hi I’m Alexander Jane you’ll Directorate
- archive podcast and voice of Martin on
the show and with me I have Jonathan
Sims though you probably know me better
as Jonathan Sims and we are here doing a
Q&A session for all of the most asked
questions from the fan base and as a way
of thanking everyone as well for
listening so far so in that vein thank
you so I’m gonna go through these
questions and Johnny’s never heard any
of these before so we’ll see I’ll see
what he makes of them number one Johnny
is that your real voice I’ve been asked
this a lot actually and there are
several comments around the internet I
have actually stumbled across claiming
that I’m putting on a bad British accent
and it is of course true my real name is
Earl Big Mac I’m from pencil to key and
it’s my rift voice I change it a little
bit I like obviously I do lower it a bit
and go a little bit more a little bit
drier a little bit more academic
academic yes for Jonathan but it is my
real voice my real accent funnily no no
one asks if all of the other characters
their voices no apparently they sound
they sound genuine even though we’ve
largely come to the matter of meat so
how long have you been planning this is
it something you’ve always wanted to do
were you actively seeking an opportunity
out for a long time or did you have the
idea more recently that’s sort of a
difficult question I guess because I’ve
been in the back of my mind thinking of
horrible things for as long as I’ve been
as long as I’ve been writing most of my
short stories I’d fire off for the
novels I would start and get three
chapters in would be horror of some sort
in terms of the Magnus archives itself
it wasn’t actually something I’d planned
much until we started doing it when I
started working with Alex he very much
said
what do you want to write to which my
answer was horror anthology which is how
the Magnussen Archive started and then
the overarching the the conceit that
kept it all together very much spiraled
off into what we now know is the Magnus
are cops mm-hmm without mind how did you
specifically get into writing and how
did you craft the story not in a
spoilery sense but did you start with
the main event that worked backwards if
you let it grow over time basically is
it like all of the court boards and
string that everyone has at home I’ll
start with the first question which is
writing has always been sort of where I
feel my strength lies so it’s always
been something that I’ve tried to do and
try to make myself do there’s quite a
lot of several years where I’ve done
very little except tell people oh yes no
I’m a writer I love the process of
creating I hate the process of actually
putting things down on the page but it’s
what you’ve got to do so the answer is
always really in terms of the story
itself I started by spinning out the
central conceit once I’d figured out I
wanted this meta-narrative most of the
very early stories are ones that have
been brewing for a few years to be
honest so a lot of what has turned into
the meta plot came from what themes I
liked from there spinning them out then
I crafted the ending yeah as in the
ending of season five
I hate series that don’t have an end
goal oh yeah I am a hundred percent
about closed arcs and there’s no way I
was going to sit down and write a
sprawling epic meta plot unless I knew
where was finishing yeah and since then
aspects of the end have shifted slightly
with the writing because they always do
but I still know where it’s going yeah
like there’s a there’s a fixed end point
for this which is always the goal ok
another question for you mm-hm do you
know exactly where everything will end
up in the story or have you introduced a
few threads where you’re not sure how
they’re going to
solve and just to have it as a throwaway
thing that you might use later the
answer to that question a larger depends
on when in season one you’re asking it
to be honest right at the beginning most
things were to one degree or another
casting a line out yeah I would have a
story there will be a few aspects of it
that I quite liked and plans to revisit
later and as season 1 progressed linking
some of those up gave me the structure
to spin out into I now have virtually
the entire story in the entire world
planned to one degree or another yes how
did you start to work with rusty quilt a
lot of people don’t really know how the
organization works were you just
friendly beforehand things like that how
did you end up working with us there was
a car boot sale down my road some two
years ago and I mean I’d never
considered myself the sort of person
that would buy a Ouija board but I
perform with a somewhat lunatic stage
show called the mechanisms which is
mythic space pirate musical cabaret and
most years we do the Edinburgh Fringe so
about two years ago now yeah I was about
two years Alex who I sort of knew
through a few people vaguely ended up
coming to one of our shows and saw it
and really liked it yep so when Alex
started a rusty quill he messaged us and
said basically with a open offer would
you like to work with rusty quill at all
the band as a whole largely because
there’s no way to produce the sort of
thing we do at speed enough to be useful
in a podcast you could get one Episode a
next month maybe but I said oh I’ve been
thinking of starting up a horror podcast
for awhile and Alex said great it’ll
need a meta plot and here we are pretty
much how far in advance do you write the
podcasts there’s obviously an
overarching plot but when do you flush
it out do you just churn them out one at
a time do you have bits of episodes
floating around and put them together
