Check-in with Kristie Jardot, Executive Producer at HeartMatters

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
And now Audio Theater Central.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, welcome to Audio Theater Central. This is the show
that explores family friendly audio drama through news, reviews and interviews.
I'm your host, JD. Sutter. This is episode two twenty Well,
this is a jam packed episode. A lot going on.
We've got an interview with Christy Jardo, the executive producer
of the Heart Matters audio Dramas, coming up in a

(00:33):
little bit. We've got some feedback from Michael Blake and Jeremy.
We've got a whole ton of audio drama updates here
in just a few moments. And also I've got a
monologue by a guest and it's basically part two of
last time's topic about the value of a professional network.
So lots and lots to get to. I hope you

(00:55):
will stick with us for the duration. Before we jump
into the me of the episode, I have to say
real quickly quick announcement for our ATC backstage pass holders.
If you are a backstage member and you have a
Yahoo email address, all of our notification emails being sent

(01:16):
to you are getting rejected. They're bouncing back. We are
working with Yahoo support to try to figure out what's
going on. But in the meantime, I just wanted to
give you a heads up if you haven't been getting
any notification emails from us, that's why. So I don't
know if this will help, but maybe if you haven't already,

(01:37):
add our ATC email address to your white list or
your safe list or whatever Yahoo calls it, and maybe
that will help those emails come through. But we'll keep
working on it on our end. But I just wanted
to let you know. If you have an alternate and
email address, you might want to go log into backstage
and change that so you don't have that issue. But again,

(01:59):
I want to let you know. And obviously I can't
email you to tell you what's going on, so had
to do it here on the show. All right, well,
let's jump into the updates.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
We interrupt this program to bring you a special report.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
And in other news tonight.

Speaker 5 (02:15):
A brief look at the headlines.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Now they want exciting, fast piece news that's relevant and
entertaining like this.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Two quick reminders. First of all, one, as always, if
you have some news about an upcoming or a recently
released audio drama, let us know. Head over to PFM
dot link, slash ATC News or click the button on
our homepage let us know what's going on so we
can share it with the community. And number two talked

(02:43):
about this last time, but the three question survey about
audio dramas for you avid fans of audio drama. If
you haven't filled that out yet, please do so. Link
is in the show notes to go check that out.
It should only take you a couple of minutes. But
this is very helpful for us as creative in the space,
and so if you have a few minutes, please go

(03:04):
ahead and do that. The feedback is already coming in
and it's really really good stuff and I would love
to hear what you think as well. So if you
haven't done that, please take a minute and do that
for us. Next up is just a quick shout out
and congratulations to the team at Unshackled. This is the
longest running audio drama series in the world. They started

(03:27):
back in nineteen fifty and they just celebrated their seventy
fifth anniversary at the end of September. They recorded episode
three thousand, nine hundred and seven, their seventy fifth anniversary
special and that's just an absolutely amazing accomplishment, Just so
cool that they've been around for so long telling these

(03:49):
fascinating and amazing real life true stories. Such a cool
thing that they're doing. They're on over three thousand radio
stations still grow in st wrong, so huge congratulations to
Timothy Gregory and the entire team over there at Unshackled.
If you haven't checked out that show yet, why not
give it a chance. It is free. You can listen

(04:10):
to it via podcast or on their website unshackled dot org.
Check it out. Congrats again. A couple of upcoming events here.
World Audio Drama Day is just a couple of weeks away.
October thirtieth is World Audio Drama Day. They started back
in twenty thirteen as an organized movement and it was

(04:32):
set on the date of the original broadcast of Orson
Welles's production of The War of the Worlds, And so
October thirtieth is the day, and so we always want
to mark that as a day of celebration for our
community here. I don't know if we will do an
ATC community hangout or not. We did that last year.

(04:56):
If that's something you would like to do, get in
touch and let me know. We'll see what we can
put together if we get enough people saying that's something
they want to do, will make it happen. Next up
got a heads up for Realm Maker's Expo twenty twenty six,
So this is coming June of next year, June twenty
fourth through the twenty seventh in Saint Louis, Missouri at

(05:19):
Union Station. This is an expo that is a festival
of books and media by faith driven creators for fantasy
and sci fi fans. Registration begins on February first, twenty
twenty six. So this year, in twenty twenty five they
really started putting a focus on audio drama and the

(05:39):
Main Street Music Show performed there with Katie Lee and
Darby Kern and Micah Touchet. The Jake Muller Adventures team
were there, as was sound designer and producer of A
Bit of Time Travel and The Church at Russell Falls,
Ben Kemph and Callie Sue of twelve thirty two. There
are probably others that I'm blanking on right now, but

(05:59):
it is a place where if you are an audio
drama producer that is at all in the speculative fiction realm,
this is a good place to connect with potential fans,
and if you're an audio drama fan well, this is
a chance for you to possibly connect with some creators
of the shows that you enjoy and just find out

(06:20):
some other cool stories like books and video games that
are all made by Christians. So this is a great
a great event. The Realm Makers Expo coming next year.
All right, one upcoming release that actually hasn't even started
production yet, but we got some early news about it,

(06:43):
and I wanted to tell you so you can keep
an eye out for it when it does come. And
this is from the Mary Beggars producers of The Saints
and on the Night Train and the Christmas Carol Advent calendar.
It's called Exodus Journey into Freedom. This is the story

(07:05):
of Moses and the Exodus, and it is projected to
be a forty episode series. Here is the official copy
as of now. Egypt, thirteen ninety three BC. A Hebrew infant,
the son of Slaves, is adopted by an Egyptian princess
and raised in the court of Pharaoh. Forced to flee
after a horrific murder, God calls him to return to

(07:27):
his people and rescue them from slavery. What follows is
a wild and epic adventure of trials and triumphs, suffering
and sacrifice, failure and redemption. So they are still in
the early phases of this project, just going into casting
at this point, so it's a little ways out, but

(07:48):
I wanted to let you know that it is on
the horizon. Sounds really cool, all right. Moving into recent releases,
Generations two is out now from Sergeant Family Productions. They
have released the sequel to Generations that we've talked about
here on the show in the past. This one is
called Generations. To the DC gambit, in the swirl of

(08:12):
a hit man's revenge, two hackers face off in a
battle of wits that could shake the foundations of the
US government. Now, we played one trailer just a few
episodes back in ATC two thirteen, but now that it's out,
I wanted to play another trailer. So it was very
handy that they have two different trailers. So here is
a sample of Generations too.

Speaker 6 (08:39):
The Men of Power must think of himself as a
chess master. Are you saying that you have a task
that requires three of the best hit contract fulfillment operators
on the East Coast?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Let's call it a tale of two senators.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
I don't care anymore what people think It's time to
up the hill.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
You've done nothing except take up space in this chamber
for nine years. Isn't he planning to run for president?

Speaker 7 (09:08):
He is?

Speaker 2 (09:09):
We wanted to win.

Speaker 6 (09:12):
He organizes the wrecks and manipulates from outside the game.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Hey, Gedge, I'm picking up some really weird vibes. Kingston
has also hired a world class.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Hacker spy versus spy.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Something like that. But how does it help us?

Speaker 8 (09:28):
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
We're going to run a high stakes gambit.

