A Six Part Scripted “Found Audio” Podcast Thriller

A Trip Into The Soul Of Post-War America Through Discovered Sounds.

1959. A patriotic young secret agent goes undercover at college to run shady CIA drug trials with surprising results. Finding himself at the spearhead of the infamous MK-ULTRA program, the agent becomes increasingly drawn into the world and the ways of his subjects, their radical agenda, and the emerging cultural icons of the era, including Ken Kesey, The Grateful Dead, Dr. Timothy Leary, Owsley Stanley, and The Brotherhood of Eternal Love.

A scripted and meticulously recreated audio collage of recorded interviews, surveillance tapes, recorded experiments, phone taps, radio excerpts, the music of the era, and voice memos – including the recorded journal of the agent at the middle of the story.

THE WORLD

America in the 1960s has been explored in countless stories, fact and fiction. Most of these stories focus on the heart of the decade, and its significance as a break from the past, the new generation railing against cultural paradigms, and questioning the nation’s leadership in a way that was unheard of in the previous decades of war and depression.

What would it be like to look at – or rather, LISTEN TO – fragments of an America just on the cusp of that great cultural upheaval, and ask: Where did the impetus for change come from? What went on beneath the happy, cereal box surface in those tantalising years before public self-expression was acceptable, when radicalism could have you up before HUAC, or worse, Joe McCarthy?

And what about this:

What if the agent of change was in fact the very organisation whose job it was to keep America the way it was?

What if the U.S. government itself was responsible for cultivating the crucible of 1960s radicalism?

What if the CIA introduced psychedelic drugs to the general population?

CREATORS/ PRODUCERS

ROB GIBSON (Creator/Producer) is CEO/Producer at Easy Tiger Productions. Prior to joining Easy Tiger, Rob was the Head of Originals at Stan, where he oversaw the commission and production of No Activity, Wolf Creek and Bloom, among others. Rob previously worked as a film and television producer both in the US and Australia and is a screenwriter and composer He was formerly a media and entertainment lawyer, working for Allens Linklaters, Foxtel, Festival Records and Fairfax Media.

JOHN CURRAN (Creator) studied illustration and design at Syracuse University. He worked as a graphic designer in New York before moving to Sydney, Australia where he directed music videos and commercials before completing his debut feature Praise in 1998. His other films include The Painted Veil, Tracks, Chappaquidddick, and the award-winning limited series Bloom.

IAN COLLIE (Producer) is the producer of ABC’s Rake (five seasons), Jack Irish (two series and three telemovies), The Broken Shore and Hell Has Harbour Views (telefeatures). Ian is also the producer of Nine’s Doctor Doctor (four seasons) and SBS dramas Sunshine and The Principal. He was nominated for a PGA Award for his work producing the Disney feature film Saving Mr Banks, starring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks.