The Open Sketchbook | Making Art Publicly + Interviewing Accomplished Creatives

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Welcome
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Zach Armstrong: Welcome back, dear listener, to another interview episode. Today, uh, I have the distinct pleasure of interviewing somebody I got to work within theatrical context and then cheer on from afar as she, as she made some amazing work. She is. Lauren Shippen, the creator of The Bright Sessions, a project she started as she was trying the LA acting thing and then she decided, you know, what if in just instead of just acting, I wrote, directed, produced, and acted in and then won a lot of awards, uh, with an audio drama about teens and therapy who [00:01:00] happen to have supernatural abilities. After this getting millions of downloads and many awards, she went on to direct an official Stranger Things podcast, she wrote, uh, Bridgewater, uh, executive produced by Aaron Mahnke of Lore and featuring a whole lot of A-list names.

Zach Armstrong: I'm not gonna start listing here 'cause then I wouldn't stop. Uh, and of course, also, she's the author of three novels set in the universe of The Bright Session. So Lauren, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Lauren Shippen: Thank you so much for having me. It's so good to talk to you.

Zach Armstrong: you too.

Zach Armstrong: You too. We had the pleasure of going to college together.

Lauren Shippen: Yes.

Zach Armstrong: I had the pleasure of finding the bright sessions as, uh, you were, you were wrapping it up narratively and we, uh. One, I saw how many accolades it had gotten by the time my wife and I got around...

Lauren Shippen: Aw.

Zach Armstrong: Then we listened to it and it was so up our alley that we just adored the entire thing. So

Lauren Shippen: Thank you so much.

Zach Armstrong: for the work for you and all of those people you've worked with to, to put that out into the

Lauren Shippen: No, thank you for listening. I'm so glad you, I'm so glad you found it.

Zach Armstrong: Oh yeah. Oh, it's [00:02:00] absolutely fantastic. So listener, if you have not checked out The Bright Sessions, I'll put a link in the description. Um, so please go. It's okay. It's okay to be late. You're never actually late.

Lauren Shippen: Oh yeah. I, that's the wonderful thing about audio fiction is that like there's no. Time limit on it like so many podcasts, right? It's always topical. It's always relevant. You can always find it and listen to it.

Zach Armstrong: That's right. That's right. And something about The Bright Sessions, of course, listener is that, uh, you know, we've got a video component to these interviews. 'cause I like to put things on YouTube.

Zach Armstrong: However, uh, when you keep something just audio only. Um, and you're telling a story that puts a lot of specific kinds of constraints on the story, right?

The Story Behind The Bright Sessions
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Zach Armstrong: If you've got visuals, you have aspect ratio you've got to work with to deliver more information. But if you're just working in audio, you just have that space of just, of noise to use to tell your story, right? So Lauren, when you first started working on the Bright Sessions, uh, what were some of the reasons that you chose to create it as just [00:03:00] audio?

Lauren Shippen: Yeah, I mean, I really believe in sort of limitations being the, you know, mother of invention, right? I think that that having creative limitations can be a wonderful place to start. Or even just, just resource limitations, which is really where I was starting. I was, as you said, doing the acting thing in LA and really wanted to make my own thing so that I could have a character that like I could dig into and that I could kind of explore and on my terms and;

Lauren Shippen: I had at the time was in a friend's web series, and the web series was really, really fun. It's called Natural 20. It was, it was about a D&D group. Um, and it was all, you know, it was like a cast of five with some guest folks, you know, three producers, one writer, and in one room, and just seeing the amount of resources that went into just that, right, like just a, a web series with, you know, five to 15 minute episodes that all take place in one apartment. Like it was crazy the amount of like [00:04:00] stuff and money that you needed to do that. And so even just looking at that, I was like, I can't. I can't do this. I can't even make a one room web series. Um, but at the time, I had also discovered welcome to Nightvale, which of course is one of the oldest and most beloved fiction podcasts and the entry point for a lot of people who got into the space.

Lauren Shippen: Um, still a huge fan of, of that show and everything from Nightvale Presents and I was a music major in, in college and, you know, had done some like audio editing through, through that and thought. Okay, maybe, maybe I can kind of do something audio only, like I've got, you know, a friend who's got a mic that I can borrow.

Lauren Shippen: I've got all these great actors that I'm an acting class with, and I know what a, what sort of the anatomy of a two person scene should look like because I'm an acting class every single week doing two person scenes. And so that's really why it was audio is because I just didn't have the resources for anything else.

Lauren Shippen: And I liked Welcome to Nightvale.

