Having made her mark on S/W as a filmmaker, with Up North and sometimes, I think about dying, Stefanie Abel Horowitz recently wrote and directed the short film Let’s be Tigers for Disney’s Launchpad series. Now looking to transfer her talents into other forms of storytelling, the talented director has turned her hand to podcasts, directing episodes on three fictional shows for the company QCODE.

While our main focus on S/W will of course always be short films, fictional podcasts make for an exciting new venture for innovative digital storytelling. Able to be realized comparably quick and cheaply, something that has always been attributed to short films, it’s easy to see why more and more aspiring content creators are willing to give the format a shot.

Like with short films, fictional podcasts can work as a calling card and a work of art in itself. By now there are numerous examples of podcasts that have been adapted for streaming services, from Amazon’s Julia Roberts vehicle Homecoming (based on the Gimlet podcast) to The Shrink Next Door with Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd on Apple TV+ (originally a show from Wondery).

Eager to get an insight into what it takes to make the step from short film to podcasting directing, we caught up with Stefanie Abel Horowitz following the release of her latest directorial stint on a podcast show, The Beautiful Liar, her third collaboration with QCODE after YA mystery Borrasca (executive produced by and starring Cole Sprouse) and the apocalyptical thriller Blackout (executive produced by and starring Rami Malek). In our quick Q&A, Stefanie talks about how her background in theater helped her with directing performances in an auditive medium and what aspiring directors interested in fictional podcasts can learn from her experiences.

How did you make the transition from short filmmaking to directing fictional podcasts?

That’s an interesting question. I made the transition from theater to short film and sort of at the same time started doing podcasts. Honestly, a friend of mine works in the business and since sometimes I think about dying had done well, he was sort of able to hire me to do one [QCODE podcast] and now I’ve done three. But they’re actually so much more like doing theater. So it was a very easy transition to make.

How does the process differ from filmmaking to theater to podcasts? You say it’s even more similar to theater, but there are still differences. How do you present a narrative in podcasts, just through dialogue and sound design?

It’s very similar to theater in that it’s really just directing performance. You’re not waiting for camera or lights or any of these other things. You’re just going off of the audio. Like, does that line sound good? And then you’re kind of moving and grooving as opposed to stopping and having to deal with so many other things. It’s really just actors and performance and things you would hear, and it moves very quickly. You do a whole season in five to 10 days.

So it’s very fast-moving. Way faster than film, in a way, and so you really need to be able to give direction quickly and, and give it well, so that they can take it and do it immediately. There’s no rehearsal time, we’re not sitting around talking about character, you’re just directing performance as fast as you can and that’s kind of the job.

“All the things that make short filmmaking difficult…we’re not doing that in a podcast.”

Podcasting is really an actor’s medium, and everyone else has to sort of fill in around them. All the things that make short filmmaking difficult, like having to tell a story in 10 minutes, we’re not doing that in a podcast. We’re telling a story over the course of the season.

But for me, all I do is direct performance, eight hours a day for 10 days. I’m just kind of saying, “Okay, here’s where we are in the story. He just said this and you feel bad. But you’re also walking, so you’ve got to breathe.“ It’s mostly, what would it sound like if I could see you? That’s kind of the name of the game.

Cole Sprouse and Rami Malek are executive producers on Borrasca and Blackout and also star in the shows. As well known actors was your approach to working with them different? Or was it the same as you’d take with any actor?

You know, I got a little nervous for sure, but it’s still generally the same, right? My job is to get a sense of what that actor will respond to from me and how to speak to them and then how I can give them direction as quickly as I can, you know, to be as direct and succinct as I can be. With someone like Rami or Cole, it’s not that they don’t need direction, but they really get it. They’re really quick to hit what you need them to hit. So it’s fun. It’s a little intimidating, but it’s fun.

Stefanie Abel Horowitz (center) with Rory Anne Dahl (L) and Sam Nelson Harris (R) from The Beautiful Liar podcast

What would your advice be to aspiring storytellers who want to work in different mediums? How does it work for you when you switch between mediums and things arise, things you want to direct? How does your brain work in that scenarios?

When I’m directing podcasts, I really am just coming in as a director and I’m really just there for production. I don’t stay on through post. I’m not doing almost any of the prep. I’m sort of there to bounce ideas off, but I’m really just a production director. I have this one very singular job and I like that. I think that that’s not right for every director. I have a lot of friends for whom it’s really important that when they’re directing, it’s something that they wrote or it’s more of an auteur thing for them.

“Most of what I’ve done at QCODE is stuff that is way out of my league as a writer”

I like jumping between [these various media] because truthfully, all I want to do is direct. I would direct every day of the year. And so, I’m happy to take the gig and get to work on stuff that I would never write, that I would never come up with. I mean, most of what I’ve done at QCODE is stuff that is way out of my league as a writer. I have such a good time going into these kind of thriller spaces that I might not be allowed to be in with film.

So I guess the advice I’d give to people who want to work in different mediums is to think about whether you would like the shape of that medium. What can you bring to that one, particular thing, whether it be podcasts, theater, short films, feature films or TV. They’re all different jobs and I think it’s up to filmmakers to figure out which one excites them.

Thank you so much.