Episode 122: The Imaging House

ANNC: The Producers, featuring the most respected international talent in the world of audio production and voiceover. Radio, TV, film, and online. In-depth interviews and industry insights, putting you on the inside. This is The Producers Podcast with Ryan Dreen.

RYAN: All right, let me just drop a quick intro on here to say, well, hey, first, hello. Thanks for checking out The Producers Podcast. no, no real demo to feature here. We are just going to be talking, to Kelly Doherty, who is, you know, well known throughout the imaging world, had some of the, the most biggest of all the jobs, and then recently had a bit of a career change. We talk about that, but we're also talking about theimaginghouse.com. I joked a little about that. Well, hold on, we're going to tease what's coming up next, but no, it's, pretty clearly written in the title of the podcast and on the website that I put the podcast on. theimaginghouse.com is the brand new If you're listening to this podcast before the 24th of July, well then we are teasing the website. But if you happen to be checking out this podcast the 24th or later of July 2018, then you're good to go. Go hit it up. We'll make it pretty clear what it's for, but I mean, radio imaging people, if you are in any way involved in the radio imaging world, I think this website's gonna be a great resource. I've seen it, I've navigated around it, a lot of great areas, a lot of ways to be featured. If you are a talent, voice producer, et cetera, we'll get into all of that. And like I said, let's not waste any more time. Very excited to have back on the podcast for a 3rd time. I should have double-checked. I'm pretty sure it's a 3rd time. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, K3, Kelly Doherty, many names, a great person, talented producer, talented voice artist, and about to launch something very exciting for the imaging community. so of course we'll talk about all that, but there's a nice intro. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me.

KELLY: Thank you. This is, it's, it's kind of like SNL. You count how many times you've, you've been on the show.

RYAN: Yes, exactly. so I know, I had you on, in my, maybe my second, this is, believe it or not, I think I'm in my 10th year of this podcast, if you can believe that.

KELLY: Are you really?

RYAN: Yeah. And, you were, you were early. I mean, I had you on in, I mean, like this first or second year, really, I think. I didn't go back and check, but long time ago, right?

KELLY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. My voice has probably changed since then. Let's put it that way.

RYAN: I'll make a� so I've known you now, you know, we've known each other now for like 10 years or so. I'd consider us more on the friends side though in the last year or two, for sure.

KELLY: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Me too.

RYAN: So my observation is that you were a lot more sort of in a box back then, a lot more locked down. You were sort of like, all right, here's my work. I'm gonna keep this all Sort of contained. I'm not going to let the outside world in. And I believe you're kind of opening up to the world a little over the last couple years. Is that a true statement? Do you feel like you've kind of opened yourself up to the world a little more?

KELLY: I keep saying it's funny how the universe works. So I was in the job at iHeart for 20-plus years. You know, you're� there's a certain way of doing things. You're reporting to people. You have a whole line of people that need to approve stuff. And then when you get to the national side, it quadruples. And then you find yourself also managing people. You find how great of a manager you are. You find how to inspire people to be better. You find ways to develop camaraderie between your team, between the national imaging team. So there's a lot of stuff that I learned. But then there was a lot of stuff that� there's so many things going on at one time that if you have something that you need done, it's� you have to go through, you know, all these different cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. So yeah, it felt like, you know, I was in 4 walls, that I had security and stability within those 4 walls. And then all of a sudden, you know, hey, you're position's been eliminated. It's a scary, scary process, and I wasn't expecting it at all.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: So I think I went into shock at first, and then, oh my God, what am I gonna do? And then I started getting all these emails, and this is part of the imaging house coming to fruition, actually. I started getting emails from complete strangers, I mean, from all over the world, text messages and Facebook messages and emails, and it was really difficult to accept them.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: Meaning, in the frame of mind I was in, it was really, really tough, and there was a� it was a really down, very, very, very, very dark time for me. But then as soon as I started reading those things, and then this thing came into my head where I was like, wait a minute, I'm not done.

RYAN: Mm-hmm, right.

