The Magnus Archives - Rusty Quill Company Chat

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

Take a peek behind the curtain at Rusty Towers as Alex sits down with various members of Rusty Quill Ltd for insight into what we do and the values we work towards as a company.  Featuring:- Alexander J Newall- Jonathan Sims- Helen Gould- Tim Meredith- Mike LeBeau- April Sumner- Hannah Brankin- Anil GodigamuweEdited by Maddy Searle and Alexander J Newall Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesomeLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0Check out our merchandise at https://www.redbubble.com/people/rustyquill/collections/708982-the-magnus-archives-s1You can subscribe to this podcast using your podcast software of choice, or by visiting www.rustyquill.com/subscribePlease rate and review on your software of choice, it really helps us to spread the podcast to new listeners, so share the fear.Join our community:WEBSITE: rustyquill.comFACEBOOK: facebook.com/therustyquillTWITTER: @therustyquillREDDIT: reddit.com/r/RustyQuillEMAIL: [e-mail] Magnus Archives is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill Ltd. and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Sharealike 4.0 International Licence  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hi everyone, this is Alexander J. Newell, founder and CEO of Rusty Qu Quill Limited. If you are listening to this, you probably have heard my voice before, either on adverts or maybe as a performer. But this episode is a little bit different to things that you might have heard before. Today, we are going to be talking about Rusty Quill Limited as a company, because we realize that a lot of people who listen to our shows maybe only listen to one show or maybe don't even really know much about how these things get made. And this is going to be a lot more than just how do we edit things. It's going to be a lot more talking about the company as a whole. What are our values? What are the things that we work towards? What are the things that we are doing in the background that you might maybe even want to get involved with? So with that in mind, Rusty Quill

Limited, UK company that makes the shows that you know and love, we are going to be introducing you to some people today, a combination of performers, showrunners, administrators in the company, and letting you get a bit of a broader feel for the things that we do. So the way we're going to do that is I'm going to be interviewing a few people throughout the company, and we'll maybe be playing like segments of clips and things that they've made and stuff like that, so you can really get a sense of what we're about. So without further ado, it makes sense to jump into our first interview, which is with Jonathan Sims of the Magnus Archives. So why don't you introduce yourself, Johnny, and tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm Johnny Sims. I'm the writer, narrator and showrunner for the Magnus Archives. I've been with Rusty Quill for four years now, I think, almost since the beginning. And I do a bunch of writing and performance and game design work outside of that. But mainly, I am the main character, Jonathan Sims, the archivist, no relation. Let's not even dive into the kind of narcissism required to choose your own name as a main character. It was such a mistake, Alex. I regret it so much. I take great solace knowing that you have paid in the complications it has created in your life.

Yeah, I mean, it's been fine for the series, but for me personally, oh, what a headache. So this show, of which I might have heard vaguely, but I'm going to assume no, I haven't heard of. What is it? What is this thing of which you speak? Oh, you probably wouldn't like it. Fair enough. Cool, so our next person...

Right, OK, that was quicker than I thought, actually. Justify yourself to me, Johnny. Yeah, OK. So the Magnus Archives, it is a horror audio drama anthology podcast. The conceit is there is an institute in London called the Magnus Institute, which deals with investigation into the weird and the supernatural. And they have a new head archivist whose job it is to go through this incredibly poorly organised archive, initially create audio versions of a lot of the statements that have been logged there,

and do a little bit of supplementary investigation. So to begin with, that is very much the format it takes. Each episode is the statement of someone who has had a horrific experience, as read by the archivist, followed by a little bit of supplementary investigation. But of course, as it goes on, new characters are introduced, and, well, things take a dark turn. Darkness in a horror? How intriguing a novel. I like to push the boat out, you know, I like to really stamp some originality.

So am I given to understand this is merely story time? Is there action? Is there adventure? What happens in this? There is action. There is is adventure there is just horrible things happening to characters you grow to love in season one obviously there's uh myself uh there's also some of the archive assistants uh including martin blackwood terrible man played by our very own alexander j newell hello there's uh sasha played by lottie broomhall and tim played by Lottie Broomhall, and Tim, played by, also Rusty Quill's own, Michael LeBeau. And obviously, as the season goes on, more characters are introduced and some depart. Ominous much?

No. So, OK, I confess to a minor interest in your horror audio drama anthology, not anthology, Johnny. You're too generous. But, I mean, ultimately only i only ever uh follow anything that has critical acclaim so i don't know why i should bother boom 2019 discover podcast award winners for audio drama and fiction podcast boom five different audio verse awards this year boom nominated for the this is horror award we've got critical acclaim coming out of our eyes did i

say critical acclaim? I hate critics. I always hated critics. I don't like them. Like, what have they ever done for me? That's what I want to know. So frankly, unless someone was to recommend it to me, I don't really see why I should bother, Johnny. I sure hope that you don't run into anyone

who's contributed to our 35 million listens. Boom, huge audience. It's good. You're getting really good at the pr side of things johnny professional bragging you have you're getting there i think the key is saying the word boom okay so okay fine it seems worth a listen but i mean the podcast is all the way over there and i'm here so unless you can literally put part of it in front of me right now to make my own decision on i really don't see that it's going to happen boom spooky

three minute section so like i got you to prepare a clip the same as everyone else prepared a clip what's our clip johnny so this is uh about three minutes from episode 15 lost john's cave it is the statement of a woman who encountered some pretty nightmarish stuff while going cave diving and i think it really sets up the anthology statement horror aspects so uh yes enjoy i was eager to get back and be above ground in a way that i had never been before i got my equipment ready and dived back into the water, heading back towards Death's Head Hole. That's when everything started to go really, really wrong. To begin with, the water didn't end. I tried to surface as I had on my first time through, and again,

there was that clunk as my helmet hit the roof of the tunnel. I moved on and tried again, but still no luck. I began to fight down the rising alarm, told myself that the tunnel had a definite end and I just had to reach it. But it just kept going. No light. No surface. Nothing but this cramped waterway, pressing on every side, waiting to claim me I don't know how long I was desperately swimming forward But I almost screamed with relief when I reached my hand And felt it break the surface of the water It wasn't the cave I expected

