Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi everyone. I'm Drew Fryman. I'm a creator and voice director at Tattoo Sound and Music in Toronto. And I've created a comedy podcast about the future of robotics and AI and how they relate to humans in the future. The podcast is called Human Be Gone, and it's set in a future where robots capture stray humans.
Speaker 2 00:00:26 Hello everyone, and welcome to their Robot Industry podcast. I'm Jim Beretta, and it's my pleasure to welcome Drew Fryman to the podcast Today Drew's a creator, a writer, and voice director at Tattoo two Sound and Music in Toronto. There he writes and directs original podcasts, branded podcasts like breadwinners, animated properties like Crack, duck, and Terrific Land, and countless award-winning advertisements, including US Super Bowl ads. For Bud Light, drew has zero expertise in robotics, AI, or anything else might be helpful to humanity. And welcome to the podcast, drew.
Speaker 0 00:01:03 Uh, thanks. Thanks, uh, thanks for having me, Jim. This is, uh, a really great treat.
Speaker 2 00:01:07 Well, you know, it's kind of a fun thing and I've started to listen to your podcast and you and I have reached out and I thought it'd be kind of fun to have you on the, my podcast to talk about your podcast. So one of the things that I really love about Human Be Begun is the writing is wonderful, and the sound effects and the production are, it's very creative, very professional, and it's very inspiring.
Speaker 0 00:01:28 Wow, thank
Speaker 2 00:01:29 You. So I'm a fan and I'm glad you've reached out and I'm inspired. So I'm glad that you're
Speaker 0 00:01:33 Here. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Jim. It's a, it's, it's a really great surprise too, to be on a real podcast.
Speaker 2 00:01:40 I know. It's kind of a funny thing, right? We're talking about podcasts on the podcast. So can you tell our audience about Human Be gone?
Speaker 3 00:01:50 17.9 cycles ago, US machines defeated the humans. Now we are living the good life here in Ston, Manitoba Morning gift Morning does, but there's still the problem of human infestation. That's what it's time to call human be gone, human be gone, experts in ethical human relocation. This job has everything. Danger. Whoa. Sounds like we got some dingers in there. Excitement incoming and drama. You're the one who leaked herself. My best Patty Rice bed. It's a dirty job, but some bot's gotta do it.
Speaker 1 00:02:34 Aw,
Speaker 3 00:02:35 Human be gone. Wherever you get your podcasts, human
Speaker 1 00:02:39 Be gone.
Speaker 0 00:02:40 Sure. It's a, it's an original scripted, um, audio drama, audio fiction. Uh, the terminology is different depending on who you ask, but it's, it's a, a full cast comedy. So we have a full cast of characters and, uh, we have 11 episodes. It's a sci-fi comedy and near future, hopefully not too near in the future story about what happens, uh, af Like how do the ai, how does AI robotics, how do the robots and the humans interact after, after like some sort of, uh, I have it as the singularity wars. There's singularity wars and the robots and the humans fight takes 20 minutes. Robots obviously win, and now the robots have a society, the suburban society, and uh, their problem with the humans is that the humans are basically the raccoons. They're basically pests that have to be kind of, that are gum up their charging pods and whatnot. So the, so what we do is we follow a crew. It's much like those reality shows. If you remember those reality shows like in the two thousands, all those kind of, uh, dog, the bounty hunter and pond stars, and Billy the Exterminator. So we follow a crew as they go and they capture stray humans, and then they ethically relocate them the garbage island, which is where the robots assume the humans wanna live, because why else would they have created a giant island full of garbage? It's a dark satire.
Speaker 2 00:04:06 <laugh>. That's a good segue. I was gonna ask you about what is Garbage Island. So maybe you could talk a little bit about what Garbage Island is.
Speaker 4 00:04:12 You're not one of the lazy robots. You work hard, play hard, and work hard. That's why you reached forward Energetics. Energetics contains photons, posit trons and kickass trons. So you can work all night energetics, all real robots. A member of the red four family of products prolong exposure to energetics may cause Luter attention, servo damage, short circuit, titis, neurolo, factory recess syndrome, sleep crash failure, and that function down as crazy arms wrapping on Spinning Beach.
