The Jaws Obsession

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► Tell us about you and your podcast

A life-long Jaws fan--the movie has affected much of my career choices. From being a professional deep-sea diver and underwater welder, to sailing from Antarctica to the North Pole with the US Coast Guard, and working on high voltage powerlines--Jaws has been an inspiration through it all.

I decided to create a platform to focus on the Jaws Universe--where fans of all ages and generations obsess over the movie. A podcast to prove "Jaws" is the greatest movie of all time. A nearly 50 year old movie that connects millions of people around the world.

The listeners of The Jaws Obsession are fans of nostalgia cinema, and the world that is portrayed in "Jaws". Fans of retro movies, science fiction series, and just plain movie geekery come back to the Jaws Obsession every week to see what new details we can come up with.
 

► Why & how did you start this podcast? 

I am a big fan of podcasts and I following about 20 shows closely. There just isn't enough time to listen to them all.

When deciding the Jaws Obsession was worth taking the plunge into an extra job (podcasting when done right is really an extra job for anyone who has a full-time career - so the sacrifice in time from other areas of life is very real), I had to take into account how much passion I had for the material and community surrounding JAWS.

I prepped for 18 months before firing up the Jaws Obsession and launching the first show. Was it day to day prep? No. More of a mental prep, in thinking about the movie and the accomplishment I wanted to take on - which was to write the novel for a prequel to JAWS. That was what put the project into overdrive. The 14 months of research into the novel, and the writing phase beginning in October of 2021, lead to the first episode of the Jaws Obsession in December of 2021.

The Jaws Obsession became a rallying cry to the fans of JAWS and great movies to galvanize and come together. I kept the launching of the book campaign on Indie-Gogo a secret until episode 20 and built up an energy and anticipation for it. So, the audience really became engaged in an organic way - out of curiosity.

My goal was to create such a unique show surrounding the movie JAWS, that fans would take the plunge and jump on a global campaign to get the book published as well as push it to Universal Studios. This was all to prove there is a demand for a solid prequel to JAWS. and just in time for the 50th anniversary of JAWS in 2025.
 

► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?

The prequel to JAWS that I am writing is titled "The Book of Quint". I work as a high voltage power lineman for anywhere from 45 to 70 hours a week - depending on storms and other factors that cause power outages. I try to get in 10-30 hours of writing a week to keep the book on schedule.

So that leaves anywhere from 5 to 10 hours a week to produce a podcast for an upcoming episode.

The Jaws Obsession is a weekly broadcast and has been downloaded in 45 countries around the world. We cross many time zones in our reach to JAWS fans around the world. I wish I could have a more regular publishing schedule but right now it's whenever I can black in the time and focus on the production of the show.

I fund everything myself - it's one of my "aggressive hobbies" as I like to call them. The greatest money pit of a podcast is your time that you spend on the production, recording, edit, and marketing. Your time has a value to it. Every hour that I spend on the production is another value I am not earning working at my day job. Many podcasters (and filmmmakers, artists, writers, etc) do not realize their time is worth something - it has value. So your book, show, movie was not made for free. How much time did you invest into your project. Give that a denomination, a value number and walk with your head up. You are creating value out of your time. That's priceless.
 

► What do you gain from podcasting?        

I do not take any sponsorships. I got into the podcasting world to create a show that spotlights not only JAWS but the many fans that create and make art and merchandise dedicated to the movie. I would like to get more fans on the show to spotlight their achievements and art. It's a way of celebrating the greatest movie ever made, that even a half a century later, it inspires so many to become ultra-fanatics and collectors of everything JAWS.

Also, The Book of Quint will be a great achievement in my life and the Jaws Obsession allows me to share that with an audience. I believe I am doing something that has never been tried before. To take on an extremely complex and coveted character - Quint from JAWS, and write a novel in real time before a global audience. A weekly show that documents it all and takes the fans along for the ride. I don't feel any pressure because the story has always been there, I'm just finally finding an avenue to get it out of my head and onto paper.

Seeing the fans come together and make the first printing possible through indiegogo.com was heartwarming. It was an affirmation that my initial instincts of JAWS fans being accepting of anyone willing to put in the hard work to produce new JAWS material, was spot-on.
The Book of Quint and the Jaws Obsession podcast became one in the same and the fans have been faithful to them both. We are now looking at 3,000 downloads a month across all episodes. It's been a steady build to this number and I'm so grateful for the time listeners invest into the show. I don't want to let them down, so it makes me work harder to turn out quality content.
 

► How does your podcasting process look like? 