What stretched before me was a tunnel even smaller than the waterlogged one I had left. I scrambled forward into it, not because I wanted to go on into that unknown passage, but because I was worried about Elena being able to get out of the water behind me. I must have taken a wrong turn, except that didn't make sense. I hadn't turned at all, and more than that, there weren't any turns or junctions in this part of the cave. I had checked all the maps of this area over and over, and they all put it as a straight line. I waited, wanting to talk to my sister when she surfaced and discuss where to go from here. She didn't emerge.

I don't know how long I lay there. It was too cramped to check the time, but it felt like hours. I wanted to go back and check, but I couldn't even turn around to see. I just waited for a splash that never came. I decided to go on, press forward until I at least found somewhere wide enough that I could turn. As I crawled on, I scraped against the jagged rocks until I felt them pressing into my bare skin where my clothes had ripped. I can deal with it when I'm out, I kept thinking, but the passage just got smaller and smaller, until at last I couldn't move any further. I finally accepted that I was going to have to try and squeeze back the way I had come without even turning round.

I started to shuffle backwards, and my feet touched against solid rock. The tunnel was gone. It was then that I screamed, and my light went out. I said earlier that I enjoyed the pure dark of the cave. I was wrong. Hello and welcome back. So now I am joined with Helen Gould of Rusty Quill Gaming. Why don't you introduce yourself, Helen? Hello, everyone. I am Helen and I play an enormous orc called Azu on the Rusty Quill Gaming podcast. So I feel like given how some people might not necessarily be aware of this show, I might need to give a little smidge more context than I am an enormous orc. Why don't you tell us a bit more about Rusty Cool Gaming as a podcast? Right. So Rusty Cool Gaming is a podcast in which we play a fantasy tabletop game called Pathfinder. This game involves rolling a lot of dice to see how

well you do at doing things while you tell a story with your friends around the table. If you have ever seen the Dungeons & Dragons episode of Community, it is basically like that. And with voices as well. We all do special character voices, as do you, Alex. I do a couple, that's true. And so this is a world that features orcs and dragons and magic cloaks. It sounds very simple. I'm sure it's not been running that long, right? Interestingly, I only came in about, at this point, halfway through.

Only two years ago. Only two years ago. Yes, so this has been going, sadly, very, very sadly, it started without me in 2015, but we're now at time of recording. We just released episode 157, I think it was. That sounds about right.

We have finally started to win awards. So last year... Oh, oh. I know. I couldn't believe it. I mean, not because we're not good, but just because I was like, ooh. We got like three awards in the Audioverse Awards in 2019. Ah, heady days.

I remember 2019. It was much like this year, but better in every way. Yeah, I remember Outside. I do remember Outside. Let's move swiftly on. But yes, I believe those three awards were for improvised production. So if you're into your improv comedy at all, we're apparently the best one for that, which I can agree with because we actually have improv comedians on the podcast. Also, play a direction of a production,

which you won, Alex. And I'm not going to say it's undeserved, but we do sometimes run away with the show. It is best cat steering. Yes, absolutely. And also my good friend and colleague Lydia Nicholas won an award for player in an improvised production for a character called Sasha Racket, who everyone adores.

So all in all then, it sounds like not just another actual play. Like I think we are one of the longest running and you've got awards coming out the wazoo, Helen. Yes. And we also got like shortlisted for the BBC Audio Drama Awards. And that was just for best podcast full stop. So, you know, you can listen to the BBC if you want. You know, they have opinions about what we do.

And obviously we have specials as well and guest specials where we change the game, change the system, just to shake things up a bit. So if anyone's wanting to sort of give it a try, I'd recommend probably trying one of the specials first possibly yes you should try the one where i came on first oh right which one's that i'm in the best ones you should try thanes of beowulf oh there we go then so actually curiosity then what characters are the normal characters at the time of recording we have my character who is the best character and she is called azu and she is an orc who wears bright pink glowing armor and has a massive axe and also cares very much about all of her friends

there is also sel who is a tall and gangly and rather kooky alchemist they are generally having a pretty good time i think they are very enthusiastic. About everything. About almost everything. Then we've got Hamid, our tiny little halfling boy. I say, I mean, technically he's an adult, but he's so small. And he is our sorcerer. He has a particular spell called Fireball, which you will notice. which you will notice.

And lastly, we have Zolf, our grumpy former pirate, current cleric, who has some issues and no legs. That's my definition of them for you. Well, if nothing else, I know that some people must be intrigued. So we will probably give people a taster at this point. So we asked you to pick a clip,

something that you thought was representative of the wonder that is your show. What did you end up picking, Helen? So I have chosen a few minutes, a few eventful minutes, I should say, from episode 103, in which we are rattling down a mountainside in Damascus. Sasha is attempting to steer the horse-drawn limousine that we are all cocooned in

and we are all about to make some quite bad decisions. Is there any way for me to get out of the carriage? Oh, you can try. Would you like to give me an acrobatics to climb out of a moving limo? No! And up onto the roof?

