• .: Welcome to Town… :.

    Doctor Xander Crowe was a formidable psychologist until a terrible tragedy sent him spiraling down the dark pathways of the occult. Now, a strange vision leads Doctor Crowe to the hidden town of Wormwood, where shadows lurk in every corner and evil stains the souls of the inhabitants. Welcome to Wormwood.

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    Wormwood Episode 2: Small Town Drama

    Posted By on August 1, 2007

    Habit Forming Films proudly presents: Wormwood: Episode Two: Small Town Drama!

    Listen Now!
    (Right click on icon and save to download to your desktop.)

    Subscribe in iTunes.

    Episode Two: Small Town Drama
    Written by David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers
    Produced and Recorded by Habit Forming Films, LLC
    Edited by David Accampo
    Original Music Composed by Todd Hodges
    Sound Effects Design by Chris Sahakian
    Story Consultant: Jeremiah Allan

    Starring:
    Arthur Russell as Doctor Xander Crowe
    Scott Olynek as Jacob Kitter
    Rob Grindlinger as Sheriff Tom Bradley
    Joe J Thomas as Hank Mason and the Announcer
    Koralee Nickarz as Emily Saunders and Deidre Frost
    Zachary Foulkes as Brent Saunders
    Peter Dirksen as Jimmy Details
    Luke Gannon as Doctor Pete Meno
    Dave Johnston as Deputy Wayne Drexal
    and Sonia Perozzi as Rachel Nolen

    Additional voices in this episode include:

    Anna Maganini as TV Announcer
    Joe J. Thomas as TV Reporter

    Copyright 2007 Habit Forming Films, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

    Wormwood Episode 1: The Coming Storm

    Posted By on July 25, 2007

    Habit Forming Films proudly presents: Wormwood: Episode One: The Coming Storm!

    Listen Now!
    (Right click on icon and save to download to your desktop.)

    Subscribe in iTunes.

    Episode One: The Coming Storm
    Written by David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers
    Produced and Recorded by Habit Forming Films, LLC
    Edited by Jeremy Rogers
    Original Music Composed by Todd Hodges
    Sound Effects Design by Chris Sahakian
    Story Consultant: Jeremiah Allan

    Starring:
    Arthur Russell as Xander Crowe
    Sonia Perozzi as Sparrow and Rachel Nolen
    Scott Olynek as Jacob Kitter
    Joe J Thomas as Hank Mason
    Koralee Nickarz as Emily Saunders and Deidre Frost
    Andrew Ramirez as Dexter Nolen
    Peter Dirksen as Jimmy Details

    Additional voices in this episode include:

    Peter Dirksen as Gas Station Attendant
    Cheyenne Bsaies as Prostitute
    Joe J. Thomas as Mob Goon 1
    Rob Grindlinger as Mob Goon 2 and Driver

    Copyright 2007 Habit Forming Films, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

    Podshow PDN {podshow-df201b4189d6d5352015db0f75b87b21}

    Standing on the precipice…

    Posted By on July 24, 2007

    Tonight…at midnight…

    Wormwood Episode One: The Coming Storm debuts!

    This episode was written by David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers and features original music by Todd Hodges, with sound effects provided by Chris Sahakians.

    The Cast of Episode One includes:

    Arthur Russell as Xander Crowe
    Sonia Perozzi as Sparrow and Rachel Nolen
    Scott Olynek as Jacob Kitter
    Joe J Thomas as Hank Mason
    Koralee Nickarz as Emily Saunders and Deidre Frost
    Andrew Ramirez as Dexter Nolen
    Peter Dirksen as Jimmy Details

    Additional voices in this episode include:

    Peter Dirksen as ‘Gas Station Attendant’
    Cheyenne Bsaises as ‘Prostitute’
    Joe J. Thomas as ‘Mob Goon #1’
    Rob Grindlinger as ‘Mob Goon #2’ and ‘Driver’

    We’re very excited about our premiere! Stay Tuned!