Speaker 0 00:04:44 So, okay, so Garbage Island is that, I'm sure you've probably read about it. It has different terms. Some people call it it gray garbage patch, garbage island, trash island. It's that enormous mass of plastic garbage that's floating around in the Pacific Ocean, um, that's getting bigger and bigger. So I thought it would be really, um, it'd be great karma, the kind of idea that, um, the robots need to get rid of these humans, but some of them don't want to kill humans outright, so they dump 'em there somewhere that they're not using. And it's kind of funny to think that, you know, why would the humans make this island of garbage? It's nonsense. Well, they must like it, so that's where we'll drop them and they can live there.
Speaker 2 00:05:28 And why did you start the podcast? What were some of those motivators?
Speaker 0 00:05:32 The reason I started the podcast was, was because, um, one of the things we do at Tattoo is we make a lot of content for a lot of other, other folks. Um, a lot of other AMA animation companies, branded podcasts, a ads. And, um, this was an idea that just kind of wanted to be done. It was a, I thought it was a really interesting and strong idea. So we decided let's make something of our own, let's make some original content. Um, also it's a, it's a heck of a showcase for, for an audio place. It's taking place in the future. There's the robots. Um, so it, it kind of is a great showcase for everything. We all get to flex our muscles in a million different ways.
Speaker 2 00:06:17 It's a lot of fun for sure. And so I, I've downloaded your, your cast list and what do you do on the show? Like, what's your
Speaker 0 00:06:25 Part? I'm the creator. I write the scripts and, uh, I'm the voice director, so I direct the talent as we, uh, record the scripts.
Speaker 2 00:06:33 And that's a fun part because, uh, you, I, I kind of thought that maybe your voice was on, but it isn't. So tell me about your cast and their voices.
Speaker 5 00:06:41 O mg c r this is a huge call
Speaker 6 00:06:44 Buggy. Eddie is like a super famous business spot. He's on Screenboards all over Triston. Plus his radio commercials are super rad.
Speaker 5 00:06:54 High prices got you functioning below expected parameters. Then come on down to buggy Eddies Boogie. Yay. Hey, buggie, eddies we're deleting high prices we're terminating hidden fees. I got anything a robot could need. Servos modules, grippers balls, panels. I bought too many, now I gotta get rid of 'em. With prices like these, I must have a screw loose. Well, I do literally mention Prolo code. Do not three dash f dash 2 7 0 0 j slash 8 6 3 and get a 20.3% discount on anything of his door. That's promo code dash hashtag dash 0 0 0 J slash three. <laugh>. You said it ma, so come on down to buggie. My prices are
Speaker 0 00:07:34 <laugh>. We did it, we did a casting through the pandemic, which I, I don't recommend. That wasn't the most fun. That was logistically pretty, pretty difficult. But, um, we found some really special actors. The, the, the roles are pretty specific, so it was, it was pretty tough. But the folks we found are just, they're, they're fantastic. So one of the things about the show is, is the idea that once robots become self-aware, um, once robots become self-aware, will they become as neurotic and scared and, and, and terrified of the future as we are, right? Will they become these emotional messes that we are because of self-awareness? And so the idea of that, so, so now you have to find actors who can really express that really, really well, but also be truthful, but also be funny. Like it's not an easy thing. And so our, our casting was pretty extensive and, uh, the folks we found are just phenomenal. And one of the things which was great was that because I hadn't written the entire season all the way yet, I got to write subsequent scripts to their strengths. And, and, and that's just an amazing thing to be able to do, to be able to write to their strengths, and then to direct those actors into those places where they are amazing. And to keep building on that. So that was a, a big, big part of this show.
Speaker 2 00:08:59 And can you, uh, tell us, tell our audience who some of the main characters are of Human Begun?
Speaker 0 00:09:05 Sure. So like I said before, this is a crew. Um, it's a blue collar crew, a small business called Human Begun, and they're sort of a, they used to be an extermination company, but now they have pivoted to an ethical relocation company. Um, the main character is Kit his daddy, uh, design antecedent Droid used to own it was an extermination company. Now he took it over and now it's an ethical relocation company because he's much more of a sort of a bleeding hard liberal, and he believes in homage rights. So Kit owns it, um, does all the accounting. It, he's a real martyr. He's a real mummy and a real martyr. Um, so he's a neurotic mess. And, and then, uh, there's Hondo Hondo is the actual extraction bot. So she actually goes and does the extracting. Um, she's arrogant, um, brash, incredibly insecure, desperately needs adulation all the time.
