Rusty Quill Company Chat
ALEX
Hi everyone, this is Alexander J Newall, founder and CEO of Rusty 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 other 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, Jonny, and tell us a bit about yourself?
JONNY
I’m Jonny Sims. I’m the writer, narrator, and showrunner for The Magnus Archives. I’ve been with Rusty Quill for all 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.
ALEX
Let’s not even dive into the kind of narcissism required to choose your own name as a main character.
JONNY
It was such a mistake, Alex. I regret it so much.
ALEX
I take great solace knowing that you have paid in the complications it’s created in your life.
JONNY
Yeah. I mean, it’s been fine for the series, but for me personally, ah, what a headache.
ALEX
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?
JONNY
Oh, you probably wouldn’t like it.
ALEX
Fair enough, cool. So our next person – Right, okay, that was, that was, uh, that was quicker than I thought. Actually, justify yourself to me, Jonny.
JONNY
Yeah, okay. 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 organized 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, uh, 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.
ALEX
Darkness in a horror. How intriguing and novel!
JONNY
I like to push the bow tie and I like to really stamp some originality.
ALEX
So am I, am I given to understand this is, this is merely story time? Is, is there, is there, is there action, is there adventure?
JONNY
What happens in this – there is action, there is adventure, there is just horrible things happening to characters you grow to love. In Season 1, 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 Newall.
ALEX
Hello!
JONNY
There’s, uh, Sasha, 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.
ALEX
Ominous much. No, so, okay, I confess to a minor interest in your horror audio drama anthology – not anthology, Jonny, you’re too generous – but I mean, ultimately I only, I only ever follow anything that has critical acclaim, so I don’t know why I should bother.
JONNY
Boom, 9 discover podcast award winners for audio drama and fiction podcast. Boom, five different Audioverse 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, 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. Frankly, unless someone was to recommend it to me I don’t really see why I should bother.
ALEX
Jonny, I sure hope that you don’t run into anyone who’s contributed to our 35 million listens.
JONNY
Boom! Huge audience.
ALEX
It’s good – you’re getting really good at the PR side of things, Jonny. Professional bragging. You have, you’re getting there.
JONNY
I think the key is saying the word “boom.”
ALEX
Okay, so I – 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.
JONNY
Boom! Spooky three-minute section.
ALEX
So like, I got you to prepare a clip, the same as everyone else for that. What’s our clip, Jonny?
JONNY
So this is, uh, about three minutes from episode 15, Lost Johns’ 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.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
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 Alena 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 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.
ALEX
Hello and welcome back! So now I am joined with Helen Gould of Rusty Quill Gaming. Why don’t you introduce yourself, Helen?
HELEN
Hello everyone, I am Helen and I play an enormous orc called Azu on the Rusty Quill Gaming podcast.
ALEX
So I feel like given how how some people might not necessarily be aware of this show, I might need to give a little, little smidge more context than “I am an enormous orc.” Why don’t you tell us a bit more about Rusty Quill Gaming as a podcast?
HELEN
Right, so Rusty Quill 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 and Dragons episode of Community, it is basically like that and with, with voices as well. We all do special character voices, as do you, Alex.
ALEX
I do a couple, that’s true.
HELEN
And so this is a world that features orcs and dragons and magic cloaks.
ALEX
It sounds very simple, I’m sure it’s not been running that long.
HELEN
Right. Interestingly, I only came in about – at this point, halfway through only two years ago.
ALEX
Only two years ago.
HELEN
Yes. So this has been going – sadly, very very sadly, it started without me in 2015, but we’re now, at time recording we just released… episode 157, I think it was.
ALEX
That sounds about right.
We have finally started to win awards last year.
Oh, I know, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, not because we’re not, not because we’re not good, but just because I was like, “Oh, 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, remember outside?
I do remember outside. Let’s move swiftly, swiftly on. But yes, I believe those three awards were for Improvised Production, so if you’re into your improv comedy at all, we are 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 want, Alex. And I’m not gonna 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 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 know, just, just say – you can just go to the BBC if you want. You know, they have opinions about what we do. And obviously we have specials as well and, uh, 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 I’m into the best ones you should try things with beowulf oh there we go then
So actually, curiosity then what characters are the normal characters at the time of recording?