    And if you happen to be in San Diego on Wednesday night through Saturday, find David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers at the Comi-con International show and proudly proclaim, “I’ve come for the dead woman!”

    Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery Podcast Debuts

    Posted By on July 24, 2007

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

    WORMWOOD: A SERIALIZED MYSTERY PODCAST DEBUTS

    Once a prominent psychologist, tragedy forced Doctor Xander Crowe down the dark pathways of the occult, and he was transformed. Now, chasing the vision of a drowned woman, Doctor Crowe finds himself in the mysterious town of Wormwood, where evil lurks in the shadows and stains the souls of its inhabitants. Welcome to Wormwood.

    Wormwood is a new dramatic audio series brought to you by the independent production company, Habit Forming Films, LLC. The podcast debuts at midnight on July 24th, 2007 on the show’s website, www.wormwoodshow.com.

    The brainchild of award-winning directors David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers (Bad Habits), Wormwood strives to pull together the appeal of serialized storytelling and portable audio content. “I grew up on serialized stories,” says Accampo of the new series, “I’m a huge comic book geek, and I love shows like Lost and Twin Peaks. I also love my iPod and download podcasts all the time, so the format just made sense to me. I was tired of spending three hours lighting a set to capture what ends up being 15 seconds of film. This way we get to use a widely-embraced portable audio format and a form of storytelling that hearkens back to the early days of radio.”

    Embracing fond memories of classic radio series, talk of The Shadow, The Hermit’s Cave, and Inner Sanctum fed the desire to capture lush and disturbing imaginations with sound as the only resource. “We love the intricacies of modern long-form storytelling, and really thought we could unleash the scope of our projects with this audio format,” says Rogers. “Within the building dread of Season One,” Accampo adds, “we’re banking on becoming something character driven and epic that audiences hold up to the standards of their favorite series, whether printed, broadcasted, or projected onto a big multiplex screen.”

    Wormwood follows Doctor Crowe’s arrival in the mysterious town, where nothing is as it seems. Dubbed “an occult mystery,” the show combines elements of intrigue and horror with a healthy dose of soap opera. “Our target audience is fans of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Lost, as well as comics like Hellboy or Preacher,” says Rogers, “our influences run the gamut from Aaron Sorkin to Warren Ellis to HP Lovecraft to the great Hammer Film Productions. The show is dark, but it’s not always serious – there’s a healthy dose of quick-witted banter that works well for audio. It’s actually one of the funniest things we’ve written, while still remaining sinister and creepy when it needs to be.”

    Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery features the voice talent of Arthur Russell, Sonia Perozzi, Scott Olynek, Joe J. Thomas, Koralee Nickarz, Rob Grindlinger and more. Original music for the series was composed by Todd Hodges. The 22-minute series premiere launches at midnight on July 24th, 2007, with new episodes every week thereafter, and can be downloaded directly from the series’ website, www.wormwoodshow.com.

    ###

    Wormwood Teaser 2: Behind The Scenes

    Posted By on July 23, 2007

    Wormwood Teaser 2: A Behind-The-Scenes Conversation with David Accampo, Jeremy Rogers, and special guest Sonia Perozzi.
    (Right click and save to download to your desktop)

    Our second teaser podcast, just days before Wormwood launches! Listen to series creators David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers babble about Wormwood and talk to cast member Sonia Perozzi, who plays the dual roles of Sparrow and Rachel Nolen.

    Wormwood Goes to SDCC

    Posted By on July 23, 2007

    Armed with specially-printed CDs, Habit Forming Films will be in attendance at the 2007 San Diego Comi-Con show on Thursday, July 26th through Saturday, July 28th. So look for us, and we’ll give you a free CD containing the first two episodes of Wormwood.

    Wormwood CDs

    So take a look for these mugs:

    David Accampo

    and proudly exclaim: “I’ve come for the dead woman!”