It's just that I've got handle animal. Oh, if you were driving, you'd probably be really good, but getting from here to there... And you've got your armour penalties as well. Let her make silly decisions. They're the best decisions. I was just mentioning it so that Helen knew what she was getting into.

So what that means is when you fall, sorry, if you fall, it won't even hurt, probably. Yeah. Helen, no. That's a really worrying face, Helen. That was a face of,

yeah, good boy. Or, or I could just get out of the carriage and summon my camel and keep pace with the carriage and summon my camel. And keep pace with the carriage. Immediate decisions. What are you doing?

I'm going to try and get out of the carriage. Okay, give me an acrobatics check. Asi, what are you doing? It's too dangerous. That's a terrible idea. Yay! You're wearing paint. Give me an acrobatics check.

Woo-woo! Have you remembered to factor in your penalties on armour check? So what's your acrobatics? You haven't got any skill in it. What's your dex? Minus one. Your armour check would be about minus six? It's about minus six. So you've probably just rolled a zero. I think you might have rolled a zero. Wow, really? Yeah. So Azu opens the door. It's Azu!

No! This is you rolling behind as the carriage just streams off. What was that? I'm gonna jump out and try and help her. That was awful. I am not gonna allow a reflex. She rolled that badly. I'm not gonna allow a reflex to catch her.

No, no, no. I'm jumping out. You couldn't catch her if you tried. Oh, you're not gonna go with her? This is goblin arms. I'm jumping out. You couldn't catch her if you tried! Oh, you're not gonna go with her? This is goblin arms. I would just be crushed by her. Give me an acrobatics check.

Yeah, okay, so my bonus is three. Nine. That's bad, that's bad. Both of the paladins have fallen out Of the moving window The time we all Jumped off a roof Except there's no reason For this one I don't remember

What happened So Sasha Can't hear you Sasha He just sees Oh right You may not even notice How does that

The empty carriage around Okay So Sasha's got a 16 Okay yeah You do notice That you have Your hemorrhaging power Okay

So Sasha Passes the reins to the goblin. Auto pilot. And then she jumps off. Oh, God. Why? I haven't even rolled damage for the first. Give me the acrobatics. Well, I mean, Sasha's bonus is 14.

Give me the acrobatics. I'm so terrified. I've got a 20. Bang. You have a bit of a skidding... Not a natural 20, just 20. Yeah, you do have a skidding stop because you are moving at, like, high speed.

You're now alone in the limo, Hamid. I'm going to deal with other people's damage once you decide what you're doing. Everyone, for no reason, has just leapt out of the limo. The water's lovely. Said the bloody corpse. How has this happened, Alex?

Like, ten minutes into a new episode, we've left the emotional problems behind us, and half the party just jumped out and passed them down for literally no reason whatsoever. We need physical problems back here. Could we replace the rest of these people with people who are competent? I cannot work under these conditions.

I imagine that Hamid's internal monologue would be relatively similar. And welcome back. And now with me, I have Tim. Why don't you tell us a bit about yourself, Tim? My name is Tim Meredith. I'm very glad to be here. Thank you. I am the showrunner and co-creator and co-star, main star, I like to say,

but technically co-star of Stella Firma, which is a improvised sci-fi comedy podcast nestling at Rusty Quill's heart. Tell us a bit more about your show. What's it about? What's the deal with Stella Firma? What's the deal? Let's get to the rub, Tim. Stella Firma Limited is a futuristic civilisation which is comprised of basically all of the bits of humanity that made it off Earth before it went whoops. And it has now become the universe's premier terraforming and planet creation business, much like, say, a Magraphia, for those who

like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And I play Trexel Geisman, who is sort of a very high-ranking but much despised and reviled planet designer and consultant. And I work with a clone assistant, David Seven, who is innocence personified. And I proceed to ruin his innocence over now two series. You say despised and reviled. I mean, we have Magnus, which, you know, has Jonathan Sims, this sort of slow burning and arch. And we have we have Riskwell Gaming, which, as we've seen, is a little bit more kind of friendly. And that's probably not a word that I would necessarily use. How would you say the characters, what would you say characterizes this show?

So some villains are arch and Trexel is arch in that you might find him asleep drunk under an arch in that his his evilness comes from his incompetence and lack of willingness to admit it or improve or change in any way so you know very much the human condition so yes it's a very sort of high energy chaotic show in which david seven is just desperately trying to keep things on track whilst Trexel sort of aggressively and sometimes near fatally ignores his even his only basic duties which which leads to a certain sort of fun panicky vibe that I like to I like to create as the younger baby sibling of Rusty Quill and its network how are you finding things do you feel like you're being warmly welcomed into the fan bosom i mean i

say this to the person who funds all of this so you can be assured of just a kind and honest answer but no it's very it's very good and what's really nice is it's an improvised podcast and improv is improv is a tricky thing because in in a live setting improv is really fun because it can go wrong um and you don't know where it's going and in sort of a live theater setting that's sort of understood but as soon as you start to record things and you're sort of laying it down forever it can sometimes lose a bit of its spark so what I think we found is a really nice medium of we've got all of the fun and excitement and sort of lack of predictability of improv but we've also got such a strong production team around us in terms of the editing and the soundscaping and all of the

extra stuff that goes along with it that you kind of have all of the fun of improv but with all of the high production values that rusty quill lovers have have come to know and appreciate and you do have a uh a plan right tim you didn't you didn't just tell me on lies right you do you do know eventually what's gonna happen there is a story in here right tim right oh sure yeah yeah no yeah there is what we've done is again we've gone for a best of both approach in that we know where the story is going so there is an overarching plot we are making a point well i assure you we're making a point eventually and that's all worked out we know where we're going with it but how we get there precisely in all the elements of that that's all

going to be improvised and that's all sort of up up for grabs and it's been yeah it's been going it's been going really well. The listener reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. We won some awards. We won some awards, Alex. We won two awards last year's 2019's Audioverse Awards for Best New Improvised Production, I believe, and Best New Improvised Performer. Oh, you won Best New Improvised Performer.