KELLY: There's so many things I wanna do and so many things I've wanted to do for a long time and there just wasn't an outlet or there were restrictions on it. So all of the sudden, I was getting offers from every type of different radio company that you can imagine. offering me jobs, offering me freelance. There was so many things that it felt like the entire world opened up. And when the entire world opened up, my entire brain opened up. And I'm like, okay, I wanna do this, this, and this. So it's turned out to be, you know, it was really tough. I mean, it was really hard, but it's turned into a blessing in disguise.

RYAN: So I, I was going to probably ask this in a few questions, but you've dove right in. So there's going to be people that are like, yeah, I went through something like that. And just to give, for anybody that's listening to the podcast but may not know exactly what you're talking about, on the last one you were on, I think I made the statement something like you had the most powerful job in radio imaging on planet Earth. I made a really minute, tiny little statement like that. And I think it actually could have been true. It's very possible.

KELLY: Right.

RYAN: So anyway, via downsizing or, Downsizing is the wrong word, but you're asked to leave the company. It happens all the time.

KELLY: Sure.

RYAN: So, for anybody that doesn't know, that was what transpired a little while ago now. How many months has it been?

KELLY: 6 months.

RYAN: Yeah. So, you've had time to get perspective and everything. A piece of advice that now you've had about 6 months to look back on it, for anybody that will deal with this situation or has dealt with it recently, is there something that you would say, hey, you know, do this, don't do that, be aware of this, some piece of advice, something you learned?

KELLY: Yes. The biggest mistake that I made was letting my job become me. So when that job was gone, I felt like my identity was gone. I put so much time, so much work. And the one thing that it has done for me is to realize that my priority priorities then where I thought that, you know, I had them set and, you know, put life first. But at 3 o'clock in the morning, the phone rings to revise, you know, a bunch of national promos. You're gonna get up and do that. So I realized that my priorities were not as they should have been. You know, life always comes first. Health always comes first. Friends, family, all of that comes And there were so many things that I� that I� I put the job first.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: And I should have, you know, don't cancel that appointment. Don't not go to that show because you have, you know, all this work to do. There's someone that will always help you with the work. Always ask for help. Don't try and do things all on your own. Don't let your job become who you are. Don't� Don't put everything into the job. You have to have a life outside of that.

RYAN: Yeah. What about after? So, now again, like I said, you've got 6 months of perspective and you're already onto another major task, which I'm trying to tease. We're going to get into that here. And it's very exciting. I got to see it. Some people else got� anyway, with this perspective though, People can get into that mode of like, oh my gosh, the rug was just pulled out. There's shock and there's this and that, but advice for the week or two after you lose the gig, something that maybe you wish you had done, or just mentally something you would like to tell people to keep in mind.

KELLY: Get up. Just get up. I, I, you know, I, I went into a pretty deep, dark depression. I, reached out to a couple people who weren't there for me. it becomes something that you have to work out in your head before you can bring other people in, meaning You can ask for help from other people. You know, I'm really sad. I need to go do something. I need to get out of the house. But then you come back and there's still those still moments where everything calms down, where it comes back into your head. You have to get your head straight. And the best thing to do that is to just get up, put one foot in front of the other, and actually believe the support messages that you're getting.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: You know, some people sent some really just amazing, things. And I had, I had hundreds of comments that were, you know, we've never met, you've been a real, you know, inspiration. And I couldn't soak all that in. But you, you need to get up, read those messages, believe them, and just start walking. I mean, put one foot in front of the other. You just have to get up. You've been knocked down. You have to get up. it's not the end of the world and other things are gonna happen. And the longer you stay down, the longer you're gonna be down and, you know, you'll be in the fetal position in your bed for a very long time. You just have to get up and start the next chapter. And you have to believe that this, you know, things like this happen for a reason. It had to.

RYAN: Yeah. Yeah, that's one of those, I don't know if it's a cliché. I don't know if I use that word correctly, but You hear that, and on the outside, you're like, well, it happened for a reason, whatever. But then when stuff like this happens to you, you realize, oh, well, look what I'm going to do because of that. I would've never done this. So therefore, it had to have happened for some reason, I guess.

