0:00

Hello and welcome. This episode is a replay of pod beans storytelling podcast week,

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july live event episode,

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Campfire stories featuring Jim Harold of Jim Harold's Campfire and john Ballantine of Campfire radio theater hosted by Matsu Topple of the High ni podcast on this episode.

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They'll talk about how they each create their shows,

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the themes that carry throughout them, audio production effects,

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creating community and so much more.

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Stay tuned and here we go, Welcome to Jim and john,

0:34

so glad to have you on this show and so glad to have you here this afternoon.

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I hope you're having a good day so far. It's very good.

0:44

Good, good to be here, excited to talk about campfire stories.

0:48

Yeah. Mhm Yeah,

0:50

I hope you will both have had a good day and we're gonna start off to by introducing everybody to your podcasts.

0:57

Um I think we'll go from Jim first um and then we'll go to john,

1:01

tell us a little bit about your podcast, give us a little pitch why we should listen to them.

1:06

They sound very interesting, but why do you think they're interesting?

1:10

Well, you know, frankly, maybe depending on what you like,

1:13

you don't like, maybe you shouldn't listen, but if you like real stories from real people of supernatural things that happened to them in there course of their daily lives.

1:22

I would highly recommend Jim Harold's campfire.

1:25

Not that I'm biased, But the show started in 2009 and we've been going right along with that show ever since.

1:34

And we've talked to thousands of people who have experienced thousands of things,

1:39

it's different every week. And I love doing it.

1:42

So if you like real spooky stories,

1:45

I say check it out and so glad to be here,

1:48

thank you again for the opportunity. Well,

1:54

uh I would suggest if you like spooky stories,

1:58

you might want to listen to camp for our radio theater.

2:01

Um my my oldest sister cannot listen to my show.

2:06

She can't handle that kind of security stuff, but a lot of people do like it and we tell fictional tales and we dramatize voice actors and sound effects and original music done by our composer Kevin Hart nell.

2:22

And if you're into that kind of thing,

2:25

if you want to hear something that sort of sounds like a movie soundtrack,

2:30

but without the visuals, then you might give us a listen if you,

2:34

if you like that and of course, you know, we're sort of doing campfire style storytelling,

2:38

but it's it's it's dramatized and guys,

2:44

give us, give us a shot, try this out and see what you think.

2:47

Mhm, just like the old radio dramas,

2:50

which I think will go into a little more today.

2:52

Um just as for me, um the High Night podcast is a fictional drama podcast set in Toronto about a Filipina who comes from a shaman family who deals with all of these supernatural cases um with a little bit of like experience.

3:08

She's like, oh, I know how to deal with this. And so it transforms a really scary situation for a lot of other people into something where she kind of just has her day job that she has this job on the side.

3:19

So that's part of what Hina is about.

3:21

Also a little inspired by radio dramas and little more dramatized.

3:27

So clearly I'm in good company with jim and john here and can I,

3:32

can I say I love radio drama,

3:35

I was a big fan of old time radio,

3:37

love listening to things like suspense. So hats off to both of you for doing that genre.

3:43

Yeah, absolutely. I've heard from a lot of people that are who don't even know what a podcast is,

3:49

they're like, oh, I used to listen to the radio dramas all the time,

3:53

so it's kind of like a throwback in that way.

3:56

Um but yeah, so because you're both,

3:59

you both have camp campfire story themed like podcasts.

4:03

I do want to ask um what does the tradition of campfire stories mean to you?

4:07

And I think this time we'll start with john,

4:09

so go ahead. Well,

4:13

you know, I think there there is just sort of perverse thrill of telling somebody a spooky story and you know,

4:21

there's not, you know, hardly a spookier setting than around a campfire and obviously we can't all sit around a campfire and listen to stories with our busy lives and people on the go and with podcasts,

4:35

you know, you know, the cool thing is, you can take the campfire with you and put your earbuds in and listen in your car or whatever you want to do and take these stories with you whether they're fictional tales or something that really happened to somebody.

4:49

The cool thing about is, you know, with fictional tales,

4:52

you can you can sort of pretend like there there's something that really happened,

4:56

you know? Um but uh I think even in modern society,

5:02

I mean it's just like when you were a kid and you're sitting there and your blanket for with your flashlight pressed up under your chin and you're telling your siblings,

5:09

you know, these kind of scary stories.

5:12

I don't know, there's something, there's a lot that's fun about that,

5:15

whether you're telling the story or you're sitting there listening to it for me.

5:22

Uh it kind of harkens back to my childhood.

5:24

My family was originally from west Virginia,

5:26

I'm from Ohio, but I used to go down with them every summer.

5:30

We'd spend couple of weeks down there and I remember all the relatives sitting on the front porch and they would tell their war stories and different things that happened to them and those were okay.

5:43

But then somebody would tell the spooky story of,

5:48

you know when they saw a ghost or when they saw a Ufo or whatever it was.

5:52

In fact, my mom and dad,

5:54

my mom and dad had a story and then my mom and my dad and uncle had a very compelling story um that they told for years and my dad who's Still alive tells the same stories to this day that they really happened to them and I think somehow subconsciously that made a mark on me And I was doing since 2005,

6:15

the paranormal podcast, which I still do, which is an interview show And then one week I didn't have something to run and I said,

6:22

well let me get people's stories in 2009 and all of a sudden I said,

6:26

aha, I'm not the smartest guy, this is a separate podcast.

6:29

I love campfire stories. I'm sure my listeners are going to love it.

6:34

And um just to me, it's just kind of like what john said,

6:37

it's innately part of the human condition.

6:40

We all have this need to share stories,

6:42

particularly stories of the strange that happened to us.

6:47

I agree with both of you because like I also experienced like my parents telling me creepy stories and it didn't occur to me until much later in life.