Zach Armstrong: Honestly [00:05:00] that that is honestly the answer I expected; because, and you said is so true that the, the restrictions when, when you take the restrictions seriously and you still want to create, they're gonna force you they're get better.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: To get better to the point where you can really make something fantastic with whatever restrictions you have. am, I've been doing some work for a local film festival and there's a gentleman who has never become an A-lister, but he has written, directed, and produced a movie called a cell phone movie about an out of work actor who makes a movie on a cell phone, and the entire movie was made

Lauren Shippen: That's awesome.

Zach Armstrong: Just watching the trailer. I am so excited to watch this film because the energy in the trailer is just brilliant

Lauren Shippen: Yep.

Zach Armstrong: it just makes, it makes the exact same point really, that the Bright Sessions does that. It's like, Hey, in an age where like you can scrape together the resources to make something. Maybe you're not [00:06:00] gonna make a two hour film on what you have right now, but maybe you can make an audio narrative Right.

Lauren Shippen: Exactly, and that's my acting studio that I was in at the time where a lot of the Bright Sessions cast came from was very encouraging of us doing that. Right. Because this was, this was the, the height of sort of web se, web series being like acquired by HBO and like of, you know, Tangerine and Oscar nominated movie that was filmed all in an iPhone.

Lauren Shippen: And so there was very much this feeling of like, yes, you can do. With just like the technology in your hand, you can accomplish a lot if you come at the story in the right way.

Zach Armstrong: Absolutely.

Writing for Audio
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Zach Armstrong: So, so once you've, once you've locked into telling something in just audio, right? So, uh, beyond the, beyond the natural limitations of, okay, I'm an LA actor, I gotta make a project and make it awesome. And this is. All I can make

Zach Armstrong: when you go into the creative mode to start to write for it, to start to work with a, a sound designer, the Misha Stanton, the amazing sound designer, they're the amazing sound designer of, of Bright [00:07:00] Sessions, absolutely fantastic work. Uh, what is special about writing and creating when you just have audio to, to deliver the information in?

Lauren Shippen: Yeah. I mean, yeah, Misha was such an incredible addition to the team and I, I met them actually because they were doing their own podcast Ars Paradoxica, which is a fan. Fantastic. And they had heard an announcement on the Bright session stream that I, um, wanted to start a Patreon to get money to hire a sound designer.

Lauren Shippen: And then they reached out and they were like, I'm also in la. Like, let's get coffee. And we just hit it off and, and they started sound designing the show halfway through season two. And what was amazing is, and you, you hear this in the show, I mean, a. You hear the sound become a lot better. I, I fully engineered and sound designs the first, uh, 16 episodes and you can tell.

Philosophy Sound Design, When All You Have Is Sound
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Lauren Shippen: Um, and I've done what I can this year for the 10th anniversary. I sort of did what I could to the first 16 episodes to at least get the levels right and everything. So the audio's a bit better in the feed now than it [00:08:00] was even a year ago, but it's still not much. Um, but what was amazing. Yeah, bright Sessions remastered, sort of like, it's just at the right volume now, basically because like I didn't even have any of the original, like, audio files.

Lauren Shippen: Like I couldn't go back and like find like the, you know, um, so, or I found the, the original raw audio, but I couldn't find the original like sessions and so I would've had to re-edit it out all and yeah. Um, but uh, the thing that was amazing about Misha joining is that all of a sudden I could. Step outside of the therapy room and I could kind of expand the storytelling because it is all therapy sessions in the beginning, because like, okay, two people sitting in a room is something that I can sound design because I can just record two people sitting in a room.

Lauren Shippen: And that's what it was. And uh, and then when, when Misha came aboard, it was like, wait a second. Okay, I can have like. I could have multiple rooms. We could go out into like the lobby of the office, we could go outside. Um, and you really, you really, really hear that expand. Um, and [00:09:00] I, I, I think what was so exciting to me and sort of talking with Misha and, and listening to their podcast and, and you know, kind of getting their perspective on storytelling and audio was like.

Lauren Shippen: Oh, I can do anything that I want. And the only restrictions that I have are the ones that I've already set up in the story. And so in, in Bright Sessions, it's that you're hearing everything through sort of recorded audio, which eventually I kind of abandon. Um, but it takes me a while. I sort of work up to it.

Zach Armstrong: Yes.

Lauren Shippen: And then eventually we're doing a musical episode in someone's dream, and it's like all bets are off. Um, and, but you know, this is something that like I, I've, I've. Played around with a, a lot in, in a lot of, in a lot of my different work and something that I've, I've really had to like drive home to a lot of the larger companies that I work with and people who are new to the medium, which is like, you can do whatever you want.

Lauren Shippen: Like Misha and I actually made a show for Marvel that was an adaptation of the 1995 um, book. I think it was 1995, marvels the graphic novel. Um, and Misha got to sound design, you know, the silver [00:10:00] surfer coming through a, a, a sky of fire, right? Like you can do that stuff and it's just about how you communicate it to the audience.

