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[Jimor]

Down in the general forum, there is a thread for showing off you voice. After hearing so many great readings, I floated the idea of using all the forum talent to record a radio play. Well, I find that I was serious enough about the idea to be responsible for organizing the venture, so here we are.

First thing first, let's get an idea of who is interested, and in what capacity. Feel free to tag your name to multiple categories.

1. Script
2. Voice Talent
3. Music (incidental and/or theme)
4. Sound FX
5. Technical/Computer help
6. Supervisory (coordinating each dept)
7. Post Production/Editing
7. Other (I have no idea what I can do but I still want to help!)

Next up is what do we want to do? Some of the decisions to make:
(Feel free to vote even if you're not sure you want to participate.)

A. Format.
1. 10 mins
2. 15 mins
3. 20 mins
4. 30 mins
5. <60 mins
6. >60 mins

A. sub question: One-off or serial?

B. Style.
1. Comedy
2. Drama

C. Genre (feel free to expound on sub-genre/style)
1. General
2. Mystery
3. Sci-Fi
4. Adventure
5. Historical
6. Romance
7. Other

D. Add any other comments, suggestions, or ideas here.

I think that will get us started.

[Jimor]

[Reserved for later]

[Caleb]

Caleb is interested in working on:

1. Script

5. Technical/Computer help

7. Post Production/Editing

A. Format.

1. 10 mins  A short project is easier to do than a long one.  We can do more chapters if there is interest.


A.  Like I said.  Make it short and make it a serial if there is more interest.

C. Genre (feel free to expound on sub-genre/style)

1. Historical Murder Mystery with some SciFi and Romance.

"Dear God.  The whore has been sliced in Half but there is hardly any blood anywhere.  What sort of deviltry could have done this."  (Jack the ripper with a laser scalpel)

[SirJuggles]

SirJuggles would love to contribute with:

2. Incidental voice talent, though I would like to leave the major roles up for some of our beautiful-voiced people.

7. I know there are people who are better than me at pretty much all the categories, but I can maybe contribute small script tweaks/proofreading?


A. A short feature is probably more likely to actually be finished, the 10-15 minute range sounds ideal. I think the first script should be written as a one-off, though a dramatic sequel hook is not out of the question.

B. Perhaps a farce of some sort would be best suited to this forum? A comedy that takes itself completely seriously?

C. I feel we have the voices around here for one kick-ass period piece. I'm thinking some sort of drama/romance? Possibly involving pirates?

[Jimmy the Squid]

I'm down for working in the script department. Probably incidental voice work as well.

[Blue Kitty]

I've always been interested in doing some voice work, sign me up if you need me.

[Lunchbox]

I'm happy to do some voice work in whatever if you don't mind my hideous/charming accent.

[Scandanavian War Machine]

i demand politely request that at some point somebody not american says "where is the cuban dance music?"

[Jimor]

Very cool start so far. One thing to keep in mind is that it will take a bit of time to hash out a story idea, then write up the script for it, so there's plenty of time to consider what you might like to do. Even if you're not interested in participating in the production, though, throw out some story ideas, no matter how large, small, serious, silly (or even specific lines ).

I don't want to lead the story discussion too much, I'm open to anything as far as that goes, but I do agree that shorter for this first project is best. Keep it relatively easy and fun.

I have a couple of friends that wrote radio plays for the Sci-Fi Channel's web site back when it was good, so I got a chance to watch the process over their shoulders, so I think my strength is going to be filling in the gaps of the story for what we need to make it work as an audio production.

Anyway, I figure we'll let more people express interest over the weekend, then start working at the story.

[Barmymoo]

I'd be happy to do any/several of the following:

1. Script
2. Voice Talent
6. Supervisory (coordinating each dept)


A. Format.
1. 10 mins


B. Style.
1. Comedy
2. Drama
We can do both! A comedic drama!

C. Genre
4. Adventure
5. Historical
6. Romance
7. Other

I would dearly love to set it in a period such that the phrase "He is a cad!" can be used.

[Avec]

I would really want to get involved. Although I would like to do something with the script/voice (I'm younger than most forumites so that may be advantageous in character development), I'm open to the other categories as well. I would really love to do a mystery theme!