    Getting to Know…Todd Hodges

    Posted By on July 16, 2007

    You’ve gotten to know our writing staff, so now we turn our attention to some of the other creators involved behind the scenes of Wormwood. Todd Hodges is the music composer for Wormwood, some of which you may have heard on our first Teaser Podcast. Todd’s created several key pieces of music that will give Wormwood a unique atmosphere. We sat down with Todd and asked him few questions about his music, his influences, and how he came to our haunted little town.

    Questions created by Rob Allspaw.


    Q: How did you get involved with Wormwood?
    A: I’ve known staff writers Rob Allspaw and Rick Bata for a few years through a mutual friend, Bobb Amidon. Since Bobb is a longtime musician and DJ, Rob talked to him about Wormwood. Dave [Accampo] and Jeremy [Rogers] provided Bobb with a description of what they wanted and Bobb thought the project would be more in my area of experience. So, thank you Bobb! From there, I got in touch with Dave and Jeremy and I put together a sample to see if my style would fit. To my delight, they liked it. They really, really liked it. (Is a Sally Field reference weird here?) [Editor’s Note: Yes. Yes, it is.]

    Q: What attracted you to Wormwood?
    A: Well, initially, I thought I’d found a new source of absinthe, but I guess that’s not what it’s about. Seriously, I read the first two episodes and got hooked. The characters and the storyline provide a great deal of interest and intrigue that make for a rich palette of inspiration that I can draw from. In addition, the idea of a modern radio drama appealed to me.

    Q: How do you think the music of Wormwood will influence the audience?
    A: I’m hoping that it will make the audience aware of the emotional state of the characters and add to the drama. I hope it will serve to help draw the audience in and allow them to fully experience Wormwood.

    Q: What aspects of the project and/or Wormwood do you find the most compelling?
    A: Being a great fan of audio, I love the idea of a radio drama and its revival in the form of a Podcast. I think it’s great that the mp3 world is allowing a renewal of such a great form of art. I also love the complexity of the characters, the bits of the weird, the strange, the supernatural, and the wittiness of the script.

    Q: Within the project of Wormwood, what do you find the most challenging?
    A: The DEADLINE!!!

    [Editor’s Note: Todd was referred to us very late in the game, and thus had a strict deadline to meet our deadlines. He’s done an admirable job of turning in his work, and we’ve been very impressed with what we’ve received.]


    Q: Within the project of Wormwood, what do you find the most rewarding?

    A: I’m having so much fun allowing my imagination take off, thinking about the characters and the settings described in the script, and letting it roam into different musical areas. I’ve never done a project like this where so many different moods need to be expressed sonically, and I’m having a great time figuring out how to express them.

    Q: What was your approach to making the music for Wormwood?
    A: I’m a violinist, so melodies usually come easily for me. Usually, I’d come up with a main theme for one of the pieces of music and then either record it or write it down. Then I’d work on adding a chord structure underneath, finishing by filling in some harmonies. However, I love all kinds of sound, so I also would play with different sounds and sonorities and add any “happy accidents” that inspired me further and fit the feel of the music.

    Q: How did you come up with the style of the sound?
    A: I wanted to create something that felt a bit rural and quirky. I wanted the music to have a tinge of the strange, while remaining melodic. Wormwood has a dark history and I wanted the music to reflect that in some way.

    Q: What are some of your influences?
    A: Beethoven, Berg, Bjork, Kronos Quartet, Mahler, Radiohead, Stravinsky, Stockhausen. I like all kinds of music, but I would have to say that these artists and composers are the ones that actually influence what I do.


    Q: Share a little about your past music projects and education. Any awards or publications?

    A: I’ve been involved with music for a long time, mainly with playing violin and singing. My formal education in theory and composition took place at UC Davis. Probably one of my favorite projects there was a Computer and Electronic music class which culminated in a “theatrical” production put on by the class in the main theater composed of pieces created by the class. Under the tutelage of Wayne Slawson, we learned a lot about the art of placing sound in time and space. The experience ignited a long-smoldering fire for music and gadgets that eventually lead to my career change.

