Shipworm: Two-Up’s Secret Six-Part Audio Drama

Shipworm is the newest audio drama from production company Two-Up, known best for Limetown and 36 Questions. After listening to the series in full, Discover Pods contributors Gavin Gaddis and Bob Raymonda sat down to discuss. This round table (or, just, regular table, given there’s just two of them) has been compiled and edited from Slack messages for clarity and cohesion.

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Gavin Gaddis: What’re we feeling now that we’ve listened to Shipworm? I have critical thoughts, unsurprising given I’m a critic and that’s our job, but from the jump I wanna get it out there: Shipworm is a fun 90s thriller flick in audio form, and I love that.

Bob Raymonda: That was exactly the experience that I had with it as well. Story-wise it felt like such a throwback. Shipworm reminded me of movies like the Colin Farrell movie Phone Booth (2002). 

Gaddis: Yes, yes! Phone Booth, yes. 

Raymonda: You don’t really see too many generic, one-off action thrillers like that anymore. Everything’s gotta be a franchise now. But at that specific moment in time, there were so many of them, and Shipworm feels like it’s specifically harkening back to that style in a way that felt nice, even if it did feel sort of derivative because of it.

Gaddis: Even the font choice for the title that’s used in the show art, on the website, and the transcript is in this big blocky industrial font that’d work great for a ship name, which coincidentally is exactly the kind of font one would use on a 90s action thriller poster. Likely with the top-billed actor running in a dark void with a tagline like “His name’s Jack and he’s got 17 hours to live.” 

Raymonda: Exactly. This podcast was a Two-Up joint, so the production was super slick and the performances were always fantastic. But there’s also a part of me that understands the inherent goal in a lot of the Two-Up projects – and this isn’t an admonishment of them – is an intent of being adapted. They have a different feel from most examples of audio fiction meant for adaptation, like Blackout, which clearly come from Hollywood writers writing for a medium they don’t understand, who end up trying to make an audio-only IP farm on a fraction of the budget of a traditional TV pilot. 

The Two-Up people have an intrinsic understanding of how to make audio, so there’s more to it than that from the jump. They’re able to build in those delicious layers that a lot of those production companies could never dream of.  But still as we now know, Shipworm is being adapted as a feature film, and I could tell that that’s what they were angling for long before the adaptation was even announced.

Gaddis: There are parts of Shipworm I would strongly argue will be less-than when adapted to a movie if you were to take the existing script and adapt it one to one. A specific moment that pops to mind is when Wallace falls asleep and has the dream that ends up coming true. 

Raymonda: Yes.

Read more: Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie on “Limetown”

Gaddis: That moment requires the audience to do some legwork. Akers and Bonkie’s writing combined with the sound design set that scene up so there’s some interpretive work you, as a person consuming this piece of art, have to chew over. It has thematic use. 

The movie version of the same scene will likely show him driving, he’ll slowly blink, and then bam: he’s on a boat in a storm. Likely even using footage from the boat scene later so the audience doesn’t have a chance of missing what’s happening. I’m not cynical enough to say a movie of Shipworm can’t meet or exceed the “audio movie,” but there are things Shipworm does extremely well that puts the movie in a position where it’ll have to try harder to achieve anywhere near the same sort of efficacy.

Raymonda: Exactly, and I don’t know if it’s necessary. That dream sequence is something that forces the audience to engage with the text in a way that film and television don’t. That doesn’t mean a visual medium doesn’t come with its own bevy of advantages, but because the story places you in Wallace’s head the whole time with the Conductor lurking right there alongside him, there are moments where his unreliability as a narrator will be less effective. It won’t hit as hard in those early scenes where he’s first realized she’s in his head, but he’s talking to somebody else who doesn’t know she’s there.

Gaddis: It’ll be exactly like Her (2013).

Raymonda: Yes! And it won’t feel as disorienting as it did in the beginning of Shipworm during the brief period where you’re asking “What is happening with this guy? Has this really happened to him? Is he actually interacting with this person?” Film is going to inherently change that experience of the work.

Gaddis: I find the gimmick of a flustered character with a voice in their head confusing a third person who’s in the room and can’t hear the voice tiring at the best of times. It’s a testament to Quinten Earl Darrington and Miriam Silverman acting their ever-loving asses off whenever Shipworm partakes in said trope that I somehow wasn’t grinding my teeth.

