ALEX: Hi everyone, Alex here. Just a reminder that this is Part Two of our Season 2 Q&A episode. So, if you haven’t listened to Part One you should probably go back and listen to that first. Assuming you have, we’ll be picking up exactly where we left off. Thanks again for your patience.
ALEX: Now another question, final one from Steve Bread. “The series does really well to avoid a lot of the worst horror clichés with smart, if a little overly curious, protagonists. What are our most hated horror tropes and do we find it hard to avoid them?”
ALEX: I’ll dive in straight off the bat. I hate stupid protagonists. I don’t mean like a misunderstanding here…
JONNY: I mean, you say that but John’s made some very poor choices.
ALEX: Ah, but a bad choice isn’t stupid.
JONNY: Yeah, fair.
ALEX: I mean, I mean genuinely, like, there is a roar, and there is a scratching behind the door, and blood is seeping out… So what do you do? You open the door. Don’t open the door! No-one would op– Don’t open the door. That’s stupid; that’s a stupid protagonist.
JONNY: Mine is using sexual violence as a source of horror. Certain stories I, I have heard generally, generally by survivors do actually use horror very effectively as a means of exploring and coming to terms with that sort of thing but, crucially, they never, it’s never the horror. Like, it really leaves us horrid… like, a really nasty taste in my mouth when that sort of thing is equated to ghosts and, you know, ghosts and mummies and all this sort of stuff and–
ALEX: Well, it’s the difference between trauma and horror.
JONNY: Yeah, absolutely. And… I, I just really hate it. It just, it really bothers me.
ALEX: So, this next one is from Operaghost21.
JONNY: Ooh, opera ghost!
ALEX: Although, I do wonder what happened to opera ghosts 1 through 20.
JONNY: I mean, there’s more than twenty operas.
ALEX: No, fair, fair. “Word is Gertrude and Jurgen were played by Johnny’s parents.” Fun fact.
JONNY: That is correct.
ALEX: Yes. So the question for Johnny is: “How much of the characters and dialogue were initially written with them in mind and what was it like working with your parents.”
JONNY: Initially, none of it, because it was never planned in that sort of sense.
ALEX: Like, we, we never had a sit-down meeting, episode one, going, “Jonny, I need a vehicle for the entire Sims family. How do we make this happen?”
JONNY: Yeah. No, it was very much we were looking for an actress to play Gertrude, and at some point I realized that a lot of the lines I’ve been writing, I’d kind of been reading in my mother’s voice in my head. And so, I suggested it to Alex and he said, “Don’t be stupid.”
ALEX: In, in fairness, I said, “Alright, fine, we’ll give it a go. Sure.” And then I listened to it, and it was amazing!
JONNY: From a meta-narrative sense, it’s quite pleasing that, y’know, because of the role Gertrude plays in the story and so that was how Mother got involved. And Jurgen, I mean, to be honest, we… we just really struggled casting Jurgen.
ALEX: And then I found out that your dad had a voice that, like, matches Christopher Lee and you kept that under your hat!
JONNY: I’d forgotten because my mother does, does do some sort of reading stuff, here and there. And my dad used to do some theatre stuff but it just wasn’t in my mind as much. And when we were casting around for someone to, to play Jurgen, I sent him a couple of lines and, er, Alex was like, “Oh yeah, no, bring him in too.”
ALEX: And the second part of this, which was, “And what was it like working with your parents?” I’m going to answer for you. They’re lovely!
ALEX: JONNY [BACKGROUND]: They’re fine. They’re alright. They’re okay.
ALEX: They are the loveliest people to work with. It was brilliant. Also, in real time, I got to listen to Gertrude telling the Archivist, “You misspelled that. Correct your grammar.” [DIRTY LAUGH]
JONNY: She’s an English teacher. She has exacting standards.
ALEX: So, this next question–
JONNY: It’s fine. Working with your parents. It’s fine.
ALEX: I loved it.
ALEX: So, next one’s from Ethereal87. “While reading a script or writing an episode, what were some of the episodes that creeped you out while reading them? And would you say you have a different answer after listening to a finished episode?” So, was something upsetting when writing, and not when listening, or vice versa?
JONNY: Absolutely it’s different after listening, because after listening, er, they’re not scary to me at all because… I don’t particularly enjoy the sound of my own voice recorded, because, I mean, no-one does. So, I find listening back, er, I can’t really get into it the same way I can when writing it, because my own voice is a bit distracting to me.
ALEX: So strap in for this one, serious question, right. Rohirim36.
JONNY: Right.