    Q: What made you get into music?
    A: Oh boy… that’s reaching back a bit. I had two cousins who lived in the same city I did and we spent a lot of time together. They had started playing the violin and so when the opportunity came up in the public school in 4th grade, I started playing too. However, that was a rather silly reason to get into music. What’s kept me in music is the love of all kinds of sounds, the abstract expression of ideas through sound, and whether performing someone else’s music or composing, that high you get from creating something.

    Q: Is there anything you wanted to add to let the fan base know more about you?

    A: Nope.


    Q: Give us a hint, what’s one thing you can reveal?

    A: I prefer boxer briefs.


    Be sure to check out the link to “Wormwood: A Musical Teaser” for a special edition podcast that features the Main Theme for Wormwood, composed and recorded by Todd Hodges!

    Wormwood Teaser 1: The Music

    Posted By on July 12, 2007

    Our first Teaser Podcast! Hear the Wormwood Theme by composer Todd Hodges!

    Wormwood: A Musical Teaser
    (Right-click and save to download to your desktop)

    Subscribe in iTunes.

    Getting to Know… Jeremy Rogers

    Posted By on July 9, 2007

    We asked all of our writers some questions about their writing and their work on Wormwood. We’ve talked to the writing staff, and now we turn our attention to the series creators, David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers. We’ve talked to David Accampo about the origins of Wormwood, and now Jeremy Rogers shares some additional insights.

    Questions created by Rob Allspaw.


    Q: How did Wormwood come about? What was the process and what is the hope behind it?
    A: Since Habit Forming Films launched in 2005 as a means to stop relying on the chance of convincing someone to help us get something produced, be it a screenplay or a graphic novel, we’ve been hard at work making short films. We’ve had some success with our films, and though it’s rewarding as hell, there’s always that desire to be able to go bigger in ways our short film budgets just don’t allow. So, the idea of podcasting an audio series without concern for running length or costly setups and effects, and with a cast of characters not limited by the scope was immediately appealing. I’m always interested in film projects, genre films mostly, that not only find a way to produce something with a small budget, but find ways to make the tight resources an attribute to the project. We’re getting that with Wormwood.

    I’m not the podcast fanatic of the group. But I understand the appeal, and I think my interest with the format would increase if I had an iPod I could play through my car stereo. But I’ve spent many hours in the dark with old radio shows like The Shadow, The Hermit’s Cave, and Inner Sanctum to know that you can strip away the visuals and style creatively and have something fantastically epic. I definitely understand the appeal to that. What I grasped onto early in the development of Wormwood was the realization that we could do an old radio serial and update it with complex characters and storylines. Within the story, I could funnel my love of horror, especially Lovecraftian seethe, into this tale of a seemingly normal small town hiding a big secret.

    As the creep factor and characters began to flesh out, I became not only a co-creator, but also a fan.

    Q: How did you get involved with Wormwood?
    A: Like with most of our projects, David Accampo and I spend some time on the phone together. We’ll pitch, rattle, and linger on an idea for hours, and if it sticks the next day, we’ve got something to work on. With Wormwood, we found our hook quickly: This guy goes to a small town seeking a drowned woman, only he arrives too early. We talked horror and mystery, small town quirk, and gradually, new characters started popping up to fill the quaint, forgotten town. And there I was, caught up in the middle of new project, ready to go.

    Q: What attracted you to Wormwood?
    A: I’ve never had the chance to tell long story arcs and play and evolve characters as I go. I’ll be honest, and say that I’ve been writing screenplays for the past ten years more than I’ve been writing anything else. My ability to work in a longer format has generally resulted in confusion and then lack of commitment – I’m one of those with long dormant novels taking up hard drive space. Wormwood is the perfect format for me, then. I write a script, but without that industry standard three act structure and page limitation. As a fan of some serialized television and comics, I’m really excited about spending some excess time in this town, with these people. It’s all very ambitious and challenging, and I totally believe that we have ideas to carry us to our goal. Plus, it’s got a Muddy Man and lurid romance and a cranky British doctor with a nasty, demonic, hand. If I could move to Wormwood, I would. But I’ll just have to settle for writing about it.

