Storytelling has long aspired towards “liveness.”
Most obviously, its roots lie in the theater, where a story could only be experienced live. The advent of radio in the 20th century similarly mandated a live component of broadcasted narratives, and television has long innovated with this quality as well, airing live variety specials or even live episodes of sitcoms (Jimmy Kimmel’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience is perhaps the most recent example of TV’s foray into live storytelling). And yet, film has always lagged behind other mediums in this regard. Of course, it’s an understandable bug of the cinematic experience. Film captures. It remembers and constructs. Film has struggled to satisfy our desire for liveness largely because doing so would be a logistical nightmare (as Woody Harrelson discovered with his gimmicky albeit accomplished 2017 project Lost in London), but also because liveness seems to run counter to what film is all about. And yet, cinema persists, continuing to aspire towards this trait no matter the obstacles in its way.
After all, cinema’s tendency to capture and reproduce still transfers moments passed to moments present; it is part of the uniqueness of the medium. In recent years, cinemas have found increasing success livestreaming concerts from hit bands like BTS, or performances from world-class institutions like The Metropolitan Opera. But there is another contender in this constant race towards liveness: podcasts. And these podcasts may ultimately prove most instructive in how cinema might evolve its own storytelling ambitions. If it had to be placed along a spectrum, podcasting might sit somewhere between television and radio broadcasting, with its episodic nature but also its audio-only formatting. Of course, even these traits aren’t quite so simple. More and more, podcasts have begun to incorporate a visual component. Streaming platforms like Spotify offer video in addition to audio for podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience or Second in Command: A Veep Rewatch. Many more podcasts, including those grounded in narrative, have migrated towards YouTube as a platform through which they might share both audio and visual content. And because YouTube makes live streaming particularly accessible for both streamers and their audiences, live podcasting has emerged as an entirely valid spin on the medium. Such developments come after years of physical live podcasting, in which podcasts have recorded sessions in front of live audiences, typically composed of diehards who are uniquely familiar with the show’s lore. Perhaps the most fruitful case study in live storytelling is therefore Mission to Zyxx, an entirely improvised podcast charting the fictional adventures of a space crew as they travel through the Zyxx Quadrant.
Improv as an art form has a particularly close relationship with liveness, as its very construction happens in the moment. Of course, there is an improvised element to any conversation, and therefore an improvised element to many podcasts. But Mission to Zyxx’s fictionalized nature places particular pressure on its hosts and guests to stay true to their promise of improvisation.
Of course, like film, podcasts undergo distinct phases along the value chain. They are developed, produced, and distributed. The production of a podcast allows for its manipulation via editing, offering podcasts a similar handicap to film as it relates to liveness, even when those podcasts claim to be improvised. And yet, Mission to Zyxx creators Jeremy Bent, Alden Ford, Allie Kotesh, Seth Lind, Winston Noel, and Moujan Zolfaghari are not content to allow our conceptions of podcasting to cast doubt on their podcast’s improvised identity. The panel of hosts have therefore taken to theaters across the U.S. in recording live episodes of Mission to Zyxx, and even took the time during the COVID-19 pandemic to stream live “listening” sessions, in which the hosts listened back and reflected on old episodes of the show (slipping in and out of character along the way). Improv is no stranger to the world of film – Armando Iannucci and Christopher Guest have crafted comedic masterpieces according to the principles of the art form, while John Cassavetes and Robert Altman have mined it for dramatic effect as well – and yet liveness remains just out of cinema’s reach. Perhaps a podcast like Mission to Zyxx can help us in bridging the gap between cinema and opportunities in live storytelling.
Mission to Zyxx first premiered in September of 2017. The show’s first two seasons were independently produced and then distributed via podcast listing service Audioboom. The podcast’s success grew exponentially over the course of its first two seasons, as evidenced by the profile of its guests. Whereas the show’s first season featured a respectable albeit relatively unknown roster of Upright Citizens Brigade veterans – the show’s hosts got their improv starts at UCB as well – season 2 quickly welcomed more recognizable names like then-SNL star Bobby Moynihan as well as podcast host and video game designer Arnie Niekamp, whose improvised podcast Hello from the Magic Tavern had already amassed a loyal following by the time he appeared on Mission to Zyxx in August of 2018 (Niekamp’s directorial work on the Jackbox Party Pack games includes minigames like “Drawful” and “Trivia Murder Party,” both of which encourage a kind of liveness and improvisation amongst its players. Surely video games offer these kinds of relevant insights for cinema as well).