KELLY: Yeah. And, you know, with this project that you're teasing that we're gonna talk about, I wouldn't be able to do this if I was in my previous position. There are rules and things that you can and can't do and things that are more important. There's lots of other things that take priority. between the objectives you wanna accomplish. So I think that what happened here is, you know, the universe kind of broke down those walls and�

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: You said, and I sat there and said, oh, well, wait a minute. And then, you know, I saw some people at Joel Denver's deal and they were like, wow, you look really happy.

RYAN: It's funny. What do they expect, right?

KELLY: I don't know. I think some people, you know, and this radio world, it goes through trends. It goes through what's hot, what's not, and it goes through it very quickly. So if you want to huddle in bed, it's going to pass you by. You just have to get up and join it and find yourself until you're running at the same speed that you were before or even faster.

RYAN: So I will bring it up, you know, officially now. I've still got some other questions, you know, professionally about your work life too, but I'll intersperse them here. But the exciting news is theimaginghouse.com. The official launch is July 24th.

KELLY: Right.

RYAN: Your launch party's coming up soon. My first question is, since you conceived it, how long has it been to launch? In other words, how long have you been working on this From the first time it went into your brain until now?

KELLY: I conceived this years ago. So it's always been in my brain. But you start working on it and then you see it come to fruition. It becomes a much bigger thought than was in your brain originally. So my thought all these years was to build some sort of creative community, like a home base for creative people. And I'll get more into that in a second. But the actual length of time I started actually putting stuff up was in about March or April.

RYAN: Okay.

KELLY: Like the end of March, beginning of April. And then, you know, you have the idea in your head of what you want to accomplish. So then it was just kind of filling in all the spots saying, this is what I wanted here. And this is, you know, I want a VO booth and I wanna provide all these tools. I wanna provide a spot for freelancers. So then it just grows from there. But in the time from actually putting pictures, content, text, and all that stuff, that was at the end of, end of March or beginning of April. I'm not sure.

RYAN: I'd say so by launch date, it'll be about 4 months that you spent from the first piece of text, you know, when you installed your CMS on the server to Now, a lot of content up there. So I'm one of the lucky few that got to peruse the site and navigate around and see everything as it sits right now. A lot of content up there. Did you start with, okay, it's gonna be a community and let's start with, I don't know, a category of voiceover artists?

KELLY: Yeah.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: The first thing I started with, obviously, if it's gonna be a creative spot for VO and imagers, I started with the voiceover category. And I reached out to people. I reached out to friends and contacts and, you know, and described what it� what the thoughts that were in my head and what it was gonna be and even the integrity behind it, meaning this is not a shady place. This is not where you're going to put your VO demo up there and I'm gonna ask for a cut of whatever.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: You know, it's not like that. So that's been actually really, strong foundation that I've built on this because a lot of people have offered a lot of money for a lot of things and it's� I don't want that to be a part of the basis of what this site is. So I started with the voiceover booth and, you know, after that I started adding production libraries. So there's� everything's a room. So it's the Imaging House. So everything's in a room. So you have the VO booth, you have the production room, you have the newsroom, the chat room, the conference room, the, the boom boom room, which is probably going to be the most hit because it's amazing. everything is in a little room. So the production room was the second thing to go up. So I started adding people and, and production services. And what I did when I started reaching out to them and they wanted to put their stuff up there. I think Annie, Anne DeWig, was the first one to say, oh, absolutely. And I attached a questionnaire for everyone. So whether you're a demo producer, an imaging library producer, voiceover talent, whatever it is, you've got a list of questions to answer and you could answer as many or as A few of them as you want. That way, I can also take that and put it in the classroom, which will have advice from everybody. So you have advice from the pros.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: You have advice from up-and-comers, and together, people can find new ways of helping with taking care of their voice or, you know, this and that. So that grew into the classroom. Then you need stuff like tools. What can you use when you're producing or voicing? So there's, there's also a podcast room. There's tips and tricks. There's videos. There's file sharing sites. There's an interview room. There's� so I would start one thing and it would just create a whole�

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: Another thing. Then, oh, there's a spot for trending talent on there, which actually someone in, I think Adam Cole in Manchester gave me that idea for, you know, we want to know who people are talking about. We want to just check out the fresh blood and who's doing what. So there's stuff like that.