    Q: Which character do you associate with most?
    A: Crowe and Sparrow clicked into place immediately. I knew what felt right at the start. Getting them down in the beginning made it so I was able to instinctively know right and wrong with approaches to the rest of the characters, the town of Wormwood included. I have my favorites, the ones that I look more forward to writing and following the insight and rhythms of what others write.

    Q: Are there any characters you are struggling to understand?
    A: Wormwood is a bit of a soap opera by design. If I have too much trouble with a character, I reserve the right to suddenly kill them off without a structured course of action. Of course, that will inevitably lead to someone calling me out in the writer’s room with the cry, “But we had plans with so and so, integral plans for the primary story arc of season one.” I understand that. It’ll be fine.

    Q: What aspects of the project and/or Wormwood do you find the most compelling?
    A: Honestly, it’s not the mystery or the occult stuff. I just might be in the minority, but when a story becomes too overt in dealing with the supernatural, I tend to retreat a little. I prefer the playful build of something evil and occult ridden than I do the moment it all enters the daylight and from there forward becomes normal to the story. That said, I think we have a really compelling mythos for Wormwood going on here. The balance of personality and history with a sense of dread is really compelling. I just don’t want to see (or hear) a super cool lightshow confrontation as we move towards the good vs. evil smackdown climax. We keep it subtle and weird and full of horror in controlled ways, and I’m ecstatic.

    Q: Within the project of Wormwood, what do you find the most challenging?

    A: Writing without visuals and still being dynamic is a challenge at times. It takes some effort typing out beginnings to a page before I’m able to get that intriguing line of dialogue and sense of location and action that clicks with me in a way that I don’t feel hindered by the format but completely in tune with it. Once that happens, it’s good, and the only risk is that the script will be too long for one episode.

    Q: Within the project of Wormwood, what do you find the most rewarding?

    A: The humor! Wormwood marks a transition, as it’s a dark tale of bad things, but there’s a sense of fun to be had. The characters banter playfully back and forth in ways that establish their personalities and how they communicate, while managing to say the things that need to be said in order to tell a story. I love it.

    Deeper than the funny, I appreciate how we’ve taken a simple mysterious launching pad and put it through a workshop to develop an intricate bible of characters and history. We have enough story ideas to fill three seasons online, and enough mythology involved to write books and movies before and after our main thread. In fact, we have an abundance of content that will probably never see the light of day. But it’s there, and for all of us writing episodes, this kind of mammoth insight is one of the best resources we have.

    The other thing, more than the mystery, has to be the characters. We have a great cast of actors assembled, and our aim for complex characters should be riveting through them. If we can pull it off online with audio, the audience will find themselves fallen so deep into the horror and intrigue that they won’t be able to get out. And they’ll die.

    Q: What do you think about the added content on the website?

    A: I love short stories. The way we can make this world so much larger and detailed with additional material is something that I think will appeal to any writer. We’re not just telling a story here, we’ve made this world and these characters real in our minds, and in many ways the audio listeners will never be let in on the complexities. But with the supplemental, possibly experimental, content on the website, we have the opportunity to tease out a link or two, illuminate a little of where we’re coming from with the characters and the town of Wormwood. I’m holding off from contributing any of the added content for a while. I have several story ideas and some pages written that I’m pretty happy with, but for now, I want to put my entire focus on creating the audio show and building the audience. As much as I’m compelled to dive in and write and write, I’m letting that itch bother me for the time being.