Congratulations, Tim. We can't go into the details of it, Alex. We can't go into the details. The important thing is the show. Well done, Tim. You specifically for winning that. It may have been Ben, my co-star and brother, who won the specific one about him.

But the important thing is that we won two awards. One of them was for the show and the other one is unimportant. So with all of this in mind, then I've asked you to pick a clip that you think is representative for for people who might not have heard stella firmer something that they can sink their teeth into and see if they like it which is a task uh how did we do what liking the podcast is a task is that what is that what you're saying to me alex i'm just saying that there's so much to like how could you possibly isolate a short two minute segment that isn't just utter chaos yes and that that is

a challenge it's hard to point to any one bit of it and say this is what it's all like. But I picked one section that I think really sort of captures many of the elements that makes the show the show. So this is from episode 21, and David and Trexel are discussing the galaxy's sort of most popular schlocky romance novelist, you know, the kind of person that wrote a thousand books in their lifetime and, you know, it was about 30 a year. That's the kind of person that wrote a thousand books in their lifetime and you know it was about 30 a year that's that sort of person and uh because it's improv it's sort of a good demonstration of one of the classic um elements of improv which is here's a complicated

thing that i'm now going to ask the other person in the room to explain and we do everything in my planet must speak to the romantic soul i need sparkling stars breathtaking views billowing shirts and as much as possible of it needs to be pink and frilly. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Just want to confirm something? Yes? This is Lulabella we're talking about. Lulabella Annus Marum,

the self-proclaimed universe's greatest romantic novelist. Well, I have to admit in this case, as a self-proclaimer myself, they are not lying. They are a wonder, David. Best-selling author, bon vivant, of the literary world. They are a towering figure in short-to-medium-length romantic fiction. OK, so, well, in which case, for us to get an idea of exactly what Lulabella might be after,

could you run me through sort of the typical plot of a Lulabella, Annis Maram... Of course, of course's let's pick a classic um let's uh the star venturer of quadrant j story time disbelief suspended now the star venturer is a a rapscallion a buccaneer of sorts pirate trader perhaps to his enemies, but in reality a merchant venturer, until he catches the eye of a young poolman, Jonathan Swiftbeak. He looks across the starport in which he is actually tending to a poorly maintained pool and sees the buccaneer there. Yes, yes, that's the man for him, but their love is forbidden,

for a lowly poolman cannot consort with a merchant venturer of this class, so they steal away in dead of night, which is confusing because on a starport there's no night because it's not like an actual, it's not important. They steal away, their parents are furious and they pursue them across galaxy to galaxy and everybody

loses clothes and then at the end it's all just naked sex. Story time over. Disbelief reinstated. Okay. So, confusion followed by sex? Yeah, mostly. It's people being hot and confused, and then they have sex. Right.

So that's how Lulabella sort of sees humanity and gets to their essences, as they say. Yes, well, if you really boil humanity down, and I must stress, not actually, because if you you actually boil humanity down it's just sort of mash and there's bones but if you boil the essence of what makes a human down it's basically confusion and sex mostly confused sex well and also i've noticed here it doesn't say and welcome back and now i am with a mike laboe of internet and video fame hello Hello, Mike. Tell us a bit about yourself. Why are you here?

Why have you graced us with your delicious presents? Hello. Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Mike. I'm the head of video for Rusty Quill. And I'm here to talk today about the projects that I work on, predominantly the stuff I've done on YouTube, the stuff I've done through Twitch, and the behind the scenes content that we also produce. Okay. Okay. That's lots. So baby steps here mike now i've i've listened to an episode of one of these podcasts of which i've heard video what yes we have a youtube channel uh youtube.com forward slash rusty quill on there you can find all of your favorite podcast content so stellar firmer rusticle gaming and the magnus archives they're all up there the reason why i put them all onto youtube was so that one, we could expand the audience base. So if people prefer to listen

to Rusty Quill through YouTube instead of Acast and audio platforms, then they can go there. Plus through YouTube's closed captions, we're able to allow people who are hard of hearing to listen to and enjoy the podcast that we produce as well. It was actually really useful. It's something that I'm going to continue to work on. And through YouTube, we're also able to house our streaming content through VODs as well, video on demand. So you talk about streaming. Now, I've read about streaming. It's some kind of phishing thing, right? Almost. So streaming in our sense is actually through a channel called twitch.tv forward slash Rusty underscore Quill. And through that, we don't necessarily stream fishing, but we do stream potentially fishing related content.

