Production Update: March 2024 (Patreon)

Where did the first two months of 2024 go?We have been unbelievably busy producing, editing, writing, and creating so many projects this year that we've hardly had time to document them all!

[Gear for "the Stairway recording" - photo by Finnur Nielsen]

Company UpdatesThis year we went even more "official" - formally transitioning our team to full time employees. We filed announcements with local state officials, learned the joys of Unemployment Benefits, Insurance, Retirement Plans, and Health Insurance, and filled out a mountain of (digital) paperwork! So now our shows support not only us, but some more amazing, talented people who help us keep up our super-star podcasting pace! We keep boxing way above our podcasting weight-class, and have no intention of stopping!

We also were pleasantly surprised to be contacted by a Finnur Nielsen - an audio engineer joining us for 6 months as part of his college's paid internship program.  Finnur is helping us work ahead on a number of projects - and we've collaborated to develop lesson plans, goals, and a handbook as part of his hands-on training. We hope to pass on this kind of podcasting know-how down the line! 

[White Vault fan art by @kahahuna]

We've gotten a lot of love from our fans recently, one of the most common comments being: 'I'd love to see this as a move/tv show!'. Thank you for your kind words, but visual entertainment is not our forte, and we're quite happy with our career in audio fiction. Sure a visual adaptation would be cool, but we're quite quick to turn down offers that don't understand the creative vision of our projects. We would rather have no TV show or movie than a bad one. 

...Recently we've had a few fairly serious TV inquiries on one or more of our stories from companies we feel could create great adaptions of our works. As mentioned, we've received similar inquiries since the launch of The White Vault, but something feels different this year... and while we do not believe in any TV deal that isn't a signed contract, we're preparing for the possibility that one (or more) of them may materialize this year and may need to take a few months of Kaitlin's time to actualize. To this end, she's been working overtime to "get ahead," and if no such deals take place we'll simply be ahead of schedule on the writing side.

The White Vault: We have been working night and day on The White Vault: Goshawk to bring season one of this tale to its conclusion later this month. As Kaitlin begins to draft the detailed outline for Season 2 (planned for October) we've quietly begun the search for key cast members for future seasons.

We have also had a number of candid discussions about the series - chiefly surrounding other stories within The White Vault universe that we may still want to tell outside of Goshawk. We are nowhere near ready to even hint at a potential miniseries in our future, but we're examining how much fun certain bullet points or ideas might be - both for us to create, and for you (our listeners) to enjoy. We do not like the idea of repeating the same story, even in a different setting, so any future miniseries we consider will have to stand on its own.

[Early sketch of Sealskin Rock by Abigail Spence] 

Don't Mind: As part of our internship program with Finnur we've begun work to remix all of Don't Mind Cruxmont to meet our current standard of quality. This is chiefly boosting the volume of dialogue, but also deals with mastering standards and LUFS (we'll talk about these in a few days). We hope to update the episodes with the remixed versions before our new series launches in April.

Speaking of the new series... Last month Kaitlin finished the final edits of our second story in the Don't Mind anthology series - Don't Mind: Sealskin Rock! We've all but finished casting the story and have already begun recording in preparation for our April 2nd premiere. We've also created the theme music (by Brandon Boone) and recorded an unbelievable amount of live sound effects for going up and down a very particular staircase (at different speeds, and with different shoes) that is prominently featured throughout the series. The teaser episode is available on Patreon and will be released to the public in about 2 weeks - and we hope to have early episodes up on Patreon 1 month before public release.

Dark DiceWe're simultaneously editing Seasons 2 & 3 and working to bring both stories to life. Thanks to the addition of Finnur to our team, we're hoping to release WEEKLY CONTENT starting at the end of March - alternating between Dark Dice and Don't Mind. (There we go boxing above our weight-class again. Someone stop us before we hurt ourselves.) This is extremely ambitious and how folks can get burnt out. We're hoping that with our extended staff we'll be able to overcome this hurdle, and that our fans can be understanding if we fumble during this 20 week schedule. We cannot stress again how this is only possible because of your support.

We've also made significant progress on Domain of the Nameless God (the pen and paper adventure) - growing it from 70 pages to 130, and wrapping production on the True Necromancer class - which is just under 90 pages. We are getting dangerously close to our "250-300 pages of content" goal and we are excited to unleash this horror upon the world as soon as it's completed.

"Future Dark Dice Project"It's no secret that we enjoy playing D&D with our friends. It's also no secret how much work goes into every season of Dark Dice. Everyone who plays D&D knows that the hardest part is 'scheduling time to play' - especially when your players are spread out across 4 or more continents, with lives, jobs, and families to coordinate. Our award-winning improvised horror podcast requires a LOT of lead time for editing and music composition, so we've begun work on a new season of Dark Dice (eta 2026) - which we're planning to record in person using the Nomono Sound Capsules we used during our Svalbard interviews. While we cannot disclose the cast or story (because #spoilers), we've been building the studio for this game in the hopes of making something quite special. We've written and play-tested a new story, and we're gearing up for a week-long recording in August!

[Photo from a recent hike]

Personal updates:We have fully moved into our new place in Germany as of last November - we've been spending extra hours each day installing lights, painting, installing curtain rods/decorations, household-shopping (since we lost everything), and generally making each room in our home a bit nicer. We've started the sound dampening process for our recording spaces, and Kaitlin finally has a desk to write from! (It's the first time she's had her own office that's not attached to another living space!)

We've also attended a few festivals and seen a few sights around Germany, such as the hot air balloon festival seen in the cover photo or a few castles created by Ludwig II. Eezo loves having a yard again, and as the season shifts to Spring we hope to add more hikes and dog walks into our daily routine.

Best sincerely,-Travis, Kaitlin, and Eezo(the Fool & Scholar)