    Q: With the collaborative process of writing the story, you have six writers now, what do you find to be the most rewarding of this style and what do you find to be the most challenging?
    A: As one of the show runners, you have to envision that I’m smiling. There’s really no challenge. We’re all going to approach ideas from slightly different points of view from time to time, and we’re not always going to agree on the best course of action. But we all know where we’re going, we have all the beats in mind, and most importantly, we all really dig the characters and story. Obviously, we’re going to have surprises thrown around, we’re going to argue for what we feel is genius when everyone else just doesn’t get it, and we’re going to end up with script pages and new ideas that are so much better by having a group of excellent writers on board. All six of us are primed and ready to make Wormwood not merely one of the best (and only) horror/mystery serials in podcast form, but one of the best serial stories available in any format.

    Q: Where do you see the project heading?
    A: Scandinavia. Seriously, one way or another, I’ll get us there.

    I’m adamant about taking the time to put focus on telling a story online, weekly. I want us to dedicate ourselves to that mission first. But I won’t lie. I’m a film and book guy, and I’d love to generate a strong enough audience to take Wormwood to the networks and studios and presses. It’s all in how we grow it. We have the potential here to be able to tell many stories across different mediums. We just have to be careful about our approach. But I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t want to start online and move into print and ultimately involve really expensive high definition cameras.

    Q: Give us a hint, what’s one thing you can reveal?
    A: The Muddy Man won’t really snip you. He will drip from his bones, however. It’s really quite gross.

    Q: What are some of your influences?

    A: I wasn’t allowed to watch many movies growing up. I wasn’t left out of the Spielberg/Lucas collaborations as a kid, but for the most part, movies sort of eclipsed me until I turned twelve and changed my living situation from one parent to the other, ending up with the one who had just purchased a top loading 125lb VHS behemoth. That VHS deck has had more influence on my life than my parent’s divorce, and it was a very nasty divorce. Suddenly, there was an awakening, of science fiction and action, of David Cronenberg (who I discovered at twelve when I caught the tail end of Rabid on cable late one night) and of cult horror movies. I had no idea… I’ve never looked back at a life without this stuff.

    Books on the other hand have been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve been a fanatic, and absolutely love my overflowing bookcase. Hell, my bulldog was named after Victor Hugo, and my high school GPA dropped as soon as I discovered J.G. Ballard and opted to sit in my car parked out in the school lot and skip day after day of classes as I read through his collection.

    Influences… yeah, there are just too many. At any given time, I’m likely to draw on something. And I have no problem with that.

    Q: Share a little about you past writing projects and education. Any awards or publications?

    A: This, I’m happy to state: I’m a film school dropout who, after three and a half years in the film department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale opted for a term in an advanced filmmaker’s co-op in Chicago. It’s taken eight years since to finally start making films.

    I moved to Los Angeles to start working in film, became frustrated, and dedicated myself to writing. Somewhere along the timeline, I found myself caught up in the dotcom craze of the late nineties, where I spent time writing a lot of corporate scripts and documents for LOAD Media, even as I really only invested myself writing screenplays. Yes, on company time.

    With that sudden turn to the internet, I inevitably began to develop quite a bit of creative content for our now defunct but expecting a revival writer’s website Laughing Mad Scribes. Not only a showcase for screenplays, we published short stories, reviews of everything we consumed, commentaries, and tried to instigate a functioning writer’s workshop. That little bit of dabbling in web design, coupled with finding myself stuck in the corporate cubicle workforce and wanting to die, took me into the two year multimedia program at Sessions School of Design. I became certified for oh so intermediate levels of Flash programming and have struggled ever since to keep up with web trends.

    I’ve had top ranking screenplays during the infancy of Zoetrope Online, and later with Trigger Street. Two of my screenplay collaborations with David Accampo have achieved finalist status with the Project Greenlight. I blame our awkward audition tape for knocking our quirky thriller Cacophony out of the top 100. Somehow the fine people of Voice Over Magazine found our one science fiction screenplay The Maitland Exhibit and labeled it “one of the great unproduced screenplays.”

    And then, finally, we started our production company, Habit Forming Films, LLC.

