"Lazy," Chartreuse replied. And I am too, reviving this short feature I wrote about a pulpy old radio show. Still, I believe that radio shows from the 30's and 40's are key for podcast writers. On the bitty iPod screen and earbuds, old time radio style could be an unusual but effective tool for wooing audiences.
In my own writing, I'm trying to absorb that hardboiled, over-dramatic, and image-driven narration style; it's intimate as a little kid leaning against a radio receiver...
"Over the last couple months, I've listened to hundreds of old radio shows, chasing pulpy stories by writers like Cornell Woolrich and Robert Sheckley. I was destined to be a radio show writer like them, but cruel fate handed me this blog instead.
Recently, I've obsessed over old episodes of I Was a Communist for the FBI. This show juiced up the adventures of Matthew Cvetic, an undercover agent who infiltrated the communist party headquarters in western Pennsylvania sixty years ago. Cvetic surfaced in the early 1950's, right as the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings axed hundreds of Hollywood artists for communist sympathies. In the fallout, this bizarre FBI agent landed a book, radio, and movie deal about his exaggerated adventures."
Keep reading...
Now Boog, this is an interesting idea...
I have an undying love for those old radio shows (particularly the noir stuff, Dragnet, etc.) and have thought before that there's a lot we can learn from those old timers.
Of course, we're not running business podcasts, so there's lots of room to move around in. But in this age of total transparency... I've wondered just how far an audience would follow a writer down the rabbit hole of style in regards to a podcast.
Sure, the problem is solved if you're producing a theatrical show... but where does that leave the writer who's just reading his own stuff?
It's good to be alive.
Posted by: Robert Bruce | March 9, 2006 6:41 PM | Permalink to Comment