August 8, 2024 • 35 mins
On this special bonus episode of The Kolchak Tapes, Mike talked with Paul Terry, author of the new Kolchak short story collection "Kolchak - The Night Stalker: Haunted & Hunted." It's includes five riveting stories that expound on the career of intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak and his quest for journalistic truth in a world where things go bump in the night.
Find out more at https://www.paulterryprojects.com/
Find out more at https://www.paulterryprojects.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:45):
Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the cull
Chac Tapes. Yes, we were back when we were talking
to Paul Terry. He is the author of quite a
lot of things. If you want to see all of
his work, go over to Paul Terryprojects dot com. Paul
has recently written a cold Check series of short stories.
They have been collected in a volume called Colchack The
(01:07):
night Stalker, Haunted and Hunted. It is a fantastic book.
I really enjoyed reading this one. I was so glad
after all this time to finally dive into the world
of Colchack literature other than the stuff that jeff Rice wrote.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you
enjoy this episode. And if you enjoy Carl Colechak and
(01:28):
The night Stalker, definitely go back and listen to the
rest of our episodes of our at colchaktapes dot com.
Thank you so much for coming on. I'm really excited
to talk to you about your Collchack work and other things.
I would love to know a little bit more about
(01:49):
you and your background, because you do a lot of things.
I'm not sure if you're aware of that.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I tend to tell people when they ask that question,
I tend to say, I just I like making things.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I like telling stories.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Is I guess that sort of covers the breadth of
it all, But it really it feels normal to me
because I've always done it.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's being a kid at school.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I've always enjoyed doing something that they're supposed to be
on the curriculum. And then outside of studying or writing essays,
making music and so forth, and so going through into
adulthood that I think I just thought that was normal.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So we just keep it, kept multitasking.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Your stuff usually relies on other sources in order to
have that platform. But then I think you've also done
original fiction as well. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, the Cold chat Book, the Haunted and Hunted sort
of short story collection. That's my first prose fiction proper,
if you like. But I've always wanted to dabble into
that world and do more of that stuff. And that
comes from pults, from many different things, from and they'd say,
when you're a kid and you're always writing stories and
being creative, and then going through to doing more creative
(02:54):
writing with collaborations in different mediums, though filmmaking being involved
a pretty use of working with directors on their scripts
and things, and then co writing on some of those projects.
But you're right, yes, a lot of my other books
and writing work was more in the sort of making
of space or as an editor, which I was for
a long time. You're editing other people's work and you're
(03:15):
figuring out your own sort of like voice of storytelling
and how you like to report information, and so yeah,
I think it's just it's one of those things where
I always say this to young writers, is write everything.
I've written books that are tailored four kid Top ten
books kind of things like that, as well as making
of books about film and TV shows that cover different
(03:37):
mediums for things like Last things that more sort of
horror and comedy likes Theebe Hollow or thrillers like The Blacklist.
I tended to say yes to a lot of projects
and then worry about how to do it afterwards. Tested
I think that's how I like to work in the
creative art, that you go, yeah, sure, yeah, I'd love
to do that, and then you hang up and go
how would that work? But I think definitely a big
(03:59):
influence on pitching even these stories for culture. Obviously, I
loved the show when I saw the reruns in the
UK and the nineties. But I had been writing very
intensely in character voices for the X Files book that
I did with the Abrams, the first one the Official Archive,
and so X Files is my favorite show of all time,
and so it was a dream project to pitch. What
(04:22):
that did was actually get me, you know, back to
school and really figuring out what are the rhythms, How
does Molder speak, how does Scully speak? Carries that different?
How were they speaking an official reports? And so I
think years of doing that, studying those patterns just put
me in the right headspace as well as other previous
projects to say, you know what I've been developing, I
(04:44):
guess off camera as the phrase away from the official career,
my own IP, my own fiction ideas, And so the
culture book felt like a great bridger because it is
a licensed book, it is a licensed character, but it
was an opportunity to say, as a fan, what other adventures?
What are the cases could call Collcheck find himself falling
into and as he does, And you.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Talked about the voice of Moulder and Scully, but the
voice of Collcheck is so distinct, and you get that perfectly.
You nail that voice. I can hear Jere McGavin in
my head.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh thank you. That that's the greatest reviews. As long
as someone thinks that he loves the show that that
means a lot to me to thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I did work very hard on that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I'm curious what was the secret of unlocking callcheck? What
methodology did use to bring him back to the page.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
The similar process to when I did the XOS books.
It's really you're rewatching the.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Episodes and you're writing notes constantly, and I describe it
as you're watching or you're rewatching things through a completely
different lens. So when you're when you're rewatching a show
or a film that you love and you're just enjoying
it for what it is, or when you're doing it
professionally for this particular task, it's really I love sound,
I love language, so I'm really aware of trying to
(05:59):
drill into those things, and it's really just taking copious notes.
It's really just figuring out there's lots of catchphrases that
he comes up with, of course, and Daran McGowan's cold check.
That is if like the actor and the written character
just become one. Don't know, you can't imagine anyone else
being cold joke, and so it's terrifying when you give
yourself that to do it. But it's a good it's
(06:21):
a good fear, I think, because you really feel like
you have to honor that character. You can't mess it up,
but you have to actually get Ryan. But yes, lots
of note taking. I tend to really drill into. The
kind of catchphrase is the way that he talks in loops,
the way he drills things out, like he says strike one,
strike two, or he says item and then does translation,
and that gives you a kind of foundation of what
(06:44):
things he likes to say. But then I was really
drilling hard into he's very economical with language. He's very specific.
He's almost like he's a great reporter. But if he
was a writer, if he was a novelist, he'd be
an amazing writer because he has great visual language, and
he sees things as they are and just calls them
out in a re almost poetic ways sometimes, and within
(07:06):
that there's a sort of as he calls things as
to what they are. If something's sprightening, all with a
lot of tension. He liked to build that drama and
call it for what it is. But at the same time,
there's that wit, there's that swagger. It's a big balancing act,
and these things take a while and you start throwing
down ideas about how how he would craft something. But
(07:28):
I really love the first person perspective for this style.
It feels very like hard boiled, very detective thing, and
for me that just felt like a real treat to go, Okay,
we can how do we keep that really present? How
do we keep that energy through short stories? And I've
always loved the short story format and short film format
because you have to do a lot in a short
(07:50):
period of time, and I think for a cold shirt case,
it's perfect because that also was in my mind that
rewatching the episodes the movies of course as well. Watching
the episodes, you get a sense of time being quite
compressed and quite kinetic, and that because there's terrible things happening,
I think, and Carl Culchet wants to solve it and
(08:10):
stop them, and so that was a big influence as well.
I think a couple of my stories take place over
quite a narrow period of time, but I think that's
an advantage for this kind of story, and I think
that and it's just a personal preference. And there are
the rights that have done very different approaches to Culchut
that have been wonderful. But but for me, how I
like to write, and my love of horror and tension
and drama and mystery especially, I think when you have
(08:32):
a mystery, you're trying to lay out to the audience
that's in the horror space that you want them to
lean in and try and solve with you. It's it's
more powerful to keep it a little bit more condensed
in the timeframe.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
The other thing I was going to say was it's
snatch stick it out does feel like karl And then yeah,
not only are you capturing the characters, but then putting
them in these situations to have them like Karla and
Vincenzo as well, because you also capture of Vincenzo's voice
very well, but to them put them in these new
scenarios that we've not seen them in before, where it's
(09:04):
new ghost stories, new spook stories, new creatures that they're investigating.
