What Happened To Flight 702? The Mystery of ‘Passenger List’
Go behind the scenes with the podcast’s creators: John Scott Dryden, Lauren Shippen & Mark Henry Phillips
A missing plane, a cabin full of suspects, a search for truth.
This is Passenger List. An eight-part fiction mystery thriller from Radiotopia, available now.
Starring Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Patti LuPone (Sweeney Todd), Colin Morgan (The Fall), and Rob Benedict (Supernatural), Passenger List is the story of Atlantic Flight 702, which has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board. Suspicious of the official version of events, Kaitlin Le — played by Tran — a college student whose twin brother vanished with the flight, begins her own investigation.
Ambitiously crafted with overlapping storylines and immersive sound-design, Passenger List is underscored by the pull of family, grief, the immigrant experience, the outlines of a global conspiracy, and, ultimately, the determination it takes to pursue the truth.
Conceived, co-written and co-directed by John Scott Dryden (Tumanbay; LifeAfter), Passenger List is co-written and co-directed by Lauren Shippen (The Bright Sessions; Marvel) and sound designed by Mark Henry Phillips (Serial, Homecoming, and the film Cutie and the Boxer). We asked this bold creative team about what it took to bring this story to life, what it’s like working with a star-studded cast, and what sets this story apart.
John, can you tell us how you came up with the concept for the story?
John Scott Dryden: From the age of six I went to boarding school in England, while my parents lived and worked in the Middle East. I’d travel back and forth frequently by plane. Ever since, I’ve been somewhat fascinated with the concept of air travel, how you’re thrown together in a long metal tube at random with people you know nothing of, and the potential for things to go wrong.
Passenger List was also inspired by the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in 2014. Every day there was another theory about what might have happened. Was it the co-pilot? Was it the passenger traveling on a fake passport? What was the secret cargo in the hold? It was incredibly emotional for the families, the passengers on board. There was increasing frustration and mistrust of the official investigation, but hope that the plane had been diverted and that loved ones might be alive.
How did you all come to this project, and what was it like working together?
John: I conceived this podcast a few years back when I was Director of Scripted Content at Panoply Media, responsible for a range of different shows. So I was steeped in the world and possibilities of audio and wanted to find a partner to help make Passenger List a reality. For some time I’d been an admirer of Lauren Shippen and her podcast The Bright Sessions, so we began a conversation. I’d already been talking to Mark Henry Phillips, our sound designer, about other possible collaborations. I admired his work on Homecoming and Serial, his grungy style. I think part of what made this project so exciting was that we all brought different skills to the table.
Lauren Shippen: When John reached out, I said yes immediately. He sent me the outline for the series, and I had so many thoughts and ideas. A few Skype calls later and we were co-producing the whole thing. John is such a gifted storyteller and the best kind of collaborator, always “yes and”-ing while keeping everything on track.
I learned so much from Mark, who knows more about sound than I could ever hope to. I made The Bright Sessions in my bedroom for a long time. Mark has that same scrappy spirit, but with a finely-tuned ear. It’s a joy to see that making podcasts can still be loose and experimental without sacrificing quality. And really, Mark had us recording outside, down phone lines, in actual kitchens. It was a lot of fun.
This story has so many layers. Can you walk us through the writing process?
John: Originally it was about an “official” investigation and the central character was an FBI investigator. But I was increasingly drawn to the idea of an “unofficial” investigation. It felt more urgent, a relative of one of the passengers carrying out her own search. Initially I worked with a brilliant writer, Mike Walker, on thrashing out the storyline and getting the shape of the underlying mystery. We had a pretty detailed treatment of each episode before the other writers — Lauren, Mara Wilson and Kevin Rodriguez — brought their magic to it. Once we had drafts, we met in Lauren’s apartment in L.A. over two days to test them and brainstorm. We were also thinking about casting and once Kelly was on board to play Kaitlin, we were essentially writing the part for her and with her, which included incorporating her Vietnamese-American experience into the role. This was important to all of us.
Lauren: I love making show bibles, so with all the world-building work John had already done, I put together a run-down of all the episodes: the major players, the questions answered, the questions raised.
I also had a whiteboard in my apartment that made all my friends question my sanity for a while — names, government institutions, random series of numbers, lines drawn between connected parts… a full murder investigation board.
My Google search history is also a mess.
Mark, how did you create the world of “Passenger List” through music and other sound design?