Speaker 6 (09:36):
Ranberry, blackmail and intimidation become the president butter for the
want to be emperor.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
I think it's time for us to turn up the heat.

Speaker 8 (09:45):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
What is They're going to assassinate Senator Smith.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
It's the riskiest part of the overall plan.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
It always is when it's time to kill.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Who are you?

Speaker 1 (09:58):
I'm a man who's looking for some men information.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Don't they teach you anything in hacker school?

Speaker 1 (10:03):
If you want to live longer than fifteen seconds, you'll
tell me everything you know.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
There's got to be a way out. I don't think so.
Bro Melankey's right.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Outside the door.

Speaker 7 (10:14):
Release her or die, Kill them.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Sir, Stop Dad.

Speaker 6 (10:22):
Every so often. However, it remains only one of course elimination.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Hello, mister Nolan.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
God, if you don't help me now, I might be
seeing you in a few minutes.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
Generations to the DC gambit.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
If you are one who enjoys the longer form hybrid
audio drama audiobook format, which features a full cast and
a narrator with full sound effects in original music, this
one come in it over fifteen hours, so it's perfect
for road trips. And the regular price for this nearly
sixteen hours of content is only fifteen ninety five. I

(11:11):
mean that is fantastic, But stick around because I'm going
to give you a coupon code so that you can
get it for even less than that. But all of
the actors from the first production whose characters appear again,
they have returned to reprise their roles, and there are
a bunch of new characters, as you might expect for

(11:32):
a whole new story. So in the cast for this
sequel we have some amazing folks, including some familiar names
you might have heard of Bethany Baldwin, John Fornoff, and
yours truly. So I get to play Senator Smith's chief
of staff, Tony in this show, a really fun character

(11:53):
for me to get to play. Really enjoyed it, and
so I think you're going to enjoy this story. But
if you haven't listened to the first one yet, you're
going to want to listen to that one before you
listen to the sequel, because of course it's setting up
a lot of things. These are not standalone books in
the same universe. They are a continuing series, so you

(12:13):
will want to listen to or read the book of
the first one before you jump into the second one.
So as we've said before, Sargein Family Productions is targeting
the demographic of older kids and adults, so it's a
lot of action. Some stuff might be a little more
intense for younger listeners, so keep that in mind. They

(12:33):
are recommending it for ages fifteen and up. We talked
about them in the past on episode one eighty one
as well, so you can check out that episode for
a little bit more context about what they're trying to do.
But again, this one is out now on all the
major platforms. It's still coming on Audible, but it is

(12:53):
on a bunch of the others. But they also sell
it through their website through a platform called awesome Sound,
and they have so generously given us a coupon code
to give to you, especially for the ATC community, to
give you twenty percent off. Now, this works only if
you purchasing it through their website through the Awe Sound platform,

(13:15):
not through the audiobook platforms. So this coupon code is
ATC twenty twenty five, So ATC two zero two five.
Use that promo code on their website Sergeant Family Productions
dot com. Click the link to purchase on Awe Sound
and use that. Now, if this trailer that I just
played isn't enough to pull you in and help you

(13:38):
to make a decision on whether or not to purchase this,
on their website, they have a full chapter sample almost
ten minutes that you can listen to for free to
get more of an idea of how the story goes.
So huge thanks to Sergeant Family Productions for giving us
the coupon code making it super easy for people to

(13:58):
sample what they're doing. I'm really excited about what they're doing.
It's great stuff. Again, it is those longer form shows,
and I know this is not for everybody, but if
that is something that you enjoy, I definitely think this
is when you're gonna want to check out. So link
is in the show notes and that code again is
ATC twenty twenty five. All right. Another new release is

(14:21):
from Witnesses. The episode Sons and Strangers has been released.
This is a fourteen minute episode based on matthew seventeen
verses twenty four through twenty seven. Simon is challenged about
the Temple tax and Jesus gives him a unique task
in response. This features Nato, Jacobsen, Jonathan Bullock, Jonathan Cotton, Mark,

(14:43):
Henry Cooney, Daniel Cross, and David Sanborn. And here is
a little sample of Sons and Strangers.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
It feels like years since I've been on the water.

Speaker 5 (14:56):
He's being a tea set of men not suiting you
as well as you thought.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
Maybe word, if I actually had something to do. It
feels like I've spent all my time since leaving Capernium
listening and learning. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I enjoy learning from the Rabbi, but I understand.

Speaker 5 (15:14):
Come, let's go back to your rouse. Everyone is hungry,
I'm sure, And you know how John gets when he
is hungry.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Do you understand?

Speaker 5 (15:24):
Well, I'm still not sure why he called me either.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
My brother Andrew him. I understand he loved listening to
John the Baptizer, he was a student from Perth.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
But me, how about a text collector? What use could
I have for his work? I'm sure it will all
make sense one day.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Good stuff, good stuff, all right. Another new release, and
this one is from Voices in the Wind Audio Theater.
They have done a reproduction of the aforementioned orson Wells
and Mercury Theater on the airs production of the War
of the Worlds. Just talked about that a few minutes ago.

(16:05):
They have reproduced this. It's really cool. They've taken that
original script reproduced it with some original music and all
new sound effects. Obviously modern production methods, so the quality
is much higher than that original recording from the nineteen thirties.
So this is out now and it has a run

(16:26):
time of sixty minutes and it is available on their
website right now. Coming to those audio platforms like Audible
a little bit later. When you purchase directly from these producers,
they get a little they get to keep a little
bit more of that rather than having to split it
with these platforms. So if you can at all purchased
directly from producers and that helps them out a lot.

(16:48):
So anyway, really cool to hear somebody tackle this original
script from nineteen thirty eight and having it come out
in the month that the original broadcast happened is really cool.
So check that out. From Voices in the Wind Audio Theater.

(17:09):
Next up is a brand new show from a brand
new producer. This is called The Return of Epsilon Seven.
This is a new superhero audio drama from Over the
Hill Productions and here is the official summary. Epsilon seven
was an unstoppable superhero until he vanished after a battle

(17:29):
with the Nighthawk. Now, Nelson Locke tries to track him
down to stop the rampage of the Iron Condor. But
is Epsilon seven really the hero everyone thinks he is?
And if he stops the Iron Condor what then? This
superhero drama looks at themes of pride, surrender, and justice
versus vengeance. It also draws parallels to the stories of

(17:52):
Samson and Nebekinezzer. Featured in the cast are John Tuttle,
The Thid, Glenn Haskell, Bethany Baldwin, and Ian Lalam, Austin Peachey,
Caleb Bresler, Caleb Teeson and more so, this is being
released episodically via podcast, but you can purchase the entire
full cut of the nearly seventy five minute show for

(18:15):
only seven dollars, so that is super cool. I think
it's great to see producers tackling multiple methods of distribution.
So there is a link in the show notes to
the website. You can go listen to the first episode.
They're being released weekly, I believe, on the podcast version,
but if you enjoy it, go purchase a copy to

(18:37):
help support these producers. Again, it's only seven dollars for
a feature link show, so that's really cool. Some great
talent on the voice acting side involved with this one.
So that is the return of Epsilon seven. All right, Well,
we talked about Voices in the Winds production of The

(18:57):
War of the World's happening in October, which is the
month in which World Audio Drama Day happens. But also
October is National Bullying Prevention Month. So Heart Matters is
releasing a three episode mini series called The Bullying Triangle.
Now you're going to hear this reference in the conversation

(19:20):
that I had with Christy Jardou in the interview segment
coming up. But this story is about three high school girls,
Katie the bully, Alexis the bullied, and Laura the bystander.
Each episode will focus on one of those characters from
her own perspective. With each episode you will gain new
insights and information on the full picture of how the

(19:43):
bullying situation happens and the fallout from it. So this
sounds absolutely fascinating. They did something similar with The Darkness Duology,
but this is obviously a brand new story again. It's
called The Bullying Triangle. It was written by Darby Kern,
with music by Jerry Depesqual and sound designed by Oscar Corral.