ALEX: “If all of the employees of The Magnus Archives – Jon, Tim, Martin, Elias, Sasha, and let’s say Not!Sasha for good measure…”
ALEX: JONNY [BACKGROUND]: Okay, cool, cool, cool.
ALEX: “…were tossed into a Friday the 13th movie…”
JONNY: Oh right, oh right.
ALEX: “…Which one is the last one alive?”
JONNY: Oh, the last one?
ALEX: I, I have a strong opinion on this one.
JONNY: Do you?
ALEX: I think Not!Sasha because that’s the interesting story.
JONNY: I mean, yeah, but… Friday the, a Friday the 13th movie is not an interesting story.
ALEX: Oh, I may have missed the point there.
JONNY: It’s a formulaic slasher. Yeah, I think, I think you have. I mean, I think either Sasha or Martin.
ALEX: Next one’s from Prid via Reddit.
JONNY: Sure sure.
ALEX: “Do we record on a weekly basis or a block at a time?”
JONNY: Fortnightly, chunk of episodes. A lot of it depends on how guest actors’ schedules line up.
ALEX: And previously whenever we had a multi-cast recording it was a logistical nightmare, we had to do binge recordings. But now!
JONNY: What’s happened, Alex?
ALEX: We’re in our big, shiny, new, Patreon-funded studio, which allows us to do multi-cast recordings whenever we want.
JONNY: Ah, it’s wonderful. I’m stroking, I’m stroking the soundproof walls at the moment but you can’t hear because they’re soundproof!
ALEX: We’re not under a duvet. It’s brilliant, I love it.
JONNY: [softly] I miss the duvet.
ALEX: “When the Archivist isn’t battling the forces of evil, what does he do for fun?”
JONNY: I think he reads a lot of non-fiction, watches documentaries…
ALEX: The idea that John has any fun whatsoever astonishes me.
JONNY: I mean, this is, this is probably before all this started. He’s, he’s something of a workaholic. I think he probably collects something. I’m not sure. Like, I don’t think it will be stamps or coins or anything quite that cliché, but I think he probably collects something just a little bit weird.
ALEX: [chuckles] And the final one from Prid, I’m going to answer this one for you. “Is there any chance of a two-hour-long Christmas special?”
JONNY: Yes, definitely, we’re writing–
ALEX: NO!
[CARRIES ON SPLUTTERING OVER JONNY’S ANSWER]
JONNY: …one right now, I’ve got… it’s, I mean. What?
ALEX: So, the answer is, the answer is, No.
JONNY: Alex is saying no, this is the first I’m hearing of it.
ALEX: Yes, of course we’d love to; no, a two-hour Christmas special might actually kill our editors.
JONNY: Pretty sure it’s in my contract that I’m definitely, definitely… a two-hour special. Don’t listen to Alex. It’s definitely going to happen.
ALEX: Next question is from mGlottalstop. Ooh, it’s for me. “How much input do I have in performing characters compared to Jonny’s text?”
JONNY: Not as much input as you have in whether or not we get a two-hour Christmas special.
ALEX: So, in, in general, when you’re getting down to, like, the individual episode level so my, my role when it comes to the scripts is – I help on the really, really big picture ‘cause I’m like I’m a story editor and part of that is, like, “move this protagonist here,” “this, this thing isn’t going to work, necessarily,” so I help in a, sort of, really big, broad strokes, and then right down into the dialogue.
ALEX: So… I don’t really touch Jonny’s statements, any of the, like, big processes, it’s not my bag. When it comes to the dialogue, I think I have a lot more input, and… certainly I’d say with Martin, there’s been a few times where I’ve probably suggested a more Martin way of dealing with a problem.
JONNY: Oh, yeah, like I think you get input on a lot of the characters when it comes to the dialogue.
ALEX: This next one, again from mGlottalstop, and it’s for you specifically.
JONNY: Cool, cool, cool.
ALEX: “In writing and steering The Magnus Archives have you ever been inspired by performance of the cast to try and push their boundaries further? Can we give an example of a time when a voice actor’s performance has impacted the writing, specifically?”
JONNY: Um, it’s less that it will impact the writing and more that often I’ll have, er, we’ll have a character who’s intended as a one shot and then they’ll come in, they’ll give their performance and they’ll leave, and me an Alex will look at each other and be like, “That character’s coming back.”
ALEX: You can just tell.
JONNY: So, it tends to be that rather than changing how a character is, it’ll make us make the character more important if we really like how they’re voice acted.
ALEX: Okay, this next one is from Undeclaredmilk, excellent name, via Reddit. “Is there any chance we’ll ever get to hear Johnny sing?”
JONNY: I mean there’s a chance. We’re not going to do a, like, a musical episode. But I mean, who knows what might happen.