RYAN: Trending talent, is that more, you're talking about like the young up-and-comers or just for whatever reason people that are doing something really hot right now? It could be you know, a Jon Frost, someone who's really, you know, old and decrepit like him. Or, or, or, you know, someone like, oh gosh, his name just left my brain. The, the kid out of the BBC who won the, the�

KELLY: Matt Fisher.

RYAN: No, no, not Matt. The, the guy who just won the Iron Imager.

KELLY: Oh, Sam Wickens from Capital.

RYAN: yeah, he's a nice guy. I apologize, Sam, for forgetting your damn name. Anyway, explain the trending talent.

KELLY: It's both. It's, you know, people don't wanna know just about what's up and coming. They wanna know if something's going on in the imaging community or voiceover community, you know, what is this that I'm hearing about? They should be able to go on the Imaging House and go into trending talent and see what, you know, see what the heck's going on. So it goes for well-established people and it goes for up-and-comers. And, you know, maybe there's a producer that's been on the scene seen for a while, and they're all of a sudden producing all this amazing stuff. They go on Trending Talent. So it's not up and� that's why I didn't call it up and comers or anything like that. It's Trending Talent, people who are making a splash, whether they're young or established.

RYAN: Seasoned veterans. So if I'm randomly� I, you know, one of the pages I clicked because I was curious, which isn't actually all that filled up yet, although I'm sure it will be, like, was it VO coaches or just coaches? I can't remember how you had it set up there on the site.

KELLY: VO coaching.

RYAN: Yeah. So if I'm a VO coach and I want to be on your site, obviously I could fill out that questionnaire, but is it something that gets a little� is there any vetting? You know, is it just a community that's open to all?

KELLY: It's open to all. There's, there's, I mean, if you're just going on here to put a VO coaching thing on there where you don't have any experience, I, I might say to that person, well, you know, let's wait a while, or let's see how this goes. Check out the site and see if you still want to be able to, do that. Now it's different for voiceover people.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: If voiceover people, excuse me, there are voiceover people who have been on 1 or 2 stations that are in the VO booth. this is a place where you have, a pedestal.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: And if you wanna be a voiceover person, you wanna put your demo out there. You don't have an agent, you just have a site and you're trying, it's really hard to get people to hear your voice. So it's another thing with the imaging house. tries to help people with. But if you're in there trying to make money off of voiceover people or imaging people or saying that you're the best at what you do, but you don't have any credentials behind it, I'm gonna question that a little bit.

RYAN: So there's gonna be some vetting. There is gonna be some vetting in the site. I think that's good. I think it's gonna be necessary. So kind of the back of the envelope, the elevator pitch, It's a community for creatives to go and explore everything that everyone's doing. I mean, everybody should really get involved, but you're not charging me money as a VO talent or an imaging talent to get myself into the space.

KELLY: No, everything on here is free. Everything is free except for the advertising.

RYAN: Is that how you� I meant to ask, is that how you plan to monetize this?

KELLY: Not to get� you don't need to get too intricate, but basically it's an ad-based platform for you, and that's Yeah, no, I want people to know because when you tell someone that something is free, you're like, what's the catch?