It's a variety channel that we have called RQ Streams. And on there, we bring in people from around the Rusty Quill to stream various pieces of content live for you. So my show, for example, focuses on gaming-based tutorials. So I allow people to sort of see games, we discuss them, and we also talk about how you actually play the game as well, the raw mechanics of it, to enable enable people if they're a new gamer potentially to come and join in as well or if they like what they see to buy the game and play along and but there's other stuff as well right that's right yeah so there's like i say it's a variety channel so there's a lot of other bits and pieces on there like for example we're trialing something called

sandbox sunday which is a sandbox slot it's not available every week but through, we're trialing something called Sandbox Sunday, which is a sandbox slot. It's not available every week, but through that we're able to just play around with new ideas. In the past, we've done baking, we've done character-based work, we've done quizzes, game shows, that sort of thing. So there's plenty available on there for you. So does that mean that if I really like that one show that i listen to which i'm not going to give the specific title because it might be any of them are you saying there's a chance i might get to see some of the people who are working on that and or even the personalities thereof in your streaming that's a very specific question alex and the answer to that is of course yes one of the big things that i wanted to do in the rusty quill is make the people who are behind the curtain basically more visible and more available.

Often in the creative industries, you don't really get the opportunity to meet your favorite artist or your favorite voice actor or whoever. So through RQ Streams and through the video work that I do, my goal has always been one, to make the Rusty Quill brand more available in more places and two to be able to bring to the forefront our talent so that you can interact with them more well one last tricky question for you then mike you might not know about this but secretly okay although i have listened to one of these podcasts for reasons beyond anyone's understanding although i listened to that podcast i hate everyone involved in it whatsoever. Perfect. Is there any reason to partake in your streaming

in addition to the fact that I will be engaging with these people who for some reason I listen to but also hate? I mean, yes, because this is an entirely new avenue. This is an entirely new avenue of content that we're trialing here. So through our QStreams, it's not actually tied necessarily to the podcast content that we're trialing here. So through RQ Streams, it's not actually tied necessarily to the podcast content that we're producing. There will be some overlaps and there will be some crossovers inevitably, but ultimately through Twitch and through YouTube, we're creating

something that's totally different in a lot of ways, but still is true to Rusty Quill. It's true to the people that we are. As I say, whether you go there for trying to meet the people or wanting to meet the people who produce the content that you're listening to, or you're going there to take part in the variety of stuff that we produce, it's entirely up to you. The floor is yours as the consumer. So you guys basically tell me what you want. We'll try and make it happen. Okay, okay. Well, I'll admit to a passing interest, but I promise you nothing unless I hear some kind of clip to help contextualize what you're saying and otherwise demonstrate.

So do you have anything that you could possibly meet that need with? Well, thank goodness that I prepared this thing on this shelf just over here, Alex. Actually, I'm just going to pass this over to you now. So this is our little VT, which sort of explains, well, how RQ Streams works and also is a little highlight reel of some of the best moments so far, predominantly on the gaming side. Hello! Hello, everyone! Welcome! Welcome to RQ Streams! Thank you very much for joining us here today. It's myself, Mike- We're hot for damp birds!

We're hot for damp birds! That's not a phrase I ever expected to hear! No, I don't understand! I'm joined by Anil! Hello! What did I just do? I just kicked the bin! You kicked the bucket! Yay!

Hopefully going to be a fantastic few months of streaming activities. Ah, sitting at home is so relaxing when you live in a cave in the middle of nowhere with no door or anything and you have to dig your new rooms. Look, we do have a plan though. The whole concept that we've come up with for this is that we're gonna be teaching you a little bit about gaming. We're gonna be giving you information to be able to like get into the world of gaming

and hopefully encouraging some new players into some of our favorite genres. Yeah. Uh, content warning blood? Anil, I think we are so far beyond content warnings now. That's fine, yeah, I'm happy with that, I'm happy with that. I'm glad with all of my life decisions I'm happy with right now. This is exactly what I needed. I didn't realize that what we were going to do to try and create a further emergency was to literally cause a reactor to collapse. This was not a good decision.

Can you just shoot that and blow it up? Well, I think I'm going to have to. Can I not just... Can I pick it up? Oh, no! No, you can't! No, no, you can't! You really can't! Oh, I love you, man.

I'm so glad that we're doing these things together it's it's absolutely ridiculous and welcome back and now we're with april sumner why don't you introduce yourself april tell us a bit about yourself why you're here what are you bringing to us now hi alex uh i am the current wearer of many hats i am production manager over here at rusty quill i also am the patreon producer and currently gaming producer but may not be by the time that this comes out so queen of the producers that's what i'm hearing i like to think professional alex whipcracker so that sounds closer to the mark yeah so we've got you here to start discussing our patron a little bit explaining it a bit more why don't you uh talk some of our listeners through it a little bit sure thing so our patreon is a way that our

fans and listeners can get more involved with the company so in exchange for them contributing to us on patreon at one of our different levels which i'll explain in a second they are able to not only enable us to be able to grow our company, but in return, they also get access to exclusive content. So we have three different tier levels that are available. We've got the citizens level, which is $2 a month. And for that one, you get access to exclusive content, such as early release news, so that you know what the titles for the episodes are going to be

at the beginning of the week. You also get access to exclusive pictures, information about our editors and behind the scenes such as that. We have our Knights level tier, which is our $5 tier. For that one, you get access to exclusive special gaming episodes. You also get some special access to fan writing competitions that we've done for our show, The Magnus Archives. And then special Stella Firma access, such as David's Fat Corner and Trexel's Horrible History, which are a lot of fun. For our noblest tier, which is $10, you also are able to get access to AMAs, which are Ask Me Anythings, with either yourself or editors or Bryn, who is in our gaming