ALEX: This next one is from Crysiana, Reddit. “The Magnus Archives doesn’t pretend to be real like other shows like The Black Tapes do. But have we ever considered any sort of ARG [Alternate Reality Game] element to the series?”
JONNY: Considered? Yes. ARGs, that’s a thing, very resource intensive.
ALEX: Yeah.
JONNY: And the sort of resources that, to be honest, I’m much more inclined to put our time towards making the show as good as it can be.
ALEX: Yeah, again it’s a, it’s a thing, it’s exactly the kind of thing that I would normally be all over…
JONNY: I’d love it if we had the time
ALEX: But we can… Yeah, I’d rather put the energy, like you say, into, into the show itself.
ALEX: Yeah.
ALEX: Next one’s from Gulbasaur, via Reddit. “Do we have a planning process for pacing the episodes? Is there a big spreadsheet somewhere with ‘Jane Prentiss, Spiders, One-shot’ table written down the side for tracking and things like that?”
JONNY: Yes there is. There is exactly that table. And it is currently being filled out for Season 3.
ALEX: And hidden. Don’t go looking for it.
JONNY: Obviously it–
ALEX: You won’t find it.
JONNY: I mean, it’s mine.
ALEX: [Laughs] This next one is from Crystal Requiem, via Reddit. “As someone who dabbles in writing, I find I have trouble creating a wide array of distinct characters and personalities. But you seem to develop a new one every episode. How do you develop so many distinct personalities?”
JONNY: Generally I will take a single aspect that really interests me, either from somebody I know or often just from me – a particular aspect of my own personality – and then I will extrapolate it and I find, like, coming up with the voice is the… the key. And once I’ve got the first few lines, if I’ve got the first few lines right, I find the rest of the character flows quite naturally.
ALEX: Sure. “Have we ever had to change a statement because it was too similar to something that’s come out previously?”
JONNY: We’ve had to change what we were going to do. Like, it’s the sort of thing where, when we’re planning it, I might throw out an idea and Alex will say, “oh actually, we’ve done quite a lot of that sort of story. Maybe try it in from a different angle.”
ALEX: We’ve never reached the point where we had to change it. But then again, I think it’s both a thing that we’re really quite careful of, so it’s not really come up like that.
JONNY: Yeah, I’ve certainly never turned up to a recording with a script I need to have Alex say, “this is too similar, let’s change it.”
ALEX: And finally from Crystal Requiem: “As opposed to the statements, everything caught on tape at the Archives is acted rather than narrated…”
JONNY: Sure.
ALEX: “What sort of strategies do we use to help the audience understand what they’re hearing?” That’s a really, really good question and it’s really… difficult to answer because we had a lot of talks about it at the start of this series about how we were gonna make it work.
JONNY: Yeah, it’s, it’s something that, er, the short answer is: think about it a lot beforehand and discuss it at length. There are all sorts of dodges and kinda cheats that, radio especially, has historically used for this. I find that there are some great books on radio writing and writing for audio that address this.
ALEX: I strongly advise everyone who listens to this to go out and listen – it’s in the public domain – and it’s called This Gun in My Right Hand is Loaded.
JONNY: Yeah.
ALEX: It is a, it’s a comedy radio piece where they do everything that you should not do, in order to help teach people you know how to not do it, basically. Listen to that. What we do is the exact opposite of that. But it’s, it’s a great laugh to listen to, but yeah, a lot of it is… finding ways to really signpost and telegraph to an audience what’s going on and to contextualize things in such a way that not even that it’s–
JONNY: It feels natural.
ALEX: Not even in a way that it’s invisible, just that people will accept, y’know? So it’ll be little things like, er, John mentioning that he was carrying a pipe.
ALEX: Everyone’s aware–
JONNY: Oh, god, the, the, the number of iterations we had to go through to get that one sounding even remotely natural.
ALEX: Well, again, otherwise you end up with, “I am carrying a pipe in my hand”, like yeah, yeah. But again, audiences realize sometimes when you trying to do it, and they play the game with you.
JONNY: Yeah. Audiences are very forgiving for that sort of thing.
ALEX: Next one is from HybridTheorist12, Reddit. “Is the entity calling itself Michael inspired by the manga Uzumaki?”
JONNY: Ooh, um, that’s a very good question. The answer is, not directly. I’m a big fan of Junji Ito’s works, especially, er, Uzumaki’s one that I really like because the idea of malicious concepts really appeals to me, something about the…
ALEX: I’d never have guessed.