That's a whole other challenge to this, and I commend
you all of these stories were very compelling.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Oh thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It's yeah, Vince, I think what helps a lot of
the performances in the writing of the show is so strong.
Did you say, Tony, there is just he's indelible, He's
just there again. Rewatching the episodes for Kyle Void, of course,
was absolutely you can't have these stories of that Vincenza
being a present. I wanted to modulate how much he's
(09:37):
a presence in the stories because it's like seasoning, isn't
You got to get the sevening just right. You don't
overdo things. And the same with Emily and Ronald. Did
they appear a couple of times, but I'd love to
hear that. I'd love to hear that you feel that
way about that. It is not stick And for me,
as a fan and as a writer, whenever there's a
a temptation to do sort of Easter ragg style things,
(10:00):
terrified of ever drifting into the sort of member berries.
Oh look, we're ticking off things that we're making the
fans cheer and go hooray. That's a good reference. I
always wanted any kind of Easter Egg to be very
organic and very natural, so that it really is about
the characters driving the story forward or it's just integral
to the story. And so that was another guard rail
(10:21):
I put on myself, so don't get tempted by doing
too many things. Just did something subtle that feels like
it fuels it. And Bencenzo, especially with the book stars
with the Haunted Airport story, just the idea of what
would that odd couple be like coming back from something
that what one person with Vincenzo I thought was incredibly important,
and the other being Carl, being like, can we can
(10:43):
I just go home? I just I don't want to
how did this project come to you? I just I
like to give myself crazy challenges. I had a concept
for a short which actually was the last short of
the story promises, the one set in Paris in France,
and the actually the kernel idea for that story goes
back in years, goes back almost a decade where I
(11:04):
was actually in Paris. It was in twenty thirteen with
two dear friends and we were in Notre Dame and
we scaled the staircases described in the story, and just
those goggles are incredible, and you see photographs of them,
but seeing them not closed, they're so eerie. They're so
strange that even the fact they were created at the
(11:26):
tour is so odd, and a story idea was just
stuck in my head since that trip was just there's
all these signs around anything about museums which say, do
not touch this piece of artwork, do not touch this
because they're ancient, and I thought, what would happen if
you did, as in, could something quasi supernatural happen if
(11:46):
you broke the rules and you did actually touch a gargoyle?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So the story idea for that what goes way back?
So twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And then as story ideas, do they tend to linger
and come and go in your head? And then I
think I was just watching some Cold Tack and was
thinking about this specific story in the context of maybe
making it a short story. There was nothing to do
with Coldjack, and then rewatching Colchak, it just felt, oh,
my goodness, it should be a Cold Chack tele because
it's almost an impossible mystery that I had in my head.
(12:16):
How do you what is happening? How do you solve this?
He's the guy, he's a very good report that, he's
very observant, He'll crack the case. And I pitched it
to Moonstone, who had the license for Coldchack at the time,
and the response I got was, yes, it's a short story.
We don't tend to just publish into short stories. We
(12:37):
tend to do a collections. And again, me being me,
I thought, why don't I reply to the email and
say they fired? Did you four more stories with that
constitute enough word count stories for a collection? And the
answer would yeah, give me some other log lines for stories.
And then again you see this pattern. I think to
(12:57):
say yes to things and then worry later about how
I liked the challenge.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I pitched four.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Other stories as log lines once I'd figured out the
kind of range of supernatural stories that I wanted to
write about, and based on those log lines, the editor
publisher at Moonstone said yes. And I was away with
the races last year and they came together really quickly.
I think there was something I was very excited about
doing them, and I was I think that also fuels creativity,
(13:24):
when you're really inside the head of a character, And
so I really dug back into those rewatches and was
really fleshing out. I really wanted these fine stories to exist.
Almost I think it's an echo of when I do
my music projects. So I really get obsessed with track
listing and how music flows between tracks, and so with
this book, I wanted to make sure that the short
stories that was the order that they worked. If you
(13:47):
remix the order, it wouldn't quite feel as good. And
so there was a specific flow to those stories. And
as you say, the kind of monsters or supernatural qualities
or whatever it is that he encountered that.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Moves through those stories.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
But yeah, it's one of those cases of almost a
cold call, I guess, in a kind of cold tech
way of saying, hey, editor, I've got an idea.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Do you want to print this? And thankfully it worked out.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
What's interesting because not only are you Carl inside of
the head of Carl Colchak, but then you're also God
and you're the one who's setting up these situations. You're
the one who's throwing these blockers in front of Carl.
So when you are doing this, do you have the
whole thing planned out? Or do you just see how
Kurl moves through this world?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's definitely the latter. It's definitely character first. I always
I have like a kernel about I like to give
any creative story and working on that's original. I like
to think about a problem that's insurmountable, a mystery that's impossible,
and then think about what would the character, how would
the character approach the first encounter with said mystery, with
(14:54):
said problem, And yeah, you're absolutely right. The character of
Carl Kolchak, and then you the characters that he encounters,
they almost get you know, writers writing very different ways,
I know, but the way I tend to like writing
is I let him. I let the Carle voice lead
the whole story. And so when you're reading these stories,
when he encounters someone else, the new character whatever it is,
(15:16):
or decide to do something, I like to frame it
under the auspices of that's what Carl colcheck we do
in that moment, and then this happens. And then if
there's a blackout or this thing happens, how would then
he react? And then how does that inform how the
story and moves Howard? I love the mystery genre. I
love the horror genre a lot. But I think that
as we all do as fans, sometimes you can see
(15:37):
the tenth pole, where you can see the structure if
it's story first, if it's these characters are just drifting
through a story to get to a twist reveal.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So I really wanted to make sure that it's character
first all the way, and hopefully when people read these stories,
they'll see that it's not always the same outcome. It's
not always and that's also something that I wanted to
break away.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
For the show.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
There is in some episodes a similar structure to how
he escapes or solves the problem, which is indicative of
that genre. But when you have an opportunity to write
new short stories with this character you love, I wanted
to break the rules a little bit, and like you said,
I was excited to put him in situations that, in
some respects might feel familiar to fans of the show
and the character, but in other respects may feel like
(16:23):
I've never actually thought about Carl being in that situation.
How would he get out of it? And honestly, that's
what I asked myself, if you put Carl, if you
have Carl Carl break down in the middle of nowhere
and something terrifying start's happening, how does he deal with
it where there's no one else to help him.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So that kind of.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Idea I noticed. The of course, the settings of the
stories are very important, at least for me trying to
figure out where Carl is at in his career at
this point. How important was setting for you and especially
time period, because that has to be another challenge for you.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yes, that was actually really interesting discussion with Moonstone Books,
because again, when you're dabbling in the world of a
licensed character, you are told a lot of things that
you wouldn't know as a fan. And so I learned
that in the nineties when jeff Rice was still around
at the Creative Culture. Of course jeff Rice the genius was.
