Interview with Through the Fog Creator & Podcaster Haptic

We recently got a chance to share some of the fantastic episodes of the Through the Fog podcast. After hearing a few ourselves, we had to know a little more about it. Luckily, we got a chance to talk with the creator of Through the Fog, Haptic. We got to talk about how the podcast came to be, how each episode is created, a recommended must listen to episode, and much more in the interview below…

-PH: Lets start with yourself. Please tell us a little about yourself.

-Haptic: Hi, Online I go by Haptic but my name is Dustin. I’m a Self Taught Programmer, Youtuber, Streamer, Video Editor, and most recently podcaster. I’m also a Father of 2 beautiful girls, a Huge Horror Fan and an even bigger gamer.

-PH: When did you first become horror fan? What got you into horror?

-Haptic: When I was a kid my mom used to rent old horror movies (Nightmare on Elm St, Chucky, Leprechaun, etc.). Most of what I watched was horror centric and when she finally bought me my first PlayStation one, it was accompanied by a shiny new copy of Resident Evil 3. From that point forward I was completely smitten.

-PH: Now lets jump into Through the Fog. Please tell us a little about the podcast. Do you review movies, interviews, share stories. etc?

-Haptic: So Through the Fog is a Weekly Horror Narration Podcast I researched quite a few other horror narrators and found a lot of dead pan delivery, and maybe one or two sound effects sprinkled throughout, so I strive to have a more acted out experience and try to really use the background music/ambience and sound effects to bring the tales to life. Although I’m still fairly new I think its been pretty successful for as long as we have been doing it.

-PH: How did you come up with the idea and name for the podcast?

-Haptic: There was 2 primary inspirations for Through The Fog, Creepy (@creepyPod on twitter) and NoSleep (@noSleepPodcast on twitter). But the one thing I wasn’t a fan of was how long they were. Clocking in at 30 minutes to two hours sometimes I wanted a shorter experience and they sometimes got kind of long in the tooth so I decided to focus on shorter 5-10 minute episodes. The Name came from my favorite game series Silent Hill. In early September I announced my YouTube channel would be transition to a Silent Hill Exclusive channel. So I wanted to keep the podcast in line with that and have been steadily working on rebranding all of my content.

-PH: Where do you find the stories, or decide on the stories that appear on the podcast?

-Haptic: A lot of trolling on subreddits, specifically r/scarystories , r/shortscarystories , and r/creepypasta. I can pretty much tell how long an episode will be by looking at the story so that’s the first thing I look at. Then I give it a read through and if I’m interested I contact the authors for permission.

-PH: What have been some of the challenges of bringing a podcast to fans?

-Haptic: Its kind of a funny story, so I launched episode 1 on September 15th of this year and decided it would be weekly (releasing every Wednesday at 5pm cst) but immediately decided that I wanted to put out an episode every day for all of October. I did not however properly prepare for this so even though we made it, it came at a great cost to my sanity. Other than that it would simply be time; I work a full time job and once I get home have to watch both of my daughters until they fall asleep (my wife has to work) attempt to record/edit in the few hours before work, while also working on YouTube content and managing social media. It’s a lot.

-PH: Take us behind the scenes. What kind of preparation do you do for upcoming episodes? Do you rehearse or do multiple takes of the stories?

-Haptic: Honestly I do it all pretty off the cuff. I do all my recording through Descript and in some cases while recording is my first time reading the story start to finish. I will do multiple takes of individual lines if I mess it up but for the most part I do everything in one take. Then I export out the vocals and import them into reaper for adding music/sound effects (which I get from epidemic sound) before the final master/mix.

-PH: If you could only recommend one episode for fans to listen to, which should they check out?

-Haptic: This ones Easy: Episode 34 – Jeff the Killer (https://www.listen.throughthefogcast.com/episode/jeff-the-killer-featuring-literally-everyone-see-show-notes) , I pulled in 10 other podcasters as voice talent and created my most complex soundscape to date. Its also my longest episode and I’m extremely proud of how it came out. You can also listen to it and any other episodes at listen.throughthefogcast.com

-PH: Any special plans for future shows? Any surprises coming up for your fans?

-Haptic: I am planning on doing a lot of things differently for season two. I’ve been working on a way to merge audio-dramas and Horror Narration and I think I figured out something that will work. Also you’ve got the scoop on this one but for season two we will also be switching to a twice a week schedule (which days is as of yet undecided). Rest Assured Big things are coming!

-PH: So here’s your chance to promote anything we haven’t talked about. Let us know something more about yourself, the podcast, certain episodes, where people can find you, or anything else you would like to mention.

-Haptic: Besides the podcast as mentioned I have been hard at work on my YouTube content ( YouTube.throughthefogcast.com ) None of the new silent hill stuff is up yet but you can go see my older lets plays (still horror focused) . I’ve also been working on building a social media presences. I’m @fog_cast on twitter and Instagram and just fogcast on Facebook. Finally There’s my blog at throughthefogcast.com which I try to regularly update. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, and to any new listeners Enjoy! And don’t take your eyes off the Fog!!

We would like to thank the Haptic for taking the time to answer our questions. Hopefully this was a good introduction to his podcast if you haven’t listen to it before. If you’re a fan of their show, hopefully this gave you some more details on how the show is brought to you. Either way, please make sure to catch the latest podcast episodes at listen.throughthefogcast.com.

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