6:56

Um it's one of those things where your memory kind of like jolts when you're like,

6:59

where did I get all this love of the scary and then like I had a jolt of memory of my mom,

7:03

like telling me a really creepy story when I was a lot younger and giving me nightmares for many years.

7:09

So yeah and yeah,

7:11

even though you know, myself and john like do fiction,

7:15

I think we, I think it's safe to say that we both draw from the stories we've heard before.

7:21

Like we're all inspired in that way. Um,

7:23

but yes, speaking of fiction, um,

7:26

since we've got, you know, jim with nonfiction,

7:28

well, I mean, you know, arguably nonfiction,

7:31

we don't know where the stories are coming from, but they are coming from real people.

7:35

My listeners only tell true stories.

7:37

You're right. I'm so sorry.

7:39

I don't mean to slander your listeners.

7:42

Everything they say is true. I'm sure maybe one or two have slipped in.

7:46

That may have been a little bit embellished,

7:48

but just one or two, but you gotta trust your listeners.

7:50

I totally get that. But yeah,

7:54

exactly, a little bit of embellishment never hurt anybody.

7:59

And yes, so I just want to ask,

8:01

um, can you tell us a bit about the production,

8:04

the sound design, um, and like the tradition of audio dramas that you bring to your stories,

8:10

john because I did give it a very brief listen and like the amount of,

8:16

you know, uh, I guess we would call it set dressing in any other context is really interesting.

8:22

You said you, you guys do your own music and I want to hear more about like what the process looks like and what inspired you from like older audio dramas.

8:34

Well, you know, I, I like old time radio,

8:37

but I, you know, unfortunately I'm not quite old enough to have heard that,

8:42

you know, when it was on, you know, the actual radio,

8:45

but You know,

8:47

as a kid growing up and I was like in the 80s they did have radio drama on NPR.

8:55

And uh I remember listening to a show called Nightfall,

8:59

which was a Canadian radio drama.

9:01

It was produced by the CBc and it was one of the scariest damn things I've ever heard.

9:07

Uh it's, it creeped me out and uh I always wanted to do something like that and it was extremely well produced.

9:17

I mean the sound, it had just tremendous voice actors,

9:21

you know, that worked I guess for the CBc and wonderful writers and the sound was very immersive,

9:29

it was in stereo, you put your headphones on,

9:32

it was all around you. And I just always wanted to play in that sort of sandbox and you know,

9:41

that's kind of what really inspired me.

9:43

So I've tried to make our shows almost like a little mini movie soundtracks.

9:49

I mean, so much work goes into a modern film soundtrack,

9:53

you just don't realize that you sit there,

9:55

you know, maybe if you're lucky enough to sit with a,

9:57

you know, fairly decent screen at home with your surround sound system and a lot of work goes into that sound.

10:04

So I try to put, you know, since there's no visual component,

10:07

I try to put a tremendous amount of work into our sound and kevin does a wonderful job with our,

10:12

with our music and we have some wonderful voice actors involved as well.

10:18

So we just we put a lot of work into it and sometimes it takes a little longer to to put out an episode.

10:24

But it is sort of like making a little mini movie.

10:27

Everyone, everyone that we do, that's fantastic john and speaking of like your work,

10:34

we do want to share a little clip of your work too.

10:37

Um I guess show people, but I'll let people listen to this mini movie that you have created.

10:42

So we'll just start the clip in a second.

10:55

Mhm. Mhm.

10:58

Mhm. Angela Mhm.

11:03

You who's there?

11:10

I didn't see her at first there in the darkness,

11:13

but as my vision focused, a silhouette began to take shape framed by the open doorway,

11:21

it's me. Can you see me?

11:25

A raw, earthy odor hung in the air like freshly turned soil.

11:30

I'm scared, Angela, I'm really,

11:33

really scared. Please don't.

11:37

Can I sleep with you please?

11:40

No, please leave in the morning honest.

11:46

She slid under the covers and curled up right next to me.

11:52

Her icy breath stung my neck.

11:55

Huh? Can I tell you a secret?

12:04

It's not like they say it is after you die,

12:06

please. No, it's nothing like that.

12:10

I don't want to know.

12:15

It's okay,

12:18

Angela,

12:22

I don't blame you. It's not your fault,

12:25

but I need your help.

12:33

Very impressive,

12:36

very creepy. Yeah.

12:39

Uh you didn't hear it, but I was making all of the appropriate horrified sounds.

12:46

I hate that.

12:48

I missed that. Yeah, we had voice actresses,

12:53

Erica Sanderson and Tanya Malone's that they were just terrific.

12:57

They've both done stuff for us before and in that episode they got to play two young young girls and this really,

13:05

really fantastic work on their part and obviously the sound design and the music sort of all comes together to paint that picture.

13:14

Mhm. Could you reiterate the sound desires?

13:17

Name the one who makes the original music?

13:21

Yeah, Kevin Hart now does the music week for the show?

13:26

He's been with us. Uh I guess Kevin's been with us for about seven years now and scores every episode,

13:33

original music for every episode. We used to go to a lot of sort of library music and stuff like that.

13:39

But then Kevin happened to email me one day and said,

13:43

hey, you know, I'm a big fan of what you do,

13:46

it reminds me of an old show called Nightfall.

13:48

Yeah, love that.

13:51

I love it too. He said, would you mind if uh you know,

13:54

maybe I listen to some music I've done and if it works for you and I said okay,

13:59

yeah, sure. And I listened to his music.

14:01

This guy is brilliant. You know, absolutely.

14:04

I'd love you to do some music for us.

14:06

So anyway, it's been a great relationship with him,

14:09

having a great friendship, having him work on the podcast with me that's fantastic and definitely the dream,

14:16

like, knowing all of the, checking through the library of all the music that I can find that I can put into things.