(17:16):
It was with Mark Dewidziak, who was a writer and
added of many books and the cultcho phenomenon mythology. They
collaborated on this concept that basically after the end of
the TV series they did move to Hollywood. They moved
to this thing called Hollywood Dispatch, and the crew essentially
all moved there and the rules got really set in
(17:37):
terms of the licensed comic books and pros. That happened
from the sort of late nineties onwards, I think it was.
And so again I didn't know that, but it was
incredibly fortuitous because I live in Los Angeles and so
hearing that, oh, okay, the Hollywood Dispatch.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Oh, this is.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Exciting because, to be honest, that was a huge influence
just knowing that information and that you had to frame
things around that location and you couldn't riff on flashbacks
to Chicago or whatever. It was all about the here
and now in the Hollywood Dispatch was great because I've
been to Catalina Island a bunch of times. It's a
very evocative, inspiring place for stories. Anyway, I'm fascinated by
(18:18):
the UFO phenomenon. I know there are sightings around Catalina,
So that idea was like, Okay, we should re dabble
in some way hit that's territory. But then just thinking
about different areas that are not too far from LA
that could be conceivable that the fans would think, yeah,
that works if there's something that's Fresno based, or even
the Lake Tahoe story. It's a long drive, but it's
(18:41):
not like a five day drive. So for me, it
was looking at the map, but it was thinking about locales,
thinking about environments in terms of an isolation of environments
or like an expansive, beautiful setting. I really wanted to
mix things up a lot, and in terms of throwing
Kolchak into situations. As we said, he was dead, sir
(19:01):
on he was going to solve this or get out
of this, but maybe he hadn't really encountered this kind
of thing before. And in that respect with monsters, I
love that the show tackled a lot of classic monsters
or riffs on classic monster mythology. And it was another
challenge that I really wanted to rise to, which was, Okay,
we'll do things. We'll do some kind of haunting thing
that's obviously related to a ghost in some respect, but
(19:23):
I wanted to challenge myself as well on riff on
new mythologies.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I wanted to come up with.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
There's a phrase that I think it was in the
TV show Fringe, and I think it was also then
adopted by the TV show Sleepy Hollow. But this phrase
called twistery where they take actual history and they just
bend it slightly. So that I love this concept, especially
with Colchak's stories, because he's a reporter that the reader
is thinking as they're reading it, I'm being told something historical,
(19:51):
but is this completely real or is it completely fictional
or somewhere in between? And so I love that as
a writer I love doing that kind of research and
just hold things on top of one another. That's true
of all the stories. There are things that are absolutely
true and things that are absolutely you know, a question mark,
and there are things that are completely invented. But I'm
(20:12):
not going to tell you I'm gonna I'm not going
to ruin the magic trick and telling how those things
sold out.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
But in terms of the period, You're right.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
That was a real challenge because I was thinking about
if it's the nineties onwards Heathen Hollywood Dispatch, he's a
lot older. And it was another rule I was told
by a Moonstone, which is a terrific rule, which is
we never specify the year. You can specify calendar dates
with days and months whatever, but we basically act like
it's the present in quotes, it's just happening. And as
(20:42):
a fan, I wanted to keep that seventies vibe in
the stories, that things feel like they have that period.
I absolutely didn't want to go near anything that would
technologically not fit in that space, but just make sure
the rules of the story feel like for me. I
just wanted to do a great companion into the vibe
of the TV showing the movie. So I wasn't interested
(21:03):
in even leaning near the sort of late sentits or
early eighties ideas.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It was just, this is just Coljak's world. We'll live
in that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I can't see Colchack using computer. I can't see him googling.
I can't see him using a cell phone. That would
just be wrong. If he sends a text to Tony that.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah. No, Honestly, if I'd have been sold, that was
the rule.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I maybe I don't think I would have been thick
on the project because you think I want to stay
in that analogue space. And I love the idea of
him finding a payphone or asking to use the phone
at a motel, whatever it is. It just feels that's
the character, isn't it. Like he said, it just doesn't
really fit.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Those were the struggles he had to go through, just
finding a pencil, his notebook, the tape recorder. Even though
you don't think of them as trappings of Colchack, they
are trappings of Colchack. The time period is an essential
part of them, and I think that's probably where the
newer one got into trouble.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Sometimes, Yes, I think, yeah it was.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think I did see a couple of the episodes
of the new one, But I think it was it
was so different that it almost if you joined the
show ten minutes in it hadn't seen the opening or
hadn't heard the character names, I think you'd be forgiven
for thinking it was a completely different remix or approach
of new characters, which I guess that was there. That
was their idea and their approach. But like you say, yeah,
(22:23):
there's just there's something about those challenges which he faced
as a reporter that it's not that no one believed him,
it's the fact that he was. There was so many
other things that he had to deal with on a
minute by minute basis and let her know the overall
arching of can we stop this MOUs to killing people?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I'd like to that one of your challenges wasn't necessarily there,
which is budget. If you if this is a Carl
Colchak story, you can take him to Paris so you
don't have to worry about what are the production costs
in order to get Darren McGavin in front of the
Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yes, absolutely, that is a That story was really fun
in that respect because I had been to Paris and
but again the just the some of the imagery of
Paris is so evocative of literally that story with the
most fun in terms of locations because you get maps out.
You literally bring maps up and I'm figuring out the
real hotel where he's staying. How does that inform the story?
(23:21):
Like how far is the way from Notre Dame? Could
something conceivably have happened between those two events? Where would
other people he encounters, where would they live? How does
that inform the stories too? You start looking up where
the reports some certain among the things, so you really,
as you say, without a budget, you can really go
to town in terms of short story and just have
(23:41):
him encounter things that would be a lot more expensive
to put on camera for Shure.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, that was one thing that we always complained about
on the call Jack Tapes was invisible monsters. There were
so many invisible monsters because it was a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
They had great stories.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
But I totally know what you mean, and it's almost
like the match of Minido, the reveal of the those
photographs will send but wrobably the most sort of striking
thing of that whole episode because it's I guess it's
the payoff and as a fan, you're going, oh wow,
this thing's gigantic and it's this this god essentially with
this eyeball just staring out of the montage of photos
or the But that's always fun as well when you're
(24:19):
thinking about the unseen and describing those things is always
a great challenge as well instead of worrying about I
guess it's my love of Jaws. That's my favorite movie.
So I love the idea of just slowly eking out
the tendrils or something, especially with the first story, having
the specter or the mystery or the antagonist just slowly
come into the frame or tron it to spoiled thing
(24:40):
too much it's people or listening haven't read this, or
a ques to read it. That's one of my favorite
things to do is that don't don't show anything all
at once, just do the Jaws thing, just slowly eke
out what the mystery is. And then when there is
a reveal, it should be that brody chumming the water moment.
It should be terrifying, but the character the carhold to
(25:00):
be what is happening, and also for the audience going,
oh my goodness, this is actually more terrifying than I expected.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Though Carol is no slouch when it comes to the supernatural.
