Behind the Microphones: How the Uncanny Magazine Podcast Gets Made
We’re currently in the middle of running the Uncanny Magazine Year Two Kickstarter. Uncanny Magazine is dedicated to bringing readers stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative nonfiction by writers from every conceivable diverse background.
Not to mention a fantastic podcast featuring exclusive content. We’ve already funded and are currently working toward our stretch goals of extra stories for our readers.
Since Black Gate favorite C. S. E. Cooney was one of our Uncanny Magazine Podcast readers in Year One, we thought Black Gate’s readers might enjoy hearing how our amazing podcasting team puts together the Parsec Award-finalist Uncanny Magazine Podcast, which, every month, features a story and a poem from Uncanny along with an exclusive interview. While Lynne and Michael introduce each podcast, choose the content, and provide linking segments, the real work gets done by the rest of our awesome team, who spend a lot of time and energy making us sound great.
Having a great podcast was extremely important to us when we planned Uncanny Magazine. As many of you might know, Lynne and Michael are no strangers to podcasting. Lynne is the moderator of the two-time Hugo Award-winning SF Squeecast (with Elizabeth Bear, Paul Cornell, Seanan McGuire, Catherynne M. Valente, and David McHone-Chase), a member of the Hugo and Parsec-finalist Verity! podcast (with Deborah Stanish, Erika Ensign, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Katrina Griffiths, and L.M. Myles), and launched the Apex Magazine Podcast with Michael, Erika Ensign, and Publisher Jason Sizemore. Michael is also a member of the SF Squeecast and the Down and Safe podcast (with Amal El-Mohtar, L.M. Myles, and Scott Lynch).
So to create a world-class podcast, Lynne and Michael Thomas brought together the world-class team of Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky as producers, Deborah Stanish as interviewer, and Amal El-Mohtar and C. S. E. Cooney as readers. We’ll let some of them tell you more about their roles at Uncanny.
Sunday, August 2, was a day I’d been waiting for and slightly dreading. I was planning to see five films, one after the other. All of them at the large Hall Theatre, except for the second, a presentation of short animated films at the De Sève. It would kick off at 12:30 with Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, a cartoon adaptation of the classic book. The Outer Limits of Animation 2015 showcase would follow. Then Experimenter, a biopic about controversial psychologist Stanley Milgram, he of the notorious fake electroshock experiments. Then Ninja the Monster — as its title suggests, a film about a confrontation between a ninja and a monster. Finally would come Strayer’s Chronicle, a novel adaptation about a group of alienated teenagers with strange powers fighting to protect a world that hates and fears them. I was fairly sure it was possible to make a good movie out of that sort of material. But I had a lot of film to watch before I’d get to see it.
Saturday, August 1, would start early for me at Fantasia. At 12:30 I was seeing a Chinese fantasy adventure called Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal. Then I’d head over to the screening room, where I planned to watch a documentary about the Turkish film industry, Remix, Remake, Ripoff: About Copy Culture and Turkish Pop Cinema. Then I’d go to the De Sève Theatre for a pair of films, the post-apocalypse art-house movie Orion and then the Korean drama Socialphobia. Once again, a nice varied day.
Friday, July 31, started late for me at Fantasia. My first movie, a horror-comedy called Ava’s Possessions, screened at the Hall Theatre at 5:15. After that I decided to watch the Indonesian wuxia movie The Golden Cane Warrior. Then I’d go across to the De Sève Theatre to catch the surreal science-fictional American-Argentinian movie H. before returning to the Hall for the Friday midnight movie, a Quebec-made tribute to 80s post-apocalypse action movies called Turbo Kid. That would carry me through to something like 2 AM. So if things started late, at least it looked like I had a lot on the agenda.
Thursday, July 30, looked like one of the odder days I had lined up at the Fantasia Festival. I’d head down to the De Sève Theatre early on to catch a new American science-fiction film called Synchronicity, then go to the screening room to watch a dialogue-free horror film called The Dark Below. After that, I’d go back to the De Sève to catch the Irish black comedy Traders, and finally wrap up with an event called Méliès et magie, an event presenting some of the classic short films by the first master of fantasy cinema. It looked like a varied day, though in the end it was less so than I’d expected.