(20:05):
The cast includes Tamara Green, Betsy Nicholson, Rose Beasley, and
Sarah Klein. So the first episode is called Bullied and
it was released on October. First episode two, Bully, will
be released on October eighth, and the final episode, Bystander,
is releasing on October fifteenth. So head over to the

(20:28):
Heart Matters app to check this out and all of
their past audio dramas. It's available on all the different
platforms Apple, Google, Amazon, so link in the show notes
to go grab that app and listen to The Bullying Triangle.
And lastly, for our new releases, Jake Muller Adventures is back.

(20:49):
The third Jake Muller is out now it's called Undead.
When Jake takes his nephew Peter to Louisiana to see
the filming of a movie about him, they also make
plans to visit some friends. Julienne Courmier, who changed the
course of his life, is one of them. So is
his former captain, whose health has taken a surprising turn.
So why are young people disappearing? And what has driven

(21:12):
Julienne's best friend to apparent suicide and what is all
this talk about? Zombies? Battle lines are being drawn and
Jake Muller isn't about to back off from a fight.
This one was written by Micah Toousche and Darby Kern,
directed by Darby Kern, and produced and sound designed by
Mica Touche with music by Jared di Pasqual. This thing

(21:35):
is over two hours long. I have not had a
chance to listen as of the recording of this episode,
but it is on my list to get to it
right away. Love what they're doing over there, just super
high quality, amazing storytelling. As we've said in the past,
these are intended for an older demographic, so it may

(21:55):
not be appropriate for really young listeners, so just keep
that in mind. Mind but they are approaching these pop
culture topics from a biblical and Christian perspective. So link
is in the show notes to the Jake Muller website
to go ahead and grab your copy. It is available
on CD and digital download. Jake Muller Adventures Undead.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Testing one, two three testing.

Speaker 8 (22:19):
That was just me talking.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
I do that a lot.

Speaker 9 (22:22):
Where's my speech?

Speaker 3 (22:23):
How long you've been work with it? That's what I
want to talk about.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
So here's what I'm thinking. I'm still thinking about what
we talked about last time, the value of networking and
the value of building relationships and basically just having a
good reputation in the world of audio drama production. This
is a follow up to last episode's monologue, and I

(22:50):
heard from a few people who really resonated with what
I shared in the last episode, and that includes Christopher
Green who sent me a voice recording and I am
going to share that with you in this episode here
in the monologue, and as with the last one, this
is intended for creatives in the space, So if that's

(23:11):
not you, you're not interested at all in this side
of things. You're just a fan of good audio drama,
totally get that. Feel free to skip to the next
segment if this is not your thing, but if you
are interested in, if you are a creative in the space,
I encourage you to go ahead and give this a listen.
Christopher Green is obviously known to this community as my

(23:32):
creative partner on the Greenhorn Tales comedy series, and we
have worked together on several other projects. I've voiced characters
for him on Shadows on Daylight, I've worked with him
on the Time Truck Chronicles, and we have known each
other for many years now. And so he sent this
over to me, and I thought, this is some really

(23:54):
valuable information and I'm going to share it here in
this segment in the place of the monologue from me
this time. So here's Christopher.

Speaker 7 (24:05):
I was listening to the monologue segment of the most
recent episode, and first of all, congratulations on fifteen years
of ATC. While to think that it has been that
long the ATC has been around and providing such a
benefit to audio drama fans and increasingly so to audio

(24:27):
drama creators, as you spoke about in the monologue segment,
which has quickly become my favorite part of Audio Theater
Central's podcast, which as a side note, if listeners of
the podcast have been listening for a long time and
are unaware, Audio Theater Central is larger than just the podcast.
There's a whole website with articles and things that are

(24:50):
never actually in the podcast itself, So if somehow you've
missed that, go check it out. There's some great articles
there to read. But I kind of wanted to share
some thoughts that I had in the recent monologue. I
totally and wholeheartedly agree with the importance of relationship and
networking and that kind of thing in that space, and

(25:13):
it is a bit hard to describe to people because
you don't want to make them feel like you're saying that,
you know, you should just network with people and make
friendships with people so that you can get something out
of it. I love how you said that in you
know more blessed to give them received, that the giving

(25:34):
comes first in the order before you receive, And it
is very true, and sometimes they come hand in hand too.
I've been very blessed to be able to connect with
a lot of people in this space who are working
with excellence, and I think that excellence is contagious, as

(25:57):
you mentioned, and the audio drama to clip that you
don't just want to seek maybe the industry pros, but
also your peers as well and everyone around. But surrounding
yourself with people who are putting the hard work in
I think for me personally, has inspired me to do better,

(26:19):
to try harder, not in a sense of competition, but
perhaps more of a sense of accountability, where maybe in
isolation working on my own projects, I might be tempted
to cut corners and be like, eh, this is good enough,
and there's a place for not becoming perfectionists, of course,

(26:39):
but you can slide into the other extreme when you
have no point of reference and become lazy, especially when
you're just working for yourself, when you're working for other people,
maybe going above and beyond which you are working on
your own shows. You know, I produce the show Shadows
of Daylight for myself, for no one really, and they're
definitely times where I was tempted to cut corners in

(27:02):
certain production aspects, maybe not go as detailed in certain
scenes than I ultimately did, but being in a space
constantly seeing what others are putting out kind of just
inspired me to be like to do a good job basically,
you know. So there's that aspect, but it's also like
being in that space is like you can learn from

(27:23):
other people. It's not just networking as in like maybe
this person will need a voice actor and I'm a
voice actor or something like that, but also being able
to learn from other people's successes and failures and that
kind of thing where they say, hey, I tried this thing,
it worked great, and you can oh cool, I'm want
to try that too. I've learned some very interesting sound

(27:44):
design techniques from doing stuff early on with Kevin McCreary
of Sego Night Kevin and the ceiling fan techniques that
he taught me. I've learned from listening to some stuff
not probably anybody that we would know in this immediate space,
and the family friendly the audio drama, but other indie
productions of what I don't want to do. So you know,

(28:07):
it's always learning, and then you have things. I have
things to share that I've been able to share with others,
and I go back to something that is near and
dear to the listenership. I believe of audio theater Central
and the greater community of that is the Audio Drama Alliance,
that the people within that circle increasingly are becoming some

(28:32):
of the best people in this family friendly, independent audio
drama space. Some of the greatest talent is coming to there,
and some of the greatest talent is coming through there
as they're growing and learning and maturing as a space,
things like what Heart Matters has done, and a lot