"Show, Don't Tell" In Audio
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Lauren Shippen: And so that's, I think for me, always the fun puzzle piece is like, okay, I want to. You know, I, I want to, I'm trying to think of like a good example. I, I, I wanna do some sort of big splashy set piece, but that actual sound doesn't sound really like anything on its own. And so how do I, how do I get at that same emotion through some other way?

Lauren Shippen: Or how do I get at that same set piece, you know, without sort of the characters being like, "oh my God, the car just exploded," or whatever it is, right?

Zach Armstrong: Right. How do you show that instead of telling it directly?

Lauren Shippen: Exactly, and that's just like always a really fun like jigsaw puzzle for me.

Zach Armstrong: Absolutely because it's a jigsaw puzzle where your, your jigsaw canvas is so much smaller because you don't have the, [00:11:00] and visual people don't be offended. This is just for the context of the conversation. Like you don't have the crutch of being able to say, oh, we can just blow the car up on

Lauren Shippen: Totally, totally.

Zach Armstrong: the car's gonna blow up, but do we have an explosion sound? And this is, this is why you, you need a Misha. Stanton.

Zach Armstrong: Uh, do we just have the explosion sound? Is it appropriate for a particular character to go, oh my gosh, that car just blew up and it looks like it was a bomb. Like, well, probably not.

Zach Armstrong: ' cause that

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: little on the nose unless that character is being really suspicious, like

Lauren Shippen: Right, exactly. Well, I think, I think too, it's like you can have fun with. You know, in, in a, in, in a visual medium, you know, you're sort of, you're, you're, you're seeing everything, right? And so like you can. You get sort of all the information right away. I mean, obviously like this is where like really creative direct direction and, and great directors have a lot of fun with like what you can see and what you can't see.

Lauren Shippen: But I think what can be fun in audio sometimes is something can be there the entire time, but until the characters acknowledge it or it makes a sound in some [00:12:00] way, the audience doesn't know that it's there. And so that's always something that I'm thinking about too. And I haven't worked a lot in, in comedy, um, as a writer, but that's something I'm always thinking about of like, how can you have fun with that?

Lauren Shippen: How can you find a comedic moment with like. There being an elephant in the room that the audience can't see until somebody acknowledges the elephant in the room.

Zach Armstrong: And I guess maintaining some kind of whatever consistency that's needed to justify that elephant, even though you haven't mentioned it.

Lauren Shippen: Right?

Zach Armstrong: then the audience goes, oh, like I don't feel cheated, but I am surprised in a, the most delightful

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: That's fantastic.

Creating Powerful Moments
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Zach Armstrong: I've made it a lot of the way through Bridgewater. Now, of course, I listen to all The bright sessions. There's a lot of moments that you, um, build up to, and the ones I've, I've noticed have a lot of punch when you're writing them are moments of belief being challenged about

Lauren Shippen: Hmm.

Zach Armstrong: a character's belief being challenged about [00:13:00] themselves or about the world.

Zach Armstrong: Right. Which we're set up for in Bright Sessions. It's, you know, teenagers going through therapy and the supernatural part was, gave just so much fictional room to explode out into, which is so fun. I also think the show would've had its core without superpowers because of how beautifully written the therapy was. Right.

Lauren Shippen: Thank you. Thank you.

Zach Armstrong: Yes, with the exception I've, you know, I know this is on the FAQ that Yes, it's fictional therapy. It's not real

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: but,

Zach Armstrong: right. Like, toss that out. There know, before Lauren goes, well, hold on. Um. But, uh, because all the time you hear those characters being challenged on like, Hey, look at this in yourself, and the character goes, ah, or on, on Bridgewater, right?

Zach Armstrong: Misha Collins is playing an academic who's view of the world is being challenged and he keeps knocking on doors and going, no, I don't believe in that, but let's keep going. Right. Um, so tell me what have been some of your [00:14:00] favorite moments to create, whether they come with

Lauren Shippen: Hmm.

Zach Armstrong: or not, what are some of the favorite moments that when you've crafted them and looked back and you've seen the audience react, you go, ah, yes, that felt so good to be able to deliver this moment in just audio.

Lauren Shippen: Ooh, that's a great question. And and that's such a lovely observation too. I, I don't know that I would've necessarily. Pinned belief as like a thing that I certain certainly in, in Bridgewater, like I'm directly engaging with like skepticism versus belief. Right. But I, I think, yeah, I think that that's absolutely true.

Lauren Shippen: Like that is sort of a central part of the Bright Sessions as well, and I think of a lot of my work.

Zach Armstrong: own framing that I've brought

Lauren Shippen: No, I, I think that that's accurate. And I think, I, I think one of the reasons that the Bright Sessions like resonates with a, with a lot of different people is that like, you know, it can sort of be like a, a kaleidoscope for whatever you, you know, are interested in, or you, there's enough characters to potentially like, find something you can connect to in one of them, you can identify with somebody.

Lauren Shippen: Um, but I, I, I think for me, like the, the, the moments [00:15:00] that that really stand out are always the moments that have to do with. The actors that I'm working with, and I'm, I'm actually like currently in the midst of, of casting my next original, and I'm, I'm really excited. It's been a while since I've sort of been through the casting process,

Zach Armstrong: Two Thousand And Late, in production with Atypical Artists.

Lauren Shippen: Yes, exactly. Um, and uh, what's so exciting to me is like I, you know, I've written, I've, I've. Fully completed half the, half the, the season of, of Two Thousand And Late. And, and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of putting the finishing touches on the, on the back half, but like, nothing's locked because once the actor gets in there, like, I'm gonna change a bunch of stuff.

Lauren Shippen: Right? and that's exactly what happened with. like Bridgewater. Like even though we, we wrote the first season, um, before we cast it, just because of the nature of like, how most, you know, production goes is you kind of need to, need to do that 'cause you only have a limited number of days with somebody. You need to make sure. it's all locked before you send it to them, et cetera. Um. When we got to do second season season, it's like, you know, Misha and I like talked about like what we wanted to see for, for Jeremy and kind of what [00:16:00] we wanted to see for the story and the things that interested him about the, the storyline and everything. Um, and that's something I just always love doing.

Lauren Shippen: I, this is a, a long walk for shorts sip of water. But I think, I think for me, like the, the things that are so special about audio. Is the fact that like, you're not seeing the actor's face, you're not seeing their costume, you're not seeing the, the body language, you're not seeing the set around them, and it's all in their voice.

Lauren Shippen: And so I think that that creates, I mean, we throw around the word intimacy a lot in, in, in podcasting to the point that it's like almost like a joke now, right? Um, but it is like, it's intimate. think for me, like two of my favorite moments that sort of stick out are. Everything with, uh, Mark and Joan, um, the, the siblings and The Bright Sessions, Dr.

Lauren Shippen: Bright and her brother,

Zach Armstrong: Yes.

Lauren Shippen: Julia and Andrew are just two of the finest actors that I've ever worked with. And they have this ability to just like, make their voices crack just a little bit and it's devastating every single time. Um, and so I think, like, I think for me. One of my favorite [00:17:00] moments, and actually it's funny, I've been, I've, I've been re-listening to this a little bit.

Lauren Shippen: I haven't listened to very much of the Bright Sessions, um, since making it, because, you know, I mean, for lots of reasons. But, um, for our 10th anniversary, we're putting together a vinyl pressing of the musical episode, which I'm extremely excited about.

Zach Armstrong: Oh my goodness.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah. Yeah, I'm really excited and I, so I, I like listened back to the, to the musical episode to try and figure out like, 'cause actually all of it's not gonna fit on one side.

Lauren Shippen: So I'm, I sort of like, all right, where's like, intermission in this episode? Right. And the, the song that Mark sings and sort of the conversation that he has with Joan before that song is I think one of my favorite moments because it's like. The, it's happening in a dream. It's a musical, like, like nothing about the setting, like needs to make sense or is visual.

Lauren Shippen: And it's all in the music and it's all in Andrew and Julia's voices. And just like the pain that you, that you feel when you listen to them, even though you're not seeing the pain on their faces. And so that's like, that's I think one of. Favorite moments, [00:18:00] and then similarly with, with Misha and Alan in the second season.

Lauren Shippen: And I actually, I didn't direct the second season. Um, but there, there's just so much stuff in that, that I just like really, really love the father-son relationship. Just the, the pain that you can feel with, you know, these, these two actors, you know, who, who just really like, are, are, are such wonderful scene partners.

Lauren Shippen: You know, like, like they, they just give so much to their scene partner. And so putting them together is like just potent.

Zach Armstrong: That's amazing that that dynamic of writing something, preparing it with a vision, and then at the part of the creative process where somebody else comes in and then figuring out it can. Warped to something better than the sum of its parts because I know there's an actor in there is so amazing. you mentioned, uh, you mentioned the, the web series you were a part of that was a tail top role playing game themed

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: And I've had a habit for years. I nearly fell out off my chair, kind of laughing with joy when you mentioned that because I've been a Game Master for about a decade now

Lauren Shippen: Oh, [00:19:00] amazing.

Zach Armstrong: Yes. And one of my, I won't call it a signature thing 'cause other people do it, but something I do is when we can tell we're getting to the last act of the campaign and we're gonna wrap it up and we know there's like one more arc, it's gonna be a few more months of playing, is I sit down with each player and I say, write down a list of three things you want your character to accomplish. It can be super specific from I want to have a reconciling conversation with, you know. Jane Doe so and so, or, um, you know, I, or it can be more general and I ask them to write down this list and I work those in, in ways towards the end of the campaign to really help deliver them. A moment that is fully theirs and sometimes in a way they didn't expect. Uh, so I'll, I'll save

Lauren Shippen: I love that.

Zach Armstrong: and it's just so beautiful. And we've had some of the most powerful moments of players interacting with those moments. When I'm able to take something they contributed and say, okay, now let me gift this to you in. [00:20:00] The most beautiful possible way I can think of towards the end of this story.

Zach Armstrong: Whether you love being sad and meaningful things or this is just a joy, like, you know, straight up, don't worry, nobody's family is dead. You're all okay. It's fine. Stable relationships. Um. So as, as you said, that I had not thought about, uh, you know, 'cause I have not really in the narrative space at all for podcasts.

Zach Armstrong: I'm like, how, what a beautiful way to incorporate that so that the art is elevated through collaboration that way. That's so beautiful.

Lauren Shippen: and I think I, I, I love that you do that because that's, and that's exactly what I did sort of between seasons for the Bright Sessions. I like sat down with my actors and was like, okay, like, you know, here's, here's where I think we are at with your character. Like, what do you, you know, what do you think?

Lauren Shippen: Um, and. I, I, I think what's, what's so important about audio fiction and actors in particular is, I mean, like, I certainly, I, I, I can think of lots of like TV shows for instance, where like, I grew very, very frustrated [00:21:00] because the show was clearly like ignoring actor chemistry in some way or like had made a decision that like.

Lauren Shippen: They had to stick to despite the fact that like actor chemistry pushed them in another direction, like how you met your mother probably being one of the most famous examples of this, right? Um.

Zach Armstrong: Everybody listening and participating has their own list in their heads right now.

Lauren Shippen: Exactly. And then you have other things like, you know, breaking bad in which Jesse's, you know, supposed to die at the end of the first season, but they saw Brian Cranson and Aaron Paul together and it was like, oh, this is the whole show. It's about these two people and the relationship together. And so like, and, and I think it's so important to, to follow those leads that your actors are creating in any medium.

Lauren Shippen: But I think especially for audio, like at the end of the day, like. Obviously you want the script to be great depending on exactly what the story is. I mean, the sound design's always crucial and like I consider, you know, my sound designers the same type of collaborators I do my actors. Right. But like at the [00:22:00] end of the day, the, the, the, the thing that.

Lauren Shippen: Your audience is connecting to. And the reason that that nonfiction, you know, chat podcasts are so popular is the person's voice and is the, and is the person who's communicating the words. You can have the best script in the world, and if your actors aren't good, it's not gonna do anything for the listener.

Lauren Shippen: And so I think that like. Really, like letting my actors guide me is something that like, I, I just feel so privileged to get to do and to get, to sort of work with people who, who really have a perspective on their character and yeah, it's just, it's, it's one of my favorite parts of the job for sure.

The Narrative Conceit of The Bright Sessions
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Zach Armstrong: Tell me about, 'cause this was something I hadn't thought about before you mentioned it. So we talked, we narrative conceit for The Bright Sessions

Lauren Shippen: Mm-hmm.

Zach Armstrong: of everything you're hearing is recorded. Right. So there was this and that, it sounds like that came from a few places as in like, well, to keep it, to keep the scope simple and then I can fully execute on this scope,

Lauren Shippen: Mm-hmm.

Zach Armstrong: fully equipped to execute on this particular scope. And then you talked about as the [00:23:00] seasons went on and, uh, your, your sound designer was, was diving in and eventually you started to, to, to leave that behind. I don't even have this question written down, I'm just fascinated.

Zach Armstrong: Tell me about the thought process as you said. Okay. I've had this narrative conceit of everything you're hearing is recorded up to the point where you have, you know, the, the therapy teenagers. Like turning on their phone recording thing while they're hanging out on a park

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: to be spies, basically.

Lauren Shippen: Yep.

Zach Armstrong: And then tell me, tell me about your thought process as somebody who was in the middle of creating a show, writing, collaborating to make this thing. Tell me about the thought process where you said, okay, it is now okay for me to leave that conceit behind.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Lauren Shippen: I You're absolutely right in that the conceit initially came from the restriction of the scope. Right. And I think specifically it, it, it was in part the fact that like all of the audio dramas that I, you know, was sort of familiar with, which was, you know, like. Welcome to Night Vale and Wolf 359.

Lauren Shippen: And you know, like, like [00:24:00] they, we all kind of had a conceit at the beginning and that's something that I still think absolutely can work. And like it's something that I always encourage people to steer away from if they don't feel that they need it. But I don't, I also don't have like a sort of, um, any, any issue with it.