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: So there's usually a catch to everything. This is a site where I've built it, but I don't, I mean, over time, people are gonna be contributing to it so much that it's going to be their site too. laying down the platform and then this thing is going to grow and, and who knows what other things are going to be listed on here? Who knows what other rooms are going to be added? But I want people to feel like, oh, I've always wanted to do this. Wouldn't this be a cool idea? And have a platform to be heard.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: So they're, they're not just stuck in a studio all day. And it's also, you know, your program director, I had a program director where I'd put spend hours on a promo and he'd reply with, fine. And it's, you know, you get that appreciation from, from the creative community sometimes more than you get it from your own radio family. So it's also a spot to, to encourage other people and be encouraged.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: What I want people� I want people to go to this site and go through all the tools, and after they're done with the site, I want them to Leave the site feeling inspired. Like they have that, you know, I always compare it to the adrenaline of when there's no traffic on the freeway, your favorite song comes on the air, and, you know, that, that kind of adrenaline and butterflies. That's what I want people to feel like. If they don't have that kind of inspiration, or, you know, we all hit funks, we all hit creative walls.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: Someone should be able to come in here on this site, look at what other people are doing, look at the tools that are listed of how to make themselves better, and leave the site going, you know what, I could do this, or, or, or I could reach out to this person. Look what, you know, Jeff Thomas did, or, or Eric Chase. There's� believe it or not, there are people who don't know who John Frost are.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: And it's also a way for them to look at, you know, These guys, these idols within our community that they've never heard of, but they're inspired by them without realizing it.

RYAN: Not to ask for something that I kind of hope you're doing, but I don't know how you're approaching it. So if I'm a producer and I want to go on and get some feedback, I noticed you had the� you calling it the chat rooms, right? It's your forums. Very important. Can I post audio directly to the forum there?

KELLY: You can send audio to me and I post it in the listening room. Every entry has a comment area on it. So, okay, every� everybody that puts their, their voice or their library or whatever to the site, there's a comment area. I think you can post� I should check with that. I think you can post audio to the chat room because that would be a really good idea to go, you know, to just have a direct link.

RYAN: Yeah, we could post a SoundCloud link perhaps, but The listening room's great in that we know it's sort of a safe space, so to speak. Here's my audio, destroy me, but do it constructively. Help me. But then the chat rooms are great because in theory, it's gonna be only people that are interested in exactly what you're interested in.

KELLY: Right, right. Right now in the chat room, I've posted 3 things, and it's actually interesting. Funny habits while you voice. Like, I know some people have their arms flailing everywhere. I have to keep rubbing my hands back together, like I'm holding hands with myself. People have funny� I've heard so many stories about crazy things that people do while voicing to get into it. Then there's another one that is, explain imaging to someone not in the business. You know, when grandma says, so what kind of work do you do?

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: It's kind of hard to explain it. And then another one in there, which is so important. And when I do conferences or I'm speaking somewhere, I always bring this up. And that is, what's the best compliment you've received? And to put the positive energy into the chat rooms. Now, if someone's being a douchebag, I'm gonna ban them.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: Like, there's no second chances. If you have the nerve and the mentality To go on there and put something negative that isn't constructive about someone, I don't want you on the site.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: It should just be a positive experience for everyone.

RYAN: Yeah, I could see just having lived with the internet so long, there's gonna be plenty of people that are gonna love it, and there's gonna be a few of them like, oh, well, that's not fair. You can't control it. I think this is gonna be a� I think it's a good idea. I think it's a good idea to vet a little bit. and to put your hand into it like that. I would applaud you for doing that.

KELLY: Well, and another thing about this whole site, I built this from the ground up with the help of my best friend Brandon, who built the backend. But they're� like when I'm talking to advertisers, it's like, okay, well, we could do the banner, But don't you want to do something different? Don't you want to do something a little more creative? There are no rules of how this should be or how I should post this or how it displays. Like, I could do anything I want and people can help me do whatever I want.

RYAN: So, let me switch gears a bit. Cause you, you mentioned this to me, before we actually hit record here, but if people want to contribute, you've made it very easy, right? There's easy ways for them to contact you on the site?

KELLY: Yeah, it's k3@kellykellykelly.com. So there's a� there, I've made it all about me. There's my email addresses all over the site. And anybody can contribute if it contributes to the site. You know what I mean? There's some things that might not be right. I don't want people to have to go through or be subjected to something that doesn't pertain to them. So if you're going on there and you want to host your own podcast from the imaging house, that's not the place to do it. I'll link you to the podcast.