(28:52):
of connection with many members of the Audio Drama Alliance
and that kind of thing. So it's beenantastic to see
what the Audio Drama Alliance has become through your leadership, JD.
I've gained so much through the Audio Drama Alliance and
through the connections there. I have a full time video

(29:14):
production job that is unrelated to audio drama, but I
also freelance heavily in audio drama and other content creation.
But most, if not nearly, all of my freelance connections
have come through building these relationships, be it in the
Audio Drama Alliance or through people in the Audio Drama

(29:36):
Alliance referrals through that kind of thing. This is not
intended as a commercial for the Audio Drama Alliance so
much as it is to bolster the point that you've
been making JD that connections are so valuable in again,
you can't do it in a way that is just
for that end goal. For example, I had a recent

(29:58):
two recent experiences where I was talking to individuals who needed,
in one case a recommendation for a piece of hardware
that they were looking to purchase, and another person just
more of a casual conversation about their production and curiosity
about what software they were using. Though both of those

(30:18):
conversations led to opportunities for me to be able to
show and share what I can do for them to
help them with their productions. And so I didn't start
either of those conversations out going like, hey, how can
I manipulate this into a sales pitch. I started those

(30:41):
conversations out of genuine curiosity, in genuine conversation with these
people who I was interested in talking to. And I
think that's what it comes down to. You have to
be interested in this space, interested in learning from others,
interested in contributing and benefiting to others through conversation too,

(31:01):
and not necessarily looking to get anything out of it.
And this is what I'm trying to get is you
don't give to get, but you will always get you
will get friendships even in explaining to someone. Teaching someone
how to do something the way that you see them
process it, or the way that you think about it

(31:22):
in your own mind as you are processing how to
explain it to another person will unlock new ways of
thinking about it and inevitably end up helping you to
learn something new about things that you thought you already
knew as well. So anyway, there's so much value in
all that. So I really am just echoing a lot
of what you said, But love, love, love those thoughts

(31:44):
and gain congratulations on fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well. First of all, thank you so much for the
kind words and for sharing some of your experiences. Christopher
deeply appreciate it. Always a joy to hear from you
and to collaborate with you on projects. But what I
loved about this and why I decided it was appropriate
to go ahead and share this recording on the podcast
in this segment is as he said in the recording,

(32:10):
it bolstered a lot of the points that I was making,
but it also illustrated some great examples, some real world
anecdotal evidence of the concepts that I was talking about
last time. So I was talking more from a high
level informational standpoint and just giving some tips and tricks,
whereas he took what I was talking about and actually

(32:32):
gave some real world examples that he has experienced in
his own work as a creative in this space, and
so I thought that was valuable to share with you.
So thank you again, Christopher, and thank you for listening.
And if you have any ideas for topics you'd like
me to address here in the monologue segment going forward,
I am definitely open to hearing from you.

Speaker 8 (32:54):
I have some very important information and I thought i'd
be getting it into the hands of a real reporter.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
Sir, can I speak to you a moment?

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Oh well, there's nothing to it. I just ask you
the questions and you answered them in the tape recorder
here played the interview.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Well, in just a couple of minutes, I'm going to
be playing an interview that I recorded with Christy Jardou
of Heart Matters, Inc. In Oklahoma. She is the executive
producer of the audio dramas that Heart Matters has been
producing recently, along with other duties that she has at
that ministry, at that organization. And if perhaps this is

(33:30):
your first time listening to ATC and you hadn't heard
about Heart Matters before and you want a little bit
more information about their organization and what they do. We
talked all about that with Christy in her previous appearance
on the show in episode one ninety six, So that
is linked in the show notes if you want to
give that a lesson too. But last month, Heart Matters
held an event in early September for cast and crew

(33:54):
who have worked on their shows. It was called Celebrating
Stories of Light and I was privileged to be able
to be there. Incidentally, it happened to land right on
my birthday, and the team there even got me a
birthday cake and had everyone sing Happy Birthday to me.
It made it very very special for me, So thank
you to the Heart Matters team and to everybody there

(34:16):
for making that night special for me personally, even though
it was not about me at all, it really made
my day. But aside from that, the event itself was
just great to be able to hear some of the
impact that their stories they are making and the heart
behind what they're doing, and just to connect with some
of the other creatives that I've been able to appear

(34:38):
in shows with, and things like that, so it was
just a wonderful event. And after the event itself, I
was able to sit down with Christy and just talk
a little bit about the impact these stories have been
having and be able to share this with you everybody
here in the ATC community and kind of let her
reflect back on the last several months of producing audio

(35:03):
drama and how that has fit into what they're doing there.
And you'll also hear us mention hearing from John Fornoff.
He was the speaker at the event, and he spoke
about how stories can change the world. So that's just
a little context for you when we get to that
part in the conversation, so you'll understand what was being
referred to there. But this was recorded on location at

(35:23):
their office, not in a studio with a handheld microphone,
so there is a bit of room noise, some room reflections,
and some MI handling noise. I did my best to
minimize all of that, but you know, in a situation
like that, you can't eliminate it entirely, So I hope
that doesn't detract from the message that Christy has to share.
You can definitely hear her heart for the work they're doing,

(35:44):
and I just am really excited to bring this conversation
to you in this episode today. Again, it was recorded
a month ago, so as you heard in the updates segment,
the Bullying Triangle has already started releasing and Christy references
that it is coming. So again, the first part is

(36:05):
already available in their app, so go ahead and check
that out. But let's go ahead and give a listen
to this conversation that I had with Christy Jardo. I
am here at the Beautiful Heart Matters headquarters in Martlesville, Oklahoma,
with Christy Jardo, lead program coordinator and executive producer of
the Heart Matters Audio Dramas. We had a great event

(36:27):
here this weekend, and first of all, before we get
into all of the stuff that I want to talk about,
I just want to say thank you Christy for having
the cast and crew down for this event. It was
I can't even think of the appropriate word. It was
just a wonderful evening, So thank you very much.

Speaker 8 (36:42):
Absolutely, we were so happy to do it. Austin Peachee
is the one that put it all together. But we
wanted to have something because Sonicon wasn't happening this year,
so we thought what could we do to honor and
thank the contractors that have been working with us and
honestly the people who have helped launch that app to
where it is right now because of the audio dramas.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah. Well, and speaking of the audio dramas, now we're
about a year and a half from the launch of
the app. And we talked previously in ATC one ninety
six back in February of twenty twenty four, and we
talked a little bit about, you know, heart Matter's mission,
why you decided to get into audio drama in the
first place. And so here we are eighteen ish months later.

(37:28):
I'd really like to hear your thoughts on what you've
released thus far and maybe now that this has fully
come to fruition, how are you observing that this content
is fulfilling that mission for you.

Speaker 8 (37:39):
Yeah, it's been eighteen months. I can't even believe it.
We are chugging along again. Austin Peach is our audio
content producer, so he is the one that's kind of
overseen and being the one to help bring these up
with you working with the contractors. From the music composers,
there's the video or the voice actors, the sound designers,

(38:01):
everybody that it takes to do this. The writers, I
know I'm missing something, the voice track editors, all of
these people that help bring these stories alive. It's been
an amazing adventure, honestly, because this is something that is
not in my wheelhouse. You know when it's God calling
you into something because it's something that you have no
idea how to do it, but He helps you and

(38:23):
prepares you along the way. Here I am as an
executive producer. I you have that science and math kind
of brain, but I get to work with all of
these creative people, these actors and the music composers, and
I get to see their content and see what they
do these gifts that God has given them. It's been
absolutely amazing. So I am very happy to be able
to be a part of that. So we've had a

(38:45):
lot of audio dramas come out since then, things where
we talk about sex, stortion, it's something that's happening to
our kids right now, mostly our boys. We get to
talk about things like, well, I don't want to give
some things away.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
But were able to do.