Lauren Shippen: Whereas I think some of my colleagues, you know, are a little bit tired of it. But I think absolutely as it concede it can still work.

Why The Bright Sessions Had The Conciet
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Lauren Shippen: Um, but also crucially, like I wanted there to be an excuse for the audio sounding bad. Because like I just didn't have a very high quality mic and I didn't really know how to engineer, how to record.

Lauren Shippen: And so I was like, well, if she's, if she's recording this on a hidden record her in her office, the audience will be more forgiving. And what's astonishing is that even now, you know, 10 years later when people find the show. You know, there's so much amazing stuff that you can listen to in fiction podcasting.

Lauren Shippen: That sounds fabulous. From the very first second. The Bright Sessions is not one of those shows. It sounds fabulous starting when Misha joins the show, but I never ever get comments from anybody about the beginning of the show sounding bad, which is crazy, and it's, [00:25:00] I think.

Zach Armstrong: had that. I've never had that thought. I'm not gonna be going back and

Lauren Shippen: But it, it does, it sounds bad, like obviously the actors are fantastic, but the actual like quality of the sound is bad.

Lauren Shippen: But I, I, I do think that people are very, very forgiven, forgiving because of the conceit of the show. And then, you know, having Misha and getting to explore more with them and sort of. I think discovering the edges of that restraint. I think sort of season two, season three, I started to feel like really like, oh, like I, I, I'm, I'm outgrowing my terrarium here. Like I wanna kind of, I wanna get out of it. And then, um, I think it was, yeah, I think it was before the beginning of season three. Um, Evan Cunningham, another friend from college actually, we were in double take together. Um, yeah, he.

Zach Armstrong: of those acapella concerts.

Lauren Shippen: He moved out to LA and he is an incredible musician and he started composing all of the sort of ad music and, and credits music for The Bright Sessions.

Lauren Shippen: And we still like, are are [00:26:00] frequent collaborators. He's composed to like most of the music on my shows and we made the musical episode together and the musical episode was really like, sort of working with Evan and, and just like. I'm a huge, I mean, you know, right. 'cause you, you saw me in in, in musical things in, in college.

Lauren Shippen: I'm a huge musical theater person and I, I really just like, I really wanted to do one and, and I'd sort of, I'd written this song for Sam just out of a conversation with, uh, our mutual friend, Meghan Fitzmartin. We were sort of. Like talking about the concept of foolishness. And so, and this was like between, like this was sometime in season three.

Lauren Shippen: Like, you know, I, I didn't know that I was actually going to do a musical episode, but I sort of had this idea floating around, but I didn't know how to do it. And then I, I was having a conversation with Ben Acker of the Thrilling Adventure Hour, um, who, which is a wonderful, wonderful, long running sort of staged radio play variety show that you can listen to in podcast form. We were just sort of chatting about stuff and I sort of expressed this frustration to him and he was like, and I was like, there's just no way to make it work. Like I, I obviously would have to break the [00:27:00] conceit, but then also like;

Lauren Shippen: there would have to be like a reason for it being mu- like, I just don't know how to do that. And he was like, well, I don't know. Like could there be somebody who like can go into people's dreams as an atypical ability and like it can be a musical dream. And I was like, Ben, you're brilliant. And that's what we did.

Lauren Shippen: And so it's like, even though completely broke the conceit. Of the show, it still was operating within the rules of the world, right? Of like, people are not just like bursting into song randomly, like there's a reason for this. It's all taking place in a dream. And this person who we've gotten to know over the course of like half a season who can go into people's dreams is sort of witnessing this.

Lauren Shippen: Um, and so; Yeah. that's, I really just decided to like, kind of stretch the rubber band and then just like let it snap right?

Zach Armstrong: Absolutely. And I think that journey makes so much sense to me because as I was thinking about Bright Sessions and, um, when I did my little narrative exercise, I, the conceit, a conceit like that was attractive to me because it helps keep the scope, like you said, small and [00:28:00] achievable so that you say, okay. If I'm just painting a small canvas, I have the resources to do my best art inside of the small canvas because I'm not gonna be resource constrained going further. And of course, as the show grew you, I think if I'm understanding correctly, the. You got really more and more paintbrushes and the canvas could get

Zach Armstrong: bigger, and you said,

Zach Armstrong: I really want to use all

Zach Armstrong: these other tools instead of having to shove everything into here.

Zach Armstrong: Because as the collaborations have grown, as the resources have grown, we can now pour more into this and do even more with it. So I see the use of that conceit for somebody who wants to keep the scope here. And for somebody like me who is. I've created in several different ways, but my like creative projects that are out in public are all much smaller and not many of them are really finished. And the conceit is attractive because if we can keep it, you know, about that size, then we can go finish it,

Lauren Shippen: Yes. Yep.