Raymonda: Yeah, there are so many parts of this that are tropey as hell.

Gaddis: Which is fun! Sometimes you just want some pepperoni pizza. 

Raymonda: Sometimes you just want an uncomplicated piece of media that’s going to follow the traditional peaks and valleys that you already expect from it the moment you press play. Which doesn’t detract from your overall ability to enjoy the experience. In fact, I’d argue that it can be more comfortable that way, less stressful, and frankly, sometimes, more fun.

Gaddis: I really hope the adaptation of this uses the same cast. Two-Up takes full advantage of the lesson Disney famously learned in the late 80s/early 90s: Broadway actors are extremely good voice actors. 

Raymonda: Extremely. Broadway actors are on a stage. They’re at a distance from everyone who isn’t in those first couple of rows, so they aren’t focusing on those miniscule muscle movements that are being captured in film. They really have to use their vocal instrument to express themselves in a way that film and TV actors don’t. 

I would love the same cast of Shipworm regardless, but at the very least give me a tried-and-true voice actor type in the Conductor role. They’re going to tackle what that role needs; that cold distance but also maniacal calm. And they’ll be able to carry that even if you never see their face.

Gaddis: Silverman is delivering this pseudo-Siri that’s really close to artificial but there’s a villain flavor that comes through consistently. Even in moments when she’s not doing stuff to punish him for being somebody with free will there’s an edge to everything. Hell, even when she’s being “nice” to him it’s purely in service of collecting the data. 

Gaddis: I think it’s worth noting the fact the marketing for Shipworm has laser-focused on calling it an audio movie. I don’t think I’m out of pocket for saying that decision feels in service of selling it as a movie to somebody outside of podcasting, right?

Raymonda: Yes, fully. 

Gaddis: Which is odd, given on a structural level there’s evidence this wasn’t built as a movie.  Shipworm has act breaks every 20 minutes as if it was originally produced as a six-part limited series. It’s as if someone realized, “If we make it a two hour download, we can sell this script as a movie instead of a TV show.”

Raymonda: Exactly. If you’re not HBO big, people aren’t going to try to buy your limited series. And this feels very much like if they had tried to pitch its adaptation as a limited series it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. But because they went the “audio movie” route they can be presented as if they’re these trailblazers.

Gaddis: “First of its kind audio movie,” blah blah blah.

Raymonda: Which is nowhere near remotely true.

Gaddis: But that marketing wasn’t for people like us. We’re people who listen to and produce audio fiction. We have enough experience in the industry to at least know how to fact-check claims like that. PR people and film journalists who just pull quotes from press releases about podcast adaptations don’t.

Raymonda: And that’s fine. I’m not innately bothered by that decision in the way some other people might be. But I’m not falling for it either.

Gaddis: In the paraphrased words of Steven Spielberg when he was trying to get Shia Labeouf to do press junkets for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: there’s a time to have an opinion, and there’s a time to sell cars.

Raymonda: Yes, yes. Absolutely. I have no problem with that as a goal for them and their PR people. But you’re not wrong. There’re clear episodes throughout Shipworm, even evidenced by the fact the cast rotates predictably. Each little episode has one or two ancillary characters besides Wallace and the Conductor who we spend those 20 minute chunks with. It would be so easy to just divide Shipworm up and release it over six weeks, and I don’t think it would change the experience of the story all that much, other than maybe people would have talked about it for longer. Frankly, I saw almost nobody talk about this. Which is surprising, given the caliber of the team behind it!

Gaddis: Based off my Twitter feed it, seemed like people retweeted Ackers announcing the show, then retweeted Ackers’ retweet of the launch tweet, and that was it. It doesn’t feel like there’s a Tumblr fandom for Shipworm.

Raymonda: I’m sure it got a decent listenership due to the quality of Two-Up’s previous work and the size of their fanbase, but as it currently exists Shipworm feels like a pitch deck they put out into the world. 

