[Kirok]

Speaking generally I think that fan producers who are serious about creating the best project that they possibly can, need to realise that it pays to specialise! Everybody has their strengths and their weaknesses, but nobody, nobody, is good at everything. Some, such as James Cawley and Nick Cook are great producers and good actors - in fact both are excellent costumers by the way - but I feel that they are exceptions that prove the rule.

As I've pointed out many times, fan productions can be just for fun and personal satisfaction. It is perfectly ok to make something just for your own amusement rather than for others, and in which case being your own writer, audio engineer and voice cast is cool. In fact it can be creatively challenging to see how well you can fill all these roles!

However animators who want their work to be enjoyed by everyone and who do everything in their production, well, let's just say that their production might not reach its full potential. To produce a good fan production you need to think like a producer and they don't give jobs to just anyone! You find the best person for the job and usually this means advertising and casting.

Talking specifically about audio engineering (although the same can be said about any specialised job, from writing to web mastering) it has been mentioned to me that animators might be best getting established audio production groups to produce the audio for their animations. Personally I think it would be a perfect partnership! It would need careful planning - this is where the storyboard really comes into its forte with coordinating audio and video. It might entail a certain amount of give-and-take when video or audio might need to be re-done to suit necessary changes. However the end product would certainly be much stronger!

I'd like to throw the floor open to animators and audio drama producers and directors for your thoughts. Gotta go lounge by the pool!

Regards from Risa

K

[Kirok]

OK. I have an easy option for animators who might be interested in getting audio talent for their animations. First of all though, a bit of background info.

Audio dramas can basically be made in one of two ways (feel free to correct me if you think I'm talking through my hat). Back in the days of radio, voice actors were recorded live in specially built studios and, although the music might be pre-recorded and added from vinyl, the special effects were usually done by hand, such as the classic coconuts-for-hoofbeats. This can be and is still done, recording lines on a sound stage, and certainly gives a far superior sound quality although live special effects might be a rarity these days, however such studios are rare and expensive to rent as well as meaning that the cast has to be gathered in the same place at the same time.

What is more likely though for amateur productions in the digital age is for the voice actors (who could be anywhere in the world) to be given their lines and for them to record them on their own computers then send the raw files in to the audio engineer. The audio production's director, as I prefer to call him, cleans the audio files up, tweaks them with filters etc to give them ambience and foley then combines them into the finished product by mixing them with with the other lines, music and special effects.

The upshot of this is that you now have production groups that have the expertise needed to create the best possible audio track for your animation. They have experience in auditioning and choosing voice talent (many are made up of voice actors who have branched out into production), they know where to find royalty free sound effects and music and what works best, but most of all they not only have knowledge of the mechanics of audio engineering but they have the experience to artistically making soundscapes that do not just create the illusion of reality for your a scene, but enhance the dramatic effect of the drama to complement the visuals. Think the audio of an animation isn't as important as the visuals? Just think what Star Wars would have been like without its music and sound effects.

If you want to build a house, you have to learn the skills that builders use and become a builder. If you want to make a fan film, you have to learn all the film maker's skills and learn to use them yourself. If you want good audio on your animation, you have to learn how to be an audio engineer or you work with one. So to shine, you have two choices: you do all this yourself or you work in partnership with someone else who can do it.

Worried about sharing your production with someone else? For every successful one-man animator – and only three spring to mind: Geoffrey James, Tim Vinings and Curt Danhauser – there is an equal number of animation groups such as Star Trek: Specter, Farragut Animated and Star Track. The experience in fan films is that groups generally create more, more regularly.


So what is the easy option?


The most reliable platform for auditioning for voice actors at the moment is the Yahoo Group, AudioAuditions, where you can currently advertise for voice actors for the characters you have in your animation. If you want to get an experienced audio director to supervise the audio engineering of your animation, why not advertise for the director as well?

I've posted on there as to whether this is permissible. I'll get back to you after we get back from the nightlights of Risa!!!

K

[barbreader]

I would just like to add that, as a pure viewer with absolutely NO production credits at all, that for most animation, the voice acting can make or break the show. The video is going to take the time it takes. Good audio v. bad may mean the work is viewed tens of thousand of times as opposed to a few dozen.

[Kirok]

barbreader, on 13 May 2010 - 09:47 AM, said:

I would just like to add that, as a pure viewer with absolutely NO production credits at all, that for most animation, the voice acting can make or break the show. The video is going to take the time it takes. Good audio v. bad may mean the work is viewed tens of thousand of times as opposed to a few dozen.

Thanks, Barb. I should point out, by the way, that it was a comment from Barb that set off this train of thought.