[Thomas Edison]

1. Script
2. Voice Talent (I don't have any recording equipment at home, but at uni next year I'd be able to take some microphones out)
7. Other

A. Format
2. 15 mins


B. Style.
1. Comedy
2. Drama

Go crazy with both!

C. Genre
I'd be happy with whatever.

[Jimor]

Welcome! You bring up a good point about equipment. Don't let lack of immediate recording equipment/software stop anybody from volunteering for voice talent (or any other role for that matter). That's a bridge we can cross when we get to it, and there are plenty of alternatives that should do the trick in a pinch.

[Caleb]

My opinion is that we should do something super simple to start with.

Like if people want to do a Romance Comedy thing we can write a short script about someone cheating on their significant other only to have that person come home early from work.  So the person will have to try to hide in the small apartment to avoid getting caught.  Blah Blah Blah.  Stuff Happens.  Comedy.

Just do something to work out who will be doing the actual editing and such.

I assume everyone has a basic way of recording from a microphone.  Even if it's just the Windows Sound Recorder.

Get the script wrote.  Get the people to do their lines and email them to the editor.  Boom.

Is there anyone here who has actual sound editing experience?

[sean]

guys im bad at writing and organizing but i'll read lines if you think it would be funny if i read them.

[pwhodges]

Is there anyone here who has actual sound editing experience?

Er, yes (ex-BBC), though mainly music; but I imagine there are others.  If you find a need for my voice, I could provide that - it is distinctive in this company, I guess.

[ibrahimdelil]

Is there anyone here who has actual sound editing experience?

i have quite a bit of non-professional experience, if you need.

[pwhodges]

It occurs to me that the sound editor will have more responsibility than usual, because they will be defining the manner, timing and speed of interaction of the different actors, who would normally be in a studio together doing their timing naturally.  Just saying.

[ZJGent]

I am hugely excited by the scope of this project (and how bloody fun it'll be, too!) Please put me down as ready and willing in regards to:

1. Script (though I fear others are far superior in playwriting ability)
2. Voice Talent
3. possibly Music (incidental and/or theme)

As to format, theme, etc - I'd say a series of three half-hour episodes (dividing any plot into three acts) might work alright - well, it works alright for Radio 4 at least. I'm partial to both comedy and drama, and like May, I like the idea of sprinkling a little of both in, black comedy being my favourite anyhow. As to genre... well, anything goes really. I do like the idea of doing a murder mystery whodunit style thing - it makes the three-act structure work very definitely for a production. We could definitely lace the entire thing with comedy. Part Poirot, part Pinkerton, part Dirk Gently, perhaps?

Oh, and I'd be completely happy to draft up an audition piece if that would help the artistic director or whoever cast parts (and help the writer write parts to suit volunteer's voices)?

[Caleb]

See in the past I have known countless people who have tried to do a huge project like this and nothing happened.

It's always better to to a super short project first to iron out the major kinks and figure out who is going to be doing what.  Plus everyone just gets to have fun with it and not worry about things being perfect.

So again my idea is that everyone who is interested in writing should get a very short script together and we can decide which one to work with.

Again this is just an idea.  Since there are people who have actual experience with editing and such maybe we could jump into a larger project first.

[pwhodges]

It's always better to do a super short project first

I remarked above about the special influence of editing in a project like this where the actors are not together; I didn't make explicit that this also means that the amount  of editing will be increased hugely compared with doing the same thing with the actors together for each scene.  As with anything else, there is a trade-off between speed and quality of editing, but in any case I would urge that the first effort should be short - say no more than ten minutes.  That's still a lot of swaps between voices!  Tight writing can still get plenty of drama into ten minutes.

[Jimor]

A lot of very good points (and more volunteers, yay!).

I agree on keeping this first one short. If we get it to work, then we're already way ahead of the game for a more ambitious project later.

Paul is absolutely right about the editing. I imagine it will be pretty involved, more like film editing than music editing, because adjusting the timing between lines and picking one reading of a line over another. One additional complication that may arise is the way a variety of equipment and software will be used for our source material. Much like films have to be "color balanced" to make all the shots match visually, there might have to be some "tone balancing" with EQ and reverb to make the people sound like they're at least vaguely in the same room.

