Stories and suggestions (Patreon)
Content
Hi folks,
Best wishes on the start of another week from Rusty Towers! With this being our year end from an accounting viewpoint, we’re very much looking ahead to 2021. There are several new projects that are on the horizon, operationally, community-wise and for new shows, and there’s a lot of strategising that needs to happen to make sure they can all be well-supported.
Part of this involves making sure that our support teams are appropriately staffed, especially with many of the crew being part-time. Obviously we have to balance this with our existing finances, and not overstretching ourselves, but it means that there are likely to be some new opportunities available at Rusty Towers, firstly in tech and HR support, so if you’re interested, do keep an eye on our website for details in the coming weeks.
Talking of shows, there’s one update I can talk a bit more about now. As I mentioned last week, we have a long-awaited Patreon exclusive show that was a result of one of our very earliest milestone goals. For a number of reasons, not least of which was a lack of adequate production capacity until this year, work on that has been slower than ideal.
However, as our infrastructure has improved thanks to your continued support, we were finally able to get going on this. While more details have to be kept under wraps for a little while longer I can confirm that this will be a six-part audio drama, and will be released to all Patrons at the Citizen tier or above in one go. Given how long it has taken us to get to this stage, we felt it should be available to the majority of our supporters here, as well as not being strung out over six weeks to get the full story.
Pulling the curtain back a bit to show you behind-the-scenes, the production team includes:
- Maddy Searle, as Showrunner, Director & Lead Editor;
- Hannah Preisinger, as Producer; and
- Helen Gould, as Script Editor
Casting should begin shortly, and I look forward to announcing more details about it in due course. No timeframe as yet for release, as 2020 continues to take its toll on show productions in general, but we’ll let you know as things take shape.
I’d also like to take a moment to address concerns raised about last week’s bonus content, the latest from the TMA ‘fluff’ competition. Thank you to everyone who took the time to write to us with constructive criticism. We acknowledge that the behaviour on display from John and Tim can be read as mean-spirited, and were this situation to be duplicated in a real life workplace environment, it would be unacceptable and should not be passed off so lightly. While none of the characters are presented as neurodivergent, and though this was reviewed by RQ folks who are, we accept that some listeners were affected in ways we had not anticipated, and are sorry for that.
We should have taken more care to ensure that suitable content warnings were available at release, especially for something that was billed as fluff, and we’ll make sure that more rigorous checks are applied, though we very much appreciate folks letting us know when we make mis-steps so that we can correct future actions.
In Stellar Firma news – thanks to all who submitted suggestions for the first round of prompts. It’s now time for the next one as a second suggestion form is now open! And it’s time for some business advice. Does your department or external organisation have a problem? Then tell us your problem, and we’ll come up with a solution! Submit your problems to us on this handy form!
And, here's what you can expect from us this week (all shows release at 4pm UK time, unless otherwise stated):
Tue 15th September
RQG170 – Checking In* (Patreon)
Wed 16th September
MAG179 – Accomplice (Patreon)
RQG170 – Checking In* (Public)
RQ Streams – Anil plays… AI Dungeon (5pm)
Thu 17th September
MAG179 – Accomplice (Public)
Fri 18th September
Citizens+ – Rusty Bits #3 [Declassified]
Noble Bonus – MAG Outtakes : Sweet & Sticky
RQ Streams – Alasdair reads… Bedtime Stories (8pm)
Sat 19th September
RQ Streams – Bryn plays… The Talos Principle (1pm)
* Provisional title
Have a good week all!
Anil
Community Manager