There's a lot of times Okay, yeah, I've seen this
kind of thing before.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
And that's exactly right. And having I think that was
also a motivator.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
You just poked my brain.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I think that it was a big motivator in doing
new things, in doing creature or phenomena that is at
least a sidestep away from what he's encountered before, just
to jar him a little bit, just to have him going, Okay, yes,
I know slacker when it comes to seeing the horrifying things.
But wait a second, this might be on a level
that I don't even understand, because that kind of just
(25:41):
refreshes the concept, doesn't it, of the reporter surviving the supernatural?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
With you being such a prolific writer, how long did
it take you to put this project together?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Let me think, reversing my brain in the wayback machine,
it was all twenty twenty three last year, so I
think the story and the collection promises was probably there's
probably a couple of months in terms of everything. But
from the very start, Okay, let's figure out how is
this parastory gonna work?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
The other four stories.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Were actually in total around i'd say maybe eight to
ten weeks. They came together pretty quickly, I think because
once you're inside that world in their headspace, you're again
there's just a fever pitch quality to it.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You're going okay. And I think because.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
One thing I will say was I was really happy
with the Paris story, the final story, which is called
promises Promises. But there's also a problem with that when
you go okay, I've written a quotes unquote like spec
script for a coll Chack story, and then like an idiot,
you pitch doing four more and then you go, well,
I want those to be as good as this one.
(26:52):
But I feel like I landed this. Is it even
possiblity four other ones? But I think that was all
just good creative fuel to go They have to be
because I also, I'm my biggest critic. I don't put
out any books or music that I don't stand by
and say, yes, I think this is of a decent quality. Yeah,
I think all that sort of nightmare fuel of failing
(27:13):
was just great kinetic fuel to get the thing done.
And also because when you are pitching for the stories
that have to be so different to the Paris one.
For me, that's just crazily, very invigorating, because you're going
I have to, as you say, the colors of the rainbow.
We have to figure out all these different tones. One
note I got was great was moved from Moonstone, which
(27:33):
I completely agree with in terms of there's been so
many other great Moodstone adaptation things for culture with comics
and prose, the two things i'd say that I really
loved the feedback from the first story, which didn't have
story notes, but was yeah, culture works the best when
it is scary. This is about essentially a horror mystery genre.
(27:55):
It's not comedy. That's not what the character is.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
That's not the show. But also Carl has to lead.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Things through the stories that he encounters. If there is
a collection, have a kind of palate cleanser, have something
that doesn't necessarily have a familiar structure to it. And
so the fourth story for me was my kind of
the odd story moment, which is called Kindness Can Kill You.
And I won't spoil what the story is, but for me,
(28:22):
that was a completely different scenario that Carl hasn't countered
before and just broke the formula of the reporter getting
wind of something and investigating something that it's a character
being thrown into situation that he is absolutely no preparation
for at all and is completely stuffed in many respects.
(28:45):
And for me, that's just a great writing challenge to
go is that a story? How can you make that
interesting story? And obviously he does survive because he's a protagonist.
You want to kill Cock or Jack, but what is
the exit strategy in those kind of scenarios.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
That's true too, it I didn't even think about that
as far as the tone of those first two TV
movies is so different than the tone of the TV show,
So it definitely felt like you were going more for
that horrific tone of those first two films.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I wanted the quirky humor to come out of characters
interacting or just Carl's thought processes in terms of when
he has that great any monologue with the voiceover or
we either get a sense of him recording something on
a tape recorder from the voiceover motif, or it's just
his thought processes. And I think he's such a witty
character in terms of the drafts, if you like, of
(29:35):
he's reporting. But yeah, that these situations are we see
Carl terrified, or we see Carl wide eyed, but he's
never super confident unless he's I love the way that
when he's cracked a theory, when he thinks, Okay, maybe
this flash is going to work for these aliens, maybe
I'm going to try the Or he has a revelation
and he's trying to plead with someone that say, know,
(29:56):
this actually is going to help us, this actually is
going to solve the situation. But yeah, I definitely I
enjoyed Moonstone, sort of true north of that going. Don't
veer too much into comedy, don't veer too much into
other genres that are away from the horror genre, because
it really is. The beating heart of the show is
the monsters, the fear, and the disbelief. If he's encountering
(30:18):
things which no one else is believing, not even his
editor publisher thinks there's a shred of truth to it,
that's just a great anchor to keep going down the road.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Of Now that you've been in Carl Kolchak's head, do
you want to go back? Is there more call chack
coming out from you?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Nothing planned yet, but I definitely could be tempted. Yes,
I think I should again do that thing of saying
yes now on the podcast and challenging myself to see
whether I could do it another story or collection of the
short stories. But if it never happens, I'm so thrilled
that this exists, because, as I say, for what I
thought was going to be one story became the collection
(30:55):
of five that I'm really proud of. And it's a
thrill to hear that you enjoy them. That's the it's
always terrifying thinking polease. Fans know that it's a fan
writing them, and it's a fan trying to do his best.
So if you enjoy them, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
It doesn't feel like fan fiction. It doesn't feel like
something I could fine on the internet. These are real,
actual stories, polished, beautifully paced, super well written. So thank
you for doing that.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Thank you, sir. No, that's can I have that as
a pull quote? I'll put them on post.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Talking about how prolific you are. What are you working
on right now? Because you've got so many different projects
that you do.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
There is the volume two of the X Files, the
official Archives, which I'm still busy hard working out. That's
been a long project and ongoing projects since the first volume.
So that's that's a really exciting one for me because
it's the entire mythology of the X Files, going back
from season one or worth through the season eleven, presented
in a similar way to Volume one in terms of
these are the reports that the agents are filing with
(31:55):
some twist and turns surprises should we stay in this
particular volume because when you're handling the mythol the X Files,
there's a lot of things which aren't necessarily which can't
necessarily be handled as exact reports. There's some other ways
to handle those things creatively. Music wise, I just did
a really fun soundtrack for there's another podcast called Return
of the Pod, which is a begin of the Star
(32:16):
Wars led podcast but become more of a kind of
pop culture podcast, and they wanted a new main scene
that expanded to being a bunch of cues of themes
for their shows. That was really fun to do because
they're great guys. That's a really fun show. And there's
a film that's crony in pre production called Kilter, which
I'm attached to as a composer, So that's shooting in
about eight weeks, which is a short which is basically
(32:40):
a proof of concept for a feature, which is a
director called Bartley Taylor, who I've worked with before.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Great director, great creative.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
The rest of the year is nice and busy, which
is always nice, and I love to be able to
balance between books and music projects slash film products because
they do inform each other. A lot of people think
it's very chalk and cheese, but it's not. They're very
much about structure and storytelling and pacing, like you say,
and so I think that the more eclectic things that
(33:09):
I do just for myself, I feel like it informs
the other projects really well and just improves everything.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Where's the best place for people to keep up with
you and your work?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Probably the main website is Paul terryprojects dot com that
sort of has everything covered. So it's just got all
of my yeah, my bookwork, my music work, and anything
in between. You can just figure out, have a click
around and if there's anything that takes you fancy.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Paul, Thank you so much. It was a great talking
with you today.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Thank you so much having me on the show. I
love the show, fan of the show, so it's a
great It's a great opportunity to be on your show.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Up a
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Coup sh
Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the cull
Chac Tapes. Yes, we were back when we were talking
to Paul Terry. He is the author of quite a
lot of things. If you want to see all of
his work, go over to Paul Terryprojects dot com. Paul
has recently written a cold Check series of short stories.