Zach Armstrong: [00:29:00] Then we can go finish it and we can say, here is a piece of art.

Lauren Shippen: Yep.

Zach Armstrong: That's what I was thinking about when I did this creative exercise because I was like, well, what if I kept the scope small and all the audio just happened through recordings in, you know, a militarized me suit between pilots and then recording a log, you know, a log for later. So that was, I was always thinking about The Bright Sessions when I put that together. And this conversation has been very enlightening for thinking about like. How is that conceit best used? Right? Because I'm sure the industry

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: are like, oh, the the motivated audio conceit. Whew. Like, I can get tired of that, but I know for me and a whole lot of other normies who like still have audio podcasts that they need to go find, right?

Zach Armstrong: That's gonna be something,

Lauren Shippen: Well, and I like Yeah. And it's, and it's, and it's something that I, that I still play with myself and like I, yeah, I think, I think it absolutely works in your project extremely well. And I think that, like, I think [00:30:00] that that limited scope can, can be a real, real gift. And I think, I think you can, you can have a very limited scope even without sort of the mo motivated audio.

New Creative Projects and Experiments
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Lauren Shippen: Um, but I do think that like. From a, I think from a sound design perspective, like it, it creates a richness in the world that is so immediate. Um, like you sort of immediately know the environment that you're in. Um, and I think that that can be a little bit harder to accomplish. Like I. Another very limited in scope and also very large in scope project.

Lauren Shippen: I've, I've, I, I've done these, if you'll allow me to go on a little tangent for a moment.

Zach Armstrong: Please, please.

Breaker Whiskey and New Year's Day: Picking Narrative Constraints
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Lauren Shippen: Um, I've done these two projects over the last two, three years. I don't even remember when I started Breaker Whiskey. Um, but the first was a, a motivated audio thing, which is, um, I wanted to do a show.

Zach Armstrong: Whiskey is the, the post-apocalyptic audio journal,

Lauren Shippen: Yes, exactly, and it's, and it's somebody calling out on a CB radio.

Lauren Shippen: Then I actually recorded on a CB radio so that I don't have to do any sound design.

Zach Armstrong: Um,

Lauren Shippen: [00:31:00] It's great. It's, it's so fun and, and I'm, I'm not really, I, I do like two episodes a month now, um, one of which is always a listener message.

Zach Armstrong: with listener call-ins in a fun way with that, don't

Lauren Shippen: Yes. Yeah. So one episode a month is a listener message and then And sometimes recorded. Yeah. And, and it's totally like they just submit it and, and it's me being like, you tell me what's going on in like, your timeline, in your world, in your apocalypse, or whatever. Um, and then like, I just sort of improvise a response. But for the first year it was. yeah. How's your apocalypse? The new greeting?

Lauren Shippen: Um, but the, the first year it was, it was, I did, um, I mean, you know, kind of what, what, what, what you've done. The consistent art practice where I did five episodes a week for a year, um, which was really, really fun and like really challenging and like that, I think like the, the, the, the CB radio, you know, calling out breaker, breaker, like that very much has like that immediately places you in a, in a, in a.

Lauren Shippen: In a place in time, right.

Lauren Shippen: You like immediately know, kind of like where you are and kind of the, the, and even as the world gets built out around that, like it [00:32:00] for me, the recorded audio. And that worked really well. The other project that I'm doing, uh, sort of consistently is a project called New Year's Day, which is a yearly podcast.

Lauren Shippen: It comes out once a year. On New Year's Day, and it really is just like I, it basically came from like, well, I'm doing breaker whiskey. What's the opposite of a daily podcast? A yearly podcast? I've been wanting to write something for Andrew and Briggon who are both in The Bright Sessions for years. Like the three of us have wanted to work on something.

Lauren Shippen: And I think what's interesting about that is there is no... audio conceit, like you're just dropped into wherever you are, but it's still very, very constrained. It is still these two people having a conversation on New Year's Day, and that is just over and over the course of, of decades, right? There are two immortal magicians that, um, sort of meet up every, every 13 years on New Year's Day to, to catch up. Um, and, and so like I think that, that it can be very useful to find constraints in whatever way you can. Right. For me, with New Year's Day, it was like, [00:33:00] well, I have to tell all of the story in one episode a year for 10 years like that, that has, I have to plan that out.

Zach Armstrong: It's great practice at not being heavy handed

Lauren Shippen: Exactly.

Zach Armstrong: as much as you can.

Lauren Shippen: Exactly. Exactly. And also like I have to give a sense of like mood and time period and vibe without any kind of framing device, without any kind of like.

