Just one year after launch, SpectreVision Radio is hellbent on taking the podcasting medium where no one has gone before (with all due respect to Captain Kirk).
The above-mentioned podcast network run by SpectreVision, the horror-focused production banner run by Elijah Wood, Daniel Noah, and Lawrence Inglee, announced today “a bold expansion into video podcasting” by turning their 50-show catalogue into full-on productions.
“When we started this thing, it was with the intention of just making audio podcasts,” Noah, who launched the company alongside Wood and Josh C. Waller in 2010, tells me over Zoom. “We had a couple shows with a video component, but then, come December, the data started trickling in to the industry that consumers were overwhelmingly favoring podcasts with video. We found ourselves in this really unique position, wherein we were one of the only networks that were also filmmakers. So we started to realize that there was a demand that we could answer quite directly.”
For Noah and his partners, “the notion of bringing real, cinematic storytelling techniques to podcasting is not just novel — it’s necessary,” he affirms. “Just a short time ago, the Joe Rogan format of a couple people sitting around a table was pretty much the only game in town. But we look at this as filmmakers and say ‘Why can’t we get up off the desk move things around?’ We’re trying to get creative. In some cases, it is just windows with people talking to each other. But even in those cases, we’re really trying to make them look very pretty and professional.”
As of this writing, they’ve already begun the process of converting shows into novel, chimeric configurations. For instance, Soren Narnia’s short fiction podcast Knifepoint Horror was “the big proof of concept” that it could done effectively. “The way I described it to Soren was, ‘Let’s think of this as the visual equivalent of a Brian Eno record. It’s not necessarily meant to capture your full attention. It’s there as a seasoning, a flavor. Something to zone out to if that’s what you want to do,’” Noah recalls.
And so, they added the visual element of a dark road viewed through the windshield of a car driving at night for an episode about a road trip. Not long after, the podcast was among the Top 10 titles on Spotify. “That was when we realized, ‘Okay, there’s something happening here,’” Noah adds. “We have 50 shows that we’re rolling out, and nearly every single one of them is in some process of converting to video. We’re working very closely with the creators and saying, ‘Listen, let’s, figure this out together. What is a natural and organic visual expression of what you’re doing that isn’t just a ring light and a Yeti microphone? How can we really up the game?’”
The end goal is to create a fresh medium that defies all current definitions, falling “somewhere between podcasting and traditional television,” explains the SpectreVision-co-founder. “There is an understanding that this will not be as fully-produced as traditional, institutionalized television, but there still will be an understanding, or an expectation, that there will be something creative.”
The best part? Neither Hollywood nor the wider podcasting community have yet to grasp the true potential of this burgeoning entity.
“I think that by the time they do realize what’s happening, they will be so far behind the curve,” Noah continues. “Because the content creators who are aware of this and already running way out ahead of the pack will be the trendsetters and the leaders in this space. I think what’s so thrilling about it, is it belongs to the artists. This is a very rare dynamic when artists are dominating and owning a space.”
This trailblazing podcast endeavor marks the latest stage in the company’s evolution into a multimedia juggernaut. Just last month, Forbes Entertainment spoke with Noah about SpectreVision’s forthcoming comic book series at Oni Press, High Strangeness, which will shine a more accurate light on popular paranormal topics like cryptids and the Men in Black. “These things, when they happen, are very strange and very confounding, and don’t necessarily have easy answers,” says Noah, who is overseeing the project. “We’re just leaning into the ambiguity of all that.”
At the end of the day, everything SpectreVision does is about feeding its “incredible fascination with the surreal and the esoteric,” concludes Noah.
“I myself am what’s known as an Experiencer, meaning that I experience the paranormal. It happens to me quite frequently. It’s become a huge part of my life. And with that comes profound ontological shock. I was a hardcore skeptic before this started happening to me about 10-plus years ago, and and it’s one of the things that we’re really endeavoring to do with with SpectreVision Radio, is to create a very open community for other Experiencers and people who are curious about all of the implications of the paranormal. That ranges from the nature of consciousness, to psychedelics, to UFO and UAP disclosure. There isn’t really a singular hub or tent for all of these amazing thought leaders and artists in this space to come together, and we’re trying to create one.”
For more information and the full lineup of shows, click here.
SpectreVision Radio is a partnership between SpectreVision, Steven Demmler of Talon Entertainment (Paul Schrader’s OH, CANADA, and the forthcoming ATONEMENT and RABBIT TRAP), and Michael Risley, a partner in Breakwater Studios, the two-time Academy Award–winning production company specializing in brand-funded documentary films utilizing powerful human stories aligned with brand values.