Jordan Crucchiola

Jordan Crucchiola is the host of Feeling Seen, Aughtsterion, and Disaster Girls. Follow her on Twitter here.

There are so many movie podcasts, but what makes this one different?
The difference between Feeling Seen and other movie podcasts is… me! That might sound a little audacious, but unless you have an absolutely killer conceit that stands apart from every other film podcast (congratulations if you do!) then it’s the job of every host to make the time listeners spend with them feel special and worthwhile. That’s the mandate, and it’s my responsibility to live up to that and make sure people want to keep coming back when they have so. many. other. options. 

Why are you the perfect host for this show?
Because I am relentlessly two things: Sincere and Enthusiastic. I’m of the mind that genuine enthusiasm is how you make extremely earnest interviews, like the ones we do on Feeling Seen, stay fun and engaging without getting treacly or too corny. But I’m sure that happens sometimes too, and that’s fine!

Have any of the conversations surprised you?
The surprises of every episode are the best part of Feeling Seen, because even with the common denominator of the conceit you know that each person being unique means the way they respond to characters and internalize films is going to be specific to each life experience. That said, talking to the comedian Josh Johnson about how he relates to Heath Ledger’s Joker was a twist!

What movie has made you feel seen?
I love this question and the answer has two parts. One is Amanda Seyfriend’s character Needy Lesnicki in the succubus horror comedy and best friendship love story that is Jennifer’s Body. The other is Elizabeth Mitchell’s performance as Linda in the harrowing HBO original movie Gia starring Angelina Jolie as the tragic titular character. I’ve actually done a bonus episode all about this on Feeling Seen, but this is where I tell you that you have to become a Maximum Fun member to listen to it — because withholding the goods on occasion is also how you grow your audience! 

If you were going to have another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would like it, what would it be?
Honestly Feeling Seen is my ideal podcast, but in a no-limits scenario I’d just have free and easy access to any guests I wanted all the time!

How would you describe your voice and what is your relationship with it?
My voice is loud, energetic, and I hope deeply interested at all times in a way that’s clear to listeners. My relationship with my voice is that I’m extremely confident in it — and considering I put hours of it on the record all the time, I better be! 

What advice would you give to someone starting a movie podcast?
Whatever you’re going to be talking about, care about it a lot. No one else should be expected to care unless you super do, too. Besides, making a good podcast that people actually follow is a big time commitment, and spending a ton of time doing something you’re only lukewarm about just kind of sucks.

Can you tell us about Aughtsterion and Disaster Girls?
Disaster Girls was the product of me and my co-host Amanda Smith talking about our love of disaster movies and wanting to start our own little show for literal years before it finally happened (thanks largely to producer Jason Hoppe!). It turns out the genre is a really fun common denominator among movie fans, with people like director Paul Feig and geophysicist Mika McKinnon all having delightful, passionate opinions about these insane films. And for Aughtsterion, me and my co-host — the filmmaker Sam Wineman — spend so much time talking about both pop culture from the millennium era and horror films that we wanted to channel our boundless enthusiasm for all of that into a celebration of and historical retrospective on the circa 2000s. We both love trash. We both love the aughts, and we wanted to give Criterion-level close reads to genre films of the period that were cast off as superficial at the time, but serve as incredible time capsules for studying an era that is only just now getting the academic appraisal it deserves. 

What do you think most movie podcasts get wrong?
People are just talking and recording and thinking that’s the same thing as having purposeful conversations meant to be published and consumed as entertainment. If you’re not going to be a hard news investigative reporting show, you better be as fun as you are informative, and you better record like there’s an audience in front of you at all times. Everyone has opinions about movies and someone just sharing theirs doesn’t make them inherently interesting. Give your audience a show, otherwise you’re just a reply guy with a microphone.

What works when it comes to growing a podcast?
I would say some combination of the following: luck, really giving a damn about the work you put into it, pre-established internet popularity, consistent presence of famous guests, a clear thesis statement, a conceit with a built-in fandom behind it, time time and more time to grow a following, someone who aggregates podcast recommendations to find your show and pluck it from obscurity so other people actually know it exists, lots of promotion, an impossible to believe true crime case that you’ve somehow cracked wide open, getting guests to be atypically candid, shocking irreverence. You don’t need all of these things but you need at least a few, and non-negotiably you have to have a compelling host. Your guide through an experience cannot suck if you want people to stick around.

What podcasts do you listen to?
Very few consistently, BUT... Arden, which is a narrative fiction pod from Feeling Seen guest Emily VanDerWerff and her wife Libby Hill. And also The Final Girls UK, a horror-focused program hosted by the best damn film podcaster there is: Anna Bogutskaya.

Thanks, Jordan