Jeremy Childs kills Brian Russell – awesome!

Flu is an intense suspenseful DEADLY ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat (click here to download). Flu stars Jeremy Childs, Jenny Littleton, Stone Craig, Mary Bailey and Brian Russell.

In this scene, Thomas (Jeremy Childs) is having a semi-breakdown – he’s freaking out about the possibility of his 8-year old child, Anthony (Stone Craig), dying from a dangerous breakout of the swine flu.

After recording several of these radio dramas, I’ve found the best way to capture the audio performances is to record them like I would a film. Have them block out the scene (at least, somewhat) like they would on camera, have them interact with each other like they would, and so on…it helps with the performances and also helps with the audio shaping of the room in post. If they were both just standing at their individual audio booths, reading their lines back and forth, it would be good (they are both very good actors), but it would be missing that “something” you wouldn’t be able to put your finger on.

If you haven’t listened to Flu yet, I highly recommend that you turn off the lights and do so immediately (click here to download). Flu is an intense suspenseful psychological ride that touches on some genuine, identifiable fears I think we’ve all experienced…and recently.

These pictures (taken by Erika Senese) are of my father-in-law’s house and land. He and his wife live high up in the Ozarks.  It is extremely beautiful. And very isolated. This setting was the starting point for the most recent Midnight Radio Theater episode, “Flu.” The radio drama is about a family who chooses to seclude themselves in the mountains during a dangerous epidemic of the swine flu.

It wasn’t my father-in-law’s house or even his way of life necessarily that inspired me to write this story, it was the feeling of seclusion and isolation during my visits.

What are the effects on the psyche for long-term isolation? For short-term isolation?

Without giving away too much of the story, you don’t really get to know the grandpa first hand – he only has one scene in the entire piece. You mostly get to know him through the other characters, and, on a subconscious level, you get to know him through his life choice of long-term seclusion.  What qualities make up a person who has chosen to live secluded up in the mountains for 30+ years? A renegade spirit? Strong independence? Very proud? Intense ideologies?

Last year, the global community had a pretty brutal swine flu scare. While the 24-hour news channels were spreading the virus through fear mongering (ratings boosters), I often thought about this place. I wondered if it got bad enough, would we go live up there for a little while? For a couple of weeks, maybe? A couple of months? The feeling of the place would keep coming back to me during these spells. How long could we stay up there before the effects of long-term isolation took hold? Would any of us start to lose it? And what if we got up there, and the virus found its way up there anyway? Then what would happen? These were the questions that kept running through me and holding my interest, and eventually led me to sit down and start writing.

You often hear people say, “I was inspired by my teacher,” or, “My father was a real inspiration,” and so on…I’m not sure if you can be inspired by a person or a place as much as the feeling you experience from them. In this case, for me, it was the beautiful and scary feelings of isolation during my time at this place. I was “breathed upon.”

In the meantime…here is the preview for FLU – enjoy!

If you didn’t get a chance to hear it, here is Friday night’s show in its entirety.

June 4th, The Cosmic Punk Fergus Radio Free Shakedown, Guest Billy Senese

A disappearing man is no man at all.
This repeats over and over in my head.
I don’t know what it means.

The black spot has returned.
I wonder if it’s her fault.
It keeps following me from the other room.
It’s getting bigger.

The fucking moon, it’s too bright, it hurts my eyes.
Just a big pile of nothingness to look forward to.
I don’t like to think about it.

Fuck her, I don’t care about her.
Maybe the moon will get her, she deserves it.

She fucking deserves it.

Coming Soon, Flu, May 2010.

Abandoned
by Billy Senese

He was alone, abandoned.
A cold wind slapped his face.
It was the broken window.

Leftover candy wrappers.
A few dusty lemonheads loose
at the bottom of a drawer.
Was he dreaming? He hoped so.

What was that smell? Sour milk?
Dead skin? Everything echoed like
some post-apocalyptic disaster movie.