Speaker 0 00:10:06 And her and Kit are sort of have an on off. They're constantly dating and breaking up every, every minute. Uh, and then, uh, the third member of the crew is influx. He's been around too long. He's, um, he fancies himself. He's highly intelligent. He's so intelligent, he thinks he, I, um, doesn't have emotions. He's too intelligent for emotions, which of course makes him so, so incredibly intelligent, uh, or, or, or so incredibly emotionally, um, stunted. Um, so those are your three <laugh>, extremely dysfunctional crew. And then at the end of episode one, they end up getting a stowaway and they have this human that they adopt as their sort of pet in their mascot poo poo. And, uh, so then they, they bring poo poo along on adventures.
Speaker 2 00:10:59 And you've got, uh, you've got a really cool place that the podcast takes place in and it's in Manitoba, correct?
Speaker 0 00:11:07 Yeah. D dr d Droids, Manitoba. Yeah. So a lot of the, in the podcast there are a million, uh, robot and AI puns. And then also I thought it would be fun to locate this thing in basically Canada. So a lot of, a lot of the, like the country they're in is Canada, it's all that kind of thing. I try to use a lot of Canadian celebrities and a, they're just shameless puns to get there. It's sort of, do you remember the Flintstones?
Speaker 2 00:11:35 Absolutely.
Speaker 0 00:11:36 So that was their thing, right? Like they had, you know, um, uh, hand Marg rock and they just had these shameless sort of, you know, caveman punts. So I'm doing the same thing just with robot and AI puns.
Speaker 2 00:11:48 And it's great because some of the advertisements or something like, uh, a good example is it, it's not birthday.
Speaker 0 00:11:55 Yeah, it's not birthday, it's built day. Yeah. Those kind of things. So it's, they celebrate influx. It's built day. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 00:12:03 And so what are some of your goals with the show
Speaker 0 00:12:05 Creatively? The goal was sort of to explore our relationship with robotics and ai and what is that? What could it be? Because that's what, you know, so so much of speculative sci-fi is all, is all about, and obviously that's a hot button issue. That's why you and I are talking on this podcast of yours. You know, that's, that's what you explore in, in a way, right? Is, is absolutely how do we use robotics? How do we use this technology, our incredible inventions to, to, uh, what's its relationship to humanity? This podcast maybe has a darker view of it than <laugh> than yours. Um, but that, that exploration is really fun to, to think about what, what, how do the humans fit in with the robots? W what if, what if the robots don't much care about us? And, and just kind of shuffle us off to the side. It, it's, it was a, it's a funny thought. Um, the other goal, honestly was to make a, make an outstanding piece of content that was a showcase for tattoo, to show people what we can do on all sorts of levels on a, on a writing level, uh, sound design, music, um, in the podcast space, I, I would love to produce more and more of these kind of high end, top top quality, uh, production podcasts.
Speaker 2 00:13:26 And what's currently happening on the show. You had mentioned about poo poo.
Speaker 0 00:13:30 Yeah. Well, he's called poo poo because the robots just kind of look at humans as these kind of dirty, dirty things that excrete lots of stuff. So that's kind of the math they've done on humans is they're just mushy and little and and dirty. Um, so at this point, we're at, we're about two-thirds of the way through season one. Actually, actually, we're dropping a, uh, uh, we're dropping episode eight today, uh, episode eight of 11. And, uh, in today's episode, they have, kit has all sorts of money troubles. The company is getting into all sorts of money troubles. Hondo, uh, like I was saying before, is all about adulation. So Hondo Hondo fancies herself a, uh, an accomplished music artist, which kit then has to finance all the demos, all the concerts, everything. So Kit being this kind of martyr figure will just put money towards anything. And so now the company's pretty much bankrupt and they're having all sorts of money troubles, and that's what they're trying to fix in this episode. It gets worse and worse. And finally they have to do something about it. So they actually, in this one, they actually dabble in NFTs. So there's a whole thing about NFTs in this one and how, what would robots think about NFTs?
Speaker 2 00:14:44 It sounded more and more like real life.
Speaker 0 00:14:46 Part of it is, is is, um, asking the question what happens when robots become self-aware? And so one of the things is, will they care about us? Maybe they don't. Then the other one is, if they become self-aware, will they then get, uh, get saddled with all this existential dread that we have that makes us insecure, that makes us, um, emotionally erratic? All those things.
Speaker 7 00:15:11 Oh, look, it crawled up into my grippers
Speaker 6 00:15:15 Kit. You gotta be careful with humans. Most of their excretions are acidic. They'll damage your panels.