Then there's a layer of sound effects, then music, which probably can't be finalized (though samples can be used as placeholders) until a final edit of the rest is done because of timing.

However. All that isn't really important unless the material is good enough to warrant the effort, and the project is fun enough where that kind of detail work isn't a chore for whoever has to do it.

And one thing that could go without saying, but I'll say it anyway, nobody is ever going to get yelled at for doing something "wrong", because if we set this up properly, that will be pretty much impossible. If somebody has to drop out because of life, we all understand that. Somebody else can always read the lines, somebody else can always do some music, or find sound effects, or do the editing, etc...

A couple of new posts to follow to cover other things.

[Jimor]

Technical Matters for Consideration

On the technical side, I think we'll want 2 commonalities.

--First is an online site to store the raw and edited files. One account with a shared password among participants so that anybody who has to upload their voice/sound/music files can put them there, and so that editors and musicians can pull them down to do their part of the work. Even vocal talent may want to download the lines from any voice actor they're playing against in a scene to try to match up.

So any suggestions? I'm guessing we'd need about 2G of server space as a first approximation of what we could max out at (though more is always better). Generally, I think we can get away with 128-320kbs mp3 files for voice work if the original recording is clean enough. Please share any opinions about this, a lot of you are far more experienced with sound file issues.

--Second is that to share as much post-production work as possible, it's probably better to use a minimally capable freeware program that everybody can use and share files than to use the very best software possible if only one person has it. It's been a while since I've scouted for multitrack audio software (some video editing software would also work in a lot of cases), so I'm not immediately aware of the options.

Really all we need are 1) at least 8 tracks, 2) basic EQ/reverb/other effects, 3) ability to export to a variety of formats. If a particular sound or voice track needs any kind of specialty tweaking, we can have somebody use their software to do it then upload the altered file to be placed back in the freeware timeline. Likewise if we run out of track space, we can do a sub-mix file. And obviously, anybody doing music will probably be using their own recording/mixing software, but any finished product can then be place in the freeware for overall editing.

So suggestions on editing software and file hosting/backup site. Once those 2 items are in place, we're in a good position to make sure this all remains a collaborative effort.

[pwhodges]

There's no contest on the software - Reaper.  Unlimited tracking, plenty of effects, available for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit and Mac, doesn't disable anything after the trial period - but anyone who is as into editing as this project will require will be happy to pay the very modest cost for some fearsomely capable software.

However, if editing is to be shared, I suspect that coordinating the sharing of a multitrack session would be beyond this forum.  We would do better to define sections - typically a scene, I guess, depending what the script looks like, to be assembled by a one person.  The issue of matching different contributors' offerings isn't a matter of their equipment (they'll provide a soundfile), but how to match acoustics and equalisation.  To this extent, it would be easier for one person to do it all, or perhaps for one person to match equalisations, and perhaps overlay minimal reverb to bring the acoustics closer, and then pass the "normalised" files to the editor to assemble, perhaps also adding more acoustic and sound effects to represent the location of each scene, with maybe a third person overlaying a music track on the edited dialogue.

While individual contributors could offer an MP3 to avoid stressing their upload capabilities, the editors should share their files as full waves, to avoid the degradation that repeated encoded inevitably brings.

I would offer hosting space on my own server, but the upload speed is a typical ADSL rate of 1.1 Mbps, which would get a bit tedious.  I could offer a login to a bucket in my Amazon S3 storage, but this is not free (though the cost would probably only reach a few dozen dollars over the whole project).  Actually, I could set up space on a server at work, which would be seriously fast, and no one would notice...

[Jimor]

The Story

Some definitely trends in what people are saying. So lets see if we can push on to more specifics.

I think 2 points are settled. Keep it short, and a mix of comedy/drama. Funny was kind of a given with this crowd, but I think we all like the idea of still having a good story beneath the laughs.

Based on the input so far, I'm going to make a specific suggestion. Feel free to use this suggestion as a starting point to go wherever your muse takes you! Including the exact opposite direction. My main role at this point is to keep narrowing the discussion down until we finally have a reasonable consensus, but I'm always open to new and better ideas than anything I may suggest.

