FinalRune and AuralStage Studios Join Up for 2nd Annual Transcontinental Terror

ALFRED, MAINE - For the fifth year in a row, FinalRune Productions will be releasing an original horror story on Halloween; the twist this year - a new collaboration with New York-based Aural Stage Studios.

"It's kind of tradition," says FinalRune Producer Fred Greenhalgh, "Halloween always is a time of heightened interest in radio drama and we love the ritual of developing a new show to celebrate."

This year's show is Intensive Care, by New York playwright James Comtois. The show involves Alex, a young man who finds himself in a run-down New England hospital following a car accident. Strange conversations from patients and staff make Alex realize that no one ever seems to make it out of the hospital alive... and that his condition may be more critical than he first believed.

The show will be recorded on location at the North Dam Mill in Biddeford, Maine, courtesy of mill owners and the City of Biddeford. Stylistically, the show will mix FinalRune's raw, field recorded aesthetic with rich digital sound design by Aural Stage's Matthew J. Boudreau. Directed by Samantha Mason, The cast includes New York based Nat Angstrom and P.G. Lorusso, and Maine-based Hannah Kramer, Kristina Balbo, Janice Gardner, and Dave Marshall. Music by Maine-based Barb Truex and Matthew J Boudreau.

"We're always eager for a road trip, and recording a new radio play seemed the best excuse I could imagine," said Boudreau, who plans on packing a walker, stethoscope, and blood pressure kit among other props for the recording sessions.

FinalRune's Fred Greenhalgh met Aural Stage producers Matthew J Boudreau and Samantha Mason at 2011's CONvergence con, where both troupes received Mark Time Awards for excellence in science-fiction audio. The producers became fast friends, and are eager for this first collaboration.

"The world of audio production and new media is constantly evolving," said Samantha Mason, "and this is the perfect opportunity to experiment with new styles of recording, bringing the strengths of both our companies to the table with James' script."

The show will be made available through the international audio collaboration Transcontinental Terror, a 4-hour listening event that streams live from 7PM-11PM EST on October 31st. Participating groups are The Wireless Theatre Company (London, England), Electric Vicuna Productions (Halifax, Nova Scotia), FinalRune Productions (Portland, Maine), Chatterbox Audio Theater (Memphis, Tennessee), Icebox Radio Theater (International Falls, Minnesota), The Willamette Radio Workshop (Portland, Oregon)

"As a community, modern audio drama producers have continued to seek ways to celebrate each other's work and collectively build an audience," Greenhalgh said, "To us, Halloween is better than Christmas... every year we prove that monsters created by your own imagination are just as frightening as anything produced in Hollywood."

Tune into the show at 8PM October 31st at: http://transcontinentalterror.com/when-to-listen/ or on participating stations: WKIT and WMPG in ME, WRFA-LP in NY, WFHB in IN, and WKNO in TN. The show will also appear on FinalRune and Aural Stage's own websites.

Some Photos from the Production:

FinalRune is thrilled to say that casting is nearly complete for the first 8 episodes of The Cleansed, and we're now gearing up for a busy autumn field recording season.

The Cleansed: Season 1 picks up 15 years after the tumultuous events in the pilot episode. A period of violent political and social turmoil has settled to a grinding, hard life for the people of the Refuge, but their bucolic existence is not to last. On one ill-fated autumn day, John Prophet, a ghost from the past, returns with ominous news.

The journey started in Season 1 will ultimately span 12 hours of audio adventure in a three-season storyline. Expect the first episodes to arrive in March 2012. But in the mean time, there is a lot of cool material to check out. See our website dedicated to The Cleansed for a trailer video, show backstory, character sketches, and more.

See you on the radio!

A big box of microphones arrived just in time for Fred's birthday!

We're thrilled to announce that RØDE Microphones has signed on as a supporter of FinalRune's audio work, sending us a selection of microphones to help with our in-studio recording (RØDE Procaster), sound effects recording (RØDE NTG-2 and "Dead Cat"), and video efforts (RØDE VideoMic Pro).

The Australian audio company has a reputation for building quality microphones that sound like models that cost 2x - 3x as much. Their mics are all backed with an incredible 10-year-warranty and we have nothing but praises to sing for their RØDE NT-4 microphone which we use to record nearly all of our location productions.