Speaker 8 (39:00):
We just came out with Potion of Power, which is
an incredible audio drama that basically says we need a savior.
But even in the feedback we've gotten from that, they
talk about, hey, this is addiction, and we see how
that affects people, and this is exactly how it is.
People don't think they can live without that, but they
know that the Lord can bring him through it. And
that's what is our hope through the Potion of Power

(39:20):
is just say we all need a savior and he
is here for us, and he's here to help us,
and he can bring us out of whatever that thing
may be, such as addiction. He can bring you out
of that. And so we also trying to think of
some of the other things. A Lifetime we came out
with at the beginning of this year. It's a pro
life audio drama, but you wouldn't know it necessarily. We

(39:42):
just wanted to be able to portray obviously the Lord
cares about life and we do too, and so being
advocates for that. Just being able to bring that story
to life in a way just really touches my heart
that I'm able to be able to do so thing
like that from this end. Obviously I wouldn't act in

(40:03):
it or anything like that, but just to be able
to bring that story to life. Love doing that and
then we do things for the whole family, like super Distracted.
You've got a superhero that's very distracted by his phone,
and so it's great, it's a comedy, it's light, but
it also kind of hits you, like, you know what,
we can all get distracted sometimes. I mean, I'm speaking
from experience with our phone, so to be able to

(40:25):
bring that to life and just in a fun way
kind of let people know. But hopefully kids will be
able to hear that too and think, you know what,
I shouldn't be on my phone as much because I'm
mean distracted too. So a lot of those different things
we want to touch on a lot of it. Not
every audio dramas for everyone, because you know, we do
have age restrictions on some of them, but we want
families to sit down and listen to them together so

(40:45):
that we can open up the conversations about these things.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah, well that's exactly right, and I appreciate your tackling
a myriad of different issues because they're all important and
we need to be talking about these things. And to
your point about the potion of Power, yes, it does
speak to the person who might be dealing with addiction,
but I think as I was listening to it. I
was listening also from a perspective of somebody who has

(41:10):
known somebody who's dealing with that, and so you can
see some things to do and something's not to do
when you're dealing with somebody who's going through something like that.
So it works in both ways.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
I love that we got that from there, I really do.

Speaker 8 (41:24):
I appreciate that perspective too.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
So here we are twelve standalones, two mini series with
Princess and Darkness Zoology so far, total of about almost
twenty episodes. And I'm sure you've gotten some feedback from
listeners or maybe even people involved in the projects. I'd
love to hear maybe some of the impact that these
stories have been having thus far.

Speaker 8 (41:46):
Yeah, I love that, Yes, we have, we have gotten feedback.
Austin people will reach out to him and just give
him their feedback of how it made them feel, what
they thought about working on it, and then we've just
gotten listeners perspective to their feedback. So I do have
a couple. Lori Twitchell, she was the writer of Princess,

(42:07):
and so she sent us something back and she said,
not gonna lie. This one was tough. The way through
while I was writing it, how do you address some
of those heavier topics for middle school age audiences without
getting into more adult ratings or looming, preachy or expository.
And so she just said it took some digging, a
lot of tears, and a lot of hours, but it
turned out incredibly and I have hope that it's going

(42:28):
to change lives, and that is sorry. That is why
we do what we do, and so just to bring
that hope to people who don't have it, but also
to bring awareness. I mean, Princess is about familial trafficking,
and a lot of people don't know that a lot
about it. You know, sometimes when people think of trafficking,
I think it's becoming more known now that hey, it

(42:48):
is happening here in the United States.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
A lot of people think about take and.

Speaker 8 (42:52):
I don't know, if you remember that movie from a
long time ago, that oh, it happens somewhere else, but
it doesn't happens here. And we even know in a
towns such as Bartlesville thirty five thousand people and some
surrounding towns are a lot smaller, familial trafficking is happening.
And so that's why we wanted to bring light to
this so that we can bring awareness to other people
and let them know this is going on. It's going

(43:14):
on all around the United States. It's going on in
your community and in your neighborhood. So we want people
to really be able to understand it more, to see
those signs, to look forward, to know that there's something
that you can do too, and being proactive about seeing something.
So that's where Princess came from.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Well, and again you're covering both sides of the equation
that you're talking about, the trafficked and those all involved
in it, on both sides of the good and the bad.
And it's such important work. So hats off to you
guys for tackling these issues.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (43:49):
I really appreciate that we've had people just say, hey,
thanks to Heart Matters for being bold enough to tackle
the subject, and that every family and every church needs
to hear this. So that's kind of what we want
to do, is to get that the app out there
so that people can listen to these things, because again,
not everybody knows and so we want to bring awareness
of that. We want to bring light to the darkness.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Go download the app if you're listening. Obviously you are
go download the app right now. Any other bits of
feedback you want to share.

Speaker 8 (44:19):
Yeah, So one of the things that we reached out
was a Potion of Power because it is so powerful,
it is so well done. If people haven't listened to it,
they really need to because every part about that is
just amazing. But somebody had said, hey, I just listened
to the Potion of Power and brought me to tears.
The acting was phenomenal, the script was impactful, the music
was fantastic. It was truly beautiful. So again, the Lord

(44:42):
is putting these contractors in our say, in our way
that doesn't sound right. He's bringing them to us so
that they can, you know, share their gift while glorifying
Him and what they're doing by sharing hope of Christ
in these things too, because that's the other piece of this.
While we want audio dramas and we want to entertain people,

(45:04):
we want to teach people, but most importantly, we want
to bring the hope of Christ to them because He's
what matters, and so to glorify Him in doing this
for people to be on board with us, to obey
the calling that he's calling them to do, whether it's
acting or you know, creating music or sound designing. That's
what this is all about, is glorifying Him. So I

(45:25):
was trying to see if there was anything else said
I got. Somebody had said, you know, this is a beautiful, powerful,
intriguing story. It's full of twists and turns and unexpected things,
and I've got a powerful theme at its heart, and
again it's Christ. And so I hope that that's what
people get out of that when they listen to it again,
it's you've got the addiction piece, things to do and

(45:47):
not to do, but most importantly, it just points people
to Christ.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Yeah, absolutely, it's such great stuff. Now you said it earlier. Well,
I'm not a voice actor. I'm not really involved. I
was thinking, but I know you've done a few bit
parts here and there in these shows, So are there
any of them that you want to share? Tell the listener,
like some of the bit parts that you've done, and
how has that experience been for you.

Speaker 4 (46:08):
It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker 8 (46:09):
I know it's not my wheelhouse, but I have a
great director in Austin because he will pull it out
of you. So that's a good thing when you know
you're going in there and you know he's going to
be patient with you and he's going to pull those
things out. Okay, great, but I want you to do
it this way now, you know. So that's a lot
of fun to be able to do that. Thankfully it's
not on camera because I can't even imagine what that
might look like. Some of the things that I've done,

(46:32):
I am not going to tell you because then people
listener and are like, oh, yeah, you're right, that's not
her thing.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
No, I'm just kidding. I do have one.