A historical comedy about pirates, where the central story is some kind of mystery, with some romance.

That basically describes Pirate of the Caribbean, but of course, we can do MUCH better than THAT. In 10-12 minutes. Our advantage is that with only sound as our medium, our visual FX budget is unlimited.    


While people chime in on that. I'm thinking that for the actual procedure, is that once we decide exactly what kind of story, we have people submit quick outlines of their own vision of the story, discuss those a bit, then finalize that. Getting the actual script written is a different matter that I haven't quite figured out. We have several volunteers in that area, but it's always hard to tell whether collaboration would work, or if assigning it to one person would be better. I don't know yet.

[Jimor]

Thanks, Paul, I just downloaded it, and I'll take a look, but I think unless anybody objects/finds better, this will be it.

You make excellent points about the workflow. The big advantage of a common platform is with all the source files in storage, once they're downloaded by somebody, all that needs to get passed around are the project files. But I agree, defining sub-editing roles well so that the pieces can be put together later is much better than actually sharing the detail work. But at least now, if somebody gets busy after half finishing, we're not stuck trying to translate all their work from their proprietary software, they can upload the project file and the next person can continue.

Breaking it down by scenes sounds best, both to break up the work load, and to give as many people who want some experience some exposure to the process.

I was looking at options for storage, and one non-obvious one was listed in an article. G-mail. Just send attachments (up to 25M, which is a 2:30 full .wav file, a size none of the individual clips should ever hit). One advantage is that we can annotate the file in the actual e-mail. Anybody with the password can get in to download (or upload as a mail from that account to itself).

Otherwise, we could try your server. But overall, I'm liking the g-mail idea (or something similar) because of neutrality, annotations, and ease of use of just folks sending an e-mail to send their files.

Edit: Paul has the server up and running, and I think that a combination of that and G-mail will work just fine. So it looks like all the project technical aspects are taken care of. Now for the story, so keep throwing ideas at the wall, even if they're completely different than what's already been discussed!

[Liz]

I did theater and speech back in high school so I've definitely got the voice to add in. Plus I am not afraid to attempt silly foreign accents if need be.

I could possibly also go for some sound effects, there are plenty of things around this house that I could bang together and such to make good sounds.

[Jimor]

Very good, Liz!

OK, here's a list of participants so far (always room for more).

1. Script
     Caleb, Jimmy the Squid, Barmymoo, Avec, Thomas Edison, ZJGent

2. Voice Talent
     SirJuggles, Jimmy the Squid, Blue Kitty, Lunchbox, Barmymoo, Avec, Thomas Edison, Sean, pwhodges, ZJGent, Liz

3. Music (incidental and/or theme)
     ZJGent

4. Sound FX
     Liz

5. Technical/Computer help
     Caleb, pwhodges

6. Supervisory (coordinating each dept)
     Barmymoo

7. Post Production/Editing
     Caleb, ibrahimdelil

8. Other (I have no idea what I can do but I still want to help!)
     SirJuggles (script editing), Thomas Edison


I'm hellaciously busy this week, including being out of town Wed-Fri, so I won't have much time for this until this coming Sunday at the soonest.

Feel free to talk story ideas and see what everybody can come up with, whether it matches anything talked about before or not. Heck, if you have a script in place when I get back, all the better!

[JD]

You should base your story off of one of these

[Carl-E]

Ooo!  Oooo! 

I've done a fair bit of acting, and can do a wide variety of voices and accents (including speaking "fluent shorthand" as a friend put it when I did an improv bit as someone from an undisclosed eastern block country...).  I also can do a fair number of vocalised sound effects. 

I'm afraid my editing/production experience dates back to 1978 - 82, and involves reel-to-reel machines, scotch tape and razor blades.  I still have a good ear if it'll help. 

Pirates, eh?  They spot a merchant ship that seems to be adrift and abandoned.  They board it, and start taking the cargo, which includes several long, heavy boxes.  When opened, they seem to contain only dirt...

Yes, you got it - pirates and  vampires!  Think Nosferatu.  Or Bela Lugosi.  Or Peter Lorre...  (yeah, he never played a vampire, but I love to do his voice). 

Just no sparkles, m'kay?