14:22

Um, let's just say many characters have a strange love of jazz that came from the pre royalty era.

14:30

So that's just a character trade.

14:33

It has nothing to do with anything. So,

14:37

yeah, so, um, jim your show,

14:40

Jim Harold's Campfire. It has so many true stories as we established very true.

14:44

All your, all your listeners are,

14:47

you know, very trustworthy.

14:49

And I just wanted to ask like,

14:52

how do you, you know, curate the stories like,

14:55

you do have to, like, pick which ones you want to include,

14:57

but also like in, um,

15:00

opposition to that. How do you not run out?

15:03

Uh, well, running out. You know,

15:05

that used to be a real problem when I first started.

15:08

And now it's kind of the opposite. I have to turn off submissions because we do an online submission and things,

15:13

but I'll be honest with you unless somebody gets into something that's objectionable.

15:19

And like, your program today were broadcast standards.

15:22

So no vulgarity or anything like that,

15:25

But we're pretty open to almost any story very rarely.

15:29

Maybe one out of 30 stories I reject.

15:32

Now I'm a feature one more prominently than the other,

15:35

but I want to be respectful and very open to to everybody's story.

15:40

And in some stories, you know, some stories are extremely compelling to me and then my audience doesn't comment on that much and then some stories,

15:49

I'll be like, it's not the best story and people be,

15:52

I love that story. So it's not always about my judgment.

15:57

I like to have a very kind of open,

16:00

open thing and I just want to say john's sound there is tremendous.

16:05

You know, I'm a bit of an audio snob and on my side,

16:08

I try to do every single thing I can to get the audio right.

16:12

But in my line, uh,

16:14

you know, people calling in, that's always a challenge because you're limited by their tech.

16:20

So we do everything we can and we've gone to great expense to try to make that sound as good as it can.

16:26

But a lot of times people are calling in on a potato,

16:29

so, so hats off to john for that great sound.

16:34

But back to your point.

16:36

Um, sometimes our group stories,

16:39

one thing that really interesting happens to this,

16:43

this show and I don't know if you both are interested in the paranormal just as you're interested in it or you believe in it.

16:51

Sometimes the shows will curate themselves.

16:55

I'll have calling sessions of 10-12 calls back to back and people will call me in that session about the same theme,

17:04

but they have no way of knowing who the other callers are because we just paste the calls together back to back and it's like,

17:11

whoa, I got four shadow people stories tonight,

17:15

or I had one that was about the musician robert johnson who supposedly sold his soul to the devil and had one person who called in with a story,

17:24

had something to do with that, and then the next person said,

17:28

and I told her, oh we just did a story about music.

17:31

The person was listening to the musician robert johnson and she said,

17:35

you won't believe who I just drew a picture of from my art class or something.

17:40

It was a picture of johnson at the crossroads.

17:43

So we've actually had kind of semi paranormal stuff happen with the curation of the shows,

17:48

it's kind of weird, That's awesome.

17:51

Mhm. And yeah,

17:53

speaking of the show, I did just want to share a clip from your show as well um right after john's um may I share one thing on this,

18:02

basically, to set it up. This is a young lady who called in last week actually,

18:08

and there was a house she loved as a little kid and I'll leave it at that.

18:13

Okay, Yeah, so we'll start the clip in just a second.

18:16

Top of this hill was a huge yellow victorian mansion,

18:21

just this gorgeous old house,

18:24

but it was a little decrepit, nobody had lived there for quite a long time,

18:29

and when I was 45,

18:31

I thought this place looked like a dollhouse and I desperately wanted to go play in this dollhouse and could not for the life of me understand why my parents would not let their four year old go play in an abandoned mansion.

18:45

I remember at some points,

18:47

I must have been in about first or second grade,

18:50

I started having dreams that I would go explore this house at night in these dreams.

18:56

I would sort of fly out of our house and I would fly up the hill,

19:01

I would go around the back of the hill where it turns out there was sort of a road and I would fly up to the back door and I would kind of fly through the door and I would go fly around inside this house and I went to college and state,

19:19

I came home and I'm doing my laundry one weekend and my mom goes,

19:23

oh, you know, remember your dollhouse?

19:26

And I was like that big yellow victorian and she goes,

19:28

yeah, it's it's been condemned,

19:30

it's going to be demolished suddenly.

19:33

I was like, what do you mean they're going to demolish it, That's my house.

19:35

Like, it's like, you can't, don't they know about my dollhouse?

19:38

And I was like, you know, this is probably my last chance to ever see this house.

19:44

I was like, I'm gonna go for a walk and I'll never forget it.

19:47

She looked at me and she goes do not break into that house.

19:49

And I was like, I'm not going to break into the house.

19:51

I just want to go see it, right.

19:55

You know, it's not going to be here. And I it's my last chance to just kind of see it.

19:59

And it was such a fixture for me when I was little.

20:02

So I start walking towards it and find that just like the dreams I had when I was little,

20:07

there is a path that goes around the back of the house that leads to the back door and the back door of the house is in fact white.

20:16

And around that time, I remember thinking that's a lot of things in common,

20:22

right? That's a lot in common.

20:24

And I remember it was kind of, it was late afternoon or early evening and I didn't wanna,

20:30

I didn't wanna I genuinely didn't want to break into this house.

20:33

I didn't want to do anything I shouldn't do.

20:36

But when those things were the same,

20:38

I remember thinking, I wonder how far these coincidences go.

20:44

I want, you know, I just wonder. So I kind of popped up onto the porch that had this gorgeous wraparound porch and kind of peeked in through some of the broken windows and saw that the staircase was exactly,

20:58

it was in my dream. The wallpaper was exactly the same.

21:01

There was an old piano in the same spot.