show. He's done a couple of them so far, where you get access to a chat room and Discord and can ask pretty much whatever you like of the creators, find more behind the scenes gives you a little bit more one-on-one conversations and then you also get access to other special extended special content as well it sounds like you've got enough to be getting on with with patreon alone never mind trying to take on all the other stuff as well yeah patreon definitely has a lot uh we have loads of exclusive posts um well over 100 of exclusive content um But between exclusive content and early access, there is over 600 posts on Patreon. So I stay busy with planning those out. I also know over the next year, we're going to be accelerating even more content. Right now,

we drop at least one new content a week. And then moving forward, we're hoping to accelerate that even more. Okay, so what I'm hearing is that for a small amount, you can get like a lot because of all the backlog, which is pretty cool. But here's something else then. I'm giving money and helping keep the lights on at Rusty Quill, which by the way, totally a thing. This is very much our bread and butter. This is how I have a job. Where is this money going? What's it doing? What's the point? Well, besides keeping me employed, which I very much appreciate,

it also goes to getting us new equipment. So without the extremely generous support of all of our patrons, we wouldn't have been able to move as easily as we did from studio to set up to remote setups. So we were able to get remote equipment for everyone. We've also been able to expand a lot of our offerings. So one of the goals that we had on there also was expanding our Qstreams and being able to bring more people into that series. So now instead of just Mike and Anil, we're able to have a lot more people involved with that.

And then moving forward, we're also going to be extending our content. One of the things that we've got coming out later this year is actually going to be a Patreon exclusive show for Freaks Roll Call, which has been in the works for a very long time and is finally going to be coming out. So in that case, then I'm getting all these wonderful things. I know that I'm helping the company. What more could Patreon possibly be doing? What more could it possibly do for anyone, April? So the other thing that we've started doing recently is because of the global pandemic

with COVID, we are donating 10% of all of the funds that we collect through our Patreon to the WHO COVID Relief Solidarity Response Fund. So by joining our Patreon and contributing to that, you're also helping a good cause because we do make charitable donations through that. Well, I think at this point then, you know what, I want to see you put your money where your mouth is. We've talked about the Patreon. I think it's only fair that at this point we show what kind of thing is on there so that people can have a taster of it. And I've asked you to pick a clip just like everyone else to put you on the spot a little bit in return so uh what did you end up picking so the clip that i ended up picking is one of our nobles exclusives it's part of our

martin poetry segment so martin blackwood from magnus archives has uh proclivity for doing poetry and he likes to read them to the tape recorders he's a prodigy he's a prodigy just exceedingly talented mozart of poetry he definitely doesn't have a ghost writer named anil uh who does all of that work for him but yes uh so martin blackwood likes to read uh his poetry into the recorders for their lo-fi charm and we have little snippets of him doing that throughout season one we're also starting to work on season two this particular clip is during martin's extended homestay prior to episode 22 of the magnus archives visitors by martin k unfamiliar circumstances

have come knocking at my door surprising from all angles surprising from the darkness there's a woman at my door there's a woman at my door and she's insistent wanting in but she is outside outsider lots of outsiders are on the other side of my door knocking knocking, crawling, seeking, seeking. I cannot welcome you in, strange visitors. I cannot make you a cup of tea. If you're the woman I think you to be, you'll have to stay outside my door, and I will stay within. Why do you stay there outside my door?

No words to speak of, yet silver syllables are trying to breach my door. Are you waiting for something? Are you waiting for someone? Someone special to let you in? Because that someone isn't me. I am safe in my sanctum. Patience is my friend. For now I can resist you. I am strong enough to handle this. But I do wish I had another door. And welcome back. I hope you enjoyed potentially the peak of my career,

like genuinely the best thing I've ever done. With me now, I have Hannah Brankin of COO Extraordinarism. Why don't you say hello, Hannah, tell us a bit about yourself. Hello, hello. So my name is Hannah Brankin. I am the Chief Operations Officer for Rusty Quill, and I've been in post officially for about a year at this point. Yeah, give a take so company was founded in 2015 so i'm guessing then that coming in last year it was mostly just shaking a lot of hands and telling everyone job well done everything is finalized yes everything was absolutely flawless and i've had very little to do ever since um or or the truth yes uh the company obviously started off as one man and his friend a blanket

it has since obviously evolved quite a significant way from that point so we now have around 25 to 30 people behind the curtain working for us at any given time plus performers which is like another 70 on top or something like that that's not even including our regular performing set and cast either. So it's a pretty significant operation at the moment. What are the things that make us tick as a company? How do we work? Well, obviously, first and foremost, we are a podcast. Hold the phone, then put it down unless you're using it to listen to podcasts.

We are a podcast company first and foremost. So the main priority is obviously putting out content that we are proud of and that we think that other people will enjoy. But in terms of the behind the curtain, there's actually a huge amount that we do in terms of bringing people into the industry and training those people up. So we specialise in bringing people on that we see have a real spark and a real potential, but for a plethora of different reasons, possibly haven't had those opportunities elsewhere, and bringing those people into the fold and training them up to make truly awesome content. But wait, Hannah, that sounds like an international situation. Are you saying that we employ people outside of the United Kingdom? I am saying that, yes. Obviously, we are a UK-based company, but we do have people working for us in the US.