I spent a nice little sum of money to set myself up with great equipment for over a year prior to launching the first show. I went through Sweetwater music supply (Sweetwater.com) - the sales reps and video demonstrations were great. I only had a visual editing background through independent filmmaking almost 20 years ago and all the tech had changed. But the old adage is true - you get what you pay for. I didn't hold back and invested in a high quality Electro-Voice RE20 mic, a Zoom PodTrak P8, and a full-on creation station super computer with StudioOne software. Audi-Technica ATH-M50x headphones and a few SD cards then we were ready to rock and roll and talk about JAWS.

For guests, the Zoom Podtrak P8 has a blue tooth attachment and dedicated phone line on the mixing board, so I can sync up my phone to it and take calls right through the recording controls. I also can run zoom calls as the Podtrak has a separate line for computer audio on the sound board.

I over prepare for each episode by really living with the material for the week in my head. I have clip boards of topics and questions, or comments and statements.

For some of the episodes, I conduct mini investigations into clues from the movie to reach conclusions. So there is a lot of imagery that needs to be isolated and shared with the audience. For that, I set up a telegram and discord server, and share the images over there - dropping a link to all the show notes and photos in the podcast description. No matter what platform the listener reaches the show on, they always have the links to where the source material is so they can follow along with the show as I sift through the evidence.

This leads to some really extensive production times. Episode 16 had the record for 11 hours of production time - after the interview, edit and compilation of notes. That was a marathon. We just broke that with Ep 30, that took me 14 hours to compile over 2 days just because I created a powerpoint video presentation of the podcast and launched it on YouTube as well.
 

► How do you market your show?

That's probably one of the weakest parts of my efforts is the marketing. With so much time being absorbed by the writing of the book, the production of the show, and my career working on powerlines - there never is enough time to shake the social media trees for more listeners.

So, I have relied on the fans to help me out with that, and they have showed up greatly in that aspect. The show spreads through social media by word of mouth. I have faith that the time and effort I put into every episode can be heard and enjoyed because when it is all said and done, we are all fans of the movie JAWS and talking about that film never gets boring. Fans of the Jaws Obsession can turn to their friends and tell them about some of the bits of trivia and details we dig up on the show and the JAWS bubble only grows. It really is a remarkable movie like that, and the Jaws Obsession is just a celebration of that aspect.

Most of our listeners come from Spotify (26%), with a second most from Apple Podcasts (13.5%). Then there's Audible, Google Podcasts, Podbean, etc. The largest number 47.5% of all downloads come from "Others" - so this is a show heard across the globe on all platforms.
The best marketing is inside the show. I ask the listeners to like, share and subscribe on whatever their preferred podcasting platform shall be. But aside from that, find new and exciting ways to talk about JAWS and the fans will toss around the show to their social media and help us out.
 

► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?

Things I learned on the journey that weren't obvious beforehand:

- Your time is valuable and so is the listener. Their time is also valuable and if you want them to invest in your show with their time you must put out quality content. The number of hours and preparation into each episode cannot be understated because it will show in the ears of your listeners. They are extremely smart and will sense when you didn't prepare.
- Keep your episode times short - less than hour. Less than a half hour if possible. Time is money and you will get repeat followers if they know they can jump onboard your show and get a little slice of entertainment and not have to sift through 1.5 hours of meandering and off topic discussions to find the meat of the issue.
- Don't talk about yourself - your listeners are there for your topics and content. Keep the personal life to a minimum and get to work on the topic at hand. This makes for an extremely engaging show that moves right along while at the same time, removes the temptation to just fall into anecdotal tales from personal life as filler. That can bog a show down in seconds.
- Keep guests to a minimum. One or two on the show at the same time. I listen to many shows with 3 or 4 voices all waiting to talk and nobody is listening or engaging. Therefore, the listener is not engaging.
- Try to do produced shows and not live episodes. Record for an hour and work to edit and streamline down to twenty-five minutes. You would be amazed at how your show gets jam packed with information and the listeners will show up for it.
 

► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?

JawsOB.com
BookOfQuint.com
Jawsob2025@gmail.com
YouTube@The Jaws Obsession
Host through PodBean: https://jawsob2025.podbean.com/
That's grand central station for the Jaws Obsession and the Book of Quint. We will hit the printing press in October of 2022. We already have some higher names in the JAWS world reviewing the manuscript and the future holds many possibilities. I truly believe this wouldn't have been possible without the podcast and the listeners. They are what drives this boat forward and I am working hard to not let them down.
Thanks for reading and listening. Hope to talk to you in the future.
- Ryan Dacko