Speaker 8 (46:39):
Well I probably shouldn't say, but I get to actually
work alongside my husband, and this part is kind of
I have to be irritated with him.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
I'm like, oh, that is not a problem.

Speaker 8 (46:50):
No, No, I think it's a lot of fun. Though again,
to be on that side of it totally different. But
I get actually more of appreciation for people that do this.
You know, at our event last night, to see people
volunteer to get up and do some of the audio
dramas we've already done, just you know a few pages

(47:11):
of out of the script and to see them not
have a clue exactly what the scene is. You know,
Austin says, well, here's the scene you're going to play
this character and you have to play it this way,
but there's no reading through it. They just pop up
there and they do it, and I'm like, what, Yeah,
that's when I know, Okay, Yeah, these people have a
gifting for this and they know what they're doing. But

(47:32):
it's a lot of fun to watch and it's a
lot of fun to hear.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, we talked a little bit
about some of the feedback you're getting from elsewhere, but
I'd also love to know from you personally. I know
you listen to these as they go through the process.
Has there been a particular line or a scene of
any of the iudeodramas so far that has really resonated
with you personally or you thought particularly really hit home

(47:56):
the point that you were trying to make.

Speaker 8 (47:58):
That's really good, I think again here I go back
to Potion of Power. But I also don't want to
I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just tell
you there's a line in there that just hits home?
Does it for me? I'm like, that's it, that's the one.
So hopefully people can go and figure that one out.
A far off planet is taking my favorite Bible story,

(48:21):
setting it in sci fi, you know, which I love,
and you know, it's just done in such a great way.
But just like every time I read that story in
the Bible, I'm crying every time I listen to that
because we just listened to it, you know, with you
guys tears again, I mean every time, because you just
know that this is me and this is the Lord

(48:45):
and he is running after me, and I just I
think that is just such a powerful thing.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
So that has been very impactful. I love that. I
love to be able to.

Speaker 8 (48:54):
Bring people Bible stories and maybe they don't necessarily know
it is. We listen to one last night, which I
can't give away because it doesn't come out until December,
but we got to hear that. Another another Bible story
done in a Western way, you know, so here's cowboys
and Indians.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
But it's a Bible story. So good. I love that.

Speaker 8 (49:13):
I think probably the most impactful because it's something that
I've been through. We won't come out until next year,
so just being able to be a part of that
and help kind of put my story into it was
a really awesome thing to do because again, it's hopefully

(49:33):
it's going to speak to everybody, but I know it's
going to speak to a certain group of people who
have been through what I've been through, and so yeah,
we might have to talk about that, maybe a later
time so that you guys will know what I'm talking about.
But it will come out next year, so we're looking
forward to that one too well.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Isn't that the point of good storytelling is that you
can relate to it, you can resonate with it. We
heard about that from John Fornoff, and I think that's
when you know you've hit the mark is when you've
been involved with the process the entire way through, right,
and then you hear the finished project and it still
hits home like that's that's a successful story.

Speaker 6 (50:11):
Yes.

Speaker 8 (50:12):
I absolutely loved what John Thornoff had to say, and
he was He's so right. I mean, he was so
inspiring and I'm like, I need to write a story
about something I don't know what, but yeah, for us
to be able to put our I don't want to
say our stamp, but things that the Lord has brought
us through and to be able to put that into
a story, like you said, is going to resonate with someone,

(50:32):
and that's what we want to do, you know, I
know Second Corinthians one talks about you know, the God
of all comfort who comforts us, and then we are
able to comfort people that have been through you know,
they're going through that same thing that we've been through.
So I think being able to do that, I think
is a huge blessing. And I'm honored to be able
to do that again because of what He's done for me.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, you know, you mentioned a far off Planet and
I hadn't listened to that one in quite some time,
and so we got to listen to it altogether. And
afterwards I messaged Dominic Trice, who plays the main character
in that one, and I said, I forgot how good
you were in that. It was so good to hear
it again. And yeah, I was also moved. You know,
I'm sitting there at the table like, don't lose it.

(51:14):
Don't lose it, because it is it's a beautiful picture
of that story that Jesus tells in the New Testament
and just reframed in a really cool way. And so
it's just so impactful and I love that. So, as
I said earlier, here we are, you know, almost two

(51:35):
years in now, I'd love to know from your perspective,
and I'm sure Austin and I can talk about this
from his perspective at some point too. But have there
been any unexpected challenges or maybe some unexpected joys as
you work through this process of creating audio drama because
this is sort of a new thing for you personally.

Speaker 8 (51:54):
Yes, absolutely, just challenge wise, I would say, I mean,
is this is going to sound terrible, probably, but money.
Money is the biggest challenge. So kind of not knowing
what this looks like, not knowing what an app would
look like, but knowing that we were called to do that,
and especially putting somebody who was already in our organization.

(52:16):
Austin was hired as the social media guy, and so
we knew that the Lord, you know, several months after
this was calling us out of social media. You know,
you're giving a parent presentation and you're saying, telling all
this stuff about social media, and then you're like, hey,
go follow us on social media, and everybody kind of
laughs and you're like, yeah, this doesn't make sense. And
so knowing that he was going to do that, we

(52:38):
took everything down on social media and thought, you know what,
this is actually pretty amazing because how is this going
to grow?

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Right?

Speaker 8 (52:45):
Everyone's like, you've got to be on social media. Well
you don't because we serve a big God and so
we just know, you know what, whatever happens, it's going
to be Him. It's not going to be us putting
stuff on social media. It's all going to be Him.
So fast forward, after we were able to step out
in faith, our board was like, Okay, we're going to
step out in faith with you and we're going to

(53:05):
allow you guys to do this app and then we're
going to see what happens. And so then this past
year being able to put everything out has been amazing.
The feedback has been amazing, getting downloads, not being on
social media amazing. But now the board's like, Okay, this
costs a lot of money to do this. We need

(53:26):
to go out and get not donations aren't coming in,
you know they are, but they're not enough because putting
an app together costs a lot of money. And so again,
the Lord is our provision and we trust that he
called us to do this and we know he will provide.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
But we did have to pull back.

Speaker 8 (53:44):
So there was a couple of audio dramas that we
had to push to hopefully next year, Lord willing, we'll
be able to do those and so, you know, just
kind of following his lead and him guiding us and
give his wisdom on when to spend and how much
to spend. So that's been the biggest challenge honestly with this,
you know, having the all the contractors in place, the

(54:07):
people that Austin knows, the people that he's met along
the way, people coming on and sharing the app, and
people wanting to be a part of that. Just growing
his list of contractors. That's been amazing. And so I
think that's just going to continue to happen is as
you all share this, as we're able to share it
with other people, and thank you for us being able

(54:28):
to be on this podcast to do that. So just
I think that just seeing how the Lord is bringing
those people alongside us, the talent that he has given them,
you know, those gifts amazing. That's all been joyful. And
then just to see what God's going to do with
it from here on out, I am joyfully expected in that.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Well, that's fantastic. And I'm going to just just pause
right here and give you a chance to tell the
listener what your website is if they feel like they
would like to donate, I'm sure there's a way to
do that on the website. Is that correct?