how do they how you assemble
for the seasonal one any given episode
will probably have been written
somewhere between four to eight weeks
before you actually hear it that sounds
my rhyme with season two I’ve actually
sat down and planned it all out in a lot
more detail so I now know what the
actual episodes are going to be about
well ultimately as well from a
production standpoint I mean season one
was entirely new territory it was a
completely exploratory we didn’t know if
people gonna like it so ultimately there
was an element of seeing what worked I
think also faziz until I’ve been writing
a lot more stuff down season one was
incredibly intricate but also largely
lived entirely inside my head a couple
of the episodes which are dreamlike in
tone because they were written to be
dreamlike others are a bit dreamlike in
tone because it was very late at night
when they were written so this is a
follow on question how long does it take
you to write one story would you say nth
and in terms of just keyboard time maybe
five to six hours for a first draft and
then two hours to edit it and go over in
terms of actual planning I will
generally have an idea and then be
constantly churning it open the back of
my mind for about a week so that when I
finally come to write it I have a much
more complete idea of what’s going on
and how it’s going to shape up so
another question here how do you prepare
to record an episode Alex died Rex but
what does that involve that are
interested in the technical and the
performing aspects of this so before we
get into the technical on to your side
we are about to record an episode how do
how do you prepare for that beyond just
obviously writing well obviously I’ve
been fasting for us days to purify the
blood to be honest largely it involves
just sitting there and reading the first
few paragraphs in the archivist voice to
get get my head in the right space for
actually reading it so from my
perspective obviously there’s an element
of setup involved we use
various amounts of equipment I won’t go
into here but wants all the mics and
equipment a set up what will tend to do
is we’ll sit down and we’ll just run
through the episode very quickly and
decide if anything unusual has to happen
in performance and we’ll address how
that has happened so changes in voice
and pitch things like that if there’s
any soundscape
sounds gaping yeah and then beyond
that’s the only other thing that really
takes a lot of time with practice when
you have a multicast recording because
that slows that process down a lot
because then you have to sort of go line
by line make sure people understand the
intent of the lines how do you say that
how do you project that and then we’re
into more sort of basically the didn’t
you once’s of it rather than just this
or get it down get a record yeah the
last episodes of the first season were
easily the most complicated we were
doing a I mean we were doing an actual
audio drama rather than an audio drama
resk anthology series yeah following on
figure we’ve already addressed this a
bit are there any Magnus bloopers has
Jonathan Sims ever laughed ever no I I
laugh a lot
uproarious Lee some might say that I
laugh too much
not many no no I’ve never actually heard
it by scenario now I assume they say it
but in all seriousness from the
production side we do have a few
recorded gaffes but we’re not intending
to release them anytime soon mainly
because it’s a bit of a mood killer also
I’m very swearing in real life like that
that sounds like a joke because I’m a
relatively deadpan person but it’s it’s
not I’m very sweary and this is meant to
have a brackets clean rating on iTunes
so no rude words I could say bombs maybe
but I won’t
so again discussing some more of the
production side when putting together an
episode like hive how do we get the SFX
what goes into making those SFX
so a lot of our sound effects will come
from online archives I can’t recommend
enough things like freesound.org and
there’s a few other sites similar to
that sometimes if you require a really
specific
sound you know something that you just
can’t find elsewhere you get out you do
some Foley
truth be told that happens less often
than you’d think like I said those
archives are quite good and you can get
quite good at taking a sound and turning
it into something that it’s not for
instance I won’t to tell people how we
make the worm sounds but it just
involves a lot of pasta lots and lots of
pasta delicious
screaming pasta in fact following on
from that have you ever considered your
fixation with invasive worms from a
Freudian perspective I’m sure I don’t
know what you mean the idea of pulsating
writhing elongating worms tunneling into
flesh is I mean it’s just just good
horror really I don’t know nonsense
really what are your fears or quite lot
to be honest I feel that it’s very hard
to write good horror unless you’re
writing something that to one degree or
another scares you a bit absolutely if
you yourself don’t have just a little
tingle affair at the back of your mind
when you’re writing it it’s probably not
as scary as it could be so a lot of
these do come from they might not be
huge fears of mine
but they are things that freak me out to
one degree or another tripper phobia
obviously is quite the one we share
which is where a lot of Jane Prentiss
comes from I’d say certainly the
episodes that are grabbing people in
most it seems online are the ones that
tend to be quite universal and honestly
quite simple so be things like there are
falling yep fear of darkness fear of the
stranger no exactly
so a lot of these are it’s marrying as