Unfortunately the ruling from the admins of the AudioAuditions Yahoo Group has been that the group is only for advertising for voice actors and advertising for crew such as directors is not within their scope. I can understand. They have made a concerted effort to keep the focus of the group firmly on auditions for voice actors so that the posts they send out are more useful.

I still say that they are your strongest bet for auditioning voice talent, although Audio Drama Talk is good and, to be fair, the Voice Acting Alliance is usually good as well although I didn't have much luck with my last casting call there. The admins of AudioAudition suggested that anyone who wants to get audio drama groups interested in pitching for the audio feed for an animation should "ping" the producers directly however this assumes that you know, (i) what groups are out there and (ii) the contact details for the producers.

I have a couple of ideas that might help, but give me a day to get back to you on this one. We are packing tonight, ready for the shuttle to pick us up from Risa tomorrow so I'll be back on deck tomorrow night my time. Until then we have more bloodwine to finish!

K

[RUNGANO]

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am volunteering for roles on this forum.LINK TO ANIMATION SHORT

Morris "Rocky" Rungano

Kirok, on 14 May 2010 - 09:50 AM, said:

Thanks, Barb. I should point out, by the way, that it was a comment from Barb that set off this train of thought.

Unfortunately the ruling from the admins of the AudioAuditions Yahoo Group has been that the group is only for advertising for voice actors and advertising for crew such as directors is not within their scope. I can understand. They have made a concerted effort to keep the focus of the group firmly on auditions for voice actors so that the posts they send out are more useful.

I still say that they are your strongest bet for auditioning voice talent, although Audio Drama Talk is good and, to be fair, the Voice Acting Alliance is usually good as well although I didn't have much luck with my last audition there. The admins of AudioAudition suggested that anyone who wants to get audio drama groups interested in pitching for the audio feed for an animation should "ping" the producers directly however this assumes that you know, (i) what groups are out there and (ii) the contact details for the producers.

I have a couple of ideas that might help, but give me a day to get back to you on this one. We are packing tonight, ready for the shuttle to pick us up from Risa tomorrow so I'll be back on deck tomorrow night my time. Until then we have more bloodwine to finish!

K

[Kirok]

RUNGANO, on 05 June 2010 - 10:58 PM, said:

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am volunteering for roles on this forum.LINK TO ANIMATION SHORT http://www.youtube.c...h?v=w9X9xJOnxGg

Morris "Rocky" Rungano

Hi Rocky! Great to see you on the forum!

By way of introduction, I know Rocky as one of the leading lights of MisfitsAudio. He has a distinctive, deep voice with which he made the part of Commander Thumper so distinctive in Star Rabbit Tracks , a Parsec award finalist. If you want to listen to only one of their previous season before they start their second season (they are casting for someone called Jessica... hmmmm) then I urge you to listen to their last episode, Over the Rainbow, magic! Rocky has also played as Black Spade in their Dr Who fan series, Land of Silver as well as in Coriolanus: A Tragedy Comedy and their children's story, Sally's Daddy vs. The Alligator. A quick Google shows that he's worked with other groups as well such as BrokenSea's Escape from New York and is on the cast list of the soon-to-be-released Star Trek: Valkyrie.

I'll catch up with you later!

Cheers

K

[Kirok]

A lively discussion on this subject occured on the Trek Machinima thread that I'm copying across to here...

Wowbagger, on 20 March 2011 - 02:35 PM, said:

I think this summarizes in one blow the two horns of the greatest tragedy in the fan production business. The first horn of the dilemma is that the audience is picky, and our failure to live up to all the audience expectations reduces our audiences exponentially, not linearly. Say you have one production called Star Trek: Devil's Horns that is a machinima relying on TTS to create dialogue. 80% of fans aren't going to enjoy it, because they might like the animations but they can't stand TTS. (I'm actually one of them; I have no interest in a show that treats dialogue, which is the core of the Star Trek experience, so cavalierly.) But say you have another production called Star Trek: The Mysterious Voyage that is an audio drama. 80% of fans aren't going to enjoy that, either, because they might like the dialogue but can't stand just listening to a show instead of watching it. I've spent years trying to figure this out, and there are lots of reasons, but it's basically an immutable fact. You can't convert non-audio listeners to audio listeners in large proportions, period. If you combined these two shows into one, you fulfill all those expectations. Fans might still tune out if they don't like your product, but they're going to give you a chance. That means your audience starts out larger and grows faster.

