EUGENE, Ore.– A new podcast called “What Happened in Skinner” has been downloaded over 40,000 times and is nominated for an Ambie Award.
The fictional podcast is written by a group of Eugene’s friends and is set on a fictional Skinner Island off the coast of Florence.
It revolves around a secret occult group called Auremana.
Aaron Blanton is one of the screenwriters and said the project was originally conceived when his team was shooting a short film and they realized there was a lot more to say.
“We kind of created this whole cool world and we wanted to explore that more than the 15 minutes of a short film,” Blanton said.
Blanton said this podcast also helped them discuss religions and different views on religion.
Their team has made both a podcast, a short film and an alternate reality game.
“We shot it ourselves and got help from volunteers,” Blanton said. “We should have had twenty more people than we had to handle it all. It created a lot of work and a lot of sleepless nights.”
Blanton hopes he and his team can develop their plot.
“We have a global conspiracy that we just touched on,” Blanton said. “What we hope is that this podcast is our entry into an expanded universe. We have ideas for TV shows, ideas for movies, we have an idea for a graphic novel, so we hope that this podcast will will pay more attention.”
Those interested in viewing the podcast can click HERE.