Our upgraded studio set-up now with RØDE Procaster and Studio Arm

With the mics unboxed we're already enjoying being able to record better audio in-house (Fred previously has had to borrow studio space to do voiceovers) and are gathering some excellent location sound with the NTG-2.

If you're as much as a microphone geek as we are, stay tuned to the FinalRune website where we will have reviews of the new gear including our testimonial after having used it in real world (and fairly unique) situations. Thank you, RØDE, we'll make great use of the gear!

FinalRune Fred and Matthew Boudreau of 1918 trying out our new RØDE NTG-2 as we prowl for interesting sound at #cvg2011.

FinalRune is proud to receive the Silver Mark Time Award for our pilot of The Cleansed. The Mark Time Award is given each year to honor the Best Science Fiction Audio Production, along with its sister award, the Ogle Award for Best Fantasy Audio Production (won in 2008 by our Waiting for a Window).

The awards are given out each year at CONvergence, a convention for fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy in all media held at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, and so Fred packed onto a red-eye flight June 30 to head west.

This year brought out a record attendance of audio producers, including Brian Price, Jerry Stearns and Kris Markman of Great Northern Audio Theater, Jeff Adams of Icebox Radio Theater, Matthew and Monique Boudreau and Samantha Mason of 1918, Jonathan Mitchell (who created the spectacular Moon Graffiti), Domien and Eline of The Witch Hunter Chronicles, Scott Hickey of The Grist Mill, Cayenne Chris Conroy of TEKDIFF, and even Jack Ward of Electric Vicuna/The Sonic Society (contrary to rumors, there were no brawls, though there's an exciting interview you'll be hearing soon over at SS).

So, what happens when you get all of these audio minds together? Well, lots of beverages (both caffeinated and alcoholic) are drunk, conversation exchanged, and invariably, sound effects recorded. We logged a number of great interviews which you'll be hearing shortly on Radio Drama Revival, and some other completely different ones will be on The Sonic Society.

We're very proud of the award, though truth be told the best part was to connect with friends new and old, and to engage in some delightful synergy in what is at times a decidedly surreal environment (where else can you sip tea while Han Solo encased in Carbonite walks by?).

Expect new collaborations, ideas, and audio endeavors to follow...

Here is the full list of winners:

Mark Time Awards / Ogle Awards

Winners - 2010
Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Audio Production

Mark Time Award

GOLD
The Truth: Moon Graffiti
Written & Produced by Jonathan Mitchell

New York, NY

SILVER
The Cleansed, Pilot Episode
FinalRune Productions
Written & Produced by Fred Greenhalgh

Alfred ME
www.finalrune.com

HONORABLE MENTIONS

1918
Aural Stage
Written by Richard Lovejoy

Producers, Matthew Boudreau, Samantha Mason
Buffalo, NY
www.1918show.com

Brad Lansky and the Anti-Starc
Protophonic
Written by J.D. Venne

Producer, Dieter Zimmermann
Cape Town, South Africa
www.protophonic.net

Ogle Award

GOLD
Whoever Wishes

Tekdiff
Written & Produced by Cayenne Chris Conroy
Minneapolis, MN
www.tekdiff.com

SILVER

We're Alive, Chapter 17,
"There Might Be Others"
Zombiepodcast.
Written by Kc Wayland
Producers, Kc Wayland, Shane Salk
Orange, CA

www.zombiepodcast.com

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Soul Survivor
Sonic Society
Written & Produced by Jack. J. Ward

Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada
www.evicuna.com

The Witch Hunter Chronicles
Audio-epics
Written and Produced by Domien de Groot
Deurne, Belgium

whchronicles.wordpress.com

The Rode "Dead Wombat" mic kit used in the field with a group of actors

We've posted earlier about our love of recording on location, but we wanted to pause to gush a little bit about our preferred kit: the Rode NT-4 loaded with the Rode Blimp and Fishpole.

We've been using the NT-4 since 2007, for our first field recorded production Dark Passenger, but in those days our shock-mounting came from a DIY homemade style contraption made from a pencil case holder, painter's roll, several elastic bands and a feather boa. It looked something like this:

Mad props to sound man Randall Farr (pictured), who built the device which served us well for locations including beaches, woods, and lighthouses in Southern Maine. This wonderful prototype met its end during the recording of The Troll of Stony Brook and we found ourselves looking for a replacement.

It was actually Randy who suggested the Rode Blimp to me, and since I have a fondness for the brand (I had earlier that spring recorded some delicious M/S tracks with two NT2A's for The War on Poverty), I began my research on the Blimp.

Reviews from Sweetwater were rave, and I found myself buying a boom kit that cost nearly as much as the microphone (~$428 with free shipping).

Two things made me decide not to go the DIY route again:

1 - The thing is backed with a ten year warranty so I consider this basically a once-for-life kind of investment (as opposed to recorders, computers, ProTools, etc. which I upgrade every couple of years)
2 - I really wanted to look professional on the set. I had some really top talent with me this time and I wanted there to be no doubt as to the professionalism of FinalRune.

To be honest, with the Rode kit and my Marantz recorder (recently upgraded with new Oade brothers pre-amps) we were recording with a very similar kit to what I had worked with on a BBC Radio 4 production a few months earlier. The only difference was that the BBC's kit retailed for a little over $8,000 whereas ours, even after the Blimp, was around $1,500. So, I took the plunge.

Sweetwater delivered it in a matter of days with loads of candy. Yum. Now to get the thing unboxed.

While the Blimp is clearly intended for shotgun-style microphones, we find it works just fine with NT-4 after deciphering their directions (this video helped). I had to do a little hack to get the cable routed through the handle, but within a matter of minutes everything was hooked up. Then, to go out and record stuff.

Our first recording with the Rode NT-4/Blimp combo was in September, 2010, for the pilot of our new serial, The Cleansed. We were at a regional airport with steady breezes all day, necessitating the wombat to come out and play on some occasions:

I'm not sure how to vouch for the quality of this set-up other than to share some comments on our production:

"The quality of your location production is breathtakingly stunning" - Roger Gregg of Crazy Dog Audio Theatre

"Having done a few location recordings, I know how much time & effort goes into it, and all the quirks one has to deal with including unwanted extraneous sounds etc. Super job. I am impressed." - Tom Lopez of ZBS

"In so much drama it's just about the voices. Here you connect with the sheer physical effort. You can sense the actors sweating." - John Dryden at BBC Radio 4

So, yeah. While we could have gotten results with inferior equipment, I was proud to run 30 hours of sessions knowing that we had real quality gear behind us.

In fact, I've enjoyed the kit so much that I've been taking it places it probably doesn't deserve to go, such as outside of my house in the middle of a good ol' Maine Nor'Easter this winter:

Here's the sounds of our results:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

That load 'clack clack' ing, by the way, isn't the sound of handling noise, that's pine trees snapping under heavy snow load. Awwwww yeah.

This bit of fan love was not paid for or subsidized by Rode in any way. However, we do hope that maybe one day they will send us some schwag. Like the Videomic. Or the Procaster. The BH Photo Video links will support us if you clickthrough and end up buying something. We hope you will.

Being Android users, we were psyched to hear the news about Amazon's new Cloud Drive and Cloud Player service. It's pretty cool: no frills free 5GB of space to store whatever you want, an Audio Player via the internet and Android App, and instant integration into Amazon's MP3 Store.

If you're looking for cool content to populate on your Cloud Player - leave it to us! Several of our shows are available for your listening delight, let FinalRune's audio artistry break up the monotony of music listening!

Mm.. coffee, cake, and radio drama.

Earlier this month, Portland, Maine coffee company Coffee by Design hosted FinalRune producer-in-chief Fred Greenhalgh for an evening presenting The Cleansed.

After a screening of Behind the Scenes: The Troll of Stony Brook Fred gave a short history of radio drama, talking about the significance of FinalRune and The Cleansed as our first effort to create a serialized work.

A crowd of around a dozen (which packed the back nook of CBD's India Street location just fine) came out to hear, and pull out their wallets to support The Cleansed! Cool schwag and CDs of the pilot episode were available, as well as other FinalRune goodies.

Our next event will be coming up in April...

