Fearful Earful: The White Vault
Looking for something creepy and extremely well crafted to listen to? Check out the White Vault.
For the past few years, I have been enjoying the recently rejuvenated medium of the audio drama. I find that the audio drama is an incredibly effective medium for telling a variety of tales, and it allows for a level of creativity and innovation that I find lacking in most modern films. Audio dramas, since they do not have a visual component, must rely heavily on story, sound design and voice acting. An excellent example of this is The White Vault.
The White Vault is one of the podcasts created by Fool and Scholar Productions, headed by the duo of Kaitlin Statz and Travis Vengroff. Other wonderful creations from this duo include Vast Horizon and the Liberty Podcast. I started listening to The White Vault last year, and I was immediately hooked. I’m now eagerly awaiting the fifth and final season, set for later this year. This series is notable because of the story, the use of multiple languages, and the sound design.
This series could perhaps be considered of the found-footage horror genre, where the unfolding of the plot occurs by way of recordings and documents made by the protagonists. The first two seasons revolve around events that occur in a remote outpost in Svalbard, Norway, one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas. The five members of a team sent to Outpost Fristed must deal with the frigid conditions and the discoveries made there. I won’t say much more than that about the details; you must experience that for yourself.
However, the story is well-crafted, with engaging characters and a complex plot that develops over the course of the series, each season following upon events in the previous one. And the story is brought to life by a talented group of voice actors that give each character (including the Documentarian, who could be considered a narrator of sorts) a distinct personality. I’ve listened to a number of audio dramas by now, and the caliber of the talent in this podcast is among the best of any of them. The fact that I am willing to listen to this story multiple times and enjoy it each time speaks volumes, as I rarely listen to a full audio drama series more than once or twice.
As a fan of language, hearing the native languages of the characters has been a special joy for me. Throughout the series, one can hear samples of Spanish, German, Icelandic, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin?) and others. Even just hearing those short bits of those languages added to the believability of the characters. And it was cool. Some of the “behind the scenes” episodes in the feed go into more detail about how the actors and the writer worked together to provide a realistic representation of these languages, not just a Google-translation of the writer’s words.
And then there’s the sound design, which I really can’t say enough about. As I understand it, the actors were scattered across the globe and recorded their audio in their own environments. But you would never know it by listening to the story. By seamlessly editing these voices together, one could easily believe that they were all together in a small outpost, conversing and reacting to each other directly. And the soundscape underneath it all could make you cold and confined just by hearing it. This is top-notch work that is a true showcase of how audio drama has evolved to be a contender in entertainment.
According to the lovely intro to each episode (which always brings a smile to my face), “travel is not advised.” But listening to this podcast (and becoming a Patreon patron to get the extras, because you’ll just want more of this), is very much advised.