HELEN
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 Cel, 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. And lastly we have Zolf, our grumpy former pirate, current cleric, who has some issues and no legs. So that’s my definition of them for you.
ALEX
Well, I, I, if, if nothing else, I know that some people must be intrigued. So we, we will probably give people a taster at this point. So we asked you to, to pick a clip, something that you thought was, was representative of the wonder that is your show. Uh, what did you end up picking, Helen?
HELEN
So, uh, 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, um, 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 and up onto the roof?
It’s just, I’ve got Handle Animal and if you were driving you’d probably be really good. But getting from here to there and you’ve got your armor penalties as well and let her make silly decision I was just mentioning it so that helen knew what so what that means when you sorry if if you fall it won’t hurt probably oh I could just get out of the carriage in some of my cable and then keep placing the carriage immediate decisions what are you doing ah I’m gonna try and get out of the carriage okay give me an acrobatics check what are you doing that’s a terrible idea have you remembered to factor in your penalties on armor check so what’s your what’s your acrobatics you haven’t got any uh skill in it what’s your decks minus one so that and then your armature six it’s about minus six so you’re probably you’ve probably just rolled a zero I think you might have rolled it wow really yeah so as you opens the door badly I’m not going to allow really I used to catch her jumping out yeah you couldn’t catch her if you’ve tried to go with her that’s his goblin arm I would just be crushed by her give me an acrobatics check yeah okay so my bonus is 3. that’s bad that’s bad both of the paladins have fallen out of the movie 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 she’s saying that she can see oh right now to the empty carriage around okay so sasha’s got okay yeah you do notice here you have your hemorrhaging powder okay so sasha passes the reins to the goblin and then she jumps up I haven’t even rolled damage for the first give me the acrobatics because you are moving at like high speed you’re now alone in the limo honey I’m gonna deal with other people’s damage once you decide what you’re doing everyone for no reason has just left out limo the water is lovely said the bloody corpse has this happened alex like ten minutes into a new episode we’ve left the emotional problems behind and the half the party just jumped out and asked them for literally no reason whatsoever we need physical can we replace the rest of these people the damascus with someone who has people who are competent I cannot work under these guys would be relatively similar
ALEX
And welcome back! And now with me, I have Tim. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself, Tim?
TIM
My name is Tim Meredith, uh, I’m very glad to be here, thank you. Um, I am the showrunner and co-creator and co-star – main star, I like to say, but technically co-star of Stellar Firma, which is a improvised sci-fi comedy podcast nestling Rusty Quill’s heart.
ALEX
Tell us a bit more about your show. What’s it about? Like, what, what’s the deal with Stellar Firma? What’s, what’s the deal? Let’s get to the rub, Tim.
TIM
Stella Firma Limited is a futuristic civilization 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 magrifier for those who, uh, like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And I play Trexel Geistman, who is sort of a very, a very high-ranking, but much despised and reviled planet designer and consultant. And I work with a clone assistant David-7, who is innocence personified, and I proceed to ruin his innocence over now two series.
ALEX
You say despised and reviled, I mean, we have we have Magnus which, you know, has, has Jonathan Sims this sort of slow burning and an arch, and we have, we have Rusty Quill Gaming, which, as we’ve, we’ve seen, is a little bit more kind of friendly. And, uh, that’s probably not a word that I would necessarily use. How would you say the characters – what would you say characterizes this show?
TIM
So some villains are arch, and Trexel is arch in that you might find him asleep drunk under an arch. Uh, 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-7 is just desperately trying to keep things on track whilst Trexel sort of aggressively, and sometimes near-fatally, ignores his – even his own basic duties. Um, which, which leads to a certain sort of fun panicky vibe that I like to, uh, I like to create.
ALEX
As the younger baby sibling of Rusty Quill on its network, how are you finding things? Did you feel like you’re being warmly welcomed into fan bosom?