We have a smattering of people across Europe. It's a surprisingly smattering of people across Europe. It's a surprisingly international set of people, which makes the old meetings during a pandemic an interesting one for time zones, etc. Time zones are the worst. All time zones. All time should be the same time. Double plus good. Yes. Okay, cool. so we have all these people how do we make sure that everyone is is being treated fairly hannah how how tell us how we're all we're all desperate to know these leading questions and their answers yes well in terms of being treated fairly we have a wonderful

wonderful head of hr that makes sure that the the nuts and bolts of that works really well. We like Suzanne. Suzanne's the best. Yes. But in terms of how we operate as a company to ensure fairness, we have a flat pay structure, which means that myself, Alex, and anyone that comes in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed is on the exact same hourly rate. As those payments go up, they go up for everybody. Okay, cool. So as far as I'm aware, we make stories, everyone enjoys the stories, and everyone just works for those magic beans that you have a big sack of. That is, as far as I understand, how the company works. I have a confession.

Go on. You are the only person who is currently being paid in those magic beans i thought hang on i thought we need to make sure that everyone's paid the same amount of magic beans no no uh everyone else gets coin for their wear oh that's fine yes um the way that we get hold of those coins um varies drastically one area in particular is obviously patreon another area of income is advertising one of the distributors we currently use is a cast so when you hear that bing bong bing yeah and a uh toothpaste i love toothpaste by toothpaste comes on um that has been what we call dynamically inserted by acast when you hear possibly alex or johnny or ben or whoever it might be saying i like toothpaste toothpaste by toothpaste

those are called baked in ads and those are the ones that we produce in-house based on a client spec we have show no ads on the website. We have slots available for those. YouTube provides a steady income stream as well. Twitch, again, Mike has gone into detail on this already, but there's an income stream from Twitch. One of the really interesting areas is production for hire. One of the good examples of that would be outliers, the seasons that we've made in association with historic royal palaces. The long and short being cool people come to us, they say, hey, do you want to make a cool thing? And we say, yes, that'll be this amount of money, please. And they say, cool. And then we go away and make a cool thing. Now, I think you might have missed

possibly the most important way we make money, which is for only three magic beans, you can buy my used pencils. And that keeps the company going, right? We're not whittling any more pencils with your initials into post to people, Alex. We've covered this. Well, then I'm curious how exactly you intend to make any kind of merch money if it's not via whittled pencils. There are other avenues to explore when it comes to merchandise i don't believe you that's a lie yes yes there are our chief

marketing officer callum has been working to create a number of what we would say sort of merchandise waves which have been dropping and will continue to drop throughout the year and beyond some of this may or may not include alex's whittled pencils tbc and if people are interested in per chance purchasing some merch where would you suggest that they go to so the best place to get hold of our various different merchandise is always going to be through the website. We're adding various suppliers all the time. So website is the best place to access things like our Redbubble site and various other things that we've got in the mix and upcoming over the coming weeks and months. Obviously, an area that we haven't covered yet, given that it's 2020, is obviously live events. This is

something that we're very much interested in, but we're just obviously not in a position to do anything about that currently. There are an awful lot of digital live events that are happening at the moment, which we are partaking in. The live events that we've done so far this year haven't been so much an income stream, but have been charity events at the moment we do charitable things occasionally or so i'm told we do charitable live events be they in person or obviously now currently digital but we also give charitably anyway so i don't know how aware people are of it but we currently give not our profit margin, but everything that we earn

from Patreon. We give 10% to the COVID response fund. I've been doing that for a few months now, and we'll be continuing with that as long as we possibly can. But in the meantime, the important thing is that we will be giving them a steady supply of magic beans to keep things growing, yeah? Unfortunately, again, you are the only recipient of of the magic beans everyone else gets okay i'm gonna say it now on air for everyone which is i will ensure that everyone starts getting some magic beans it's completely inappropriate i'm the only one getting uh magic beans in i'm gonna i'm gonna make a point of addressing this for everyone

i'm sorry about that and and on that really peculiar note i decided to steer us into against my better judgment we're now going to jump across to a conversation with Anil, who's going to be talking to us about our community and ways people can get involved in us beyond just sort of listening to the things we make. But thank you for your time, Hannah. Thank you very much. That'll be three magic beans, please. No. And now we are with Anil Godagamui, our community manager, our leader of comms, our general professional lovely person why don't you introduce yourself tell us a bit about yourself why are you here anal what is it that you're

bringing to our delicious smorgasbord of content this very day uh yes hello uh my name is anal and i am wearer of many hats uh chief communications officer community manager social media manager basically if you interact with us on social media in any way, it's me you're probably talking to. Why don't we first sort of dive into a little bit about what we even mean by community? Is this a thing where we all just listen to podcasts at the same time? What do we mean by community? Oh, that would be lovely. And actually, listen-alongs do happen. But what we mean by community is that there is a vast number of people who not only want to listen to a given show, but they also want to engage with other

people about it. They want to talk about their favourite characters. They want to talk about where they think the show is going. And all of this contributes to people reaching out and trying to find platforms on which to discuss these things. And there are multiple ways you can do that on the internet. And we have chosen to try and engage on many of those to help foster this sense of community and to foster these conversations. So I'm a podcast listener who's been listening to the show, but not necessarily engaging in the community. But I've decided today is the day i am going to reach out and say hello what are the easy ways for me to do so just quick and click and there i go i've said hello yeah just you know drop us a message on something like twitter or on facebook you can find us on twitter at the rusty quill or you can find us on