Gaddis: And it’s stuck between worlds because of that. You’ve got this episodic structure that feels at odds with the thriller movie genre it’s paying homage to. I argue Shipworm benefits from being a two hour file if only because that builds tension in a way a weekly release wouldn’t have been able to, and that benefits the story. Even with that tension boost, the current structure has these episodic audio fiction tropes built in that tell the brain of a regular podcast listener “here comes the ad break” any time the music fades up.

I’m of the mind the movie decision was either not made before writing or Akers never fully internalized the differences in format, which lead to Shipworm having these vestigial audio fiction traditions that don’t benefit the movie-ness of it all.

Raymonda: I would like to say: I genuinely did enjoy Shipworm. It was exactly that slice of enjoyable, maybe col, pizza that you mentioned earlier. But I agree — the episodic breakdown of its act breaks prevented some of those other things that you’d want to experience from a movie. Where were my A, or B, and or C plots that would’ve bothered to show us what was going out outside of Wallace’s direct view? Thinking about all of that: it’s hard not to be cynical about the decision to package their release and press in the way they did.

Gaddis: To Two-Up’s credit: effort was made to present Shipworm as a responsible product in podcasting. Everyone on the production is credited on one easy-to-read webpage. You can open up the transcript in a Dropbox window or you can download it directly, easy-peasy.

Raymonda: Yes, I appreciate that. I’m so used to projects of this caliber not even touching the idea that having a transcript is the ethical thing to do. 

Raymonda: So, I would like to ask: how do you rank this among Two-Up’s other productions?

Gaddis: I will say, I am a bad Two-Up listener in that I have not gotten around to 36 Questions. Right now our boss Wil is shouting at their screen and will probably DM me “listen to 36 Questions.”  And I do want to listen to it. I just suck at listening to things recreationally. An excellent trait for a podcast critic, I know.

I’d say the list goes 1. Limetown season one, 2. Shipworm, 3. Limetown season two, a cartoonishly large cliff drop-off, then Limetown the TV show. 

Raymonda: Yeah, yeah. Did you did you read Limetown: The Prequel to the #1 Podcast?

Gaddis: I did not, no. 

Raymonda: I had a frustrating experience with Limetown season two because it felt like such an afterthought. Season two almost became an ad for what I found to be a fairly underwhelming novel. I was really enjoying the season, I stopped to read the book, then I finished the season and was like “Oh… okay, so that’s what we’re all doing here.” On top of that, all of their eggs were in that Facebook Watch basket which was always doomed to fail as a platform. So even with the incredible cast they put together for it, we were never going to get more than an adaptation of season one. At that point I promptly gave up on the idea of ever getting a third season of allowing the show to end in a gratifying way.

What I’ll say about Shipworm and 36 Questions is they’re satisfying because they are complete stories. Yeah, this new piece feels episodic. It could be, you know, separate. But it has a beginning, middle and end. Contrast that against my experience with Limetown, even in the halcyon days of season one. I remember how frustrating it was to follow along because sometimes there would be three, four, even five months between episodes. Shipworm, for the simple fact that it presents a complete finished story, is a win for me.

Gaddis: You perfectly hit on an idea that’s been in my head since Shipworm was announced: the world is better off with more audio fiction that can just exist as one thing. I’m excited at the idea of more people considering making more single-unit stories. There’s unexplored potential, especially if they break free from that 20 minute episode rhythm and aren’t inherently constructed to have infinite seasons as long as they’re funded. 

Read more: Seen and Not Heard: On Hearing, On Listening

Raymonda: I love audio fiction, I love sci-fi, I love tropey genre stuff. I have no problem with there being a ton of it, I make it myself. And, I’m specifically loving that lately we’re also starting to see more slice of life stuff works. But Shipworm gives me this feeling like I’m 13 years old again, channel surfing, and have just stumbled across something I’d never heard of in the middle of the day. I put it on, and once it’s done: that’s it. I don’t have to think about it anymore. That’s not an insult or anything, that was one of the most wonderful parts of the Shipworm experience for me. Like you said, it wasn’t built to be infinite.

Gaddis: A lot of contemporary audio fiction is being produced by people who are disenfranchised with Hollywood offerings of genre fiction. They’re saying, “Screw you, I can do better.” Both because of that and the genre’s radio roots being very much cheesy genre fiction, audio fiction kind of evolved backwards to the book world. We got drunk on genre and never really formed a snootiness about whether or not something qualified as Literary Fiction. One place it feels like we’re lacking, though, is that generic action adventure movie with one billable star and a fun gimmick. 

