In a multi-screen society where visual bombardment is constant, podcasts have become one of the favorite options for users of various generations to stay informed and entertained. Sound narratives have emerged as formats with their own identity, capable of starring in lists or reviews and gathering audiences, achievements that until now seemed exclusive to audiovisual productions such as series or films.
So much so that the podcast phenomenon has even come to inspire stories and shape series, generating very remarkable titles. In the purest style of radio serials, these programs immerse us in plots of any genre: fiction, horror, suspense or drama are some of the options that you can see on the platforms
streaming and also listen in its original version.
Amazon Prime
‘homecoming’
The creators of the eponymous podcast on which the series is based, Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg, have also been part of this Amazon Prime production starring Julia Roberts in its first season as writers and executive producers. This suspenseful fiction is a psychological game in which the viewer delves into the story of psychologist Heidi Bergman (Roberts), a former worker at Homecoming, a company that helps soldiers readjust to civilian life. Years later, after starting from scratch as a waitress, she must revisit her past when a Department of Defense auditor investigates why she left her job at the company.
In the original Gimlet Media podcast, Oscar Isaac, Catherine Keener and David Schwimmer provide their voices to a story full of sound textures. The idea was to make a great audiodrama production based on the creation of atmospheres and a narrative mix of therapy sessions, talks, recordings and phone calls, with which he achieves an intimate and immersive listening style. With a total of two seasons and 12 episodes, ‘Homecoming’ demonstrated the weight of the format and its potential to break barriers and transfer to the screen.
The Hulu series starring Amanda Seyfried chronicles the rise and fall of the biotech company Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes (Seyfried), who after dropping out of college aims to revolutionize the health industry with an innovative machine that is supposedly capable of make a multitude of accurate diagnoses with just a drop of blood. An impossible premise to fulfill and that, even aware of it, the businesswoman continued to sell, causing countless patients to make critical medical decisions based on her project. After raising large amounts of financing, clients and income that led Holmes to be considered the ‘new Steve Jobs’, everything falls apart when she is accused of fraud.
The series faithfully adapts the eponymous ABC News podcast (with six parts and up to 31 files in its
playlist), presented by Rebecca Jarvis and based on three years of research, in which we can listen to archival tapes of interviews with former Theranos employees and patients affected by the company. The show follows Holmes’s story from his upbringing to his downfall, tracing his path and movements in the fraudulent Theranos plot.
This Netflix series, produced by James Wan and Rebecca Sonnenshine, is one of the latest gems of the genre.
found footage on the platform. In this fiction, sects and the occult play a fundamental role, with an isolated building as the scene of the plot. It all begins when an archivist must restore a collection of videotapes from 1994 about the investigation of a strange property. In his work to reconstruct the past, he becomes fully involved in the work and history of documentary filmmaker Melody Pendras, the protagonist of the recordings. The restorer will try to intercede in the fate of the young woman, whom he believes he will be able to save from a horrible end.
The story is inspired by the 35-episode podcast of the same name, in which modern horror storytelling is adjusted to audio so that events seem to be happening in real time, a
timeline that Netflix did not keep in its adaptation. It was created by Dan Powell and Marc Sollinger, when Powell started working on a library of sound effects and Sollinger came up with a story based on his friend’s experience listening to the audio work. Little by little, the program began to stand out in Reddit threads and among fan clubs of the format and they went from recording a first season on weekends to a consolidated success in the third installment.
Although at the moment Netflix does not plan to continue with the series, you can find out the outcome of the story in its original podcast.
East
thriller politician created by Robbie Pickering and starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn recovers the Watergate case to study its gears, reducing the figure of President Richard Nixon to the merely essential to focus on other key figures who did not attract as much attention. The production delves into the details of the corruption plot that marked the history of the United States in the 70s from the story of John and Martha Mitchell, the prosecutor, campaign manager and best friend of Nixon and his glamorous wife, the first person to speak publicly about the president’s involvement in espionage, even putting her husband in a difficult position.
The series is based on the first season of the ‘Slow Burn’ podcast, produced by Slate, which proposes a new look to show that there are still things to tell about one of the biggest political scandals of the century. In eight episodes, journalist Leon Neyfakh reviews the facts through the different perspectives of some of those involved in the case.
