Sometimes, to move forward, you have to go back.
Lost. Powerless. Pursued. Liam Alden is, for the first time in his life, "normal". And that’s a problem, because he and the rest of the TEAm are stranded far away from home with law enforcement, Morgan Reilley, and the entire Salvai crime family hot on their trail. They’ll need every connection they’ve ever forged, and a major shift in approach, if they’re going to save both themselves and muses everywhere.
VALENCE and the world of New Candler.
VALENCE is an award-winning serialized urban fantasy podcast, meant for adult audiences, entering its third and final season. (New to the show? You can start with season one HERE.)
In the 2020 awards season, VALENCE was the recipient of four Audio Verse Awards for Best Instrumental Composition in a New Production (“VALENCE Theme” by Raul Vega), Best Cover Art for a New Production (Wil Williams), Best Action Sound Design in a New Production (Julia Schifini), and Best Vocal Direction of a New Production (Katie Youmans).
In our first and second seasons, we introduced the major characters and learned a little about New Candler and the world in which the series takes place before diving deeper into Halo, the tech company leading the market in magic suppression.
In this final season, we get a glimpse at how Halo, and those who agree with its mission, affect muses across the country. We’ll also see how muses (people with magic) and their allies are fighting back in ways both big and small, supporting each other in search of dignity and safety and the freedom just to live.
Come back home to New Candler one last time on October 14th, 2022 for the Season 3 premiere of VALENCE wherever you get your podcasts.
Who are we?
HUG HOUSE PRODUCTIONS
Hug House Productions is a podcast production collective founded by Anne Baird, Katie Youmans, and Wil Williams. Our company is currently producing: Desperado, HEXADEC, How To Act Fereldan (coming soon), Scoring Magic (documentary about making a fiction podcast), VALENCE (that’s this one), and You Are Not The Jellicle Choice (a mistake).
Hug House Productions' goal in coming together and creating podcasts is to bring stories to the world that feature and spotlight queer characters and artists, as well as those from other marginalized groups. In telling these stories, Hug House also seeks to educate people about the reality of and process that goes into creating these types of stories so that others may learn from our successes and our follies as they bring their own experiences and stories to the wonderful medium of podcasts.
VALENCE Cast and Crew
Since this is our final season, we’ve pulled out all the stops and brought back every actor we could reasonably (and some unreasonably) write back into the season. You'll not only enjoy hearing the full TEAm returning to close out their characters' stories, but you'll also get to meet some amazing new characters along the way with an ensemble cast of voice actors—some of whom you may have heard of before, and others who are new to the scene!
CAST
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Josh Rubino as Liam Alden;
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Naomi McMillan as Morgan Reilley;
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John Westover as Nico Salvai;
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Caleb Del Rio as Flynn Velasco;
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Jordan Cobb as Sarah Harris;
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Katie Chin as Grace Chen;
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Ishani Kanetkar as Mahira Varma;
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Alex Welch as Noel Alden;
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Elena Fernández Collins as Soledad Marquez;
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Madison Dabbs-Petty as Elisha Dawes;
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Miracle Fonmanu as Zoe Kafoa;
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Nadine Amami as Erica Alden;
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Sable as Soap (meow meow meow);
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Giancarlo Herrera as Luis Acebo (yes we brought him back again… this is where it gets unreasonable);
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Gavin Gaddis and Eileen Baird as Jarles and Jarlette (remember those rude tourists Liam robs in season 1? it’s them!);
- and many more characters in the ensemble to be announced during the campaign!
Read the cast bios and see the full cast list on our website.
CREW
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Wil Williams - Showrunner, Lead Writer, and Sound Designer;
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Katie Youmans - Director, Writer;
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Anne Baird - Production Manager, Script Supervisor, and Co-Director;
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Travis Reaves-Butterfield - Theme Song Composer;
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Elena Fernández Collins - Cultural Consultant;
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Giancarlo Herrera - Artist's Representative;
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Tuck Woodstock - Sensitivity Consultant.
Goals & Budget
This season, we've brought in every voice actor we could and are working on paying everyone in the cast AND crew what they're worth. The number is daunting, but we know it's possible!
Our total budget of $16,000.00 for Season 3 can be broken down as follows:
- Voice Acting - $4,710.00
- Sound Design - $6,500.00
- Writing - $2,600.00
- Music - $200.00
- Production Management - $500.00
- Transcripts - $390.00
- Actor Representative - $300.00
- Sensitivity Consulting - $100.00
- Campaign Fees - $700.00
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[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A pie chart showing the breakdown of the budget numbers provided below. The colors on the pie chart match the magic colors of characters appearing in VALENCE.]
As motivation to get us to our goal, we've got some additional perks if we hit our progress goals:
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25% / $4,000.00 - New Cast Announcements: Once we hit 25% of our total goal, we'll start shouting out all of our new members in the cast for this season... and let me tell you, there's a LOT!