    Bad Habits won a Remi award at the 2006 Worldfest Houston International Film Festival and a Best Actor award at the 2007 Sacramento Film Festival. The Long Road has been accepted into the FAIF International Film Festival and will debut at the Mann’s Chinese in Hollywood in September of 2007.

    Q: What made you want to write?
    A: To escape the shed out back of the house, that aluminum oven with the smell of gasoline leaking out from the lawnmower and the spiders everywhere…

    Q: Is there anything you wanted to add to let the fan base know more about you?
    A: The only time I have ever consumed a sizeable amount of absinthe, was also the first time that I watched Kevin Smith’s Dogma. I fired up some sugar cubes and the DVD player, and before all was done, the sun was up.

    Getting To Know…David Accampo

    Posted By on July 5, 2007

    We asked all of our writers some questions about their writing and their work on Wormwood. We’ve talked to the writing staff, and now we turn our attention to the series creators, David Accampo and Jeremy Rogers. First up, David Accampo shares some insight into how the show came into being.

    Questions created by Rob Allspaw.


    Q: How did Wormwood come about?
    A: A few years ago, I was at a panel at a comic book convention where Mike Mignola was talking about the creation of his character, Hellboy. He said that he basically put everything that he liked into one character. Wormwood’s a bit like that. A mish-mash of all the things I’ve loved over the years. In fact, if you were to open up my personal writing files, you’d find elements of Wormwood going back maybe 12 years or more. I wrote a short story about the town I grew up in many years ago, and I put one supernatural element in the town. That element is now in Wormwood. Later, I worked with Christa Nahhas (Executive Producer on Bad Habits) on a series idea that became largely about a very strange town called Border. I’ve also dabbled over the years in various media with a detective character named Lilith Darke. Her home town was called Quarry, which is strikingly similar to Wormwood. In some regards, Wormwood feels like a story I’ve been trying to write for a long time.

    >From a production standpoint, I was tired of sitting on movie sets for 3 hours, waiting for someone to light a scene that would amount to 15 seconds of film. The idea of audio recording sessions seem so much more…productive, just in terms of getting a story out there. It seems to be more directly about the performers and the writing.

    And…I’ve turned into a podcast freak over the past few years, so the concept of a show you could listen to while at the beach or the gym or in your car really appeals to me.

    Q: What was the process and what is the hope behind it?
    A: Once I pitched him the concept of a podcast, Jeremy Rogers and I fleshed out the series bible, sending it back and forth, adding little bits as we went. We also started the script in the same way. We tend to write back and forth. Once we realized what we had, we decided to actively seek other writers. Our first was Jeremiah Allan, who jumped on board and immediately started spitballing ideas with us. In fact, the sample script he turned in as sort of an “audition” piece built on one of our initial ideas, and we liked it so much that it’s become one of the cornerstones of the series (with huge ramifications in Season Two).

    The hope is to create entertainment on a low budget but with HUGE imagination. I’d love to have this be a must-listen-to download every week. Nothing would make me happier. And what’s more, I’m just in love with this world we created. I see so much potential for other media. I think it could also translate really well into an animated show or even a live-action TV show.

    Q:Which character do you associate with most?
    A: I think I associate with most of them on some level. Jimmy Details has a lot of my childhood and a lot of my joy of life in him. Crowe is all my angry sarcasm at small towns. Sheriff Bradley is the small town guy in me. And Brent and Jacob…shades of me as an adult and a teenager, respectively.

    Q: Are there any characters you are struggling to understand?

    A: I can’t say too much without spoiling anything. Let’s just say there are a couple of characters whose roles grow into something more…and understanding that progression may be a struggle. Also: Sparrow…we know her role in the story, but I still sense there’s something more we need to crack open on her.

    Q:What aspects of the project and/or Wormwood do you find the most compelling?

    A: I think it’s got to be the spark that comes from collaborating with so many writers. I really just feed off of that energy. And really, it goes back to my other answer, too. This series was intentionally built for me to throw in every cool thing I could think of. There are countless stories I can tell with this world.