facebook at facebook.com forward slash the rusty quill you know just drop us a message drop us a line say hi just let us know you're out there and that's a a great start all of these are nice but i'm feeling i'm feeling the instinct for a bit more discussion i don't want to go crazy you don't want to go too far i don't want to go completely beyond the pale but uh yeah okay i i kind of fancy some kind of discussion with other fans maybe not necessarily directly with the creators every single time just discussing nuanced elements but also there's probably quite a lot of fans so if only there was a way to sub-organize those conversations into some kind of threads annel is there is there even such a thing

it sounds like you're talking about reddit reddit never heard of it yeah reddit.com so this is a global community like site organized into different boards where people can talk about various niche interests and such. We have a small part of that in the form of two subreddits. You can join a community of about 11,000 archivists over at r slash the Magnus archives. That's a small corner, 11,000 people. In comparison to some boards, maybe a bit larger thing. But yeah, I's uh it's a

cozy community from what i have seen um or you can join uh r slash rusty quill to talk about our other shows and you know on there you will find discussion threads about episodes as they come out various bits of fan art discussions about theories that people might be having about the shows you know all in a kind of like threaded forum like manner okay okay so i'm you're getting me you're getting me interested but you know what i've changed my mind i'm gonna go completely buck wild i'm diving so deep down this rabbit hole that i'm never gonna climb back up out of it okay i i wanna i wanna talk with the creators i wanna talk with other fans about it i want enormous long dedicated discussions on a dedicated

spot that i know is being handled correctly is there even such a thing or do i do i need to create it myself well you could create it yourself and there is not to say and not to say that other people haven't we are aware of various fan servers like that but we've also taken the decision to set up our own official community space on a platform called Discord. And you can join our Discord through various means. The links are scattered throughout our social media. And about two years ago, we decided to take this leap and set up a space where not only could the fans form a community around our shows to talk about them, but talk to each other through text and voice channels. to talk about them, but talk to each other, but through text and voice channels, but also have the creators of these shows, you know, have a little bit more of a closer engagement with fans.

Over the last two years, this has grown from very humble beginnings to a community of over 7,000 members, not just chatting about our shows, although there are specific channels for that, but expanded out to you know talking about their day to sharing pictures of their animals and plants to talking about things like linguistics and music and you know other interests than just what they are listening to 7 000 people all in a room yelling at one another that's just cacophonous that sounds like madness it sounds sounds awful how on earth would you make sure everyone's nice? Not all in one room. There are multiple rooms. There's like over 40 channels on our Discord for the various conversations to take place. Some of these are specific to our patrons.

Some of these are specific to shows. But there are also like a lot of community and general interest channels. And not only that, people coming to this space, we want them to feel welcome. We want them to feel safe so we've got a a very coherent set of community guidelines and a community moderation team in place to ensure that you know conversations stay on track and that people don't get too fraught in their discussions with one another oh well that sounds much much nicer that sounds far more coherent okay okay cool well it sounds like there's quite a lot of ways for me to be getting involved should I want.

And are there any future plans for things that don't exist yet that maybe we will be doing eventually? Or is this the final, I was about to say final nail in the coffin? I hope not. No, as we are able to engage on more platforms, we will. So we have plans for Instagram to be able to showcase more of the visual side of shows. Like podcasting is not just an audio medium, as contrary as that sounds. People are creating fan art.

People want to see the people behind the microphone. Mostly cows, last time I checked. Yeah, pictures of cows, not a bad thing to to see but also we want to expand into blogs and like tell people more about the people they are listening to find out more about us okay so that's that's that's quite a lot you know you're giving me a lot to be thinking about but let's say i uh i'm just about to dip my toes into this as a community space is there any like one piece of advice one takeaway that you really want to encourage so that people know what to expect before they start or anything like that the thing i would say is it doesn't hurt to try it out you can always view our social media

or look at the platforms that we are on without necessarily engaging in any particular way even on the discord you're able to join up it's. We don't put any barriers on that. And just listen and check out what is going on there and then see if you want to engage. And even if you don't, you never have to. Lurking is perfectly fine. Just, you know, seeing what the community is doing is perfectly good as well. Well, that sounds lovely. In that case, then, thank you for your time, Anil. Very much appreciated. You're welcome.

We will be rounding out this extravaganza of Rusty Quill, I think, now. Thank you for having me. And that concludes this extra special episode where we have been looking behind the scenes and talking with the people that don't just make the shows, but keep the company running so that you can get the stories and stuff that you like. I hope it's been informative for you. I know that a lot of people who were involved in this enjoyed making it and, you know,

shining a light on the way that they work and things like that. Obviously, we are an ongoing concern. We are looking to the future and we are making new shows and so on. And when we do, maybe we'll do another one of these to give people an update on how we're working. But if you've made it this far, thanks so much for your time. Thanks so much for showing an interest into how we do what we do. And as always, if you are interested in us, if you're interested in what we do, do visit www.rustyquill.com. That is rustyquill.com. We put things on there like job postings when they're relevant. You can get through links to the community, to the store, to the shows that we make. If you've heard, hmm, that show sounds interesting, give it a go.

We've deliberately picked and made shows that we think that if people like one, they're probably going to like the others. And if you haven't already, do get involved in our communities. As anil said there are a lot of people in there who are really keen to talk about stuff if you enjoy the things that we make you're probably going to have a good time there as well so all i can say at this point is thank you so much for taking the time for discovering us and for sticking with us and as always look after yourselves keep happy keep healthy and we'll see you all on our regularly scheduled programming. letting you know about our sponsor, Audible. For fans of heart-racing, bone-chilling, and mind-bending stories,

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