JONNY: The idea of a spiral deciding to hate you and mess with your life? That, that tickles me. So, while Michael is not directly inspired by Uzumaki, I would definitely cite it as an influence.
ALEX: Next question is from Fxktn on Reddit. “Who is Martin’s favourite poet?”
JONNY: Ooh, that’s a very good question. I think he’s probably, er, I mean Wordsworth. I think he probably less has a favourite poet and more really has favourite poetry collections. He strikes me as someone whose poetry’s much more based on the anthologies he’s read than, er, diving deep into the work of any specific poet. That said–
ALEX: Poetry for Beginners, that kind of thing. [Chuckles]
JONNY: The Dragon Book of Poetry, that sort of thing. That said, I think he probably has a soft spot for Wordsworth and Keats and that lot.
ALEX: Okay, another one from Fxktn. “What happens if you ask Michael ‘when is a door not a door’?”
JONNY: He… undoes you.
ALEX: “How much of what’s been revealed in Season 2 was planned from the beginning? Obviously, grbookworm1818 must have been. But how about characters like Leitner?”
JONNY: I mean, Leitner, specifically, was absolutely planned from the beginning.
ALEX: What, we were talking about Leitner from day one?
JONNY: Oh, absolutely. But things like the exact manner of his reveal, that has changed slightly from what was originally planned. The superstructure of the plot has been a hundred percent set from day one. But a lot of the individual stuff, while they are planned in advance, what they end up becoming and where they end up connecting often changes in the writing and how the story naturally develops.
ALEX: The way I always think of it is, the bigger the detail the more likely it is to have been thought of at the start and then, the more fine, the more nuanced it gets, more likely it’s probably had a bit of a more winding path to get to where it is.
JONNY: And we have a lot of very important… floating story elements…
ALEX: Yeah.
JONNY: …that will definitely come to fruition. But the exact details of when and where they’re going to land are going to depend on a lot of other factors.
ALEX: “How come Jurgen Leitner is said to be Norwegian? His name seems to be German.”
JONNY: Because of, er, multiple, apparently inaccurate, lists of Norwegian baby names.
ALEX: [Laughs] Pears or apples?
JONNY: Personally, I prefer an apple.
ALEX: That’s because you’re correct. That’s, that’s the objective–
JONNY: Although, although, I will say I prefer apple juice to an apple…
ALEX: You’re mad.
JONNY: …because, I mean, it’s just a lot of chewing, it’s a lot of work eating an apple.
ALEX: That’s why it’s so rewarding!
JONNY: Okay, yeah, but no, just eating… a drink lot of apple juice you get the same vitamins, you don’t need to be chewing like a goat all the time.
JONNY: ALEX [BACKGROUND]: Moving on. We’re moving on. We’re moving on…
ALEX: It’s good for you! Right. Next one’s from Caardvark on Reddit. “Are certain episodes of The Magnus Archives inspired by your own deep-set fears and phobias and, if so, what are they?” I know we’ve answered this one before.
JONNY: Yes, most of them. I’m scared all the time.
ALEX: I keep discovering new ones thanks to the show. Specifically trypophobia, and I, er, forget what it’s called, fear of abysses.
JONNY: Oh, oh, I mean, you’re welcome in both cases.
ALEX: Thanks. Next one. pyongYEAH, I like that name, on Reddit. “Do any of the statements that we feature have a perfectly reasonable explanation behind them?”
JONNY: No. There are plenty of statements in the Magnus Institute that do, but they are not the ones you are hearing.
ALEX: Next one is from Blooblewoo, via Reddit again. “All the statements that involve people with jobs like sailor or antiquities dealer seem really well-detailed. Have you worked a lot of jobs, do a lot of research, or do you just make stuff up good?”
JONNY: Oh, while I would love to have had a life of a diver, an antiquities dealer and a garbage man, and an abattoir worker… well, maybe not, er, governor, but a lot of research, a lot of research…
ALEX: A lot of obscure forums.
JONNY: And I guess a certain degree of making stuff up good.
ALEX: If you couldn’t make stuff up good, we wouldn’t be here.
JONNY: Yeah sure enough.
ALEX: This next one’s from purpletopo, via Reddit. “Do Tim, Martin and John ever hang out or interact outside of work hours?”
JONNY: They used to. [Alex/Martin sighs] Not so much since Series 2 started. Not, not a lot beforehand but I mean they would occasionally have had, like, a work function, I think. Possibly a Curry Night around Christmas, that sort of thing.
ALEX: It wasn’t fun for John, I suspect.
JONNY: Oh no, John, yeah, John went.
ALEX: Martin had a great time.
ALEX: “If Leitner didn’t make the books, will you ever reveal who did? Or is every book unique in how it was created and there are multiple authors?”