universal a fear as you can with the
specifics of what scares you so taking
your own fear and making it transferable
yeah so you listen to any episode and
you can probably glean a nugget of what
scares me it’s been confirmed that you
like mr james so with that in mind
what’s your favorite story of his and
any other literary inspirations I mean
it’s it it’s called the Magnus archives
the show is the show is called the
Magnus archives
it’s count Magnus that’s that’s why the
show is called the Magnus archives to be
fair there are others that I’m very fond
of from my James weirdly enough I have a
really specific soft spot for a school
story because it is possibly the most
minimalist ghost story I’ve encountered
that’s managed to have a really
significant effect on me so inspirations
other than Mr James I’ve got a real soft
spot for old school creepypasta who
doesn’t when I used to work nights
there’d be some weeks where I didn’t
fully adjust to the daytime and I’d
spend almost a whole week in the dark
listening to creepypasta or reading
weird blogs or just going through creepy
pictures and just working myself into a
real state I mean interestingly I
remember the first time you pitched the
Magnus archives to us and you described
it as mr.james meets creepypasta for a
start and you also referenced ionised
yeast oh that’s because I again when I
was working night shifts I lived off the
the generation of horror podcasting
there for hours so pseudopod who are
still going strong and the early seasons
of no sleep no point horror and also I
used to delve into radio archives and
one of them from the 1940s was a show
called lights out and it was very much
of the time but it was mostly sponsored
by ionized yeast and every episode
there’d be like a minute-long unique
ionized yeast advert about how if you’re
only feeling half alive and you were too
old and tired for your job at the war
factory I sure am discouraged so there
you have it then the primary influence
of the Magnus archives is wartime horror
it’s ionized yeast I mean I’ll be honest
Alex I’ve always said that you look
remarkably low on vitamin B and iron
you could put on eight ten or more
pounds of good new flesh moving on okay
these are some more questions do it as
well yes your itself y narrative Li
rather than canonically he does the
Magnus Institute only collate
information are not engaged with their
learnings beyond supplementary
clarification investigation it’s largely
because the sort of horror stories I
want to tell are standalone they are the
experiences of an individual when
confronted with something sinister and
inexplicable to actively follow up with
the encounters would turn it into I mean
it would turn it into something that’s
more along the lines of the x-files yes
which is a very valid and excellent form
of horror but not the one that I’m
trying to write also it’s useful from an
audience point of view to not need to
say go back and listen to everything or
you just won’t understand what’s going
on oh yeah
but the question same kind of lines how
large is the Magnus Institute as an
organization there are between 80 and
100 staff in total very few of them are
focused on the archives I think probably
the core staff is maybe 40 okay now this
is a bit of a specific one we drill down
to so you’ve been very specific in the
Magnus archives about the reasons that
Sims is recording on tape but how does
the sound play into this it’s an
interesting idea that some things are so
fundamentally unnatural that they would
cause corruption to recordings of it but
what about the music that plays for the
atmosphere is that an actual thing
that’s on the tapes and thus canonical
or is it just something for the
listeners now that’s something I might
jump in on a little bit please do
when Johnny originally pitched the
Magnus archives to me there was a period
of testing where we actually run a few
episodes that will never see the light
of day and what we were doing is seeing
what sounded right and part of that was
to do with the sound of it so we did
versions of the archives without the
tape deck just to test I didn’t like it
I think that it’s got a sort of low
fight charm
and then we tried doing them with the
music and we found that the music added
something ultimately from sort of the
directorial standpoint I’ve always had
it that the music is not part of the
actual recordings yeah
however the tape deck the distortions
the sound effects of things actually
happening the voices of the people
within there are parts of the actual
files the only thing that was added is
music and the main reason for that is it
needed something to fill out that sound
a little bit and just give it a little
bit of pop everything that you hear is
on the actual tape within the world of
the mouths archives except the music
yeah yeah oh and just to say we do not
mean to say that there are lost episodes
of Magnus out there it was largely the
first the first few episodes we just did
over and over again in various forms
yeah we just did multiple permutations
so you’re not you’ve not missed anything
I’m afraid ok now we’re heading a bit
more into the sort of fan base II kind
of questioning see with that so with
that in mind what’s it like having the
ability to interact so closely with your
fan base would you do it again it’s
fascinating gratifying and it holds me
to account I don’t think it’s even a
question of would I do it again yeah I
mean the answer is yes but moreover the
way that content is created these days I
don’t think a creator has an option but
to engage with the community that builds