21:05

Everything that I could see through this house was exactly as it had been in my dreams as a child.

21:13

Yeah. and that's the thing,

21:16

that's my reaction to a lot of stories, and it's just like sometimes they're not ghost stories,

21:20

traditional ghost stories, they're just what I call head scratchers.

21:23

There are things that are just so wild.

21:26

And then you come to I've come to the conclusion.

21:28

There is possibility. Two possibilities. One,

21:31

the person is lying, which I don't think this was Sophie,

21:34

I don't believe for a minute she was lying. She's very sincere.

21:37

She's been on the show before, very kind of level headed person or they experienced something outside of the parameters of what we normally understand.

21:46

Because how do you explain that? How do you explain that?

21:50

Mhm. I I think I I definitely know the feeling because I've had those dreams like those deja vu dreams,

21:57

I don't know if you've had them where you have a dream that seems unrelated to anything and then maybe like a year down the line or some months down the line or even a week down the line,

22:06

it happens in your real life. And I've had I've definitely had so many of those and none of them were particularly amazing or you know,

22:15

crazy, but it was like, oh,

22:17

I remember sitting down eating this eating this pizza and typing,

22:22

like, you know, that kind of thing. So I do I genuinely believe that sort of thing in her knowing how the house looked like before,

22:30

even seeing it because sometimes the brain is weird and sometimes the world is weird.

22:35

That that was a fantastic clip.

22:38

Sorry? Yes, I said thank goodness, it's weird.

22:40

I wouldn't have a job. That's true.

22:43

Yeah, exactly, and yeah,

22:45

so um just going into did you um well you,

22:51

did you ever listen to Art Bell?

22:53

I mean that that was what you,

22:57

what you do is is is kind of the spiritual descendant to some degree of,

23:02

because I remember listening to a lot of his stuff on the radio because I would go in maybe working night shift and you know,

23:11

he was on at midnight and you know,

23:14

I think you love you absolutely love that kind of thing.

23:17

People calling in and telling these these stories and and and so many of them are sincere.

23:25

I remember an episode of your show some years back about a lady talking about an antique mirror in her home when she was a child I believe,

23:36

and she was so sincere and it was such a great story.

23:41

It just kind of sent the chills up your,

23:45

you know,

23:48

so a lot of good stories like you just love that stuff.

23:51

Well, thank you, thank you and I gotta say um you know,

23:56

not every story is that good, but there are just some things,

23:59

we have one coming up this week, which is just amazing and the thing is as long as I've been doing this,

24:06

still, there are stories that throw some kind of extra loop into it or some extra spin or something different?

24:14

There's always something to be surprised about And one last thing to your point about Art Bell,

24:18

I kind of consider him like johnny Carson was back in the day to talk shows,

24:23

anybody that gets behind the mic, whether it's on radio or podcasting and does this kind of owes him a debt of gratitude because he's the guy that kind of really invented um,

24:34

the paranormal talk format. Yeah,

24:37

true. Absolutely. And you have to,

24:39

it takes a certain talent to,

24:42

to do that. You know, you have to be able to,

24:44

to pull that off and be interesting yourself and also help sometimes make people that are calling in more interesting than they than they actually are,

24:56

you know, in some cases, but some of them are just to tell really compelling stories.

25:00

True. Yeah,

25:03

it's an underrated art form,

25:06

the good host. Anyway,

25:09

so I, yeah, because both of you,

25:12

um, I mean I think jim a little more than john,

25:15

but both of you do have like a very specific like,

25:18

um, audience like and community.

25:22

Um, I think with jim because you do source like your stories like different people in your community.

25:27

Um, it's more apparent, but I do want to ask um,

25:31

for both of you. Um, I think we'll start with the gym first and we'll go to john um,

25:35

community seems to play a big factor for both of you and how would you say?

25:39

Like you've cultivated that community like,

25:42

um, what, what are things you did on your own and what are the things that the community kind of did for you?

25:47

Like that makes this like that makes your show.

25:51

Um, so I guess like have a community in that way rather than just,

25:56

you know, a bunch of non exist,

25:59

like, you know, seemingly non existent listeners,

26:01

um, or just numbers on a page.

26:04

Well honestly, I always think I can do a better job.

26:07

That's one of my big things when I do this because I love doing it.

26:10

I love this subject matter, but it's also my job and it's my business.

26:14

So I'm almost trying to think how to do better.

26:16

So whatever I'm going to say now I'm going to stay with a caveat.

26:20

I could still do better. But first of all I try to be friendly and I try to be sincere.

26:26

Um, people email me, I email him back.

26:28

I may not be quite as fast as I should sometimes,

26:30

but I try to get back to everybody. Um social media.

26:34

I try to be as interactive as I possibly can.

26:37

We've got a great campfire group, Jim Harold's camp virtual campfire.

26:41

That's over 23,000 members on Facebook.

26:44

I'm not on Tiktok yet. I haven't,

26:47

I'm not brave enough to do that. I don't, I don't think I'd do well with the dancing.

26:50

Um, but I try to be friendly.

26:54

I mean I try to be friendly and my community has been a friend to me in return in one of the big ways that we're able to do this full time.

27:03

I have a plus club and that means people have to pay for extra content and back catalog content and they do.

27:11

And, and I am legitimately thankful to my audience.

27:15

I appreciate my audience. I am so glad I have them.

27:19

And I think that that feeling does somehow translate and somehow they know that I mean it,

27:26

I'm not just saying it. So I just think being sincere and,

27:30

and then just tactically you try to be on as many platforms as you can obviously.

27:35

But I think it all comes back to that sincerity and trying to be a nice person.

27:40

I think it works a lot better. If you, if you've got that bedrock,

27:44

you can figure out what should I be on the social media side.

27:46

Should I be on that social media side site.