Mark Henry Phillips: I was really trying to come up with a sound that made it feel as real as possible. My thinking was that realism was going to pull in the listener way more than just pure drama. When things sound too dramatic they just feel artificial, so the process started with the editing and using takes that were a little more understated. It also meant adding weird, awkward pauses at times or taking out a line here or there. After editing, the next step was to really muck up the sound. We recorded every scene with a blend of mics but also had Kelly hold an iPhone while recording voice memos. Then I blended all of those along with sound FX and plugins.
With the music, I wanted to stay out of the way of the story as much as possible.
To me, the show is less about conspiracy and government lies, and more about someone grieving — or not grieving — and all the conflicting emotions that come out during that process.
Is there one piece of sound design or sound scene that you’re particularly happy with how it turned out?
Mark: There’s one scene in episode two where Kaitlin is walking around a huge engineering lab with a jet engine expert looking at how an engine would handle a bird getting sucked into it. There was an enormous amount of sound design involved to make all the footsteps, all the mechanics yelling, the machinery. Once I had it, I just played it on my speakers really loud and recorded it on my iPhone using voice memos, gluing it together with a certain texture.
There was also a scene in episode one where Kaitlin gets out of a cab and walks up to someone’s door. When we recorded that there was a weird noise in the background. Rather than get rid of it, I isolated it and turned it into a drone. I slowed it down to half speed and quarter speed, mixed them all together, added a cello and piano and turned it into a music cue.
What was it like working with the cast?
John: Delightful!
Lauren: A big part of keeping the story together was making sure Kaitlin’s arc was not only consistent, but fully realized. A massive part of that was Kelly. She and I sat down for about three full days in L.A., a month before production, and went through the scripts page by page, reading them out loud, making things sound natural, in her voice and emotionally resonant. Kelly is such a smart, curious, creative person, and having her mind dig so deep into this character was an unbelievable joy. You don’t always have the opportunity to really sit with an actor and a character like that.
John: I think at first most of the actors expected a “voiceover” studio booth set up. Often actors are not in the same space at the same time. There can be a perception that because it’s only sound, you can record one half of a conversation one day and the other half on another. We didn’t want to do it that way.
We wanted movement, to block out the scenes physically and for the microphones to follow actors around. Relationship between the performers is key to the scene coming alive.
The podcast was recorded on two continents. More specifically, in Los Angeles and London. Can you tell us more about what the recording process was like?
Lauren: It felt more like being a traveling theatre troupe than a podcast production. We were recording with so many different people, in so many different places, and in so many different ways, that no one day was the same.
Mark: Sometimes we needed to stitch together a performance from multiple locations, which meant recording with as many mics as possible.There was one scene where Kaitlin was walking up to a woman’s house that we recorded in both L.A. and London but it was supposed to take place in NYC. It was tricky because there was a British-sounding ambulance in the background during a couple of takes.
Did anything unexpected happen over the course of recording?
Lauren: The most genuinely wild thing that happened is the fact that we got Patti LuPone to guest star.
John: Like with any production, there were logistical challenges. Whilst I was down in the dumps sometimes, Lauren was this positive energy force seeing every challenge as an opportunity. In the end we got to work with Patti LuPone because of a sort of unforeseen schedule change, and then Patti happened to be in London starring in the West End Show Company and spent a day with us.
Taking a step back, what are some of your influences? Podcasts, TV shows, books?
John: One of my favorite podcasts is Everything Is Alive because it makes you consider the world and yourself. And right now, Have You Heard George’s Podcast is giving me faith in the power of art and poetry to make a difference. I also love the TV shows Atlanta and Easy. They brilliantly explore what it’s like to be a person today. They’re so fresh and lacking in artifice.
Lauren: One of the biggest influences for me is The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Kelly recommended it to me as a wonderful examination of grief, which Passenger List is really about at its core.
Finally, what will listeners hear in this podcast that sets it apart?
John: One thing that makes me sit up and listen is when audio sounds like it’s been recorded badly and an engineer has had to make it intelligible. It’s as if this was something you’re not meant to hear. It makes you want to hear it all the more.
Mark: I wanted to take the most applicable elements from podcasts, TV and film to push audio fiction forward. If we’re successful in that, listening to Passenger List will feel both totally familiar while unlike podcasts before it.
Lauren: The scale of it was new to me as both an audio fiction writer and listener. It can be scary to put a ton of different voices in audio for fear of the audience losing track, but nothing about this show is going to hold people’s hands.