By the start of the show’s third season, Mission to Zyxx was acquired by the Maximum Fun podcast network, best known for podcasts like Adam Ruins Everything and My Brother, My Brother, and Me. Mission to Zyxx’s incorporation into a large podcast network expanded its storytelling opportunities in a number of ways. Most noticeable was the show’s new opening theme song, as well as its elevated sound quality. The show also saw a wider variety of guests, including Maximum Fun podcasters like Justin McElroy of My Brother, My Brother, and Me fame, or television stars like Edi Patterson, Lauren Lapkus, and Zach Cherry. Of course, even the biggest stars on Mission to Zyxx aren’t quite household names, but their presence on the show does force one to consider the role that celebrity does or does not play in the world of podcasting. Is celebrity essential, or even necessary, in podcasting? We know the significance of celebrity as it relates to film. The appeal of a cinematic live event like Harrelson’s Lost in London isn’t just its liveness, but also the players involved. It lies in the idea that Harrelson and co-stars like Owen Wilson and Willie Nelson are actually performing live in real-time. It’s the same reason live television broadcasts of sporting events or awards ceremonies remain atop television ratings charts. Live moments belong to all of us, not just the high-profile individuals directly involved with them. This partly explains not just society’s obsession with moments like Will Smith’s infamous assault of Chris Rock at the Oscars, but also our comfort with responding to and engaging with the moment. Audiences crave these moments, so it only follows that producers would crave such moments as well.
Mission to Zyxx first attempted such a moment in July of 2017, when actor-comedian Jon Gabrus joined the crew for a live show in Los Angeles’ Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth. The episode was narrativized as a flashback to Season 2, perhaps to protect against any irrevocable changes to the show’s ongoing storylines. The ”yes, and” dictum by which improv must abide ensures that Mission to Zyxx can go in any number of zany directions, but the show is still a podcast that can be edited and mixed prior to release. In listening to an episode of Mission to Zyxx, it is clear the show’s editor Shane O’Connell maintains a necessary laissez-faire approach (aside from the addition of some fun sound effects), but editing still provides a theoretical failsafe in case of a narrative that goes absolutely off the rails. A live show, however, affords no such flexibility. Fortunately, instances of the characters breaking remain in the final cut of most episodes where such an instance occurs, but these moments are unsurprisingly common during live episodes such as “Crank the Dehumidifier” with Jon Gabrus. These moments draw particular attention to the improvised and live nature of the show, and therefore double as reminders of our involvement with this live creative process. Like television, podcasts develop a kind of lore via their episodic structure. Fans who make the investment in a podcast are rewarded with an unofficial invitation to a sort of cult following. Inside jokes and personal references become fodder for future episodes, and eventually emerge as the real draw of any given podcast.
The presence of celebrities in a show like Mission to Zyxx therefore takes on little importance. The notion of a TV star like Edi Patterson appearing on the show may sound exciting in isolation, but her work on the show is actually expected to disappear into the previously established ethos of Mission to Zyxx. In studying narrative-driven podcasting, Peruvian scholars of communication Raffaela Cosignani Lema and Paola Palomino-Flores identify the relationship between a show’s hosts and its listeners as most essential to the show’s success. A podcast’s potential is primarily determined not by its ability to welcome high-profile stars or even to tell a compelling story, but rather to generate “an emotional bond which increases the consumer’s loyalty.” Mission to Zyxx seems aware of this fact, as its guests are never even properly introduced the way they might be in a more traditional podcast. When SNL cast member Sasheer Zamata appeared in “Nermie, I Shrunk the Crew,” listeners only ever knew her as her character Shataina the Fairy Princess. Of course, Mission to Zyxx’s live shows inevitably place greater emphasis on their guest stars. They are visibly in front of an audience, after all! But the kinds of audience members that would attend a live taping of an improvised podcast are likely already onboard with the show’s ethos and lore, no matter the guests involved.
Podcasts operate according to a kind of intimacy with their audiences, and their exploitation of live opportunities only further facilitates such intimacy. Is this understanding of and emphasis on intimacy the ingredient that cinema’s flirtations with liveness have been missing? The worldwide success of BTS Permission to Dance On Stage – Seoul: Live Viewing might be evidence of the film industry’s increased understanding of intimacy and community as it relates to live or event cinema. The film grossed $32.6 million at the global box office, setting an all-time record for event cinema (the reigning champ was another BTS film: 2017’s Burn The Stage: The Movie). Of course, this kind of event cinema remains something distinctly different from cinematic storytelling, which still seems far away from the kinds of live opportunities podcasting has so readily embraced. If Lost in London were to mark any sort of turning point for the relationship between cinematic and live storytelling, its box office performance almost certainly put a kibosh on that. The film made just over $80,000 worldwide, and despite U.S. sales agency Bloom boarding the film for international sales, few distributors bit after the film’s initial live premiere. From a creative and technical viewpoint, Lost in London was a moderate success. From a commercial standpoint, it was largely a failure.