27:49

But, but at the root of it,

27:51

I don't think it works nearly as well. If you're just play acting,

27:55

being friendly, Just my thoughts.

27:58

Yeah, absolutely. And how about you, john,

28:00

I mean, um, I would love to hear like what like an impression of what your community looks like.

28:06

Although I think you've given us a little bit of a hint because one of them decided to become your audio person to make you original music,

28:13

clearly something's been working very well.

28:15

So,

28:18

but you know, we do have people sometimes volunteering stories and and stuff,

28:23

and and and we have had some some actually very good.

28:27

Uh 11 young fellow who was a fan of the show uh submitted some of his work and we ended up adapting it and turned out to be quite a good good episode.

28:38

Um but I don't know,

28:41

the, I guess the audience is in the following.

28:44

He's just sort of grown organically and and,

28:47

you know, when I started, I I guess we started in 2011,

28:52

um a lot of people didn't even still didn't even know what a podcast was,

28:57

you know, um you know,

28:59

I I had to tell my family, hey,

29:01

you know, this is where you can listen to audio,

29:04

you know, it's kind of cool, you know,

29:06

and uh it's just kind of grown and,

29:09

and uh you know, our facebook group started off small,

29:13

you know, we started with facebook and twitter,

29:16

it's still not, you know, a huge massive audience,

29:19

but we have a, you know, a pretty good following at this point,

29:22

much bigger than I ever thought it would be.

29:25

Um and, you know,

29:27

I, I don't probably engage with them as much as I should,

29:31

but a lot of times it's like, you know, you're waiting a couple of,

29:34

because we're not a regular podcast, we're not putting out weekly content or even monthly content,

29:40

we're just putting out an episode when it's ready and I'll say,

29:43

okay, you know, there's a new show coming up maybe in a few days,

29:46

you know, you might want to check out your feeds. So I am terrible at social media,

29:52

as you can tell. So it's it's it's it's nothing short of a miracle that we have a following that we do,

29:57

but that shows the quality of the show.

29:59

Exactly. I would like to think so.

30:02

Uh and and and hopefully that is true.

30:05

Um we do have a very nice to people who listen and respond to the show.

30:12

I just want, you know, it's wonderful to get that validation into here,

30:17

that folks are sort of digging what you're doing,

30:20

you know? Mhm. I completely understand because um for us we do have like,

30:26

a smallish following. Like it's bigger than,

30:29

you know, most podcasts our age. We're only from 2020,

30:32

so we're pretty young. Um but uh yeah,

30:38

and it's like, it's really amazing. Like you start seeing the same names in certain places and you start looking forward to those specific people.

30:45

And even if it was just literally just one person who would comment like every single time whenever,

30:51

like, we would post, we would continue creating just for that one person.

30:55

And I think like, that's the magic of it.

30:58

And you get even like jokes running jokes going,

31:01

like, I had another podcaster and for some reason he didn't like me.

31:08

So he put on, well, you know, he's got his fancy equipment,

31:10

he's a millionaire, which I am not a millionaire. I'm a middle class guy.

31:14

Yeah. You know, I, this weekend I was behind the mower,

31:17

pushing my mower. So, I mean, I'm not so but this guy had him.

31:21

So I kind of said on social, there's somebody thinks I'm a millionaire and I'm not.

31:25

So the one listener now always calls me the millionaire.

31:30

So, like, I'll take a picture of being somewhere.

31:33

It's like, again with the millionaire and his fancy,

31:36

whatever, you know, and it's like a running joke,

31:39

you know, and and or,

31:41

you know, I've had people my wife just had Covid and people were so kind,

31:47

she's negative now and things are in the good track,

31:50

But thank goodness.

31:53

But people were so nice. People were saying,

31:55

how is she, how is she doing? Because she does another podcast with me.

31:59

But I mean, people are so genuinely nice.

32:01

I'm blown away by it. Yeah.

32:05

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

32:07

they, you know, people are concerned and they want to know what's going on in your life and,

32:12

and I I tend to be more mysterious because I guess,

32:15

because I do a fiction podcast and,

32:17

you know, I don't really, even though I I'm technically the host of the show.

32:22

Um, you know,

32:24

I i it's a scripted show and uh,

32:28

but people want to know, you know, that you have people contacted,

32:31

you want to know how you're doing, you know, how's how's things going in your life and and the concern for people is is genuinely heartwarming.

32:40

Mhm. And I think you get what you give,

32:44

you know, like, if you have, if you have a good personality,

32:47

if you treat your fans well,

32:50

if you have certain boundaries, but like, in a very,

32:53

you know, not like, out of nowhere, you kind of,

32:55

like, set these boundaries and be like,

32:57

this is the amount of um love and respect that I am giving out.

33:02

That's kind of like, what you get back to. I think that's like,

33:04

it shows the quality not only of your podcast,

33:07

but of us people, that when your when your community is mostly if not entirely very positive in that way,

33:16

and I think it's very heartening as a creator.

33:18

Um and speaking of inside jokes,

33:21

the most recent one that I saw was we had a really amazing horror artist,

33:27

like, do a bit of an artwork for our first episode.

33:29

Um it's one of those things where you look at it,

33:32

you kind of don't want to look at it, because it's actually really quite scary.

33:35

And when you posted that artwork, there were two comments right,

33:38

right about, like, above and below each other.

33:41

One of them said like, oh my God, this is so terrifying.

33:44

I would be, you know, I would be terrified to see this in person,

33:47

and then the one below it says um it looks it actually looks really cute and so like those are two types of fans and I love them both,

33:56

they're both correct. Um and yeah,

33:59

so okay, kind of, going into the next question,

34:01

um this one's a little bit of a more conceptual question,

34:05

I would say, and I think I can kind of sum it up with,

34:09

how do you kind of how do you get that feeling of?