Speaker 8 (54:59):
Yes, rrect Yeah is heart Matters hyphen okay, since we're
in Oklahoma dot org. And there is a give button
at the top. There's also a give page if you
download the app at the very bottom. There is a
give portion there too, and they both go to the
same place. And you can give by credit card, debit card,
and then you can give like on a monthly basis,
you can give a one time gift. So yeah, those

(55:22):
are the ways that we have to be able to
do that.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Great. Great and I'm gonna say it again if you
haven't already download the app, and yeah, I've been able
to be involved in three of the productions so far,
acting into and doing some post production work on one
of them. And they're just fun. Well I shouldn't say
they're all fun stories. Many of them are just fun

(55:44):
stories and some of them are very deep some of them,
as you talked about, there's different age ranges that these
are applicable to, but there's something for every age range
in your family. So get the app now. As we
also talk a little bit about finances. This is something
I'm pretty sure we touched on a little bit in
our first conversation, But are there any plans to at

(56:07):
some point maybe offer digital downloads, maybe high quality audio
digital downloads for purchase as a way for listeners, you know,
they can stream it for free. I should say app
is free. You can listen for free, all the discussion
guides and coloring pages and all that stuff. It's free.
So is that a thing that you're exploring, maybe even
CDs sets of some of the series or something like

(56:28):
that as another revenue revenue stream.

Speaker 8 (56:32):
Yes, absolutely, I know Austin has mentioned that. I've had
another gentleman that we've worked a lot with say hey,
here's some ideas and it's those and I'm like, you
know what people are wanting to do that. Absolutely, that's
something we can definitely do. So we thought, you know
what if maybe the next place that would go have
a booth or something like that, see how that goes.
But absolutely, I think merch is something that we want

(56:53):
to do. We have a puppet drama that's going to
come out next year. We had puppets made. They're amazing
their life size, and we're going to put that out,
so you know how fun would sweatshirts with mister lyon.
You guys will have to tune in download the app
and we'll let you know what that's all about. But
things like that, because you know, Austin had stickers made

(57:14):
for all of the audio dramas, you know, the thumbnails,
which that looked fantastic. But you even have stuff like that,
you know, to be able to do just little things,
but people might ask, you know, hey, where'd you get
the sticker or what is this about?

Speaker 4 (57:26):
Or what is that?

Speaker 8 (57:27):
You know, we would love to be able to do that,
so just continue to bring that. You know, when we
one of the things that we do here at Heart
Matters is we go into the schools and we teach
kids during the day digital media safety, how to protect themselves,
how to keep themselves safe online, not only you know,
from predators, but also from screen time. You know, you
got to balance your media. So we do a lot

(57:48):
of that. But when we go into the public schools,
we can't share Christ and so with that we're able
to tell them about the app and then that way
they can go download it and they can see the
gospel you will on there. We have something called the
rest of the story, and so we're doing Bible stories
visually too, and so then you get the audio dramas
where you do get the hope of Christ and some

(58:09):
of these and so just to be able to share
Christ with them is like our number one goal. We
want to keep them safe online. We want to teach
parents how to do that also and talk to their kids,
but we also want to share Christ with everyone. So
that is, you know, one of the things.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
That the app can do.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah, that's fantastic. So I've got one more business or
serious question. But before we wrap up with that, I
want to do something that we sometimes do for fun.
It's a lightning round. I call it this or that.
So I'm going to throw a few things at you
and you just tell me what you prefer between these two.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (58:41):
Sounds good?

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Okay? First step chocolate or vanilla?

Speaker 8 (58:44):
Oh, chocolate, death by chocolate by Jared's frozen custard.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
It's got.

Speaker 8 (58:50):
I also add peanut butter and caramel to that, So
I mean.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
That's the best.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
That sounds pretty good. That sounds pretty good, all right?
Mountains or beach?

Speaker 8 (58:58):
Oh that's so hard. Can I be on a beach
with the mountains behind me. Okay, good, because that is
something I've always wondered. Oh, the mountains are so amazing
and fantastic, and then you can go to a beach
and it's just as amazing fantastic. So it's really hard
to cheerse Maybe Hawaii is that what I should say.
I've never been, but I know there's mountains and there's

(59:19):
a beach, so that's true.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Well, my home state of Oregon, we've got the coast
there and then we have like Mount Hood and all
these other instagra.

Speaker 8 (59:28):
Maybe I need to come visit Oregon. That sounds pretty good.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
All right. Last one, cats are dogs.

Speaker 8 (59:33):
Both I have both, so again I can't cheese have
a German Shepherd. And then I have a couple of kitties.
One's a rescue kitty and one is a Diba that
I got. She's a British short hair but she's so sweet.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
That's fun. All right. Well, this has been a pleasure
to chat with you again and catch up on what
you guys are doing here at Heart Matters Again. I
love the mission, I love the commitment to making quality stories,
and so I really appreciate what you're doing. Now I
know you can't give spoilers, and you know, don't want
to give too much detail, but is there any kind

(01:00:08):
of teasers you can give us for some of the
stories that might be coming up maybe later this year,
or maybe something that's still a little ways out, anything
at all, genre or anything.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
Yes, Okay, let me see.

Speaker 8 (01:00:19):
We do have another medieval one coming out next year,
which I really love, and that is the part. That's
the one I was talking about earlier that kind of
has my story in it. And then we talked about
the Western. It's a Bible story, but it's a Western,
so I love to always tease. My husband was here
listening with us at the event and I said, see

(01:00:41):
if you can tell me what Bible story this is,
you know, and so anyway, so that was fun for
him trying to figure it out along the way, and
then coming up this year, actually next month, we have
a really neat way of.

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Telling the story.

Speaker 8 (01:00:55):
It's not a fun story, but it's kind it's a
neat way. I don't know if you ever saw a
vantage point. It's a movie Dennis Quaid was and I
don't even know how long ago. It's quite old, but
it was the vantage point. So seeing the same story
from different viewpoint and so stay tuned for that. But
it does have to do with bullying and cyber bullying,

(01:01:16):
so from three different points of view.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Oh, so we're going from a duology to a trilogy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:21):
Now, exactly, yes, exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
All right, Well again, this has been a pleasure to
chat with you, and I just again appreciate what you
guys are doing and any final words you want to
say to the listener.

Speaker 8 (01:01:34):
No, I just appreciate you guys having us on because
the more that we get to talk about it, the
more people will hear about it and then download the
app and hopefully get some tools or some help or
you know, some hope from it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
So I really appreciate.

Speaker 8 (01:01:47):
You and anyone on all your listeners who have downloaded
the app.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Thank you, Christy, Thank you well. Thank you to Christy
again for coming on the show, for sharing and link
thanks to all of the things that we discussed, all
the pertinent links to their website, to the app to
where you can donate. All of that is in the
show notes. Be sure to check that out. And I
would love to hear from you what your favorite Heart

(01:02:12):
Matters audio drama so far has been.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
So what are you think of the show.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Please leave your message after the.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
Selle hi Audi Theater Central.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Hey guys, this is awesome preaching.

