Yup, this is the good news we were alluding to the other day.  We’d said it be a few weeks, but how’s this for service?

Afterhell Volume 3 has received an honorable mention from the 2008 Mark Time & Ogle Awards.

We submitted Volume 3 for the judges’ perusal, absolutely certain they were going reject us out of hand.  Gory, graphic violence.  Rude language.  No kitsch or camp, definitely not safe for the whole family.  Just modern-day nightmare fuel.  Wow, it shows you how much we know!

Now you know the reason for the delay.  We had to figure out where to fit the Ogle award info on the CD artwork.  Simple as that.

We’re planning a release date in August, if not sooner.  It depends on how busy things look this summer, what with WRW’s Writers-on-the-Air Workshop ‘n’ all.

So yeah.  Our first award.  Only the beginning.

Anyone who recognizes the movie tagline we’re riffing on… wins a tetrodoxotrin Chiclet.

Yup, we’re still around and sporting a new look online. The Afterhell website has gotten a fiery new makeover and a new blog. More than that, Ollin Productions has a website of its own where you’ll find a shingle for all of our projects. Our thanks to Ali for doing all the design and coding in record time!

Unlike the revamped website, updates have been slow in coming. We’ve been overwhelmed, plain and simple — everybody’s day jobs, family emergencies, tons of sound work and writing to do — not enough time to do it all.

Fortunately, causes for delay aren’t all bad. Watch this spiffy new space for good news in a few weeks.

Thanks for sticking with us! We’ll get back to freaking you all out good ‘n’ proper shortly.

Hey, please excuse the construction for the next couple days as I customize this wordpress theme and just generally spruce up the whole site. So if you find anything broken or missing, rest assured it is temporary!

I’ll keep this short and simple. 

Months ago, a message board was set up for our friends at the Sonic Society.  But don’t look for us there.  Ollin Productions no longer maintains a presence there.

Jack Ward and Shannon Hilche, the co-chairs and delightful lead voices of “The Sonic Society,” were offered the use of a message board space.  It’s called Audio Drama Talk.  They wanted it to be the watering hole for audiodramatists, where people could share their knowledge and experience.

However, you can’t share much in the way of knowledge unless there’s a mutual sense of professionalism.  You can be as friendly, complimentary, and informal as you like.  But you need an effective work environment — a mature atmosphere — where ability and merit are welcome, not simply a token word of approval.  There must be room for disagreement and reasonable discussion, not conformity.  And you can tell that’s not happening when you get certain signs.  A grown woman (Jamie) is addressed like an irrational child.   Points raised are sidestepped, so people can discuss more popular views.  Someone appeals to community instead of merit, basically truth by majority.

Or when somebody says to you, “Did a director pee in your coffee this week or something?”

At that point, Jamie had had enough.  We asked Jack to delete our accounts.  So before anyone starts a rumor or smiles to themselves, Jack and Shannon can tell you:  We weren’t thrown out.  We walked.  Better things to do.  Death in the family, it turned out.  But that’s another story.

Also for the record:  We at Ollin Productions are proud members of “The Sonic Society.”  Jack and Shannon are good people, and we’ll stand by them any day of the week, even if it is a long walk from here to Nova Scotia.

Because it is.  A long walk, I mean.

How does affect “Afterhell,” you might ask?  If you want our take on something, go to the source.  Always the best place.

Taken from one of our personal blog entries:

LJ Uber-drama
I’m sure everyone else has heard about this by now. Certainly lots of blog postings out there. Some of them are even useful.

I’m not going to get into all the back-and-forth, the horribly translated Russian interviews with the Powers That Be, the yay’s or nays (deliberate word choice) regarding the big boycott on Good Friday, or any of that. My understanding of the whole thing boils down to a few simple things:

1. LJ intends to close up the no-cost, ad-free Basic Account level.
2. They didn’t intend to let anyone know about it.
3. They were also caught censoring user interests, rendering them invisible on key listings.
4. They have now fostered a hostile relationship with their customers — and their content — for several months.
5. There’s no sign that it’s going to stop.

On the first point… sad, I guess. But it happens. It’s a business. They have to make money, yadda yadda. That’s a fair complaint. If they had just said so, and not resorted to item number two, people would grump, but eventually deal. Look at DeadJournal. I bitched, but I moved on. And they’re still around.