    Q: Within the project of Wormwood, what do you find the most challenging?
    A: Sustaining the mystery. It’s silly writing this before an episode has dropped, but we know the bigger picture, and we know where it’s all going. So making sure we have a clear direction without giving too much away is a real balancing act.

    Q: Within the project of Wormwood, what do you find the most rewarding?
    A: I think I have to wait to see how people react first. But right now, it’s the act of world-building. I’ve just got so much to say about these characters and this town.

    Q: What do you think about the added content on the website?
    A: I love it. See my above response about world-building. It’s tricky, though. We don’t want to give too much away. That said, there are little bits and pieces in the text on the site that actually reveal elements of the mystery. So, if you read them, you come into the show with a slight different perspective. If you don’t, then no harm done. The show is still complete in and of itself.

    Q: With the collaborative process of writing the story, you have six writers now, what do you find to be the most rewarding of this style and what do you find to be the most challenging?
    A: From where I sit as one of the show runners, I have a little advantage: the buck stops here. So the rewards are that I get to collaborate with a bunch of writers, spinning ideas back and forth and watching them take shape. The challenge is that Jeremy and I have to make some tough choices about which ideas work and which ones have to fall by the wayside. We have a very specific vision, but we’re not so wrapped up that we can’t see the good ideas when they come. We just have to make sure that all the new ideas enhance the story rather than detracting from it.

    Q: Where do you see the project heading?

    A: 3 seasons, 24 episodes per season. Beyond that…there’s room for more. Or perhaps we’ll just expand it out into different areas. The concept of the show allows us a lot of lateral room. In addition to that: other media. I’d like to do novels or graphic novel with some of the characters. I’d love to do a movie with them.

    Q: Give us a hint, what’s one thing you can reveal?

    A: The first dead girl you find isn’t the one Crowe is looking for.

    Q: What are some of your influences?

    A: Growing up, I loved fantasy, and then horror. As an adult, I fell more into the modern literary trends, but I have an absolute love of genre, and more importantly, stories that blend genres. Wormwood is my love letter to David Lynch’s and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks, but it shares elements of Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carnivale, and The X-files. Comics are a big influence, like Mignola’s and DC/Vertigo comics like Swamp Thing, Hellblazer and The Sandman, as well as movies like Rosemary’s Baby, Angel Heart, The Exorcist, and The Ninth Gate.

    Q:Share a little about you past writing projects and education. Any awards or publications?

    A: My first published short story appeared in the SF State literary journal, Transfer. After that I did some advertising copywriting, and produced some material for a digital production studio, including a satirical entertainment comedy show called “The Barbed Wire.” Don’t worry if you didn’t see it; no one did. I also produced the LOAD Media News for them. Again, unless you had downloaded the LOAD video player software in 1999, you didn’t see any of this. Later, Jeremy Rogers and I collaborated on several scripts, two of which achieved finalist status in the Project: Greenlight competition. After that, Jeremy and I decided to direct our own short film, Bad Habits. That won a Remi Award at the 2006 Houston Worldfest Film festival and grabbed a best actor award at the 2007 Sacramento International Film Festival. Our second film, The Long Road, is in competition in the 2007 FAIF Film Festival in Hollywood.

    Q: What made you want to write?
    A: I honestly don’t know what first sparked it. As early as I can remember, I was writing stories…really bad Tolkien rip-offs in the third and fourth grade. I used to LOVE the segments of English class when we actually got to write our own stories. I think from the moment I could read, I wanted to make stories like the ones I was reading. However, I may not have settled on writing, except I had that one great junior college creative writing teacher, Susan Browne. You know the type – they just inspire you right when that’s exactly what you need. That solidified my path. I’ve always been a writer first and everything-else-second since then.

    Q: Is there anything you wanted to add to let the fan base know more about you?
    A: There’s a fanbase?

    OK, which one of you has been going through my trash at night?

    Seriously, those aren’t my dirty magazines.