Now, let’s be real, some of that is motivated by the fact that fantastical settings are easier for someone with fewer funds to fudge with sound design. Something like Shipworm, which has expensive sound designs and literal Broadway-caliber actors, can pretend to be the real world for two hours and pull it off.

Raymonda: I’d argue that it would be great to see some more projects like this without that sort of access. Even if it was from many of us who are working in a little scrappier, Freesound-forward style. I have full confidence that it can be done, I just think the challenge at this point, as we’ve seen with Shipworm itself, becomes finding a vocal audience who will help get the word out for something they aren’t going to be dropping back into regularly.

Gaddis: Putting on our producer hats for a moment, did anything particularly stand out in Shipworm in that regard?

Raymonda: I loved the segment toward the end when Wallace actually retrieves the shipworm and comes back up to the boat in the storm. It’s at that point where you get the TS Eliot poem, where the performances were marrying themselves to the atmospheric sound design in a way that was just top notch. I felt like I could very easily visualize every little moment that was happening. And not just because of the sound design either, but also Darrington’s clearly physical approach to performing.

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Gaddis: Yeah, there’s these moments of intense action where you can hear Darrington wasn’t just going, “Ouch, that hurts,” while sitting in a booth, he’s moving around and letting out these legitimate screams.

Raymonda: What about you? 

Gaddis: There’s a subtlety to what Shipworm explicitly describes and what it leaves on the table for you to figure out that a lesser team would’ve explicitly laid out in some big coda to the story. One huge example is near the end when Wallace finds out the Conductor has been using some woman’s voice, and her version of the Conductor has been using Wallace’s. The implication laid at the audience’s feet is either the Conductor has an extremely good voice changer, or is a fully synthesized voice. Neither is important to Shipworm’s plot and it’s left for you to chew on if you want. 

Honestly the one downside to the movie for me will happen in a couple of years when my ass is in a theater watching the pre-rolls. Maria Menounos is going to pop up on screen and start saying crap like, “Here’s a first look at the upcoming movie Shipworm based off the groundbreaking podcast.” All the fluff coverage and advertisements are going to take Two-Up’s marketing bullshit as gospel and say it a lot to sell tickets. And they sure as hell are gonna say the word Podcast a lot because the popcorn-munchers of the world couldn’t possibly handle the term audio drama. 

Raymonda: I’m generally curious if this will even end up in theaters or get dumped somewhere as a streaming original?

Gaddis: This is exactly the kind of movie I want right now in theaters, so I hope on hope it gets a wide release.  Shipworm is a dead art form. It’s the kind of movie where you’re not planning to go to the midnight release. You see it in the list of matinee time slots and think think, “Sure, why not?” Then it ends up blowing your mind. 

Raymonda: Yeah, the kind of movie you walk into because you know you’ve got two hours to kill until your car’s out of the shop, and then you’re truly shocked by what you’ve just experienced. 

Gaddis: So to summarize: Shipworm is brought down by the realities of modern entertainment production, but at its core it’s an enjoyable experience.

Raymonda: Yeah, and I hope more people will listen to it in the indie community, because I would like to see what that could push others to do for themselves. There’s no part of me that’s saying I expect anyone else to have a Two-Up budget, because I don’t. I’m not kidding myself there. But, what does the next smaller version of this look like? And who’s going to be the person that gives that to us? There are so many people out there that would do such a good job of presenting a story in this sort of format.

Gaddis: I think a big lesson I learned from Shipworm is it’s very easy to paint yourself into a corner of the internet where between your existing podcast subscriptions and social media circles, things can seem kinda stagnate with only one or two refreshingly new things popping up occasionally.  It’s easy to forget there’s infinite amounts of stories that can be told in this medium, and while it sucks it took something as big-budget as Shipworm to break through the fog, I’m thrilled to be reminded we can do whatever the hell we want here.

Raymonda: Truly, truly, there’s nobody stopping us besides maybe Two-Up’s access but… you know.

Gaddis: Money. 

Raymonda: Money. Money’s what’s stopping us.

Gaddis: Money and Apple not letting you put swear words in your title. That’s what’s stopping you.