But it’s the last three items that give me and Jamie pause. And how many times has LJ gone to war with its customers over content — two times? three? — in the current management’s first 100 days at the helm?

Content issues are a big deal for us. It’s not just a hobby for us. This is our business. We have to make money too. We do an audiodrama show that’s clearly, loudly, proudly not for everybody. How long will it be before LJ has a problem with us?

We’re really busy now. We don’t need this kind of grief now. I’m working on several scripts, some of the Willamette Radio Workshop, some for Afterhell. I’m mixing a new episode fast as I can, when I’m not writing, collapsing from fatigue, fielding family emergencies, or trying to medicate cats. Deadlines are looming close behind.

So we’re left with two choices. Pray that LiveJournal never comes after us. Or take Afterhell off of LiveJournal ourselves.

We’re preparing to move the Afterhell blog.

I’ll be cross-posting this elsewhere.

Noble, loyal listeners! You tolerated the long delays and the lame puns. Now the final episode of the “Giallo Hotel” storyline has been podcast.

If you like structure in your horror stories, belly up to the bar. The hotel’s structure is the only thing left standing! Part Nine brings the Giallo Hotel arc to a bizarre, bloodletting close. Boss Giallo and his undead rival Pensari wage one last battle for all the marbles. And victory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Yes, the “Giallo Hotel” podcast is complete. The final CD release is on the horizon, set for May 2008. We burned the entire story for the perusal of this year’s Mark Time Awards panel, but our official CD will have some creepy new artwork from Alida Saxon…and a few surprises.

Speaking of surprises, keep your radio tuned and watch the skies. The best of the worst is yet to come.

Okay, now this is something I can get behind.

Scientists Create a Black That Erases Virtually All Light

Brace yourself, ’cause it ain’t no hoax!  The Giallo Hotel podcast is back, fresh from our extended holiday season tour of purgatory and limbo.

Part Eight is the penultimate episode. Thus, the end is Nine.  Be patient for a little bit longer.  We’ll send Part Nine out as soon as it’s ready.

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  The “Giallo Hotel” podcast is really, really late.  Really, I know.  I’d give you a list of people to blame, but I’d hate to see all those people turning up dead.  Bear with me.  I’m working on it.

In the meantime, here is some sad news to wake up to.  I should know.  I did this morning.  Actress and model Maila Nurmi died in her sleep about five days ago.  We all know her as… Vampira!

Oh, c’mon.  Play this up, fer pete’s sake. 

Admit it.  She made this world a fraction more cool than it was without her, don’t you think?  She looked creepy and snarked about so-so monster movies long before it was fashionable. 

And Halloween would’ve been a little less sexy.  I’m sure lots of people thought to dress up like Morticia Addams before she did.  But Vampira made it the in-thing to do.

Well, that and she was one of the few highlights in Plan 9 From Outer Space.  She actually made that weird finger-wiggling bit pay off.  I mean, it’s not a selling point or anything, but….

I’ll close with a correction.  You won’t see this in the Wikipedia entry, but there is another musical tribute to Vampira worth noting, from singer-songwriter-and-really-cool-DJ Greg Kihn.  Go to his website and buy his “Horror Show” album.  Maybe I’m sentimental, tone-deaf, and in league with Jerry Falwell, but I swear the last track on “Horror Show” deserves to be a Halloween anthem.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  But if you ever visit the Giallo Hotel, don’t try the lasagna.

That’s right.  After a long frustrating delay, Ollin Productions is resuming the Afterhell podcast preview of Volume 3:  “Bloodbath at the Giallo Hotel.”  A modern-day gangland war has become a zombie uprising, turning a mobster-run luxury resort into a slaughterhouse.  Previous episodes have opened the door first to bloodshed, then tragedy.  Now the stakes are higher than the body count.  In Part 7, Boss Giallo and his men learn that surviving hurts even more than dying.

We beg our listeners for their patience.  And we politely request the naysayers keep the groans down to a civil level.  There are only two episodes left.  We’re doing our best to deliver a high-quality, lower-class bloodletting finale for “Giallo Hotel.”  And when the podcast is done, the entire story will be released as Afterhell Volume 3.

Beyond that, we have plans for a new storyline made especially for our podcast.  And Afterhell Volume 4 is already in production.

“Afterhell” is just getting started.  It’s not for everyone.  It’s not polite.  And it’s not going away.

Tuck in while it’s still hot, kiddies.  Best wishes to everyone for the holiday season.