RYAN: Sure.

KELLY: And help you get there. But if they wanna contribute, all they have to do is email me. I haven't been very quick with the emails, you know, setting, setting this up there. I mean, there's over 300 pages on this thing and, you know, and every single thing has its own page. So Lisa Page, if she wants her to submit her demo on here, her demo gets submitted and it turns into her own page.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: And it has details of how to contact her. So not everything works in this realm, but the things that do are a huge help. So if people want to contribute, they just email me and my email address is all over the site too.

RYAN: Yeah, that's cool. So something that had popped up in my head, which is slightly off topic here, I wanted to compliment you on Worldwide Radio Summit. I've seen you now moderate multiple panels. You do a great job with those. I like it because you've made a joke here about everything's about you, but it really isn't. Your goal truly was to get these really talented people on a stage and let them all shine equally. But your questions were really� like, I've moderated panels and I'm just not as good at it as you.

KELLY: Oh.

RYAN: I watched you and I went, okay, I did all right, but Kelly's got� she's just� she's got them talking the way. Is there gonna be a component like that? I could see you doing something, some kind of content where you moderate something, you get people together and talk to them, you know, compete with my podcast perhaps, you know, whatever.

KELLY: Yes, absolutely. This is� I'm� when this thing launches, it's� people are gonna be exploring it, looking at what's going on, and then it's going to hopefully inspire other things. There are so many other things I'm adding to this site. One of them is, you know, a Zoom conference call where you have 20 people on video or whatever. The other is having little creative retreats. There's another one where I want to bring people up to my ranch at some point and sit around and, you know, be completely off the grid and, you know, stuff like that. I want to work with voiceover conferences. There's a room called the conference room on here, which showcases all the conferences that are great for voiceover or production people to attend. Some people don't know that some of them exist. I didn't, and I find out they exist and I throw them on the site and say, here's a great one to attend. It is endless possibilities on this site for� everything that is on there right now is like, It's going to be, you know, well, when it was originally launched, it had this, this, this, and this, but now it has turned into this. So that's another great thing about it, that, it, there's, it has endless possibilities. You know, who knows what else we're going to do on this stuff. And that's why I want people to contribute and I want them to feel like this is their site too.

RYAN: I love how, how positive you are about it, how excited you are about it. And I like your approach to it too. It'd be a pretty easy� you could use your name a little bit and do a little bit of a cash grab and create a paid community. You could have gone down that way, and I think it would have put a bad taste in people's mouths, but a lot of them would have done it.

KELLY: Yeah.

RYAN: This feels just a lot better, a lot� a cleaner way. to get this rolling and rolling big?

KELLY: Yeah, it's� I don't want to have to charge people to give them a tool to feel inspired. It's not fair. And, you know, say there was a subscription fee and the radio station was gonna pay it. Well, there's some radio companies that would be like, okay, no problem. And then there's other people that say, you know, $10 a month is something we just don't have in the budget right now.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: And it's not fair to put creative people in the forefront to fight that battle. They shouldn't have to, pay for something. You know, you're, you're in your, your studio and you go outside and you take a break and, you know, we need those little breaks. Someone should just be able to go onto the site and be able to get that that break and feed that creative mind. You know, 'cause creative people, especially what I've learned with managing my team at iHeart, is creative people are perfect souls. They're perfect creative souls.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: With all their flaws and all the drama that some people have, they're just, they're working on passion. And passion is very personal. So creative people are just a different species. Just the way their mind works is completely different. They don't want to have to jump through hoops of resetting a password because they have 20 to remember and they don't remember what this one is. It should be easily accessible, easily, easy to contribute to, and you should walk away from there feeling like you can conquer the world, like you could be a better voiceover person, better producer, and might want to be a voiceover person.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: who right now is just producing. Who knows? It's just, it's not fair to charge people for something like that.

