Posted in: Books, Interview, Pop Culture | Tagged: gary whitta, Gundog, interview

Interview: Gary Whitta Discusses His Audiobook Podcast "Gundog"

Gary Whitta has had an interesting past couple of years while the pandemic has been happening, becoming a nerdy celebrity and an internet sensation. Many already knew Whitta for his book Abomination, as well as writing the films The Book Of Eli and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. But others really came to know him as the host of  Animal Talking. where he interviewed celebrities about their Animal Crossing homes in the game as part of a YouTube podcast. Whitta's latest project is a brand new novel called Gundog, a sci-fi apocalyptic alien invasion thriller, which he has started promoting through another podcast. This one, going by the same name as the novel, serves as an episodic audiobook featuring Shannon Woodward (Westworld, The Last Of Us Part II) and Troy Baker (The Last Of Us Part II), with a full orchestral music score by composer Austin Wintory (Journey). We had a chance to chat with Whitta about the podcast, which is currently running, as well as the book on the way this October.

BC: Hey Gary! First thing, how have things been treating you this year?

Whitta: This year has been great — busy. Aside from Gundog, I've been writing an original Batman series for DC Comics called Batman: Fortress, and that's been a ton of fun. We're halfway through its eight-issue run currently and so far the response has been great. It's been a blast getting to play with all my favorite DC characters from their very extensive toy box.

Speaking of Gundog, what's it been like finishing up your latest novel and preparing for its release?

The novel has actually been finished for a while, the last year or so has been spent working on the audiobook adaptation, which I self-produced. That's been a real learning experience, but really worthwhile. I'm really proud of what we were able to produce, with all of us working from home during the pandemic and on a shoestring budget.

How did the idea come about to do a podcast series leading up to the release of the book?

I knew I wanted to self-produce the audiobook, and I also liked the idea of experimenting with how to distribute it an innovative way. Typically audiobooks are delivered as a single volume, but for this I decided to chop the book up into nine hour-long episodes and distribute it as a serialized podcast. But the most interesting part, I think, has been debuting the serialized episodes on twitch, where each episode is broadcast live with an introduction and post-show Q&A from me, and the audience gets to listen and experience and react to the story as it unfolds in real-time via the live chat. That's been really fun to be a part of.

Was it a challenge setting up the content for this after finishing up the book, or did you already have an idea of what you wanted it to be?

The biggest challenge was really the practical side of figuring out how to record and produce professional-sounding audio given that we didn't have access to professional facilities for much of the pandemic when this was recorded because a lot of studios were closed. So this was mostly done from home, with me and the actors and audio engineers and our composer all collaborating remotely. It took a little longer to do it that way but I think the results turned out great.

What was the process like in finding the right cast for this project?

Finding the right cast couldn't have been easier, because my first choices for the two roles — Shannon Woodward and Troy Baker — both said yes right away. I couldn't believe my luck.

When it came to recording the episodes, was it all separated, or did you go more for a radio play recording with multiple people together for a session?

Everything was done separately. I still haven't actually been in the same room as Shannon or Troy. Even for the one scene where Shannon and Troy's characters have a shared dialog interaction, those pieces were recorded separately, at different locations, then spliced together in the edit.

What did you think of each episode as it was being put together? Were there any major edits or changes in how it was presented before being finalized?

Most of the post-production work we did was purely technical — filtering out room tone, ambient noise, mic pops, things like that. But occasionally I'd make a creative edit where I'd realize that a line that read well on the page didn't work quite the same way when Shannon had to perform it (because it was a bit of a tongue-twister, or too much of a run-on sentence) so I'd make a minor edit to better tailor the line for a vocal performance.

You released the first episode a few weeks ago. What was the reception like to the podcast?

The reception so far has been terrific, we're only a few episodes in but people are really invested in the story. And that's based purely on the twitch live broadcasts and the episodes that are archived on YouTube. The main launch for the audio series will be via the podcast version, which will launch very soon. You can search for it and subscribe right now — currently, there's a trailer and prologue available — and the full episodes will start dropping shortly.

When the episodes are finished, do you have any plans for them or just keep the videos on YouTube?

Once the live broadcasts of all nine episodes are completed the series will remain available on YouTube and also via the podcast.

Any thoughts on possibly doing more of this kind of content down the road?

We'll see how this one goes — it's all been a big experiment and while the results have been positive so far I want to step back and see how it all looks after it's finished. But whatever the result I've learned a lot and had bags of fun doing it.

Since this is leading up to the release of the book, can you tell us more about the novel as well?

The novel is really where this all began, the audio version is a direct adaptation of that text. And I suspect ultimately that will be the largest audience for the story, since while audiobooks are growing increasingly popular I think most people still prefer to sit down and read, so the book is for them. I'm excited for people to be able to read it.

Is there anything else you're working on that you can tell us about or tease for the future?

I'm currently working on a TV series, a couple of projects for Netflix, the rest of the Batman series for DC, and some other projects I'm not able to talk about. Busy busy busy!

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