Join Us March 4 at Coffee by Design

Want to hear more about The Cleansed and have the chance to ask any questions you have about the art of producing radio drama? Then come out Friday, March 4 from 7-9PM at Coffee By Design's India Street location: 67 India Street, Portland, Maine.

We will be screening the Behind the Scenes: The Troll of Stony Brook documentary to introduce people to what we do, then discussing what The Cleansed is and our approach to creating the most ambitious project we've done to date.

A big thank you to Coffee by Design for supporting the project with a Rebel Blend Grant, and by opening up their facility to us. We promise a fun night!

A little treat for our loyal listeners - we saw that Dark Passenger has been a hugely popular download on this site, so we decided to give it a fresh listen... and couldn't help but see if we could improve the mix a bit.

The result, a refreshed, spookier than ever mix of the terrible story of a cursed house in Downeast Maine and the two teenagers who get caught in the middle.

Enjoy!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Dark Passenger 2011 Remix

FinalRune is proud to announce the launch of a new website to accompany our most ambitious project to date, The Cleansed.

Found at http://thecleansed.com, the new site features story information, story structure and support options for the new production. With an operating budget of $35,000 to yet be raised, FinalRune will be spending most of our effort fundraising for the new project in the year 9 months.

Meanwhile, you can enjoy the Pilot Episode as well as see this video by producer Fred introducing the new project:

Our Favorite Gift: You

Thank YOU for a year of enthusiasm, encouragement, ideas, and most of all - listening!

FinalRune has grown by leaps in bounds in 2010, starting with our production of the pilot episode of Open Season and incredible Wall Street Journal coverage.

We went on to do our second live event, a laugh-out-loud live show and bean suppah with our friends at the Mad Horse Theater Company before releasing two original productions: the feature length Troll of Stony Brook and the short, candid War on Poverty.

Finally, our production season culminated on Halloween when WKIT, Stephen King's rock station, broadcast the pilot of The Cleansed.

After a decade of working on the story (Fred has three manuscripts and two notebooks stuffed with story notes to prove it) production has finally begun on this timely and epic tale exploring a grim but hopeful post-oil future.

With 2011 on the horizon, The Cleansed consumes us. It is a massive, epic story, one that requires resources and support far beyond what we've ever needed to date. On the same token, the work is further reaching - as it explores the energy, social and political problems of today's world in a way that only science fiction can.

We hope you will support us in this next leg of the journey, and you'll hear from us soon with word on grantmaking efforts, special events, exclusive audio, schwag, and more.

But for now, we hope you'll join us in this time of reflection, thankfulness, and meditation to prepare for the road ahead. We're sure excited!

I'll Be Listening for Christmas

Over on our sister podcast, Radio Drama Revival, we're doing our FOURTH annual holiday radio fest!

Here's some good, completely free drama for the season:

• Twilight Zone Radio Drama - Authorized radio dramatizations of classic Twilight Zone TV episodes! The Gift delivered to humanity, and a Snow Angel and found in a mighty blizzard.
• Chatterbox Audio Theater - Hear an original Christmas fable, Snow Globe - Part 1 and Part 2. Also, don't miss their splendid James Joyce adaptation Dead and Gone.
• Quicksilver Radio Theatre - These guys are great. Last year we featured the Sherlock Holmes Christmas tale, The Blue Carbunkle (Part 1 and Part 2). You can also hear a haunting rendition of The Christmas Carol from deep in RDR's archives

Ideas Percolating Over an Open Fire...

Just one final thank you for your time, your attention, your advice. In today's jaded, media-saturated, economically recessed and politically gridlocked world, the simple treasure of you making time to listen to our shows and to let us know what you think means everything in the world.

We plan to keep doing this for many more years to come, and hope that you're as thrilled to be on this ride as we are.

Read more of our Christmas 2010 Newsletter.

Some time in the not so distant future, the world as we know it is starting to unravel. The United States is mired in unwinnable wars, gas is scarce and the transportation system grinds to a halt. Homegrown terrorists take out the electric grid. Food is strictly rationed and distributed by the military. As citizens grow increasingly angry with the government, martial law is called in to maintain peace.

And then things really start to get bad.

FinalRune's newest piece of work, the pilot episode of our new sci-fi serial The Cleansed, will be debuting on Sunday, October 31st - that's Halloween, my friends!