RYAN: Yeah, it's hard to monetize the passion like that. Like you said, it's, yeah, it's always, it just puts a bad taste in my mouth and not just on the imaging or the creative side, just in all walks of life when you see, you know, it doesn't matter. I don't need to give all the examples. There's something else I wanted to bring up before I forget. Obviously imaging producers, voiceover talent, they'll be flocking to the site or should be, at least should be checking it out. every once in a while, every day, once a week, whatever. Who else will gain? I'm thinking, you know, i.e., program directors.

KELLY: Yes.

RYAN: But yeah, so who else would you like to see coming to this site?

KELLY: Program directors, consultants. I've talked to both of them. They're both excited about it. Anybody that has to do anything with radio, even radio talent, sometimes radio talent on-air talent go on and, you know, they're big fans of production and any sort of inspiration or adrenaline that they get from it is gold to me. So it's mostly geared towards� there are different people that I'm talking to right now in completely different areas that relate to the site.

RYAN: Mm-hmm.

KELLY: And some of them don't fit they don't fit the mold of the imaging house.

RYAN: Sure.

KELLY: But some people, it's like, well, how about if we do this and get people involved? And I'm like, okay, you wanna do different ideas? And so I can't really say what they are, but definitely program directors, definitely consultants I've talked to about this, and on-air talent can, you know, get all up in that. But it's, it's, it is a pretty narrowed� it's kind of a niche. I'm sorry. It's kind of a niche little thing that we're zeroing in on. And if you make too many avenues, people are going to have to go through that to get to what they really want. I just want this to be easily accessible.

RYAN: Well, cool. I'm so happy to feature it here. Obviously, we've known each other a long time. I respected you as someone I just knew of for so long, and then I've gotten to know you. Turns out you're a pretty cool person who's putting a lot of positivity back into the world.

KELLY: I hope so. There's one other thing I want to bring up on here is there's a place on the site and it's called 7 Second Sweepers. And this has been in my head for a decade because it seems to be What I hear from different program directors all over is that 7 seconds seems to be the prime time of a sweeper between songs. They want in, out, boom, bam, done. So I have a section on here called 7 Second Sweepers, and those are free sweepers. And the production company or person or whoever it is that produces those sweepers gets free advertising on that site. And it's going to be a heavy traffic Sorry, page. It's gonna be a heavily trafficked page because it's free stuff and people can download them and do whatever they want with them. But then the person's also getting free advertising. So it's not� it's another thing that I want to point out is that it's not all about money trying to get people to come to this site. There are� I can do whatever I want to do. I can barter for advertising time or, you know, stuff like that. So it's, it's, there's no shadiness going on here, and I want everybody to have, you know, an opportunity to showcase their stuff.

RYAN: And so whatever happens� On the 7 Second Sweeper page, for example, if I am Benztown, I can come to you and say, what, here's 5 free, you know, 7 Second Sweeper shells, and then they get a banner ad or something on the page there?

KELLY: They have to produce 10 elements that are 7 seconds long. They have to produce it fully and as it would be used, and they have to provide the mixout, and, and they get a free banner on the site.

RYAN: Okay, okay, good. That was what I was wondering. So, so a Real World, Benztown, Short Bus, whoever can provide 10 sweeper shells. So that would be providing the example in use on the station, typically how they do it. and then provide the mixouts to allow me as a producer to actually utilize those correctly for my station. Right.

KELLY: Yeah.

RYAN: Yeah.

KELLY: That's great. Whether you're a radio station, whether it's for your podcast, your YouTube video, whatever it is, they donate these, and I have a little creative license thing on the bottom of the page, so everything's legal and proper, and my lawyers looked all over the site. I'm like, tell me what's wrong, but it's all, everything's all legit. In exchange for contributing, they get their free advertising.

RYAN: And then what about areas of the site, you've probably already thought of this, but where other stuff can be sort of traded around for free? For example, I produce up music beds. This is 0.001% of my work. I do it for fun and I sell them for basically free. It's name your price. But if I wanted to give away 10 beds, or anybody, is there a place on there where people can jump on and say, here's my free content?