They have been collected in a volume called Colchack The
(01:07):
night Stalker, Haunted and Hunted. It is a fantastic book.
I really enjoyed reading this one. I was so glad
after all this time to finally dive into the world
of Colchack literature other than the stuff that jeff Rice wrote.
Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you
enjoy this episode. And if you enjoy Carl Colechak and
(01:28):
The night Stalker, definitely go back and listen to the
rest of our episodes of our at colchaktapes dot com.
Thank you so much for coming on. I'm really excited
to talk to you about your Collchack work and other things.
I would love to know a little bit more about
(01:49):
you and your background, because you do a lot of things.
I'm not sure if you're aware of that.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I tend to tell people when they ask that question,
I tend to say, I just I like making things.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I like telling stories.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Is I guess that sort of covers the breadth of
it all, But it really it feels normal to me
because I've always done it.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
It's being a kid at school.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I've always enjoyed doing something that they're supposed to be
on the curriculum. And then outside of studying or writing essays,
making music and so forth, and so going through into
adulthood that I think I just thought that was normal.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So we just keep it, kept multitasking.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Your stuff usually relies on other sources in order to
have that platform. But then I think you've also done
original fiction as well. Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, the Cold chat Book, the Haunted and Hunted sort
of short story collection. That's my first prose fiction proper,
if you like. But I've always wanted to dabble into
that world and do more of that stuff. And that
comes from pults, from many different things, from and they'd say,
when you're a kid and you're always writing stories and
being creative, and then going through to doing more creative
(02:54):
writing with collaborations in different mediums, though filmmaking being involved
a pretty use of working with directors on their scripts
and things, and then co writing on some of those projects.
But you're right, yes, a lot of my other books
and writing work was more in the sort of making
of space or as an editor, which I was for
a long time. You're editing other people's work and you're
(03:15):
figuring out your own sort of like voice of storytelling
and how you like to report information, and so yeah,
I think it's just it's one of those things where
I always say this to young writers, is write everything.
I've written books that are tailored four kid Top ten
books kind of things like that, as well as making
of books about film and TV shows that cover different
(03:37):
mediums for things like Last things that more sort of
horror and comedy likes Theebe Hollow or thrillers like The Blacklist.
I tended to say yes to a lot of projects
and then worry about how to do it afterwards. Tested
I think that's how I like to work in the
creative art, that you go, yeah, sure, yeah, I'd love
to do that, and then you hang up and go
how would that work? But I think definitely a big
(03:59):
influence on pitching even these stories for culture. Obviously, I
loved the show when I saw the reruns in the
UK and the nineties. But I had been writing very
intensely in character voices for the X Files book that
I did with the Abrams, the first one the Official Archive,
and so X Files is my favorite show of all time,
and so it was a dream project to pitch. What
(04:22):
that did was actually get me, you know, back to
school and really figuring out what are the rhythms, How
does Molder speak, how does Scully speak? Carries that different?
How were they speaking an official reports? And so I
think years of doing that, studying those patterns just put
me in the right headspace as well as other previous
projects to say, you know what I've been developing, I
(04:44):
guess off camera as the phrase away from the official career,
my own IP, my own fiction ideas, And so the
culture book felt like a great bridger because it is
a licensed book, it is a licensed character, but it
was an opportunity to say, as a fan, what other adventures?
What are the cases could call Collcheck find himself falling
into and as he does, And you.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Talked about the voice of Moulder and Scully, but the
voice of Collcheck is so distinct, and you get that perfectly.
You nail that voice. I can hear Jere McGavin in
my head.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Oh thank you. That that's the greatest reviews. As long
as someone thinks that he loves the show that that
means a lot to me to thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I did work very hard on that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
I'm curious what was the secret of unlocking callcheck? What
methodology did use to bring him back to the page.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
The similar process to when I did the XOS books.
It's really you're rewatching the.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Episodes and you're writing notes constantly, and I describe it
as you're watching or you're rewatching things through a completely
different lens. So when you're when you're rewatching a show
or a film that you love and you're just enjoying
it for what it is, or when you're doing it
professionally for this particular task, it's really I love sound,
I love language, so I'm really aware of trying to
(05:59):
drill into those things, and it's really just taking copious notes.
It's really just figuring out there's lots of catchphrases that
he comes up with, of course, and Daran McGowan's cold check.
That is if like the actor and the written character
just become one. Don't know, you can't imagine anyone else
being cold joke, and so it's terrifying when you give
yourself that to do it. But it's a good it's
(06:21):
a good fear, I think, because you really feel like
you have to honor that character. You can't mess it up,
but you have to actually get Ryan. But yes, lots
of note taking. I tend to really drill into. The
kind of catchphrase is the way that he talks in loops,
the way he drills things out, like he says strike one,
strike two, or he says item and then does translation,
and that gives you a kind of foundation of what
(06:44):
things he likes to say. But then I was really
drilling hard into he's very economical with language. He's very specific.
He's almost like he's a great reporter. But if he
was a writer, if he was a novelist, he'd be
an amazing writer because he has great visual language, and
he sees things as they are and just calls them
out in a re almost poetic ways sometimes, and within
(07:06):
that there's a sort of as he calls things as
to what they are. If something's sprightening, all with a
lot of tension. He liked to build that drama and
call it for what it is. But at the same time,
there's that wit, there's that swagger. It's a big balancing act,
and these things take a while and you start throwing
down ideas about how how he would craft something. But
(07:28):
I really love the first person perspective for this style.
It feels very like hard boiled, very detective thing, and
for me that just felt like a real treat to go, Okay,
we can how do we keep that really present? How
do we keep that energy through short stories? And I've
always loved the short story format and short film format
because you have to do a lot in a short
(07:50):
period of time, and I think for a cold shirt case,
it's perfect because that also was in my mind that
rewatching the episodes the movies of course as well. Watching
the episodes, you get a sense of time being quite
compressed and quite kinetic, and that because there's terrible things happening,
I think, and Carl Culchet wants to solve it and
(08:10):
stop them, and so that was a big influence as well.
I think a couple of my stories take place over
quite a narrow period of time, but I think that's
an advantage for this kind of story, and I think
that and it's just a personal preference. And there are
the rights that have done very different approaches to Culchut
that have been wonderful. But but for me, how I
like to write, and my love of horror and tension
and drama and mystery especially, I think when you have
(08:32):
a mystery, you're trying to lay out to the audience
that's in the horror space that you want them to
lean in and try and solve with you. It's it's
more powerful to keep it a little bit more condensed
in the timeframe.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
The other thing I was going to say was it's
snatch stick it out does feel like karl And then yeah,
not only are you capturing the characters, but then putting
them in these situations to have them like Karla and
Vincenzo as well, because you also capture of Vincenzo's voice
very well, but to them put them in these new
scenarios that we've not seen them in before, where it's
(09:04):
new ghost stories, new spook stories, new creatures that they're investigating.
