogue is the way to make serious topic to be more casual and easier to understand. Otherwise, comedy is limited by culture and territory but everyone in the world will experience death which connecting us all through philosophy and spirituality of life. His podcast guests tell their stories and experiences of facing the hardest moment of their life and how they managed through it. Through their stories they talk about how they found themselves, learnt to think in present, and give out tips for self-help such as meditation. They also tell their perspective about trending issues such as physical and mental health. The most remarkable yet emotional episode is when Trussell invited his mother who fought against cancer and faced the end of her life. It presented a very personal and intimate conversation between mother and son which relatable to the audiences.
Duncan Trussell Family Hour (DTFH) does not have narrative storytelling, it has non-fictional main character who is the host of the podcast. It is a genuine character of Duncan Trussell who showcases his relationship with friends by interviewing them. He is looking for information about the humankind and universe from different perspective and angle. In April 2022, the newest episode is the 503rd with David Nichtern who is Duncan’s good friend, a talented musician, and principal instructor of Darma Moon as the guest. He re-joined the podcast for the 5th time and spoke about his meditation class. The previous guest was Dr Drew, the alumnus of Midnight Gospel and his daughter Paulina Pinsky, they also talk about the newest book titled It Doesn’t to be Awkward. Damian Echols and Lorri Davis, one of the ‘West Memphis three’ freed after being convicted of murder re-joined the podcast as well. This couple will release their new book called Ritual: An Essential Grimore on April 2022. They talk about their relationship, their love relationship journey, and behind the book. All of the guests experiences give divers perspective of life and humanity.
There is no certain structure of the DTFH podcast but basically it started with opening, main conversation, and closing with advertising in between. Before the episode number 500, it normally start with introducing the guest. From 500 and further episode it started with a storytelling with a song from various independent song writer. For example at 502nd episode, the song is telling about how passionate the property sellers written by Word for World. The lyrics are about how the spirit will find the way, showing how the spirit will meets the buyers and the sellers. Meanwhile at the 503rd episode, there is a song tittle Spooky that tells about a person’s feeling when they watching dead on television or someone’s funeral. After the song, Duncan telling a story to connect to the advertorial clips and then the introduction of the guest. Before moving to conversation, he will telling another advertorial clips. It takes 10 minutes until the DTFH jingle play and the conversation with guest begin. In the middle of the conversation there are advertising clips as well. Overall duration is more than an hour. In the end, Duncan will close the interview with advertorial clips or promotional content and also spill the next guest. This podcast showing the fluidity of structure, content, and duration which are the characteristic of podcast.
DTFH available free in numerous platforms such as Spotify, apple podcast, google podcast audible, etc. It has huge positive engagement from 13,013 listeners who give 4.9/5.0 because the contents are mind-blowing and informative yet applicable for the life controversy. Trussell expanding the business by opened the advertorial clips to the podcast and opened exclusive content access on Patreon. He tells the advertorial story and information in a funny and super soft way to create the feeling of not listening to any advertisement. On Patreon, he offers 4 packages; $5 monthly for exclusive early access, discord benefit, the ad-free track bonus, and other extras; Patrons who joined at the $15 tier for three month subscription get a Crow Mother sticker; For $25 will get discount benefit to the shop, access to Patreon-only podcast episodes, and a celebratory mug at three month mark; also acquire a live streaming video and more exclusive merchandise for $30 patrons. It shows that IP of DTFH scale up to be various form such as merchandising. The IP also discovered new medium on visual storytelling. Netflix welcome the idea and invest more on adult-animation genre. The Midnight Gospel became one of the project that release on April 2020. It was a progressive work from podcast adaptation and become a must watch animation series for podcast fans on Netflix. The project not only give income for the host and people behind the mic but also the animators.