TIM
I mean, I, I say this to the person who funds all of this, so you can be assured of a, 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 a live setting you’re probably 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 come to know and appreciate.
ALEX
And you do have a, 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?
TIM
Oh, sure, yeah, yeah, that’s there. 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 for grabs. And it’s been, yeah, it’s been going – it’s been going really well. The listener reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, um, we won some awards – we won some awards, and we won two awards at, uh, last year’s, 2019’s, um, Audioverse awards for Best New Improvised Production, I believe, and, uh, Best New Improvised Performer, so still…
ALEX
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.
ALEX
Well done, Tim, you, specifically, for winning that.
TIM
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.
ALEX
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 Stellar Firma, something that they can sink their teeth into and see if they like it. Which is a task, uh, how did we do?
TIM
Well, liking the podcast is the task. Is that what, is that what you’re saying to me, Alex?
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?
TIM
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, one section that I think really sort of captures many of the elements that makes the show, the show. And so this is from episode 21, and, uh, David and Trexel are discussing, uh, 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 that sort of person. And because it’s improv, it’s sort of a good demonstration of one of the classic 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 lula bella we’re talking about lulabella annas 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 vivor of the of the literary world they are a towering figure in short to medium length romantic fiction okay so well in which case for us to get an idea of exactly what lula bella might be after um could you run me through sort of the typical plot of a lullaby [Music] of course 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 pullman jonathan swiftbeak he looks across the star port in which he’s actually tending to a poorly maintained pool and sees seize the buccaneer there yes yes that’s the man for him but their love is forbidden for a lowly pullman cannot cannot consort with a merchant venture of of of this class so they steal away in dead of night which is confusing because on a stop off 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 and 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 lula bella sort of sees humanity and and and gets to their essences as they say yes well if you really boil your energy down and I must stress not actually because you actually boil humanity down it’s just sort of mash in those 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
ALEX
And welcome back! And now I am with a Mike LeBeau of internet and video fame. Hello, Mike. Tell us a bit about yourself. Why are you here? Why have you graced us with your delicious presence?
MIKE
Hello, uh, 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.
ALEX
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 stella firma rustical 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 uh audience base so if people prefer to listen to rusty quill through youtube instead of a cast 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 you talk about streaming now i’ve i’ve read about streaming it’s it’s some kind of fishing thing right almost um 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 uh 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 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 trialling 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 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 were 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 i’ve 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 um because this is an entirely new avenue this is an entirely new avenue of content that we’re trialling 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 i’ll admit to a passing interest but I 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 um actually I’m just gonna pass this over to you now so this is our little vt uh 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 uh thank you very much for joining us here today um it’s myself uh mike we’re hot for damp birds that’s not a phrase I ever expected to hear oh I don’t understand I’m joined by anil hello what did I just I just kicked the bin [Music] 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 room look we do have a plant though the whole concept that we’ve come up with uh for this is that we’re going to be teaching you a little bit about gaming we’re going to 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 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 all of my life decisions I’m I’m happy with right now this is what exactly what I needed we I didn’t realize that what we were going to do to try and create a further emergency was to literally cause a career a reactor to collapse this was not a good decision right can you just shoot that and blow it up well I think I think I’m gonna have to can I not just can I pick it up [Music] 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 quail 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 whip cracker so that sounds closer to the mark yeah so we’ve got you here to start discussing our patreon a little bit explaining it a bit more why don’t you uh talk some of our lessons through 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 two dollars 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 nights level tier which is our five dollar 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 pharma access such as david’s fat corner and trexel’s horrible history which are a lot of fun for our nobles tier which is ten dollars you also are able to get access to amas which are ask me anythings with either like yourself or editors or brynn who is in our gaming show he’s done a couple of them so far where you get access to a chatroom and discord and can ask pretty much whatever you like of the creators find out more behind the scenes it 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 a hundred 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 for a small amount I you can get like a lot because of all the backlog which is pretty cool but here’s something else then I am I’m giving money and helping keep the lights on at rotty 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 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 patreons we wouldn’t have been able to move as easily as we did from studio to setup 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 rq streams and being able to bring more people in to that series so now instead of just mike and annel 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 patron 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 coved we are donating 10 of all of the funds that we collect through our patreon to the who covet relief solidarity