That's a whole other challenge to this, and I commend
you all of these stories were very compelling.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Oh thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It's yeah, Vince, I think what helps a lot of
the performances in the writing of the show is so strong.
Did you say, Tony, there is just he's indelible, He's
just there again. Rewatching the episodes for Kyle Void, of course,
was absolutely you can't have these stories of that Vincenza
being a present. I wanted to modulate how much he's
(09:37):
a presence in the stories because it's like seasoning, isn't
You got to get the sevening just right. You don't
overdo things. And the same with Emily and Ronald. Did
they appear a couple of times, but I'd love to
hear that. I'd love to hear that you feel that
way about that. It is not stick And for me,
as a fan and as a writer, whenever there's a
a temptation to do sort of Easter ragg style things,
(10:00):
terrified of ever drifting into the sort of member berries.
Oh look, we're ticking off things that we're making the
fans cheer and go hooray. That's a good reference. I
always wanted any kind of Easter Egg to be very
organic and very natural, so that it really is about
the characters driving the story forward or it's just integral
to the story. And so that was another guard rail
(10:21):
I put on myself, so don't get tempted by doing
too many things. Just did something subtle that feels like
it fuels it. And Bencenzo, especially with the book stars
with the Haunted Airport story, just the idea of what
would that odd couple be like coming back from something
that what one person with Vincenzo I thought was incredibly important,
and the other being Carl, being like, can we can
(10:43):
I just go home? I just I don't want to
how did this project come to you? I just I
like to give myself crazy challenges. I had a concept
for a short which actually was the last short of
the story promises, the one set in Paris in France,
and the actually the kernel idea for that story goes
back in years, goes back almost a decade where I
(11:04):
was actually in Paris. It was in twenty thirteen with
two dear friends and we were in Notre Dame and
we scaled the staircases described in the story, and just
those goggles are incredible, and you see photographs of them,
but seeing them not closed, they're so eerie. They're so
strange that even the fact they were created at the
(11:26):
tour is so odd, and a story idea was just
stuck in my head since that trip was just there's
all these signs around anything about museums which say, do
not touch this piece of artwork, do not touch this
because they're ancient, and I thought, what would happen if
you did, as in, could something quasi supernatural happen if
(11:46):
you broke the rules and you did actually touch a gargoyle?
Speaker 3 (11:49):
So the story idea for that what goes way back?
So twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
And then as story ideas, do they tend to linger
and come and go in your head? And then I
think I was just watching some Cold Tack and was
thinking about this specific story in the context of maybe
making it a short story. There was nothing to do
with Coldjack, and then rewatching Colchak, it just felt, oh,
my goodness, it should be a Cold Chack tele because
it's almost an impossible mystery that I had in my head.
(12:16):
How do you what is happening? How do you solve this?
He's the guy, he's a very good report that, he's
very observant, He'll crack the case. And I pitched it
to Moonstone, who had the license for Coldchack at the time,
and the response I got was, yes, it's a short story.
We don't tend to just publish into short stories. We
(12:37):
tend to do a collections. And again, me being me,
I thought, why don't I reply to the email and
say they fired? Did you four more stories with that
constitute enough word count stories for a collection? And the
answer would yeah, give me some other log lines for stories.
And then again you see this pattern. I think to
(12:57):
say yes to things and then worry later about how
I liked the challenge.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I pitched four.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Other stories as log lines once I'd figured out the
kind of range of supernatural stories that I wanted to
write about, and based on those log lines, the editor
publisher at Moonstone said yes. And I was away with
the races last year and they came together really quickly.
I think there was something I was very excited about
doing them, and I was I think that also fuels creativity,
(13:24):
when you're really inside the head of a character, And
so I really dug back into those rewatches and was
really fleshing out. I really wanted these fine stories to exist.
Almost I think it's an echo of when I do
my music projects. So I really get obsessed with track
listing and how music flows between tracks, and so with
this book, I wanted to make sure that the short
stories that was the order that they worked. If you
(13:47):
remix the order, it wouldn't quite feel as good. And
so there was a specific flow to those stories. And
as you say, the kind of monsters or supernatural qualities
or whatever it is that he encountered that.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Moves through those stories.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
But yeah, it's one of those cases of almost a
cold call, I guess, in a kind of cold tech
way of saying, hey, editor, I've got an idea.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Do you want to print this? And thankfully it worked out.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
What's interesting because not only are you Carl inside of
the head of Carl Colchak, but then you're also God
and you're the one who's setting up these situations. You're
the one who's throwing these blockers in front of Carl.
So when you are doing this, do you have the
whole thing planned out? Or do you just see how
Kurl moves through this world?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's definitely the latter. It's definitely character first. I always
I have like a kernel about I like to give
any creative story and working on that's original. I like
to think about a problem that's insurmountable, a mystery that's impossible,
and then think about what would the character, how would
the character approach the first encounter with said mystery, with
(14:54):
said problem, And yeah, you're absolutely right. The character of
Carl Kolchak, and then you the characters that he encounters,
they almost get you know, writers writing very different ways,
I know, but the way I tend to like writing
is I let him. I let the Carle voice lead
the whole story. And so when you're reading these stories,
when he encounters someone else, the new character whatever it is,
(15:16):
or decide to do something, I like to frame it
under the auspices of that's what Carl colcheck we do
in that moment, and then this happens. And then if
there's a blackout or this thing happens, how would then
he react? And then how does that inform how the
story and moves Howard? I love the mystery genre. I
love the horror genre a lot. But I think that
as we all do as fans, sometimes you can see
(15:37):
the tenth pole, where you can see the structure if
it's story first, if it's these characters are just drifting
through a story to get to a twist reveal.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So I really wanted to make sure that it's character
first all the way, and hopefully when people read these stories,
they'll see that it's not always the same outcome. It's
not always and that's also something that I wanted to
break away.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
For the show.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
There is in some episodes a similar structure to how
he escapes or solves the problem, which is indicative of
that genre. But when you have an opportunity to write
new short stories with this character you love, I wanted
to break the rules a little bit, and like you said,
I was excited to put him in situations that, in
some respects might feel familiar to fans of the show
and the character, but in other respects may feel like
(16:23):
I've never actually thought about Carl being in that situation.
How would he get out of it? And honestly, that's
what I asked myself, if you put Carl, if you
have Carl Carl break down in the middle of nowhere
and something terrifying start's happening, how does he deal with
it where there's no one else to help him.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So that kind of.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Idea I noticed. The of course, the settings of the
stories are very important, at least for me trying to
figure out where Carl is at in his career at
this point. How important was setting for you and especially
time period, because that has to be another challenge for you.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yes, that was actually really interesting discussion with Moonstone Books,
because again, when you're dabbling in the world of a
licensed character, you are told a lot of things that
you wouldn't know as a fan. And so I learned
that in the nineties when jeff Rice was still around
at the Creative Culture. Of course jeff Rice the genius was.