34:13

It's a horror podcast, like, we're all doing a little bit of horror,

34:16

how do you get that feeling of horror?

34:18

That feeling of dread and doom without going too over the top?

34:23

Um in terms of like, you know, like where do you draw the line?

34:26

I think as creators in keeping that tension up and if you do go over the top,

34:33

like why does that work? You know, like how what's your craft,

34:37

reveal to us your secrets? Um I think for this one,

34:40

we'll go with Jim 1st, then John right after well,

34:43

one thing I never tell people to embellish the stories,

34:46

I never say you make it a little spookier, I don't do that,

34:49

which, you know, if it were a fictional show fine.

34:53

Um but since it's not,

34:56

I just say tell it, like it happened now, okay,

34:58

what happened next? You know, who's a master of that,

35:01

even though it's in a different genre, True crime is keith Morrison from Dateline.

35:06

I don't know if you have that up in Canada, but he doesn't,

35:09

oh he's a master,

35:12

he's a master. So you know, you throw in a,

35:15

well what happened then? Oh my goodness, you know,

35:17

things like that, so you try to do it that way,

35:19

It's you know, it's a little tough when you don't have total control over the narrative,

35:24

right? So you try to do it by,

35:26

you know, maybe stopping the story and trying to interject the question maybe to build the tension and those kind of things and that's that's why I tried to do,

35:34

but I intentionally play it down rather than play it up because I don't want them to make it spooky here,

35:43

I want them to truly tell what happened.

35:47

Um you know, we're doing a show with my daughter now,

35:51

unpleasant dreams where there isn't I can really appreciate because we're doing a very small scale what john does because we're just using stock music and things,

35:59

but she tells a case like she just did a a show actually on what was it number stations,

36:05

it's coming out tomorrow and um You know,

36:09

we have music and stuff and trying to make it spooky in that way,

36:12

so I really for what both of you do,

36:14

I'm impressed because I'm just starting to learn now,

36:17

we're only about 22 episodes and we're starting to learn.

36:21

That's that's a whole different thing to learn rather than the,

36:26

the kind of true life storytelling that we do it,

36:29

that's a whole different craft and I'm learning so so hats off to you guys.

36:37

Thanks. And how about you, john Oh gosh.

36:42

Um you know, I I just kinda look at it,

36:46

uh how movies that I really like do that sort of thing.

36:52

Ah I love the shining,

36:56

you know, that's a creepy movie. I've heard younger people sometimes say it's not scary,

37:00

there's nothing scary. I'm like, you haven't seen the same movie.

37:04

I have that movie creep me out man,

37:07

you know, and it's something about the pacing of it and this,

37:12

there's sometimes there's something scarier about to silence,

37:18

you know, just having a pause here or there.

37:21

I think you get so caught up in audio because I used to work in radio where dead air was deadly.

37:27

You don't, you know, you gotta talking,

37:31

you gotta have something going on. They don't want any kind of silence,

37:34

but with if you're telling a moody's creepy kind of story,

37:40

sometimes there's nothing creepier than just,

37:44

you know, not necessarily dead silence,

37:47

but having a character paul's five or six or seven or 10 seconds and you're like wondering,

37:53

okay, what's what's going on here,

37:56

you know, and that you hear maybe the ambient sounds or crickets or maybe you hear a door sliding open.

38:03

But that's something to me that I've kind of learned over the years that you don't have to constantly have,

38:10

you know, dialogue or something going on if you just sometimes pace it so that you have people wondering,

38:18

okay, what's gonna happen next here?

38:21

Um to me that's,

38:23

that's scary and that's effective, very effective with audio,

38:28

you know, using that as a technique. That's true.

38:31

Um I mean, you know, in radio,

38:33

I'm sure silence like, you know, because you're trying to keep people's attention,

38:37

but in horror, um silence is its own sound.

38:41

It's like silence has like its own mood and when you use silence,

38:46

especially for an audio medium that is like a,

38:50

I don't know, like it's, it's catching people's attention.

38:52

I feel like they turn back, they're like, oh what's happening now because it's completely silent and I have enjoyed that.

38:58

Um there's also like early on we were using a little too much,

39:03

but we had that little rumble,

39:05

just the low rumble and that low rumble that makes you all like I'm tense and then when it drops out,

39:11

people are like, what the like it like that's not silence.

39:15

But whenever people weren't talking, you'd still hear the rumble.

39:18

So when the rumble dropped out, that was a complete other like moment,

39:22

everyone's like, whoa, they're worried that something's gonna jump out even though they're not watching anything,

39:27

they're just listening. So that's always fun.

39:30

I used to use, I know,

39:32

early on, I used to use a lot of sort of almost subsonic rumbles and I would be listening later,

39:39

you know, I'd listen to my good setup here at home and mix it and I'm like well that sounds great,

39:44

that sounds fantastic. And I'd listen on my cheap little set of earbuds with the ipod.

39:50

I'm like where did it go? You know,

39:53

you know the equipment that you know,

39:56

that's what a lot of people listening with,

39:58

you know cheap earbuds and they couldn't hear it because you know,

40:01

but you know, put it on the system with a subwoofer and it rocks the house.

40:05

But you know,

40:07

you just kinda, you know, you sort of figure that okay,

40:10

well maybe I should go a little bit higher with the base here where it's not quite subsonic level but uh you know,

40:17

I'm sure people listening on a really good system got the same kind of shock I did when they heard it,

40:22

but I'm sure you know, probably not very many people are listening on it with their surroundings systems but but anyway that's that's really that's a really good point about mixing to what people listen.

40:36

I think I heard her, I don't know if this is apocryphal or if it is true but I had heard that back in the day that when they mixed records,

40:45

they tried to Listen to it on speakers or something.