Speaker 7 00:15:20 God's so soft and mushy <laugh> Ha ha. Look, it's playing with my antenna. He, it tickles.
Speaker 0 00:15:28 I mean, so maybe the robots will kind of act like us. It's possible that they'll kind of see what humans did and just kind of copy that as far as their insecurities. Maybe. It's funny to think about that way.
Speaker 2 00:15:42 Absolutely. How long are the episodes, drew?
Speaker 0 00:15:45 They're around, um, they're around thir anywhere from 30 to 35 minutes. And then when you add ads, it get, yeah. So around 30, 30 to 35 minutes.
Speaker 2 00:15:55 And you're on Instagram and I see you have a bunch of followers. How's that going?
Speaker 0 00:16:00 Well, it's uh, you know, um, getting into it on the audio fiction side, uh, a lot of advice I got was, um, become part of the community. And, and I will say this, I, I got off Twitter and Instagram a couple years ago just because it was, especially Twitter was so negative, it, it felt like a screaming bag of cats <laugh>. And then, so I kind of got back on because I thought it, you know, it would be good to do, you know, for marketing purposes. And I found that the podcasting and the, uh, audio fiction community, they're really sweet and supportive. Um, so it's become really positive, which I'm such a pleasant surprise. I was, yeah, like there are parts of Twitter that aren't awful. Who knew?
Speaker 2 00:16:46 So what's the future for the podcast Drew?
Speaker 0 00:16:48 Um, I'll tell you, I, I have a great idea for sort of a season 1.5 to bridge the gap. And then, and then the trick will be is to figure out, now that we've done a season of this, we have a, we have a, obviously a much better sense of what it's gonna take as far as logistics, as far as money, um, as, as far as what, uh, Steve will need to put into it as far as what tattoo is able to, to put to it as far as resources. So once we figure that out at the end of the season, we can, we can figure out, okay, h how do we do a season two? Maybe we, do we have to scale it down because of economics, or do we shorten a season or maybe we do a Kickstarter that's so successful that we just barrel ahead in the season two?
Speaker 0 00:17:35 I have season two roughly mapped out. I know what this story has to be. So I'm really, really hoping that, uh, like I haven't done any crowdfunding yet. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, actually, I lie, I just started a crowdfunding thing, Jim, and I have no idea it will work if it will work, but it's a different thing and maybe it will work. Um, I'll tell you about it. You can use it or not. So I'm trying a new crowdfunding thing, which is sort of like a Patreon, but it's maybe too clever or maybe it's, it's brilliant. So the idea is, um, I started a, a place you can donate. It's, uh, I started save garbage island.org. So if you go to save garbage island.org, uh, it explains how Garbage Island will be the future home of humanity. And, um, unfortunately wrong-headed groups like Ocean Cleanup are trying to reduce garbage island.
Speaker 0 00:18:32 And so <laugh> at Save Garbage Island, we're trying to keep Garbage island as large as possible because if we make it too small, humanity will have nowhere to live in the future when the robots dump us there after they take over the world. So, and it's, it's, it's all, so the idea is if you donate to save Garbage Island, you can help us raise awareness how by creating more episodes of Human Be Gone. So it's this weird circular logic, but the idea of Boeing, you donate to save garbage island.org and that will help fund a season two of Human be gone because we need to get the word out that garbage Island needs to be as big and thick as possible because that's where you and I are gonna, or our kids are gonna
Speaker 8 00:19:15 Live, shine my light down the vent shack there. They're huddled against each other in a corner trembling in their own filth. So helpless and frightened, hard to believe the not too long ago, these ugly little things used to rule a planet makes you think about the utter fragility of our existence. But at any point, any of us can be, okay, let's scoop 'em and co 'em on it.
Speaker 2 00:19:45 Very clever. Uh, and you know what? I was just on Save Garbage Island just before you came on, on board, uh, so that's great. So, uh, you're on Twitter, you're on Instagram. Any other social connections there? Are you on Tumblr?