KELLY: It's called the Free Stuff Room.

RYAN: There we go.

KELLY: Yes, right now on� just so you know, right now on the free stuff, there's, Rick Allen produced a whole bunch of novelty beds. There's over 60 tracks and it's all free.

RYAN: Really?

KELLY: Just download them. Yes, there's 7-second sweepers, there's free sound effects from Brian Apple, there's free online music courses from Harvard on there. There's the BBC.

RYAN: You got Brian Apple sound design on there?

KELLY: Oh yeah, and free.

RYAN: Oh man. When's this thing launch?

KELLY: I know, I know. I used his stuff exclusively when I produced all of Seacrest stuff. It was all Brian Apple sound design.

RYAN: Was it really? Yeah.

KELLY: Yep, yep.

RYAN: He did a package with Joe D'Agostino.

KELLY: He's our 7-second sweeper person. Right when it launches, he produced the first 10 sweeps.

RYAN: Who, Joe did?

KELLY: Yeah.

RYAN: That's awesome. Well, he does killer work. So, well, that'll be� that will be very cool. I was wondering, sort of, you know, you don't want to be the guy who's just, okay, so now what are you gonna give me for free? But it definitely seems like a platform where you could do that, and more of that to come, I'm sure. So that's cool.

KELLY: Yeah, and there's so many people that produce music beds and sound effects and just want to get them out in in the world, in the world of imaging. And so there's a page for all that, and that's just going to grow even more. But it's, it's really cool. I'm really, really proud of it. I just want it� it should feel like a home base for creative people. Yeah, it should feel like home. And I hope everybody contributes to it to make it� to make that so.

RYAN: Well, awesome. I think, I think I did your theimaginghouse.com justice. I think it's going to be great, but I'm glad I was able to, you know, give you whatever this podcast podcast is worth. Glad I'm able to hype it up a little bit because I do think it'll be a great idea and it'll be a fun place to go over and check out regularly.

KELLY: Yeah. And thank you. Thank you for doing this. Any way to get the word out, I feel like it's going to help a lot of people.

RYAN: Well, it's always good to have you on the show. By the time I'm done with this, you'll probably be on here 10 times or something, but that's fine. I was going to mention it, but it's not like you have any more openings. I know You sold out. I'm pretty sure you did. Or not sold out. What's the right word?

KELLY: Wow. What?

RYAN: It's, your launch party is full. Whatever the right word is for that. The launch party full, but you're having a launch party. So that's exciting.

KELLY: The launch party. Oh my God. The launch party is really cool because it's a reputation. The launch party is cool because it's a representation of what the Imaging House is. Getting a whole bunch of creative people getting a whole bunch of creative people under one roof. And so it's about 125 people that are coming. And, oh, it's just, you know, we did this, we did this, we did this dinner. I hosted a dinner in London with all the top London producers, and I wanted to tell them about the Imaging House. And they, when I told them about it, they stood up and, and, you know, some of them were giving me a standing ovation and�

RYAN: Wow.

KELLY: And that was really cool, but the cool part for me was that there were so many people in that room who had heard about each other and they'd never met, or they hadn't talked to each other in 15 years. And so if I could accomplish that with the imaging house, I've accomplished my goal.

RYAN: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, good luck on your launch party, which is cool and all. I can't make it. I know you're destroyed that I won't be there to grace your� no, but It'll be exciting. There'll be tons of great people there. But July 24th, theimaginghouse.com. Go check it out. I'll have links posted on the website, on the podcast page as well. and Kelly, I, you know, I'll say this again. I know you went through kind of a major transition there, but it really sounds like you're coming out of it just strong, positive and strong. So congrats on that too.

KELLY: Yeah, I think I'm� thank you. I think I think I'm standing on all of that drama right now. I'm trying to, trying to, get above it. Yeah. So, this is, this is helping a lot with that.

RYAN: All right. Well, until next time, thanks, Kelly.

KELLY: Thank you.

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