up around what you do unless you
deliberately remove yourself I mean
certainly you’ve said this to me before
which is that an element of the Magnus
archives was tying yourself to a rock
and then throwing that rock off a cliff
and you just got to keep writing rope
yeah exactly and the the fans in the
community are a big part of that and I
don’t want it then you’re back to sound
like I don’t love the community
massively it’s really gratifying to see
that something you’ve created has hooked
people but absolutely there’s that
there’s an element though that once
you’re accountable to those fans it does
help connect the paper doesn’t it
exactly because it’s not just me I’m
responsible to also it is very useful in
terms of writing a story
like this to see which bits of the
mystery which sort of threads are picked
up there are I won’t say who but there
are a couple of people on the various
sites and message boards that I keep an
eye on because I feel that if I write
something and they don’t spot it it’s
possibly a bit too subtle maybe I need
to you know make it a bit more overt in
a future episode and others where I’ll
keep an eye on them in case I’ve made a
mistake somewhere they will let me know
following on from that another question
to do with something similar how do you
feel about the level of scrutiny that
your work gets from listeners does all
of the checking and fact-checking and so
on outweigh the positivity of listening
to people on the forums going in to
their own theories in depth I mean that
makes it sound like having that level of
scrutiny and being called to account
when I make a mistake isn’t a positive I
mean it feels a lot like if you’re
writing a final exam for instance and
you have somebody standing over your
shoulder pointing out whenever you make
a mistake you might give them a look and
be startled or or even annoyed but it’s
good because it means that you’re not
writing unintelligible nonsense
and moreover especially with a show like
the Magnus archives where everything is
very intricate and everything needs to
be internally consistent yeah I can’t be
allowed to make mistakes because that’s
not fair it’s straight up not fair to
ask people to try to figure out a
mystery I’m spinning out and then
constantly make mistakes get dates wrong
or feed people false information do you
have any plans to break the mold of your
current narrative style it seems like
there would be some difficulty in
telling the current arc without more
live action style narrative sequences
yeah I mean obviously that question came
in before the finale of season one came
out generally as the series goes on
there will be more of that at its core
it will still remain one episode one
statement one story yeah and the last
question we’ve got actually at let’s try
and avoid spoilers what would you say is
the biggest challenge that is facing you
in seasoned
balancing horror and mystery yes because
fundamentally you see a lot of horror
mystery series that start off extremely
strong and Peter out a bit because at
the beginning horror and mystery are
fantastically good together
I mean because they both rely on the
unknown so heavily
mm-hm and so the unknown feeds the
horror and entices the mystery but as it
goes on the mystery needs to be it needs
to get answers otherwise you feel
cheated
whereas the horror needs to stay unknown
because if you get all the answers to
what the horror is it’s no longer scary
and if everything stays unknown and
horrific then you don’t get any answers
to the mystery so I would say the
biggest challenge is trying to keep
everything unknown and scary while at
the same time providing enough answers
to the mystery that people are willing
to stay around and learn more and there
are answers you won’t learn the answers
to everything there are some small
mysteries that will never be known but a
lot of the why the what the who they
will in time come to light so I think
that about wraps us up here thanks again
Johnny for all of your time and we’ll
just go back into the hole you can carry
on writing all the residences no not for
you but thanks to everyone who’s been
listening so far it’s it’s completely
blown us away the response that we’ve
had from everyone we weren’t expecting
this kind of follow along and it more
remotely it’s an amazing thing to happen
but if people are able to please do
leave reviews on iTunes and podcast
services write reviews yourselves that
kind of content it makes a massive
difference to a smaller operation like
us be sure to check us out on Facebook
Twitter at the rusty quill the
subreddits our forums at the website
we’re also nominated at the moment for a
couple of categories in the audio verse
Awards which are voting is open till the
6th of November for the semi-finals
I believe so if you if you get a chance
to pop on there and give us a vote that
would be massively appreciate again the
response we’ve had from fans has been
amazing and anything that you’re able to
do in that would be a huge help to us
and if you cannot wait
if you cannot hold on if you cannot last
without Johnny’s sultry tones until the
beginning of season two yeah you have
actually recorded something with us yes
it is the halloween special for the
gaming podcast yep I’m running Deadlands
which is a horror western setting which
I’m very fond of it’s a lot of fun and
yeah go over there and listen to it do
it now you can find that on all the
podcast services that you normally use
for mangas archives just rusty quill
gaming podcast and I think that about
wraps us up so thanks again and we look
forward to seeing you again for season 2
see you then
you
you