Why did it feel like there was a big,
deep hole eating away his stomach?
He used to think it was ok to be alone.
That was another life.

Something tugged at the corner of
his mind. Something terrible he
was supposed to remember.

More production stills, videos and previews from the film and the making of the film will be posted over the next few months.

(pictures taken by Will Fox and Scott Brooks)

In the sixth episode of the Midnight Radio Theater series, Blood Oath, the small idea was a poem. I’m not in the habit of writing poems. I’ve maybe written 10 poems in my entire life. But when the idea comes, you don’t question it, you just go with it – no matter how unfamiliar or illogical. When you listen to the radio play, you’ll see it’s a science fiction story (my only one, by the way) that on the surface has nothing to do with this poem. But the poem was, absolutely, the driving force behind it.

Marriage and Death
by Billy Senese

Her breath is warm in my chest.
A tingling sensation, unfamiliar,  passes through me.
It’s too cold in here; I should complain to someone.

What made us think this would go on forever?
Our vows were like a blood oath.

“You believe in this, don’t you?” I say.
“There is something greater here than the
two of us,” she says.
“I don’t care about any of that,” I say.

Her hair is wet. I don’t remember…
why is her hair wet? I think I’m going
to be sick. I just want it to end.

There is someone coming; I hear footsteps.
“I don’t want to watch,” I say.
“You’re obligated,” she says.

She stares at me, the dead weight of eternity in her eyes.

Midnight Radio Theater is a collection of short audio fiction by Billy Senese. Close your eyes and experience – compelling, unsettling, provocative, creepy, powerful, psychological, suspenseful – darkly entertaining stories.  Listen to the episodes for free at MidnightRadioTheater.com/Episodes.

OK…so that’s when I got the idea to produce radio dramas. No locations, no camera/lighting set-ups, no this, no that – the cost of producing stories just went way down. Everything became affordable suddenly, and I didn’t need outsiders to invest.

Midnight Radio Theater was born as merely a cheap way to produce stories. I wish I could say it had a more noble inspiration, like, “I really wanted to take the old-style radio dramas to much higher level. I wanted to completely reinvent the radio drama with modern stories and a sophisticated sound design that rivals big Hollywood films. Take the art of radio drama to a new place – re-discover it and give it back to the American Public reinvigorated!” No, I’m afraid I didn’t have such aspirations.

When I was finishing up my first episode, “Insomnia,” I had to listen to the thing over and over. And by this time I was sick and tired of it, but I pushed through, knowing it was almost finished. I still had no idea whether what I had created was any good. Nonetheless, the night came to premiere the piece. I invited my friends to the house, herded them all into the living room, shut off the lights, and turned it up louder than I should have.

When it was over, I got a tremendous response and, I have to say, I was truly surprised. Surprised at the great reaction and surprised at the interesting thing I had built. And I’m not just talking about the story – although the story was good – I’m talking about the possibility of what I had in front of me. Everyone at the listening party had a different interpretation and experience of what they heard (or thought they heard). The medium left things much more to the imagination than I would have thought. And I believe it’s about taking away our sense of sight. We depend on our sight a lot more than we admit. In the context of art, it has become a kind of co-dependent relationship. For instance, you watch a movie and your brain is told exactly what to imagine through pictures chosen by someone else. But…when you shut off the lights and take away the visual aspect, your brain is forced to do all the visualizing – working and creating pictures it chooses. In the end, I believe the audience can have a greater ownership of the art. A more independent experience.

I started listening to more radio after this discovery – mainly, This American Life. They are utilizing the power of imagination for all it’s worth (and have been for quite awhile now). This show has transcended modern radio and left everyone else in the field trying to catch up. They are at the top, in my opinion, and as I produce more episodes, I will always be aiming for the bar they have set.

I’m almost finished with my 7^th episode, and I have no plans to stop producing the show. After finishing each one, I find I get more excited about the potential of where I can expand the imagination of the show – and continue to push the boundaries of the medium.

However, my work is still entirely not relevant.