40:50

That would sound good on AM radio,

40:52

I'm talking way back like in the 50s and the 60s because they knew that's how it would be consumed and that's an excellent point because most people these days are listening with some type of earbuds,

41:02

you know, so that that's a great point.

41:06

Most people, I guess from a mixing standpoint,

41:09

most audio engineers will tell you if you're,

41:13

if you're mixing your show before you sort of lock in your final mix,

41:19

you should really have listen to it through several different sources,

41:24

Like a really good source, a really cheap source,

41:28

you know, even listen to it maybe in mono just to see what it sounds like,

41:33

because you never know what, how people will be listening to your to your podcast,

41:37

what kind of equipment, exactly.

41:40

And for sure, I actually have a little anecdote about this um when we started out the first,

41:45

um really helpful, not necessarily just like positive feedback that we had,

41:50

but it wasn't negative was somebody was saying like,

41:52

oh you have like this really high pitched sound that I'm hearing from your episode,

41:56

and I was like, oh my gosh, really? And what happened was I was listening on these really nice headphones that got for like sound for editing for film and everything.

42:04

And then I switched over to these $4 like four Canadian dollars,

42:08

even. So $4 earphones, really bad sound quality.

42:12

And I heard it and I was like, oh my gosh, so ever since then when I was editing the show,

42:17

I would edit on really, really bad earphones and then um that's kind of my baseline and then,

42:23

because our sound is meant to be,

42:25

you know, on like bad on purpose because it's meant to be coming through phones or or or tapes.

42:32

So that was like my baseline. Ever since then people have been flocking to the podcast because they were like oh I love this sound and I'm like yeah you're listening to it on the same earphones I am.

42:42

Um and my my big earphones are just for when I have to make something specific.

42:47

But yeah, that's kind of like so interesting,

42:49

you have to know, I guess that's why audiences and creators,

42:54

that's kind of how they tie in together, which is so interesting.

42:57

Um but yeah, so I will just go on to the last couple of questions here because we are almost time.

43:03

But um so here's a fun one.

43:06

What are your favorite episodes or that you've been able to create?

43:10

Or like favorite, I guess scenes or moments in your episodes and I think we'll go with Jim then john okay,

43:17

I'll try to make this quick, my favorite all time campfire story.

43:21

I'll put it that way because anything I created,

43:23

but I felt so strongly about it. Pre pandemic.

43:26

I went up to michigan with a professional tv videographer and we shot a tv package or a video package on it,

43:34

A woman who went to this strange Roadhouse that they came upon late in the early morning Hours,

43:43

like two, AM. Uh and it was like walking into an alternate reality.

43:49

It's called the Roadhouse saloon and she was such a great storyteller.

43:52

And when I met her in person, retired from a very respected profession,

43:58

totally credible and it is nothing short of the twilight zone.

44:02

I mean, it is just like a twilight zone episode and she almost found herself being absorbed into a wall size painting.

44:11

But she escaped. The thing is,

44:14

listeners went, they found the place,

44:16

they took pictures, the place exists, the painting exists.

44:20

Um that's my all time favorite story of the campfire.

44:24

I have a lot of favorites, but that one, nobody has been able to beat that one.

44:28

Just an incredible, incredible story that kind of,

44:31

has got its own lore in the history of the podcast.

44:36

It's become like everybody's like, oh, the Roadhouse saloon,

44:38

that's my favorite. You know, so that's a,

44:41

that's a high bar for our show to try to knock that one off.

44:44

I don't know that anyone ever will. And how about you,

44:49

john, what's your favorite? Well,

44:52

uh gosh, I, I can't really cite picking your kids.

44:55

Um, but a few standouts.

44:59

I love an old episode. We did called Hungry Hollow.

45:03

It was actually an idea for a short film that I was going to do back in the mid 90s and It's sort of a classic story about three guys sort of camping in the woods and it is the,

45:17

you know, the quintessential campfire story,

45:20

I guess. Uh and they they come into contact with a young girl that's a young woman that's lost in the woods.

45:27

And there's this sort of witchcraft lore that sort of enters the picture.

45:32

And it's, it was a fun show because we actually Field recorded that show in the woods um with a couple of friends of mine and I just had a lot of fun recording that.

45:44

Um, and sort of doing it on location,

45:48

sort of adds this sort of, I guess authenticity to it,

45:51

you know? Um but that was a lot of fun.

45:55

Um And uh another episode called Night Delivery,

46:00

which was a story that takes place in the 80s and it's about this young guy who's working at a radio station and and uh there's this night delivery of records that when they're played backwards,

46:13

you hit this sort of back masking effect.

46:16

And I don't know if you're familiar with it,

46:20

but back in the 80s, there was like a satanic scare about back mask lyrics.

46:25

And I just remember that from when I was a kid,

46:28

one of my buddies was just horrified,

46:30

he thought, you know, he, if he listened to stairway to heaven,

46:33

he was going straight to hell. And because those backwards lyrics was gonna,

46:39

we're gonna mess with his head. Um but it sort of delves into that whole mythology and that was a really funny plus the radio aspect and the fact that it took place in the 80s was just a lot of fun to tackle,

46:51

that so. but there's a bunch of great shows that I enjoy,

46:55

but those just at the moment sort of stand out in memory.

46:59

Mhm. Now, I I like I like both of you are both of your favorites because um It reminds me a lot of like stuff I grew up with to like even though I grew up in the 90s,

47:09

so it's like a little like a little bit later,

47:11

but it's you get like bits of that as you grow up and it's so early on that it almost feels apocryphal,

47:19

it's like there's like, oh I know about the backwards messaging,

47:23

I know about the Roadhouse shows because of the stories people were telling me as I was growing up and it's kind of like lives on in that way,

47:30

and it's like extra creepy because everything pre digital age has this added layer of creepiness because the way people like record things were so different was so static,

47:41

I really like that. Um And yeah,

47:44

like I guess I'll just add in for my favorite episode to make.