Let's put this in algebraic terms. Suppose Devil's Horns, the machinima, has an audience size x, and Mysterious Voyage, the audio drama, has an audience size y. If you combined the two shows, you would expect that your audience would grow to, at most, (x*y). But, in actuality, your audience would look more like A = x to the yth power.

If all the different Trek productions worked with each other and synergized, they would be ridiculously good and ridiculously large-scale. Mike is right that there's ample opportunity for tension -- Excelsior's own abortive experience with animation proved that -- but I think ours was a special case. We weren't working with a team that was used to working within the constraints of a fan production, with all the limits on time and resources that entails. If two fan groups were to get together to produce a super-show, it would be much smoother, I think. That's the first prong, though -- we need to synergize.

The second prong is, we never will. Kirok, you wrote that there are "maybe a dozen" audio groups who'd be thrilled to do the audio track for an animation. I, on the other hand, can't think of a single one. Sure, there are a ton of us who are capable of doing that work, and we all enjoy audio production... but we are all already committed to our own audiences, our own stories, our own work, and there's no time to jump over and do another show with another team without putting our own show on hold in the meantime. 99% of fan producers start up their teams not because they really really love animation or voice acting or whatever -- they get into it because they want to tell a Star Trek story, and they're going to do it in whatever medium they can. They're not going to relinquish creative control or sacrifice their own ideas to go work on another project. I sure wouldn't kill off the Sword of Damocles arc to spend months working on another show I don't have time for, even if it meant saving some of my favorites, like Outpost and Section 31. I hope neither Tony Raymond nor Eric Busby take that personally, if they read this. I'm sure they'd all say the same about Excelsior. We're all willing to help each other out in various ways, and we do, all the time (usually via cast poaching). But we all have our own shows, and ain't nobody going to take them away from us.

There are rare exceptions, of course. NEO f/x got into the fan game to work on effects and, ultimately, to help Starship Farragut on its animated series. That has blossomed into one of the most fruitful relationships in fan production land. I would give my eyeteeth to have that relationship with NEO f/x, and my spleen to have them animate an episode of Excelsior. (If they read this, our address is starshipexcelsior att_gmail!) But from what I understand they're quite busy, and there's just nobody else in the fan animation department right now who's got the time and the inclination to work on somebody else's established show, despite the fact that it would mean vastly greater audiences for all involved.

That said, the Excelsior team continues to search for motivated animators interested in producing an animated version of our famous episode, "No One Gets Out Alive."

Kirok, on 20 March 2011 - 05:44 PM, said:

Damn, I hope your wrong!

I'll agree that many audio drama groups started as you say to tell a Star Trek story - Excelsior for sure - but how many added a Star Trek series to an existing line-up to capture a slice of the fanbase to "come for the tribute shows and stay for the indies"? How many are adding a second Star Trek series to their existing lineup? If the resources are (to use logic rather than maths) either/or how can they do that? And who said that the pool of audio productions groups was confined to those who are currently doing a Trek series? OK, so I exagerated, maybe there aren't a dozen, but I'd say there are a significant number of good sound editors currently doing Dr Who, Marvel, DC, Buffyverse, or Anime-themed audio drama series who would pitch for a Trek themed animation.

K

[Kirok]

barbreader, on 20 March 2011 - 09:10 PM, said:

I love fan productions in part because I love Trek but hate reruns (until I started my own Star Trek website nobody ever called me a 'Trekkie'... truth is, nobody had to this day except me!) . I couldn't do even a Trek short story because I lack the detailed knowledge I see regularly argued on these boards. On the other hand, I got involved in the Trek community because I was offended by JJA Trek on a level I would not have imagined. I walked out with a massive headache and heartache. One of my friends who considers himself a True Trekker who went with me was even more surprised than I. He thought I was going with HIM. I did tell him it wasn't a favor, I liked Trek. I didn't care that the ship looked different, or that they used different actors, but I was deeply offended that they made the show into Star Wars Lite, replaced a somewhat plausible set-up with a wildly implausible one, replaced believable characters with unbelievable ones, threw both real and Trek physics out the window, and generally made Superman look like a reasonable possibility by comparison. (OK, I was always a Fan of Superman...)

That said, I am old. Being old, I have gotten to the point where doing something just to express myself seems hollow. I just finished my first full rewrite of my non-Trek Sci Fi novel. I mentioned that to a neighbor who gave me the whole "what a wonderful achievement!" line. I responded it will be a great achievement if it's published and people read it. She gave me the express myself line, and I told her I was too old for that. (She's about my age.) She let a smile come across her face and admitted she no longer thought much of just expressing herself either, that that was kid stuff.