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50% / $8,000.00 - Full Season 3 Theme Released: At 50% of our goal, we'll release the full version of Seasons 3's AMAZING theme song by Travis Reaves-Butterfield. It made us all cry listening to it.
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75% / $12,000.00 - Live Read of AI-VALENCE Script: We threw all three seasons of VALENCE into an AI Script Generator and let it write our newest episode of VALENCE. And if we hit 75% of our goal, we'll get on camera and do a live read-through and reaction to the nightmare it has created. For Science.
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100% / $16,000.00 - Nico Origin Story (Written Novella): If we reach our goal, aside from being able to pay everyone involved in the production of Season 3, Wil Williams and John H. Westover (the voice of Nico Salvai) will release a written novella telling the origin story of Nico Salvai.
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[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A book cover showing a mish-mash of neon colors in green, yellow, pink, and purple. The center of the cover includes the title and authors names—"Palette Knife: A VALENCE Novel", "Wil Williams", and "John H. Westover."]
What do you get?
TIERS
We've put together some fun rewards for this campaign that we're excited to share. Each tier is added on to the prior one, so don't worry about missing out on something from a lower-cost tier if you want to go for a big one!
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Pit Stop - $5: You’ll get our eternal gratitude—nothing physical, we're just very thankful for your support!
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Tourist Trap - $10: We’ll give you a shoutout on the VALENCE twitter page thanking you for your support!
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Landmark - $25: We’ve got a bonus digital content pack coming your way, including behind the scene audio of the crew planning out the season, recording of a sound design session with Wil Williams, a sampling of journal entries for two characters appearing in the season, and a road trip playlist to listen to alongside the season!
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Theme Park - $50: Display your love of VALENCE on your laptop, notebook, waterbottle, or even your body with a stickable pack of two new Season 3 stickers and a temporary tattoo of the golden ratio (designs TBA).
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Monument - $100: Travel alongside the TEAm and get a pack of postcards—one for each episode and location in Season 3!
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Executive Suite - $500: Sponsor an episode of VALENCE and be credited as an Executive Producer for an episode in the post-roll. (*Limit of 13)
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Homecoming - $1000: For $1000, join Showrunner Wil Williams for a one-shot tabletop game set in the VALENCE universe! (*Limit of 2 with a 3rd potential slot if we meet our goal)
ADD-ONS
On top of the perks included with the regular reward tiers, you can add any of the following rewards to your pledge!
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VALENCE Band Tee - $20: Now you may be wondering... "where's the band in VALENCE???" and the answer is Season 3! The band members named the group and we made them band tees! (Attending Podcast Movement 2022 in Dallas? Wil and Anne will be rocking these shirts in person!)
[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A person wearing a black t-shirt with a band logo in the center that reads "Star HECK!" with a starswipe.]
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VALENCE Seasons 1 - 3 on CD - $15: Inspired by the amazing Rashika Rao, we'll burn all three seasons of VALENCE onto discs so you can have both a souvenir and another way to listen to the show!
Risks & Challenges
Hug House Productions has already committed to making Season 3 of VALENCE a reality, so there's little risk to be had. The season is already written, edited, recorded, and we have a few episodes completed and in the bank ready to release!
Even if we don't reach our goal, VALENCE Season 3 will still happen—it’s too far along to stop now! And we'll still be fulfilling your rewards, though it just might take a bit longer to achieve.
This isn't our first rodeo; we're familiar with the process and have a plan in place with contingencies in case of any issues popping up, but if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out to us and we'll be happy to help!
Other Ways You Can Help
We know that not everyone will be able to contribute financially, which is why the end product will be released for free, but that doesn't mean you can't help in other ways:
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Tell others about the campaign on social media! We'll be posting about the campaign on the Twitter page for VALENCE!
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Here's something you can copy / paste to post right now to share right now:
"VALENCE is crowdfunding now for their 3rd and final season, and they need your help to pay marginalized audio artists a fair wage! Support indie audio drama at https://igg.me/at/valence-s3/"
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Share the campaign with your friends and family, even if they're not familiar with podcasts yet. There's always room for more fans of podcasts in the world!
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Rate and review VALENCE on Apple Podcasts and / or Podchaser — while it may not increase our charting position (podcast chart analytics continue to be a mystery), it does help others find the show and makes us feel good. ;)
- For continued support, you can pledge to support Hug House Productions on Patreon and purchase merchandise for VALENCE and our other shows on our website!
Acknowledgements
Thank you so much to our entire cast and crew for working with us on VALENCE and to all of our supporters since we started this adventure in 2019!
(And an extra special thank you Katie Chin for helping us name our tiers for this campaign, as always.)