(17:16):
It was with Mark Dewidziak, who was a writer and
added of many books and the cultcho phenomenon mythology. They
collaborated on this concept that basically after the end of
the TV series they did move to Hollywood. They moved
to this thing called Hollywood Dispatch, and the crew essentially
all moved there and the rules got really set in
(17:37):
terms of the licensed comic books and pros. That happened
from the sort of late nineties onwards, I think it was.
And so again I didn't know that, but it was
incredibly fortuitous because I live in Los Angeles and so
hearing that, oh, okay, the Hollywood Dispatch.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Oh, this is.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Exciting because, to be honest, that was a huge influence
just knowing that information and that you had to frame
things around that location and you couldn't riff on flashbacks
to Chicago or whatever. It was all about the here
and now in the Hollywood Dispatch was great because I've
been to Catalina Island a bunch of times. It's a
very evocative, inspiring place for stories. Anyway, I'm fascinated by
(18:18):
the UFO phenomenon. I know there are sightings around Catalina,
So that idea was like, Okay, we should re dabble
in some way hit that's territory. But then just thinking
about different areas that are not too far from LA
that could be conceivable that the fans would think, yeah,
that works if there's something that's Fresno based, or even
the Lake Tahoe story. It's a long drive, but it's
(18:41):
not like a five day drive. So for me, it
was looking at the map, but it was thinking about locales,
thinking about environments in terms of an isolation of environments
or like an expansive, beautiful setting. I really wanted to
mix things up a lot, and in terms of throwing
Kolchak into situations. As we said, he was dead, sir
(19:01):
on he was going to solve this or get out
of this, but maybe he hadn't really encountered this kind
of thing before. And in that respect with monsters, I
love that the show tackled a lot of classic monsters
or riffs on classic monster mythology. And it was another
challenge that I really wanted to rise to, which was, Okay,
we'll do things. We'll do some kind of haunting thing
that's obviously related to a ghost in some respect, but
(19:23):
I wanted to challenge myself as well on riff on
new mythologies.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I wanted to come up with.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
There's a phrase that I think it was in the
TV show Fringe, and I think it was also then
adopted by the TV show Sleepy Hollow. But this phrase
called twistery where they take actual history and they just
bend it slightly. So that I love this concept, especially
with Colchak's stories, because he's a reporter that the reader
is thinking as they're reading it, I'm being told something historical,
(19:51):
but is this completely real or is it completely fictional
or somewhere in between? And so I love that as
a writer I love doing that kind of research and
just hold things on top of one another. That's true
of all the stories. There are things that are absolutely
true and things that are absolutely you know, a question mark,
and there are things that are completely invented. But I'm
(20:12):
not going to tell you I'm gonna I'm not going
to ruin the magic trick and telling how those things
sold out.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
But in terms of the period, You're right.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
That was a real challenge because I was thinking about
if it's the nineties onwards Heathen Hollywood Dispatch, he's a
lot older. And it was another rule I was told
by a Moonstone, which is a terrific rule, which is
we never specify the year. You can specify calendar dates
with days and months whatever, but we basically act like
it's the present in quotes, it's just happening. And as
(20:42):
a fan, I wanted to keep that seventies vibe in
the stories, that things feel like they have that period.
I absolutely didn't want to go near anything that would
technologically not fit in that space, but just make sure
the rules of the story feel like for me. I
just wanted to do a great companion into the vibe
of the TV showing the movie. So I wasn't interested
(21:03):
in even leaning near the sort of late sentits or
early eighties ideas.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It was just, this is just Coljak's world. We'll live
in that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
I can't see Colchack using computer. I can't see him googling.
I can't see him using a cell phone. That would
just be wrong. If he sends a text to Tony that.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah. No, Honestly, if I'd have been sold, that was
the rule.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I maybe I don't think I would have been thick
on the project because you think I want to stay
in that analogue space. And I love the idea of
him finding a payphone or asking to use the phone
at a motel, whatever it is. It just feels that's
the character, isn't it. Like he said, it just doesn't
really fit.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Those were the struggles he had to go through, just
finding a pencil, his notebook, the tape recorder. Even though
you don't think of them as trappings of Colchack, they
are trappings of Colchack. The time period is an essential
part of them, and I think that's probably where the
newer one got into trouble.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Sometimes, Yes, I think, yeah it was.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
I think I did see a couple of the episodes
of the new one, But I think it was it
was so different that it almost if you joined the
show ten minutes in it hadn't seen the opening or
hadn't heard the character names, I think you'd be forgiven
for thinking it was a completely different remix or approach
of new characters, which I guess that was there. That
was their idea and their approach. But like you say, yeah,
(22:23):
there's just there's something about those challenges which he faced
as a reporter that it's not that no one believed him,
it's the fact that he was. There was so many
other things that he had to deal with on a
minute by minute basis and let her know the overall
arching of can we stop this MOUs to killing people?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I'd like to that one of your challenges wasn't necessarily there,
which is budget. If you if this is a Carl
Colchak story, you can take him to Paris so you
don't have to worry about what are the production costs
in order to get Darren McGavin in front of the
Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yes, absolutely, that is a That story was really fun
in that respect because I had been to Paris and
but again the just the some of the imagery of
Paris is so evocative of literally that story with the
most fun in terms of locations because you get maps out.
You literally bring maps up and I'm figuring out the
real hotel where he's staying. How does that inform the story?
(23:21):
Like how far is the way from Notre Dame? Could
something conceivably have happened between those two events? Where would
other people he encounters, where would they live? How does
that inform the stories too? You start looking up where
the reports some certain among the things, so you really,
as you say, without a budget, you can really go
to town in terms of short story and just have
(23:41):
him encounter things that would be a lot more expensive
to put on camera for Shure.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Yeah, that was one thing that we always complained about
on the call Jack Tapes was invisible monsters. There were
so many invisible monsters because it was a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
They had great stories.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
But I totally know what you mean, and it's almost
like the match of Minido, the reveal of the those
photographs will send but wrobably the most sort of striking
thing of that whole episode because it's I guess it's
the payoff and as a fan, you're going, oh wow,
this thing's gigantic and it's this this god essentially with
this eyeball just staring out of the montage of photos
or the But that's always fun as well when you're
(24:19):
thinking about the unseen and describing those things is always
a great challenge as well instead of worrying about I
guess it's my love of Jaws. That's my favorite movie.
So I love the idea of just slowly eking out
the tendrils or something, especially with the first story, having
the specter or the mystery or the antagonist just slowly
come into the frame or tron it to spoiled thing
(24:40):
too much it's people or listening haven't read this, or
a ques to read it. That's one of my favorite
things to do is that don't don't show anything all
at once, just do the Jaws thing, just slowly eke
out what the mystery is. And then when there is
a reveal, it should be that brody chumming the water moment.
It should be terrifying, but the character the carhold to
(25:00):
be what is happening, and also for the audience going,
oh my goodness, this is actually more terrifying than I expected.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Though Carol is no slouch when it comes to the supernatural.