Lauren Shippen: There's no narration, there's no banner saying they're in Chicago and it's 1893, right? Like it just, yeah, it just like you have got the top, the, the, the title of the episode, which gives you date and time, right. Or year in time, but like, you don't know where they. Are at any given moment. And so like, I, yeah, that's, that's been really, really fun to do.

Lauren Shippen: Um, because that's a type of constraint that I hadn't really experimented with with before and has, and has been really, really fun and continues to be fun. 'cause I'll be doing it until 2030. Oh, sorry, 23, 3,

Zach Armstrong: 2033.

Lauren Shippen: got eight

Lauren Shippen: more years. [00:34:00]

Zach Armstrong: that's right. What, what a

Lauren Shippen: Okay.

Zach Armstrong: to sign yourself on for. That's,

Lauren Shippen: I mean, we'll see like, you know, anything could happen. We could, you know, the internet could collapse in the next five years and there's no way to distribute it, but I'm gonna keep making it as long as I can.

Zach Armstrong: That's right, that's right. Yeah. That's, uh, HBO you want, you wanna sign which of my shows, right?

Lauren Shippen: Okay. But you can only do one episode a year, and that's honestly what TV feels like a little bit now.

Zach Armstrong: You mentioned doing a, um, doing a regular, kind of a disciplined practice of creating, uh, was it five, you were creating five episodes a week for a

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: Okay. Were those, was that mostly like a creative discipline like for, for repetition and, and practice in that space?

Lauren Shippen: yeah, basically I, I just sort of had the goal of like, okay, you're writing 2000 words every single week. 'Cause each episode is between like one and five minutes on average. Um, and so, you know, sort of [00:35:00] 500 words per episode was kind of like what I was looking for, four to 500 words per episode. Wait, is that how that math works?

Lauren Shippen: I can't remember exactly what it was. Um, but yeah, aiming for.

Zach Armstrong: a show for creatives. They're not gonna check

Lauren Shippen: Great. Perfect. Um, and, and, and that just sort of like setting up an editing cadence as well and kind of, you know, like, like planning things out. And I think, I think one thing that was really helpful for me is I knew I wanted it to be one voice.

Lauren Shippen: I knew I wanted it to be something that I sound designed entirely myself. Right. Which is why I would side CB radio. 'cause I was like, I can just order a CB radio off of eBay and record through that, which is what I did. Um. But then also, like I made it a road trip because A, I love road trips. Um, and B, when I was out of ideas, it was like, well, okay, where in the country is she?

Lauren Shippen: Like, can she go see something that would've existed in 1965 before her timeline branched like 1968? God, I, I don't even remember the details of my own show. Um. And that was, that was really fun. 'cause it's like having, having sort of like a, a literal road that I was putting her [00:36:00] on helped kind of keep that creative practice up by providing inspiration that was just like out there in the world.

Zach Armstrong: Yes. You, and you've seen Arrival, I

Lauren Shippen: Yes. Love arrival.

Zach Armstrong: Spoilers for arrival, uh, for anybody. It's been out long enough, but I think what's happening to you, as you've written, is what happens to the main character in Arrival where you've written enough time travel now

Lauren Shippen: Yeah. Where I'm just like,

Zach Armstrong: gonna start time traveling like Lauren Shippen yourself, you're gonna start time traveling.

Lauren Shippen: yes.

Zach Armstrong: character in Arrival starts to see across time

Lauren Shippen: Yep, yep. That's exactly it.

Zach Armstrong: So it's my professional diagnosis as a fiction enjoyer.

Lauren Shippen: Eventually your brain does just become mush about your own stories.

Zach Armstrong: Ab yes, absolutely. As, as somebody doing it on the business side and, uh, doing SEO because I need to, not because I want to.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: My brain is, my brain is

Zach Armstrong: mush.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: Keywords and things like that.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah.

Zach Armstrong: it's beautiful. A beautiful motion. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for spending the time, uh, to [00:37:00] chat about creative process and

Lauren Shippen: Oh, thank you.

Outro
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Zach Armstrong: narratives for audio. Uh, if people, uh, they're gonna go listen to the Bright Sessions, obviously, if they haven't, where else should they go? Uh, look for you in your work.

Lauren Shippen: Yeah, um, you can just go to lauren shippen.com or atypical artists.co to see the shows that I've worked on. I'm also on Blue Sky and on Tumblr. Those are the only two bits of social media that I am still on, so, uh, come find me on Tumblr. That's really where I hang out these days.

Zach Armstrong: Excellent. Fantastic. Well thank you so much, Lord.

Lauren Shippen: Thank you. This is so fun.

Speaker: In the description, you'll find a link to Reese Hopper's creative Consistency challenge, and if you have an interest in content marketing, you can sign up for my newsletter down there too. Now it's time for me to close my sketchbook and for you to open yours.