When it comes to podcasts, I’m always looking for something new and different to listen to—and I think I’ve just stumbled upon my next one.
I admit to having been a fan of Serial, and am pretty much ride-or-die for The X-Files, so the fact that Limetown is being billed as the lovechild of the two is enough to catch my notice right off the bat. Even though there’s only three episodes so far, the series is getting major play on iTunes.
The thing about Limetown is that it’s actually a fictional podcast—sort of in the vein of Welcome to Night Vale in that it’s closer to an audio drama, but there’s also that investigative aspect that sets it apart from other shows.
The first season of the show follows Lia Haddock, a journalist who sets out to look into the disappearance of a small community in Tennessee who seemingly vanished without any evidence left behind. Co-creators and producers Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie researched the history of other disappeared towns like Roanoke when coming up with their idea for Limetown. They’ve cast voice actors to fill each unique role and incorporated great sound effects—all of which contribute to creating the mysterious ambiance that permeates this kind of storytelling.
The benefit to creating a podcast, according to Akers, was that they had a bigger budget. “Part of the attraction to this was that the scope of it could be anything you want it to be, because you’re working with just soundscape, so there’s no reason to limit yourself. If you want to make it feel like a blockbuster film, it’s a lot cheaper to do it in your ears than in your eyeballs. So why not go all out and make it as big and real as possible.”
Akers and Bronkie have been releasing the show themselves without a distribution partner—but that wasn’t for lack of trying. It was just that no one really knew what to think of a fictional podcast at first. Based on the response they’re getting now, though, it looks like the sky is the limit for this team.
(via The Guardian, image via FOX)
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