[dr. nervioso]

I can

Write a script: I a not extremely OMG good, but if we are in the context of victorian dialect and snarkiness and general oddity I will suffice I believe

Manage: I can do this, though because I a not so keyed in on this crowd, I do not believe I can do anything but be loud and scary

Other: I could er- hire you all some grade A hussies?

[Jimor]

Very cool, we'll see about fitting you in.

BTW, everybody, sorry about dropping the ball. I'm still game for this, and now that summer is here and I've gotten some other commitments out of the way, should be able to devote some time to it. I think I have an idea on a story, so I'll flesh it out some and post it here for comments before moving onto a final script stage.

Fortunately, this is the kind of project that can putter along at its own pace, it's not like we have a deadline or anything. I figure if we have a finished product by Christmas, it's all good. Then once we know whether it all works and have some procedures and experience in place, it will be much easier for future projects with different mixes of people, more ambitious projects, etc.

[Lines]

I wish I'd seen this earlier! If you need another voice, let me know.

[Jimor]

Definitely still time to get in on this! I'll work on coming up with a storyline that's flexible on how many performers or even "extras" we use. The more people who get a chance  to figure out how to record and send files, the better off we'll be for future projects.

[Jimor]

OK, I have a rough outline of a comedy pirate adventure. It feels like it would fit in the 10-15 minute range.

Captain and crew come back from failed raid
Captain and his Lady Pirate in their cabin talking about it, it's made clear she's the brains behind the throne
Lady Pirate leaves cabin
Crew pull her aside and ask for help in mutiny
     They tell her Captain's plans are idiotic, but she seems smart enough to be in charge
Lady Pirate tries to talk them out of it, but agrees to go along
Back with Captain, she tells him about the mutiny
She comes up with plan for a successful raid to re-win the crew's confidence.
She tells crew to wait for next raid as the best opportunity to get rid of Captain.
Her plan is so convoluted and prone to failure they realize she's the one making all the mistakes.
Final scene of Lady Pirate and Captain in dinghy after being tossed off the ship

A lot of the humor will be dependent on the dialogue, but I think this has good potential for setting all that up, particularly with some good secondary characters.

[Carl-E]

OK, we need something wki-ish for script development - a central location that will allow for editing and can track versions, so we can bactrack out of lower quality stuff as needed, and which also allows for commentary. 

I thought someone had mentioned a site before, but looking back through the thread all I see are technical discussions for sound editiing software...

[wrwight]

I could possibly lend a hand in this. I wish I had seen it before, it looks like fun. I could do a bit of voice acting, or help with writing. I could help with editing, but all of my work in that department has been with music, and mostly just for fun (occasionally also for money). I like the idea of a wiki for the script. Until then, I might play around with some ideas, try to get a bit of dialogue going or something, just to stretch out my writing muscle, so to speak. Of course, if you don't want my help, I would take no offense in your saying so, so don't worry about that.

[Jimor]

I think a wiki would be great for the long term, but for this one, I think we could all benefit from working it all out right here in the thread. I think the way to do it will be to just go scene by scene. I'll post a first draft, then everybody can jump in with suggestions and we'll polish it up. I can tell you right now my own weakness is dialogue, so I'll gladly defer to any nice lines thrown into the mix. I think my strength is keeping the big picture in mind as we go through the process so that even with everybody throwing in ideas, it won't get bogged down.

We'll also tweak the format at we'll get a good idea of what kinds of sound effects we'll need. As far as voice actors, there will obviously be the Captain and the Pirate Lady as our 2 leads, but there's room for at least 2 or 3 substantial secondary parts, and as many additional voices as we can squeeze in (male and female, no reason this can't be a very mixed crew). Even if somebody contributes just one line, the experience of making the recording and sending it in will be very valuable for further efforts.

[TinPenguin]

I know I'm only a mere newcomer round here, but I've done a little bit of amateur voice acting before, so if you still need any voices for this, I'm game.

I'd be happy to lend my hand to scripting as well if you haven't already got too many cooks trying to spoil the broth. I think the idea of throwing out the script for everyone to make suggestions on is a good way of managing it. It'll be important to try and keep a steady feel to it, though. With many different contributors and senses of humour, there's a slight danger of it becoming incongruent.