Takes seven years to make the animation series. Duncan Trussell was a voice over of Adventure Time, an adult animation series which animated by Pendleton Ward. In the beginning of DTFH, Ward emailed Trussell to express that he was the fans of his podcast. Couple years later (around 2014), Ward came back to Trussell and had an idea to push on the audio narrative into visual narrative, repurposing his comedy and philosophical podcast into animation series. The concept is about strange dimension called The Cromatic Ribbona and following a space caster, Clancy Gilroy (Duncan Trussell) who traveling into the trippy and dying world by his universe simulator and interviewing various creatures about birth, death, and space-between. The series titled The Midnight Gospel. Comparing to other podcast such as Dr.Death or The Shrink Next Door which are far away from its podcast form, the Midnight Gospel keep the interview form as well as pushing the boundaries of Netflix animation. The series involving the original audio of previous interview with mediation gurus and philosophers on DTFH podcast. Nevertheless, the podcast clip does not direct the result of the animation. An episode of Midnight Gospel telling two stories which are Clancy’s weird adventure in each planet and story inside their conversation. The form inspired by Adult Swim’s talk show such as Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Twin Peaks, and Watership Down. Move over, the surreal design inspired by Yellow Submarine and Fantastic Planet. To connect the conversation with the animation storyline, Trussell re-invite his guest to record some dialogs which informing about the characters of the series. They collaborate with Timmouse, 2D animation company which also produce Bigmouth, an original Netlix series.
In the each episode Clancy lands in a different planet and have different appearance. It programmed by his computer which connected to the simulator. The first episode Clancy become a big pink man with wizarding hat. He lands in the zombie-ravaged earth and meet the president who is the fans of drugs and meditation. It based on Trussell podcast interview with Dr. Drew Pinsky. At the 3rd episode, his appearance change to be a big nose without hand creatures and pink skin colour with long hat. He zap into underwater world and then crosses it with Daryl, a human body with fish inside a round aquarium head who operate a full of cats ship. Daryl is a student of ceremonial magic. It based on his podcast interview with Damien Echols. The most emotional episode is the last episode which adapted from his podcast with his late mother, Deneen Fendig. Here, Clancy’s appearance showing the growth of a baby to an old man which is a son of the lady who faces her death and then reborn to a baby girl and grows to be a lady again. It follows the circle of life and showcases the concept of reincarnation. Choosing the adult-animation format is the best decision that Trussell ever made for DTFH IP development. It shows beyond freedom of exploration in storytelling. A philosophical conversation collaborate with unique and colourful visual depiction broke the limitation of the imagination. If it was repurposing to be live action film or series, it might re-take the interview with scripted questions and answer. So, it would be like the usual TV Show format.
This series increasing awareness of DTFH and meets new fans from Netflix audience. One of them is Msbikemalawi who commented on Apple Podcast showing his appreciation to the Midnight Gospel and DTFH. He turned to DTFH podcast because he likes the art of The Midnight Gospel. The rumour of second season are spreading to the fans. However there are uncertainty about continuing or cancelling the project from Netflix, the fans already made petition towards Netflix to produce the second season of The Midnight Gospel. There are 4,553 signed from 5000 targets. No doubt, visual story-telling gain more interest and experience than the audio-only podcast. The listeners of DTFH also coming after watching The Midnight Gospel. Kacie Mason, one of supporter of the petition write on the page that every time she finished an episode of Midnight Gospel, she thought of everything she just witnessed and find herself wanting more. She encourage the creators animators and Netflix to continue this show because Midnight Gospel has what it takes to become an animation legend. Followed by Amanda Herd who commented her agreement to the author of the petition since she felt that there is no other show she would rather than the new episode of The Midnight Gospel.
To summarize, Duncan Trussell Family Hours as the combination of religion and comedy genre successfully explaining the complexity and challenge of life in serious but casual way. Since it usually play when the listener commute and doing something else, it created the sense of companionship and facilitate the improvement of human multitasking skills. Furthermore, DTFH showing its sustainability as podcast medium with more than 500 episodes since 2014. Thereafter, podcasting could be a step stone of creating an intellectual property. Repurposing of DTFH into merchandising and adult-animation series are showing the power of the IP establishment. Furthermore, the evolution of digital platform for podcast production and distribution are supporting the innovation of the content . While digital platform such as Netflix keep investing in a new content and the business model growth steadily, it will opening more opportunities to practice and create experiment. The Midnight Gospel is an evidence of the exploration freedom in creative industry especially storytelling.
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