There's a lot of times Okay, yeah, I've seen this
kind of thing before.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
And that's exactly right. And having I think that was
also a motivator.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
You just poked my brain.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
I think that it was a big motivator in doing
new things, in doing creature or phenomena that is at
least a sidestep away from what he's encountered before, just
to jar him a little bit, just to have him going, Okay, yes,
I know slacker when it comes to seeing the horrifying things.
But wait a second, this might be on a level
that I don't even understand, because that kind of just
(25:41):
refreshes the concept, doesn't it, of the reporter surviving the supernatural?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
With you being such a prolific writer, how long did
it take you to put this project together?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Ah?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Let me think, reversing my brain in the wayback machine,
it was all twenty twenty three last year, so I
think the story and the collection promises was probably there's
probably a couple of months in terms of everything. But
from the very start, Okay, let's figure out how is
this parastory gonna work?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
The other four stories.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Were actually in total around i'd say maybe eight to
ten weeks. They came together pretty quickly, I think because
once you're inside that world in their headspace, you're again
there's just a fever pitch quality to it.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You're going okay. And I think because.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
One thing I will say was I was really happy
with the Paris story, the final story, which is called
promises Promises. But there's also a problem with that when
you go okay, I've written a quotes unquote like spec
script for a coll Chack story, and then like an idiot,
you pitch doing four more and then you go, well,
I want those to be as good as this one.
(26:52):
But I feel like I landed this. Is it even
possiblity four other ones? But I think that was all
just good creative fuel to go They have to be
because I also, I'm my biggest critic. I don't put
out any books or music that I don't stand by
and say, yes, I think this is of a decent quality. Yeah,
I think all that sort of nightmare fuel of failing
(27:13):
was just great kinetic fuel to get the thing done.
And also because when you are pitching for the stories
that have to be so different to the Paris one.
For me, that's just crazily, very invigorating, because you're going
I have to, as you say, the colors of the rainbow.
We have to figure out all these different tones. One
note I got was great was moved from Moonstone, which
(27:33):
I completely agree with in terms of there's been so
many other great Moodstone adaptation things for culture with comics
and prose, the two things i'd say that I really
loved the feedback from the first story, which didn't have
story notes, but was yeah, culture works the best when
it is scary. This is about essentially a horror mystery genre.
(27:55):
It's not comedy. That's not what the character is.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
That's not the show. But also Carl has to lead.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Things through the stories that he encounters. If there is
a collection, have a kind of palate cleanser, have something
that doesn't necessarily have a familiar structure to it. And
so the fourth story for me was my kind of
the odd story moment, which is called Kindness Can Kill You.
And I won't spoil what the story is, but for me,
(28:22):
that was a completely different scenario that Carl hasn't countered
before and just broke the formula of the reporter getting
wind of something and investigating something that it's a character
being thrown into situation that he is absolutely no preparation
for at all and is completely stuffed in many respects.
(28:45):
And for me, that's just a great writing challenge to
go is that a story? How can you make that
interesting story? And obviously he does survive because he's a protagonist.
You want to kill Cock or Jack, but what is
the exit strategy in those kind of scenarios.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
That's true too, it I didn't even think about that
as far as the tone of those first two TV
movies is so different than the tone of the TV show,
So it definitely felt like you were going more for
that horrific tone of those first two films.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I wanted the quirky humor to come out of characters
interacting or just Carl's thought processes in terms of when
he has that great any monologue with the voiceover or
we either get a sense of him recording something on
a tape recorder from the voiceover motif, or it's just
his thought processes. And I think he's such a witty
character in terms of the drafts, if you like, of
(29:35):
he's reporting. But yeah, that these situations are we see
Carl terrified, or we see Carl wide eyed, but he's
never super confident unless he's I love the way that
when he's cracked a theory, when he thinks, Okay, maybe
this flash is going to work for these aliens, maybe
I'm going to try the Or he has a revelation
and he's trying to plead with someone that say, know,
(29:56):
this actually is going to help us, this actually is
going to solve the situation. But yeah, I definitely I
enjoyed Moonstone, sort of true north of that going. Don't
veer too much into comedy, don't veer too much into
other genres that are away from the horror genre, because
it really is. The beating heart of the show is
the monsters, the fear, and the disbelief. If he's encountering
(30:18):
things which no one else is believing, not even his
editor publisher thinks there's a shred of truth to it,
that's just a great anchor to keep going down the road.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Of Now that you've been in Carl Kolchak's head, do
you want to go back? Is there more call chack
coming out from you?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Nothing planned yet, but I definitely could be tempted. Yes,
I think I should again do that thing of saying
yes now on the podcast and challenging myself to see
whether I could do it another story or collection of the
short stories. But if it never happens, I'm so thrilled
that this exists, because, as I say, for what I
thought was going to be one story became the collection
(30:55):
of five that I'm really proud of. And it's a
thrill to hear that you enjoy them. That's the it's
always terrifying thinking polease. Fans know that it's a fan
writing them, and it's a fan trying to do his best.
So if you enjoy them, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
It doesn't feel like fan fiction. It doesn't feel like
something I could fine on the internet. These are real,
actual stories, polished, beautifully paced, super well written. So thank
you for doing that.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Thank you, sir. No, that's can I have that as
a pull quote? I'll put them on post.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Talking about how prolific you are. What are you working
on right now? Because you've got so many different projects
that you do.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
There is the volume two of the X Files, the
official Archives, which I'm still busy hard working out. That's
been a long project and ongoing projects since the first volume.
So that's that's a really exciting one for me because
it's the entire mythology of the X Files, going back
from season one or worth through the season eleven, presented
in a similar way to Volume one in terms of
these are the reports that the agents are filing with
(31:55):
some twist and turns surprises should we stay in this
particular volume because when you're handling the mythol the X Files,
there's a lot of things which aren't necessarily which can't
necessarily be handled as exact reports. There's some other ways
to handle those things creatively. Music wise, I just did
a really fun soundtrack for there's another podcast called Return
of the Pod, which is a begin of the Star
(32:16):
Wars led podcast but become more of a kind of
pop culture podcast, and they wanted a new main scene
that expanded to being a bunch of cues of themes
for their shows. That was really fun to do because
they're great guys. That's a really fun show. And there's
a film that's crony in pre production called Kilter, which
I'm attached to as a composer, So that's shooting in
about eight weeks, which is a short which is basically
(32:40):
a proof of concept for a feature, which is a
director called Bartley Taylor, who I've worked with before.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Great director, great creative.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
The rest of the year is nice and busy, which
is always nice, and I love to be able to
balance between books and music projects slash film products because
they do inform each other. A lot of people think
it's very chalk and cheese, but it's not. They're very
much about structure and storytelling and pacing, like you say,
and so I think that the more eclectic things that
(33:09):
I do just for myself, I feel like it informs
the other projects really well and just improves everything.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Where's the best place for people to keep up with
you and your work?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Probably the main website is Paul terryprojects dot com that
sort of has everything covered. So it's just got all
of my yeah, my bookwork, my music work, and anything
in between. You can just figure out, have a click
around and if there's anything that takes you fancy.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Paul, Thank you so much. It was a great talking
with you today.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Thank you so much having me on the show. I
love the show, fan of the show, so it's a
great It's a great opportunity to be on your show.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Up a
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Coup sh
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