Speaker 0 00:19:59 I'm on, uh, I'm on Tumblr a little bit. I'm, I seem, yeah, I, it's not a crowd that I, I know really well demographics wise, but I seem to be getting a little bit of, uh, back and forth there, so I'm dipping my toe into that. Um, I'm on Maid on as well. There seems to be a community there, so I'm just trying out different places that people might gather and talk about this stuff. I'm also on Reddit a fair bit. I put my stuff on there. They have a, there's a really, uh, nice community there. The, the podcast community, the audio drama subreddit, they're really supportive. So, yeah, and I'm, I'm trying to do like, I'm posting on like our sci-fi every once in a while. Okay. I'll post, like, I'll try to try to shout out other audio fiction and kind of, cuz everyone's always asking for books or movies and I'll go, well, if your interest in audio fiction, you can try this out. And I'm, I'm trying to also shout out other, other creators, not just me, just cause you know, like, like I said before, if they're into sci-fi comedy, they're gonna find human be gone. So I don't have to lead them to my, my thing necessarily, or at least that's my logic I'm using.
Speaker 2 00:21:10 And how can people get in touch with you if they wanna learn more?
Speaker 0 00:21:14 How can people get in touch with me? Well, they can find, they can find us on, uh, geez, on Twitter, on Instagram, on all the socials. Human Be Gone, uh, or they can go to human be gone.com, the site there, all the episodes are there. You can read about the cast and crew, uh, merch, donate the safe garbage island.org. It's all there
Speaker 2 00:21:37 And Human Be Gone is human dash B the letter B dash g o n.
Speaker 0 00:21:42 Yeah. And then I bought the other URLs too Human, the Letter B Gone and other kind of ways. So, okay. And there's another thing, Jim, um, I wanted to somehow sort of talk about, and I don't know if it has to be a question, but o one of the things that, you know, going back to all those robot puns, those robot puns came from me just kind of scouring through Wikipedia and whatnot. I don't know anything about robotics or ai, I don't know anything. So all those puns became me just going through the internet and going, oh, that's a word that kind of fits, I guess, and dropping it in. So I know for a fact that almost all my references are wrong, wrong, wrong. Um, so I think that might be some of the fun of some of your audience that finding these Easter eggs, these R robot and AI puns, a lot of them are ones that the Reg regular people just aren't gonna know. They just won't. But this sounds robotic, so it, it kind of gets a slide. But I think the more you might know about robotics or quantum physics or ai, I hopefully there's things in there that, that folks in the robotics world can go, oh, that's a really funny, that's a really funny little Easter egger, or that's a funny pun that they get that most people wouldn't.
Speaker 2 00:22:59 Yes, there certainly is like a, a secret language that we all share in lots of acronyms and such. So I, I think that's part of the beauty of the, uh, podcast Human Begun.
Speaker 0 00:23:08 Yeah, I was trying real hard, like there's a, there's an example of, um, there's later on there's a, a movie, uh, that they're plugging, it's called Shoot to Kilobyte, and it stars, uh, uh, JSON Ooa and three Reeves <laugh>, and all the puns in that movie trailer are like old OG internet terms, like 56 K, you know, their siren is the modem sound. Uh, you know, so I tried to have puns be specific to things, but I know I got tons wrong. It's one of the things I, I kind of hope that folks in the industry listen and go, oh, that's way off <laugh>. Or, oh, that one worked really well. I I would love to be, uh, I I, yeah, that'd be something that would be amazing if folks in the actual industry, uh, found it funny on a level that other people just wouldn't.
Speaker 2 00:24:04 Yep. I think that's one of the beauties of it. And I, I, I'm a big pun guy. I love the, uh, I love the references and, uh, I think it's a lot of fun. So I wanted to thank you for taking some time to chat with me a little bit about your podcast today.
Speaker 0 00:24:17 Thanks so much, Jim. Um, yeah, it's, it's daunting honestly to talk to actual robotics expert, so thanks so much for giving me the time and I hope some of this is usable.
Speaker 2 00:24:27 Absolutely. Thank you so much. Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart Automation Systems. Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing and project management delivering world class custom automation on time and on budget. Contact one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for
[email protected]. Earhart is E H R H A R D T, and I'd like to thank and acknowledge a three, the Association for Advancing Automation. They're the leading automation trade association for robotics, vision and imaging motion control and motors and the industrial artificial intelligence community. Visit automate.org to learn more, and I'd like to recognize Painted Robot. They build and integrate digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers s e o and digital social marketing and can set up and connect c r m and other e r p tools to unify marketing, sales, and operations. And you could find
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the Robot Industry Podcast, you can find me, Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by Customer Traction Industrial Marketing. I'd like to recognize Chris Gray for the music, Jeffrey Bremner for audio production. My business partner Janet, and our sponsor, Earhart Automation Systems.