How to Hear:

• 7PM EST on WKIT 100.3 "The Rock" of Bangor - Stephen King's radio station! Hit "Listen Now" on http://zoneradio.com/wkit/index.shtml
• 7PM EST on Transcontinental Terror, the international audio festival featuring 6 hours of original horror programming for Halloween.  Streams online: http://transcontinentalterror.com/
• 9PM EST on WMPG, Greater Portland Maine's Community Radio: http://wmpg.org/ Links to "Listen to WMPG" on the right
• Miss these dates? Stay tuned for a live stream to be embedded here.  There will NOT be a free podcast version of this show due to licensing restrictions of music used in it.  So be sure to tune in when you can!

Brent Askari (left) warns Paul Drinan and Kym Dakin about rebel soldiers who are igniting jet fuel

Randall Farr records as Burke Brimmer, Lisa Muller-Jones, and Chris Newcomb rush towards an abandoned home during the apocalypse

Rylee Ann Doiron and Philip Hobby sprint for safety after a military air base is assualted by rebel soldiers.

More photos in our online photo gallery

Some time in the not so distant future, the world as we know it is starting to unravel. The United States is mired in unwinnable wars, gas is scarce and the transportation system grinds to a halt. Homegrown terrorists take out the electric grid. Food is strictly rationed and distributed by the military. As citizens grow increasingly angry with the government, martial law is called in to maintain peace.

And then things really start to get bad.

So is the world we enter at the start of The Cleansed, a new post-apocalyptic sci-fi serial penned by Fred Greenhalgh. This series has been over a decade in the works, and so it is with great enthusiasm that we announce that recording of the pilot has begun.

FinalRune assembled the best cast to date (that seems to happen on every new show we do!) for an intense, action-packed, scary and tragic story of a group of soldiers and civilians in Bangor, Maine who need to band together to survive the man-made apocalypse.

The prologue/pilot will air Halloween night on WKIT, Stephen King's own rock and roll radio station, as well as on WMPG in Portland, Maine. If you're nowhere near either of those two places you can stream it live during the Transcontinental Terror audio horror fest.

Mucho Gracias to the Town of Biddeford, Maine for letting us record at their Airport, as well as Man, who let us use his house.

Brent Askari (left) warns Paul Drinan and Kym Dakin about rebel soldiers who are igniting jet fuel

Randall Farr records as Burke Brimmer, Lisa Muller-Jones, and Chris Newcomb rush towards an abandoned home during the apocalypse

Rylee Ann Doiron and Philip Hobby sprint for safety after a military air base is assualted by rebel soldiers.

As I've reported in my prior article on recording in the field, I happen to love Rode gear - their mics are a great combination of affordability and quality, and the delicious, roomy, field recorded sound you hear in the latest FinalRune shows are largely a result of the Rode NT4 mic. 

One of the things that troubles the NT4, and practically every mic when in the field, is handling and wind noise.  There's a foam cover that comes with the NT4 but nothing that will protect you from even modest winds (and we've had this thing out on islands off the coast of Maine where it was wailing on us).

We've gotten this far using an improvised "blimp," consisting of a pencil canister, a paint roller handle, rubber bands and a bunch of feather boas, but it really seemed about time to up the ante... And so we ordered two very nice new items from Rode - the Rode Blimp, and the Rode mini boompole.

We expect to really, really like these two new toys.  We'll do a before/after comparison on the goodies once they arrive from Sweetwater.

FinalRune Productions is pleased to announce the beginning on a new, epic audio sci-fi adventure entitled The Cleansed. The Cleansed is a post-apocalyptic tale of our time, exploring a world where a shortage of fossil fuels has caused the unraveling of civil society. From this horror comes hope, as a new generation tries to reclaim their world and understand what happened before them.

This ambitious project echoes the NPR programming of the 1980s (Star Wars, Bradbury 13, Beyond 2000, A Canticle for Leibowitz). The serial will consist of three seasons, the first featuring ten self-contained 30 minute episodes. A total of 30 episodes will be produced. Further, a large portion of each episode will be recorded on location in different areas of Maine using the techniques developed by dramatists such as Erik Bauersfeld, ZBS' Tom Lopez, BBC's John Dryden and Crazy Dog Audio Theatre's Roger Gregg.