The anthology series created by Alexandra Cunningham recreates crimes based on real events under the promise of what would you do if the person you love turned evil. Starring and produced by Connie Britton and Eric Bana, the production has two seasons of eight episodes. The first one focuses on the story of John Meehan (Bana), a con man who goes from victim to victim until he ends up in a romance full of manipulation and violence in which his new partner, Debra (Britton), will go through a spiral of secrets in which you will have to fight for your survival.
The story presents a slow psychological game that is maintained in the second installment, focused on the story of Betty Broderick, a woman accused of killing her ex-husband, Dan Broderick, and his new wife. The season, with a narrative based on
flashbakcs. is set in the 80s and stars Amanda Peet and Christian Slater.
The first of the two installments is based on Christopher Goffard’s podcast of the same name, which six weeks after its premiere in 2017 reached more than 10 million views. Here the story starts at the end of the series, with an investigative plot through which the manipulation and abuse for which John Meehan was known under the nickname ‘Dirty John’ is revealed.
Jessica Biel plays the role of journalist Lia Haddock, who studies the mysterious disappearance of more than 300 people from the Limetown Neuroscience Research Center in Tennessee 20 years ago. There were no witnesses, clues or survivors of the tragedy and no one is able to say what happened to the people of that place. The reporter delves into the history of this cursed town, to which she is linked beyond the complicated case she has on her hands: her uncle was, at that time, in charge of the town.
The podcast, produced by Two-Up and created by Zach Ayers and Skip Bronkie in 2015, became number one on iTunes in the United States just two months after it premiered. The
thriller recreates an atmosphere of mystery based on the paranormal, which has led the production to be compared to a sound ‘X-Files’.
This horror anthology series is developed by Aaron Mahnke, the creator of the podcast on which it is based. Its narrative combines documentary images, animations and dramatized scenes narrated by Mahnke. Each of its twelve chapters is a study on the origin of some of the most deep-rooted popular legends, a visit to folklore from which stories of authentic terror are born. Its two seasons have stories in which the journey of these myths and superstitions is analyzed, trying to explain where the horror that these stories produce comes from.
Mahnke’s podcast has been broadcast twice a week since it began publishing in 2015, under a powerful premise: “Sometimes the truth is more terrifying than fiction.” Following this storyline, each of the episodes (more than 200) explores, as in the series, creatures and tragic events that became the darkest tales.
Another mysterious unsolved disappearance marks the plot of the story of ‘Equinox’, a miniseries created by Tea Lidenburg about her own podcast, in which 21 students who were in a van disappear without a trace in 1999. Among them was Ida (Karoline Hamm), the older sister of Astrid (Danica Curcic), who two decades later receives a mysterious call from one of the three survivors. Added to this are the disturbing visions and dreams she experiences of her, which lead her to begin an investigation into the dark truth surrounding the case. The Danish production begins with a strong start from which a narrative that orchestrates jumps and time lines that connect with the main story begins.
The series is part of the podcast ‘Equinox 1985’, from Lidenburg, which with less mysticism and time jumps than the Netflix version, focuses on Anna’s story after an accident that occurred in her childhood and how this marks her for the rest of her life. life upon returning as horrible nightmares in her adulthood.
This documentary series takes the example of Hrishikesh Hirway’s podcast of the same name, in which each episode is dedicated to a well-known musician. The production shows a more intimate version of each artist through in-depth interviews, archive images and private recordings that show the most natural side of him. Dua Lipa, Alicia Keys, REM or The Killers are some of the performers that appear in the production, in which they deal with various topics such as their inspiration, their lyrics or what their creative process is like.
The podcast jumped to Netflix after more than 170 episodes (there are already more than 240), in which great artists like Iggy Pop or Metallica opened up to Hirway about what is behind their career and their greatest hits.
With a script by José A. Pérez Ledo, this Podium podcast became a phenomenon in our country. The starting point is the most intense solar storm ever recorded. This event will cause the planet to be left in complete darkness and the lives of thousands of people will change forever.
This year Movistar has launched a series inspired by this podcast made up of five episodes, each directed and written by different professionals: Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Isabel Peña, Raúl Arévalo, Alberto Marini, Fran Araújo, Isa Campo, Alberto Rodríguez, Rafael Cobos and Isaki. Lacuesta.
#series #based #podcasts