Kick up the creep factor with a new podcast from Jeremiah Isley, owner of Crooked Path Productions. Co-created and written by Adam Hoffman, Cryptic is an audio drama with a cast of more than 10 actors that focuses on the story of Cole and Julie Kurtz, siblings in search of the truth behind some of Ohio’s myths and urban legends as famed and terrifying as Bigfoot, Mothman and the Adams County Great Serpent Mound. “All these creatures exist, and they’re out there finding them and researching them,” says Isley. Ahead of the first episode launching Oct. 30, we talk to Isley about creating the season’s 10 episodes.
Q: What makes some of the legends in Cryptic believable?A: Whether it’s a religious belief or a supernatural belief, I think we’re naturally curious and we want to believe that there’s more than meets the eye. I think that really perpetuates a lot of these legends, whether they’re true or not. We’re also dabbling with creating some of our own legends.
Q: How do you create the noises of the creatures in Cryptic?
A: When you look at creating creatures, beasts and these mythical things, you kind of have to go into the natural world and do that. I have a really nice field recorder, and sometimes I just walk in the woods and hear what I can hear. Sometimes, the bugs sound really cool, or there’s one log on this path that creaks really weird when you walk on it. It’s combining those things and blending it in a little bit and trying to create something unique out of it.
Q: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done to create some of these sounds?
A: Some of the weirder stuff I’ve done is making different piles of slime out of food and rotten fruit, and pouring them into different containers in my sink. It gets really weird pretty fast.