A Story of Our Times

Like all great science-fiction, the story uses the lens of an alternative reality to create a world that comes dangerously close to our own: The Cleansed is a geo-politically rooted story that takes place twenty years after the depletion of the world’s oil reserves, focusing on a group of three teenagers who have grown up together in a self-sustaining stronghold in rural Canada. Their peaceful life is interrupted when a message from a legendary rebel leader leads them on a journey into “The Republic,” a region of America where the remains of the US Military enforces strict martial law.

Simultaneously, two men appear shepherding a real apocalypse – one claims he is the antichrist, and the other, Christ reborn. As the two factions build armies and prepare for their ultimate battle, the youths unite with the rebels to wage a war for freedom that will leave no one unscarred.

Partners in Great Audio

FinalRune has enlisted help to produce this epic sci-fi tale - AudioComics, LLC will be associate producing the project and WMPG, Greater Portland Maine's Community Radio, is acting as a distribution partner and has joitnly submitted a grant with FinalRune to the National Endowment for the Arts.

AudioComics co-founders William Dufris and Lance Roger Axt will be working with FinalRune writer and director Fred Greenhalgh on mixing and mastering the episodes and promoting the work in arenas outside that of audio. “Both FinalRune and AudioComics share the same belief: that audio dramas can and should serve as the basis for, or even pilots for, projects in the greater media just as comic books have become prime source material for television shows and movies," says Axt. "In fact The Cleansed could become a comic book series. Or a television mini-series. Or a big-budget feature film. And why not?”

Social Media Meets Multi Media Short Form Audio

The Cleansed will be released first as 5 minute installments (ala the BBC serials of producer/director Dirk Maggs), and later in its entirety as pay-per-MP3 downloads and compact discs through both the FinalRune and AudioComics websites. In the tradition of The Blair Witch Project and Lost, the series will have an encompassing digital presence, including a website with backstory, streaming downloads, and distribution information for radio stations.

Stay tuned for behind-the-scenes footage, character story, and other goodies on social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And in keeping with AudioComics’ committment of working with rising and established writers and artists in the worlds of comics and sci-fi, the trio are looking at potential pencillers and inkers for promotional artwork, streaming web slideshows, and compact disc/MP3 cover art.

Debut Episode Coming Soon

The pilot episode of The Cleansed is currently in the works, and will debut on both WMPG FM and Bangor’s WKIT FM (Stephen King’s rock and roll station) on Halloween night, as part of a new collaboration among audio drama producers in different countries called Transcontinental Terror. Moreover, WKIT program director Bobby Russell will play himself in the series.

In the pilot, we're introduced to a Bangor, Maine of some thirty or so years in the future. Ongoing problems with the electrical grid and a state of martial law opens the door for extremists to siege civil society. Soldiers returning from a new war in Saudi Arabia are forced to start fighting on their home soil, while college students, radio DJs, and other civilians are caught in the crossfire.

About FinalRune

FinalRune Productions is dedicated to producing compelling original audio drama. Since their creation in 2006, FinalRune has released over a dozen original works, including the Ogle-Award winning “Waiting for a Window,” the pilot episode of “Open Season” by Archer Mayor (featured in the Wall Street Journal) and the cautionary tale “The Troll of Stony Brook.” FinalRune’s work is recorded on-location, using techniques similar to independent filmmaking for an immersive and realistic aural experience. Downloads of plays, production photographs, and articles on the craft are available on FinalRune’s website, http://www.finalrune.com.

About AudioComics

The AudioComics Company provides superior audio entertainment with its professional full-cast audio theatre adaptations of licensed and original properties from the world of comic books, graphic novels, and more. AudioComics productions of classic, contemporary and world premiere properties will reach new audiences far beyond readers and comic book fans through the universally popular entertainment medium of multi-track recorded sound and music on CD and in downloadable form, accessible in today’s market with today’s sound. The AudioComics team is working to establish relationships with comic book companies, sci-fi and comic writers, sponsors, and the entertainment industry in Hollywood and New York, and to give these audio theatre pieces worldwide exposure. http://www.audiocomicscompany.com