Hauntings IV with Shannon Joy Rodgers
“I think that even when I do write something that’s super horrific and gruesome, there’s always gonna be a comedic element to it.”
Welcome to another horror-licious Creative Chat, featuring the inimitable Shannon Joy Rodgers, an Emmy-wining writer, performer, inline skater, director, editor — she kinda does it all.
After seeing Shannon’s slyly comedic horror short, A Moment of Your Time — which is currently running the festival circuit before a wider release — I couldn’t wait to have her on the podcast to talk all kinds of things, including:
the humor/horror Venn diagram;
how her early years as a skater influenced her editing and storytelling;
the value of diversity in media;
the beauty of artistic collaboration (she co-wrote and co-starred in AMOYT with her husband, Ross Bryant);
and (of course) what horror movies she’s loving right now. Here’s a teaser:
Shannon is just so much fun to chat with; I’m sure you’ll love her insights, too, and if you wanna read along with the episode, you can find the transcript here.
Enjoy!
xx, aa
[ Teaser video transcript; dialogue playing over music bed ]
shannon joy rodgers: I think that even when I do write something that’s super horrific and gruesome, there’s always gonna be a comedic element to it.allison arth: Now on the Little Oracles podcast, a very Haunted Chat with Emmy-winning writer and performer, Shannon Joy Rodgers.
aa: You have a really interesting relationship to horror; I’d love to know, like, what drew you to horror after having a career in humor?
sjr: I’ve loved horror since I was really young. I thought Freddy was funny, and I thought Chucky was funny.
aa: [chuckles] It’s so interesting that you found these characters funny, right? Do you find a lot of value in blending genres in the work that you do because you have had this experience with horror in that way?
sjr: My husband and I co-wrote a short called A Moment of Your Time; it’s about a pushy Bible salesman trying to solicit a 1950s housewife, and it’s comedy, that first half.
aa: Mm-hmm; mm-hmm.
sjr: So it premiered at Seattle International Film Fest in an all-horror block, and watching it against other horrors that were, like, [scary voice] you know, horror, and then you got to us: people were missing the jokes because they were laughing so much.
aa: Wow! [laughs]
sjr: I think there’s a lot of symbiosis between comedy and horror, especially just, like, structurally. And I know, like, people who hire horror writers are like, “If you have comedy, that’s basically horror.” Comedy and horror really, like, are simpatico in that way.
aa: Find Little Oracles wherever you get podcasts.