There may be danger in extrapolating the performance of the first and only live narrative film to the fate of all such experiments moving forward, but the saga of Lost in London highlights a key component of live podcasting, something that live film may or may not be able to achieve: replay value. Just about any film may be deemed rewatchable. Replay value is determined by a variety of factors. We may rewatch a comedy to take in its jokes once more, or we may rewatch a thriller to further excavate its intricate layers. But can a live film, like a live podcast, retain any sort of replay value? All podcasts almost surely retain this quality. Lema and Palomino-Flores recognize the role that streaming services like Spotify and Apple Podcasts play in maintaining the relationship between podcast and consumer. A live podcast may facilitate the aforementioned intimacy that is so essential to the development of a show’s fanbase, but it does not mark the end of that particular episode’s journey. In other words, a live podcast is a worthwhile novelty, but the contents therein retain value to listeners who did not manage to experience the show live, largely because the audience’s relationship with the show is mediated through a streamer like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This mediation of the relationship promotes liveness as an added benefit of the listening experience, but not a hindrance to or negation of our ability to connect with the moment held inside that podcast. Of course, this maintenance of the listening experience is further ensured by podcasting’s identity as an audio experience first and foremost. A live podcast may include a video stream online or a physical visual in person, but the product is still created to be digested auditorily. Its replay value therefore persists across its different iterations. Can the same be said of cinema? In reflecting on Harrelson’s Lost in London, it seems live cinema might struggle to retain its most fascinating elements (i.e. its liveness) in the aftermath of its live debut. That is not necessarily an indication of a film’s quality – Lost in London may not reinvent the wheel, but its narrative structure is sound, its jokes amusing – but rather its driving hook.
Harrelson described his vision for Lost in London as a fusion of film and theatre. “By broadcasting the film live as its being shot I hope to truly blend the excitement of live theatre with the scale and scope of film,” Harrelson told Screen Daily in 2017.
So while Lost in London may ostensibly recount the events of Harrelson’s one crazy night in London back in 2002, its real focus is its liveness, and any attempt to replay or revisit the film remains framed by this quality. The same can be said of a live BTS concert. There are countless concert recordings available on YouTube. That particular concert could only be experienced live once, and its value dissipates almost immediately after that moment. Still, there is clear potential for live cinema, and surely that potential should not be limited to one-night-only events that are never to be seen again. Perhaps a podcast like Mission to Zyxx, with its marriage of liveness and improvisation, can offer a template for what live cinema can do moving forward. The art of improv seems particularly powerful here, as the experience of improv seems to retain its intrigue across different iterations. Improv always ‘feels’ live, as its unpredictable and spontaneous nature consistently evokes liveness. Comedians Ben Schwartz and Thomas Middleditch tapped into this opportunity with their trio of hilarious Middleditch & Schwartz specials on Netflix.
Lost in London, despite its comedic leanings, still relies rather heavily on a traditional script, likely because Harrelson wanted to evoke the art of theatre. The lack of improvisation in Lost in London is by no means an indictment of the film, but producers and creators may benefit from more deeply considering the longevity of live cinema, and identifying the kinds of elements that might enhance such longevity.
In one of the many dream sequences in Richard Linklater’s animated epic Waking Life, two men sit down and attempt to create something they believe is unique to cinema: a holy moment.
According to them, as well as noted film scholars like André Bazin, cinema’s temporal nature is its most distinctive feature, capable of manufacturing moments that could only have existed then and there. It therefore follows that cinema might strive towards liveness, in which the holiness of each moment is all but guaranteed.
But can holy moments be replicated? Revisited?
In hoping to recreate their own kind of holy moment, the two men in Waking Life conclude they have to be present, to be in the moment. They consider that moments in a film only become holy by virtue of the film framing them as such, making their holiness apparent to us as viewers. Mission to Zyxx, with its sparse editing and improvised storytelling, creates these kinds of holy moments in audio form. These are moments that can be replicated and revisited because their holiness – and by extension, their liveness – is determined only by qualities we may deem essential to a state of holiness or liveness. Improvisation emerges as Mission to Zyxx’s most instrumental ingredient, suggesting an as-yet untapped domain for live cinema to explore.
And if, like me, you are in constant search of media that pushes past the arbitrary boundaries we have placed upon it, give Mission to Zyxx a chance. I may dedicate much of my writing here to film, but podcasts may actually take up more of my daily attention span. I’ve long considered an entry point through which I might discuss podcasts and their increasing stranglehold over our imaginations, and live storytelling is just one such avenue. Most of our podcast consumption is likely of the nonfiction variety. I get most of my news from podcasts, whether it be on politics (Breaking Points w/ Krystal and Saagar is essential listening) or sports (Birds with Friends is bar none the best Eagles podcast out there). I’ve discovered new chain restaurants through the hilariously insightful Doughboys, and continue to expand my mind every time I listen to an episode of Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird.
As I continue to drown in my existential woes over the future of cinema — even television is experiencing an uncanny renaissance that may inevitably threaten a box office headlined by slop like Lightyear and Jurassic World: Dominion — solid storytelling might just have to be found elsewhere. I’ll likely reverse my tune in a matter of weeks, when the next great film arrives in cinemas or online, but we’ll always need stories, whether they are fed through our ears during our morning commutes, or drilled into our minds while we lounge late at night.