47:47

And also I think listening back is fun.

47:50

Um we did a and this is a horror podcast,

47:53

we did a musical episode and the way one does a musical episode in the horror podcast is um I had my sister who is a very good singer she performs and everything come on as a ghost and the ghost sings and the only way the ghost won't kill the main character is if she sings along with her.

48:14

And so that's kind of like how the episode went.

48:17

And the best part about it is that writing the script,

48:21

it's really fun. And writing the script was very short work because half the time is just taken up by like old folk songs,

48:30

which is what we chose to sing instead of just trying to make a story out of the songs,

48:35

like a proper musical. So that was super fun.

48:37

It adds a layer of creepiness. People really liked it and I was like,

48:40

it's the easiest episode you've ever made and I'm very happy.

48:44

So that was super fun and yeah,

48:47

like music in general, it's just been great for the podcast.

48:50

Um and yeah, I think on the last notes,

48:53

um what are some like, so this is another really fun question for both of you.

48:59

What are some other podcasts or creators that you're excited about um that you want to share,

49:04

Like just hype up um, fellow podcasters or other types of creators with something coming out,

49:10

just hype them up? Um I think we'll go with john first then with jim well,

49:17

uh I always like to mention a,

49:22

I, I call them Campfire Radio Theater,

49:24

West Coast, they were, but theater does some great audio plays and they've been edit for about as long as I have,

49:33

I guess they started about a year or two after I did.

49:37

Um and they really don't get the uh the notice that they probably deserve.

49:43

Um they do some great stuff,

49:45

great stories, we've got some great creators involved and it's some really good stuff that they do.

49:52

I I love the guys um from Scottish podcast to um those guys have done have worked with us a little bit too over the years and done some episodes and if you can handle the the language and the and it's all done in fun because it's kind of a it's sort of a comedy podcast,

50:13

but they're they're actually the um robert and robert Cudmore and oh gosh McClain,

50:23

I can't remember his first name at the moment,

50:25

but those guys actually are the ones that, I don't know if you're familiar with the audio drama hub facebook page,

50:31

but those guys actually started that page originally um several years ago,

50:38

I guess probably 7, 8 years ago now, but they're they're a great group of guys and uh Scottish podcast,

50:44

great, great podcast and plus it's kind of creepy deals with creepy and it's about a a group of a group of guys that do paranormal investigations and it's a fun fun little show.

51:00

How about you, Jim Oh there's a bunch Christine and m from and that's why we drink actually,

51:07

they tell me that my shows were part of the inspiration and now they're huge.

51:12

They sell out uh, you know,

51:14

theaters across the country. They just made the new york times bestseller list a couple of weeks ago.

51:19

So that's pretty wild.

51:21

Um so they're fantastic and great fans of the show and always spreading the word.

51:26

So I appreciated Christine and them, same with scott and Forest from astonishing Legends,

51:31

they're fantastic Cat and Jethro from Box of Oddities,

51:35

a husband wife team that do this really fun show.

51:38

It's a little spooky, it's a little kind of bizarre stories.

51:42

Again, like john said with the one show, there's some language there,

51:45

but they're, they're hilarious. They're great young Youtuber doing great things.

51:50

Cristina Gomez. She's really bringing it with um a lot of interviews of a lot of people,

51:55

particularly in the Ufo space and Ryan sprague from somewhere in the skies.

52:00

Does a, you a great Ufo podcast as well.

52:03

There's many more, but those are the ones that come to mind all great podcasters.

52:10

All great, all great hosts.

52:14

That's fantastic. Yeah, I think I'll just like do my last suggestion as well.

52:19

I'll just do 21 of them, I don't know if you've heard of Sapphire Sandalow or sapphires.

52:24

I have, yeah, yeah,

52:27

she does like, she's great,

52:29

She does a really good horror podcast and she's also done a lot of like Youtube content.

52:34

She does a little bit of animated, like horror stories,

52:37

you might find a lot of her stuff there. And the other one is not horror at all.

52:40

But I keep wanting to hype this up because I'm very excited for season two.

52:44

Um it's called Life with Leo, It is a,

52:47

it is a rom com with about a robot and a lawyer and it is a very sweet show and it was the one I don't get the opportunity to listen to podcasts often.

52:59

Um but that one just hooked me and I just love talking about it.

53:03

Um but yeah, so um I think we're kind of hitting near the end um norma do we have time for one last question or are we like,

53:11

um I think we've hit the limit if you have any questions,

53:14

pop them in the comments and hopefully we'll have,

53:17

we'll have Jim and john answered them. Thank you all so much for joining us.

53:20

I'm going to read our brief out show and then we will conclude for today.

53:25

So thank you everyone for joining us for this Livestream campfire stories with john valentine of Campfire Radio theater and Jim Harold of Jim Harold's Campfire hosted by multi Dapple of the podcast.

53:38

For those of you who may be joining us for the first time storytelling podcast.

53:41

Week has Livestream sessions just like this one with top podcast podcasters and storytellers from scripted fiction and nonfiction podcasts across our world and our imaginations.

53:52

We also have exclusive recorded episodes on the storytelling podcast week podcast.

53:57

If you joined late or want to have another listen to these amazing podcasters and storytellers,

54:01

you can replay this live stream on pod beans,

54:04

YouTube channel and the storytelling podcast week podcast.

54:07

We are brought to you by pod being, where a podcast hosting and monetizing platform and home to over 600,000 podcasts.

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To start your podcast today, head over to pod bean.com.

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Thank you so much for joining us and stay tuned for next month's live panel from storytelling podcast week in august.

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Thanks everybody.