JONNY: You are assuming that a book needs to be written.
ALEX: “Who does the Archivist consider his best friend? Does he think of any of the people he knows as friends?”
JONNY: At this stage, I’m not sure that the Archivist has many friends. But… I guess we’ll see, won’t we?
ALEX: [Chuckles] “If all of the eldritch forces have different origins and different allegiances, does that mean there are some who might have a reason to actually help John as opposed to going after him?”
JONNY: Oh, I mean, I suppose theoretically, y’know. That’d be, that’d be quite a narratively rich vein to explore, don’t you think Alex?
ALEX: What would I know? What would I know? I just ask the questions.
JONNY: But it’s all very unlikely.
ALEX: “Are the writer and actor Jonathan Sims, and the Archivist Jonathan Sims, at all alike or do the similarities end in the shared name or voice?”
JONNY: I mean, I don’t think they’re super alike. Like, a lot of his, a lot of his aspects are small aspects of my own personality turned up to 11.
ALEX: I just think you mined the bits of yourself that you don’t particularly like.
JONNY: I mean, yeah.
ALEX: And then, and then just built a personality around them.
JONNY: No, I mined the bits of myself that are useful in a horror protagonist.
ALEX: Now, the last one, last question we’ve got. “Do we have favourite episodes and/or moments from Season 2?”
JONNY: Yes.
JONNY: …
ALEX: Cool, so thanks for listening… [laughs]
JONNY: Yes. No, I’m just thinking through Season 2.
ALEX: I really liked how the Michael stuff came out.
JONNY: Yeah, like, the Michael stuff’s has come out really nicely.
ALEX: I… When we originally were doing Michael, I had an instinct that it might really grab people if we handled it right and spent a long, long time trying to get Michael right. Y’know, with the laugh and with the way he is with the doors, and yet again with all of the, sort of, direction side, never mind the writing side, which obviously was in your hands, so I’d probably say… the Michael bits have been my favourite just because I said that sometimes writing these big sprawling things and working on them is like playing a game. I feel like that was a, that was a really nice trick shot where I hoped it would come together, and it did, and people engaged with it, and it came out as so much more than it could have been.
JONNY: For me, a lot of it comes down to when a voice actor really nails what I felt the character was about. So, Imogen who played Helen Richardson in the Michael episode…
ALEX: She did great job, really good.
JONNY: …Carrie who played Mary Kaey…
ALEX: Carrie’s terrifying!
JONNY: Oh yeah, she’s so scary.
ALEX: She’s the scariest person I’ve ever met in the best way possible.
JONNY: I also really enjoyed, actually, The Tale of a Field Hospital [MAG068] was quite fun, because I genuinely really enjoy going through old, weird, obscure books, especially if they’re not overtly creepy, and just seeing which bits can be reinterpreted as sinister, because the majority of the stuff in that episode was taken directly from that book. And also Fatigue, because I just, I stayed up really, really late, didn’t sleep for a long time, and then I wrote it.
ALEX: With a deadline.
JONNY: Why, why would it need editing? I wrote it on zero sleep. And it’s, it’s about not having any sleep.
ALEX: So, I think that’s everything. I think that’s all of the questions. Wow.
ALEX: So, as always, thank you so much to everyone who has been engaging on the forums, engaging by Reddit, everyone who’s been, basically, throwing us money via Patreon. You are literally facilitating this moving forward. I’m sat in a studio with Jonny that never would have happened. It’s thanks to you guys. We are generating extra content. We are looking at expanding and it’s all very much thanks to that support. Thanks everyone who’s been sharing it via social media, Twitter, Facebook, obviously, getting involved but mostly just thanks for spreading the word, like…
JONNY: I mean keep doing it.
ALEX: Yeah. No, don’t stop. Please don’t stop.
JONNY: But thank you for doing what you’ve done so far.
ALEX: …because, it genuinely… the scale of this, is directly determined by…
JONNY: I’m so blown away.
ALEX: …what support people have been giving. The more support we get, the more we just increase the scale of what we get to do. And I like that.
[INFO ABOUT CLOSED SURVEY REMOVED]
ALEX: But I think that’s us done. Thank you again, as always, for coming along Jonny. Go have a rest.
JONNY: No problem.
ALEX: Have a sleep. I mean, go get married, maybe.
JONNY: Do you mean, do you mean: Go obsessively write content for Season 3?
ALEX: That’s what I said.
JONNY: Yeah.
ALEX: Cool. So until then, I guess we’ll, we’ll see you all later.
JONNY: Okay, see you in Season 3.
ALEX: Bye, then.