“The Jake Muller Adventures: Unidentified is the culmination of almost twenty-five years of working on audio dramas,” Darby Kern says. “I’m just glad that things are changing and dramas are cool again.”
The Jake Muller Adventures is described as the adventure of Indiana Jones, combined with the intrigue of The X-Files, but from a Christian worldview. This first story, Unidentified, deals with UFOs, extraterrestrials, and secret cabals. The target audience is teenagers and adults.
Audio dramas are indeed coming back into vogue, whether it’s dramatic podcasts, Audible sales, CDs, or digital downloads, the audience for what used to be referred to as “Old time radio,” has been growing in recent years. “The Sandman,” an adaptation of the DC comic from the 1980s, produced by BBC stalwart Dirk Maggs, and sold exclusively on audible.com has been a New York Times bestseller for the last two months.
“it’s a fun time to be in the business.”
It has been fun for Kern. Last month his show, The Jake Muller Adventures, won two Seneca Awards, given for excellence in family friendly audio dramas. One for Best New Show, and the other for his script. They were nominated for seven other categories, losing mainly to Augustine Institute Radio Theater’s production of The Legend of Robin Hood.
“It really is an honor to be nominated, but the wins feel good too.”
The Jake Muller Adventures was co-produced by Micah Touchet of New Birth Creative, and Katherine Treankler of Figmacent. “Two excellent partners,” Kern says, noting that Jake Muller would not exist in this form without either of them. “It’d be a great script that I never got produced.”
Plans are in motion to produce two more stories (each story is made of four half hour episodes). The followup to Unidentified is called Blood, and deals with vampires. The third, a strange tale that touches on zombies, takes place in rural Louisiana, where co-producer Touchet lives and is already at work lining up some authentic Cajun voices.
The series is, at this point, completely independent, so making more depends entirely on the sales of Unidentified.
“We have a terrific audience who keeps asking when we’re making more,” Kern says, “but so far it’s not a huge audience. When we have enough money to do it we will move pretty quick.” The scripts are done and the cast is already mostly in place.
“The Jake Muller Adventures is very much my statement of faith, and it reveals what I believe about extraterrestrial life, UFOs, and spiritual warfare. And there are definitely glimpses of who I think we need to be before God.”
If you haven’t heard The Jake Muller Adventures: Unidentified yet, just go to www.jakemulleradventures.com and purchase a copy there. Use the coupon code RAT2020 at checkout and save 25%.