response fund so by joining our patreon and contributing to that you’re also helping a good cause because we do make a charitable donation through that well I think at this point then you know what I want to see 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 what did you end up picking so the clip that I enjoyed picking is one of our novels exclusives it’s part of our martin poetry segment so martin blackwood from the 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 true just exceedingly talented mozart of poetry he definitely doesn’t have a ghost rider named daniel uh who does all that work for him but yes 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 magus 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 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 wish I had another door and welcome back I hope you enjoyed potentially the peak of my career like my genuinely the best thing i’ve ever done with me now I have hannah brankin of uh ceo extraordinaireism won’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 or take so company was founded in 5 so I’m guessing then that coming in last year 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 uh hold the zone 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 specialize 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 like 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 international set of people which makes the old meetings during uh during a pandemic an interesting one for time zones I hate all time zones all time should be the same time [Laughter] double plus good um 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 susan’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 uh is on the exact same hourly rate um 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 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 coined for their where oh that’s fine 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 bye to face comes on um that has been what we call dynamically inserted by acast when you hear possibly uh alex or Jonny 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 showno ads on the website we have slots available for those youtube provides a steady income stream as well twitch again uh 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 uh the long and short being cool people come to us they say hey do you wanna 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 uh my used pencils and that keeps the company going right we’re not whistling any more pencils with your initials into post to people alex we’ve 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 there are 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 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 yeah 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 uh 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 covert 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 um to keep things growing yeah unfortunately again you’re you are the only a 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 here and I’m gonna I’m to 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 uh 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 godigamui of our community manager our leader of coms our general professional lovely person why don’t you introduce yourself tell us a bit about yourself why are you here anna what is it that you’re bringing to our delicious smorgasbord of content to this very day uh yes hello uh my name is anna gunigamura and I am aware 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 uh why don’t we first sort of dive into a little bit about what we even mean by community like 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 favorite characters they want to talk about where they think the show is going and all of this contributes to you know 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 to try and engage on many of those uh to help foster this this sense of community and you know to foster these conversations so I’m 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 we 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 don’t 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 if only there was a way to sub organize those conversations into some kind of threads annal is there is there even such a thing it sounds like you’re talking about reddit right never heard of it yeah reddit.com so this is a global community like site organized into different boards where people can talk about you know 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/TheMagnusArchives. that’s a small quarter
000 PEOPLE UH IN COMPARISON TO SOME
boards maybe a bit larger thing but yeah I mean it’s uh it’s a cozy community from what I have seen now um or you can join uh our slash rusty quill to talk about uh 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 show you know all in a kind of like threaded forum like manner okay okay so I’m you you’re getting me you’re getting me interested but you know what i’ve changed my mind I’m gonna go completely book 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 all the 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 say 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 meets 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 but through text and voice channels and 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 from very humble beginnings to a community of over seven members not just chatting about our shows although there are specific channels for that but i’ve expanded out 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 seven thousand people all in a room yelling at one another that this is just coconuts that sounds like madness this 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 to take place some of these are specific to our patrons some of these are specific to shows but they’re also like a lot of community and general interest channels and not only that people coming to this space we 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 uh are there any future plans for things that don’t exist yet that maybe we will be doing eventually or oh yes is this the final but the final I was about to say final nail in the coffin I hope not um no um 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 the people behind the microphone mostly cows last time I checked yeah pictures of cows not 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’ve given 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 um social media or look at the platforms that we are on without necessarily engaging in any particular way even on the discord you are able to join up it’s free 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 if you don’t you never have to lurking is perfectly fine just you know seeing what the community is on uh is doing is is perfectly good as well oh well that sounds lovely in that case then thank you for your time Anil very much appreciated and welcome we will be rounding out this this extravaganza of uh 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 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 gonna 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.