Speaker 6 (01:02:27):
Hello j D.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
Royan Andrew Minum is Victoria Now.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
Yesterday I received a letter from a big band.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
No time to try.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
I've got an email listen another package for me today?
No exactly, just your mail.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Well, it is that time of the episode to hear
from you. If you'd like to get in touch with us,
email feedback at audiotheatercentral dot com. You can comment on
the show notes, or send a text message or leave
a voicemail at our feedback hotline six two three six
eight eight two seven seven zero Again six two three
six eight eight two seven seven zero. Well. First up

(01:03:06):
is an email from Jeremy and he said, I wanted
to wish you a happy fifteenth anniversary. I have been
a loyal listener ever since twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen.
I hope the podcast is around for years to come.
I can't wait until a new episode comes out at
the beginning of the month. It has become one of
my favorite podcasts to listen to. It is at the
top of my podcast list. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much.

(01:03:28):
That means a lot, and I plan to be around
for years to come as well. He continues, I really
enjoyed the bonus episodes that you and Austin did. I
hope this will be something that you will do more
of in the future. Yes, we do try to do
those when it makes sense to do so, when we're
at an event, like we have done in the past

(01:03:49):
with Sonic KHN, and we have done similar things with
the Adventures Odyssey events that we've been able to attend
live and record at. So yes, we will do those
on occasion when it makes sense. So I'm glad you
enjoyed those. He also had a question. He said, you
mentioned the Left Behind audio dramas. Is there a way

(01:04:09):
to download these to my computer or can you get
them on CD? Well, you used to be able to
do both. Unfortunately, it appears that the Left Behind audio
dramas are only on certain audiobook streaming services like Audiblespotify,
audiobooks dot Com, and in some of those places it's

(01:04:29):
only the first one, and then in others they have
more than one. It doesn't appear to be available none
of them on the online retailers or on the website
The official website from Gap Digital. It was called Earflix.
That website is gone, so unfortunately, it seems like the
only place where you can purchase a download is through

(01:04:51):
libro FM, and that is linked in the show notes,
but it was only the first one. Again, it was
only book one left Behind, not the rest of the series.
Now it has the audio book versions, but not the
audio dramas, so that's unfortunate. I don't know what's going
on there with the distribution, but just a heads up

(01:05:11):
that on any of these audiobook platforms it's not going
to be high quality audio anyway. But aside from watching
eBay or Amazon for used CD copies and ripping them,
that seems to be the only place to acquire digital
copies and they are out of print in CD, so
it's only used copies, so again eBay or Amazon is

(01:05:32):
your best bet for those. So unfortunately, it seems like
it's much harder to find left Behind these days. Now.
I do have links in the show notes for the
Libro version which is just the first book, and then
audiobooks dot Com has the full series, but it's not downloads.
You're just purchasing access on their platform. So if anybody

(01:05:55):
listening knows any other options for how to legally obtained copies,
because I know there are some pirated versions going on
out there, which is something that we do not support
or condone. But if you know of a legitimate legal
way that it is available that I missed in my research,
please let me know and I'll pass that on to Jeremy. So, Jeremy,

(01:06:17):
thank you very much for the email and for the question.
And last week you have a couple of emails about Lamplighter,
one from Michael C and one from Blake. So Michael said,
I'm really enjoying listening to the chronicles of Finnian Jones,
the book in collection volumes one and two. The book
ins are bringing back memories of Lamplighter past. And yes,

(01:06:40):
I don't remember if we mentioned this in the past,
and I apologize if I if I did neglect to
mention these. But Lamplighter has put together some collections of
book ins and some original Finian material, some behind the
scenes stuff, and it is in three volumes. So Michael
mentions volumes one and two. Volume three is coming. They

(01:07:01):
just couldn't fit it all into two. It was originally
only going to be two, but they had so much material.
They created a volume three which is available for pre
order right now, so that will be coming soon. But
three full volumes of the Chronicles of Finnian Jones from
Lamplighter Theater. If you really enjoy revisiting that storyline that
happens in the bookends, then this is a place to

(01:07:23):
get it all at once, along with some additional material.
So thank you for bringing that up, Michael. And then
Blake says you seem to have neglected to mention the
latest Lamplighter Theater audio dramas they hand On the Bridle
and Kelly Nash both are out now, and yes, Blake,
we did not mention that, and that's not because we

(01:07:44):
intended to overlook Lamplighter. It's probably the same reason that
we may not have addressed the Finian collections. As I've
said before, the reason why I set up the new
submission form is I'm having trouble keeping track of everything
that is going on in this and that's why I've
asked producers to fill out that form to let me
know when releases are happening, or updates that are coming,

(01:08:07):
anything like that, so we can stay on top of it,
because it's just becoming too difficult to try to track
things down, and I do hear about some releases sometimes,
but it's in between episodes and I haven't started prep
for the next episode, and by the time I get
ready to record an episode, it may have slipped my
mind that there was a release, and so it just
doesn't end up making it to the update segment. It's

(01:08:30):
not an intentional oversight or a slight to any producer
out there. It's just that there's so much going on.
I can't keep track. So if you're not hearing things
talked about, it's because these producers are not directly letting
us know what's going on, and I'm just missing things
for the updates segment when it comes around to recording
an episode. So I apologize for missing those. Thank you

(01:08:53):
for bringing it up. Blake, Yes, Hand on the Bridle
and Kelly Nash are out now now. These were audio
dramas that were re recorded in London, so Lamplander has
gone back there and they recorded two more there, which
Blake points out, Behind the Door and The Courage of Nikolai,
and those were also recorded in London, and he said

(01:09:13):
he was bringing it up because he'd liked to know
what we think of the New Finnian Jones segments. Well,
we will get to those when we review those particular
Lamplader Theater productions. So it's gonna be a little while.
I don't want to just drop a spoiler here because
I know there is an ongoing story arc in those shows,

(01:09:34):
and so I don't know where listeners are in the
lamp Ladder series, so I don't want to address something
like that here in the feedback segment and spoil something
for somebody. So we will get to those. I know
we're behind on reviews, but we will get to them
as soon as we possibly can. But thank you to
Michael and Blake for bringing up Lamplader Theater. Yes, they

(01:09:54):
are still making some cool stuff over there at Lamplader,
so apologies for missing that stuff. But I love I
love Lamplider Theater, so was not an intentional thing there
to overlook them. Well that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you
have an amazing world audio drama Day. Celebrate by telling

(01:10:15):
some other people about audio drama. Go listen to some
audio drama. Go send in some feedback for an audio
drama that you enjoy. Just spread the word about this
amazing storytelling medium, and if you'd like to get in
touch with us, head over to audio Theatercentral dot com.
Slash Contact. Show notes for this episode with links to
everything we talked about is at audiotheatercentral dot com slash

(01:10:37):
two two zero. That's audio Theatercentral dot com slash two twenty.
I will see you next time. Thank you so much
for listening.

Speaker 9 (01:10:51):
Hi, this is David Ababio from the Audio Drama Institute.
Audio Theater Central is a production of porch Light Family Media.
The theme music was com by Sam Avandanio. The show
is produced and edited by JD.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Sutter.

Speaker 9 (01:11:05):
Find the website at Audiotheatercentral dot com.

Speaker 5 (01:11:10):
Scorgelight Familymedia your source for family centered content.

Speaker 9 (01:11:15):
Scorglightfamilymedia dot com

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