I enjoy the fan Trek. I do. Even the not-great stuff. Anything I rate 1 or above, I enjoyed it, even if I don't recommend it to normal people. My level of love of fan Trek is not normal. (I do have a page for 'really really bad stuff,' which has proven a lifeline to people in despair about how their film or audio show came out. Once they look at that stuff, they always feel better about theirs.)

Where am I going? I'd like to encourage people to consider trying to work together. Some audio people might want to swap with an animator. We'll do the audio for your animation, you do an animation for our audio. Make a formal agreement, with a formal trade-off. (one story-for-one story or X minutes-for- Y minutes), or something like it. What would stop Audio series X from getting an animation from Animation Group (or person) B, and vice versa? Each slows their own production to get a better version from working with the other? Only two things:

1) Neither trusts the other to carry through on their side of the bargain. I recommend a formal agreement to remedy this, in which failure to carry through would result in a real penalty. Such as:
(A.) money damages; or
(B.) simultaneous work. The animation part of the animators work and the audio part of the audio work are done, and given to the other. Work will be released on the same day. You don't get the benefit of the other guy's work until you do yours. Some third party who knows how to post stuff on the web agrees to hold the work until both are done, and post both the same day.

This does not guarantee quality, but most of you want to show your best work, and wouldn't want something you did that was awful out there. Another way would be

2) Feeling it's more important to tell your story than have it heard and seen. This gets us back to the distinction between self-expression and communication. If you want to COMMUNICATE your story, it's worth your while to slow your production down for this, if you don't, you won't.

Finally, in the Spirit of Leonard McCoy, let me admit: I'm a lawyer, not a film maker!

Wowbagger, on 30 March 2011 - 02:01 AM, said:

I don't have time to make another long reply right now, but I do want to say that Kirok and Barb both make some good points up above. A studio like Darker Projects clearly has the production capacity to take on another project. So does Pendant. Continuing Mission, Excelsior, Giant Gnome, and TWERP, less so. The big dogs can and probably should collaborate in order to create better output.

Barb's idea about exchanging work, rather than simply combining projects, also has potential. It's a little asymmetrical, because you can record and produce a 60-minute audio drama in four to ten weeks, but it would be (I gather) six months to a year for an equal-sized team to animate the same amount of material. But surely there are some workable compromises.

Maybe we should start some kind of formal exchange. Production teams would post what they're looking for and what they're offering in return, plus contact info so it's open to negotiation. I would be willing to contribute some of my server space to host it, and I'd even write the code, if Kirok would be willing to oversee the project and be the official contact person. (I've been designing a social network from scratch lately, and this isn't that different.) Kirok - email me if that sounds like a sane idea.

barbreader, on 30 March 2011 - 02:22 AM, said:

Wowbanger, as far as I know, save Kirok, who has worked in audio, no one who actually produces has yet shown interest. Obviously, I offer a list of fan films and fan audio shows incidental to my main mission of making their stuff easy to find. But not only would we need an exchange, we'd need some interest in it from those who do it.

I'm a librarian not a filmmaker. Nor am I an audio drama maker. I know that Brandon Bridges, in particular, has produced, and is producing a spectacular body of animated work, but his work lacks good audio.

Some of the audio people have announced, then abandon film and animation projects as unworkable. They would both be better if they worked together.

I am a person who has a hacking cough and other unpleasant illness issues. The great thing about the net for me is that I can present my thoughts without having to present my person. (I'm average looking for a 55-56 soon year old. But the coughing thing really gets on the nerves after a while.) But that same cough makes actually being part of these productions untenable. James Cawley has tried to get me to come up to their shoot, but I seriously doubt he would be happy if I did.

Anyway, I think it might be good to poll a few of those who have shown interest in crossover work and see if they might want an exchange before you do the work of building one.

[Kirok]

My own suggestion to this is as above - I reckon there should be some venue for animators to post "want ads", advertising for either a group or an individual to act as their audio director, who would on their behalf cast for VAs, gather lines and sound engineer them into sound bites that the animator could then place as the audio track for their production. Or just a portion of this, perhaps they just need someone to cast and gather the lines and they can do the sound engineering themselves, or vice versa whereby they have voice actors but not the expertese to engineer the lines into a good sound track.

If all they need is casting then something like the Yahoo Group, AudioAuditions, fits the bill, but they've specifically said that they don't want any one to use the group for casting for a production group or sound director/editor.

I'd would love to see TU play a part in bringing animators and audio drama cast and crews together!

I'm off to bed

K

[Wowbagger]

I think it should go both directions -- not just animations looking for actors, but the other way, too. Otherwise, it is, like you said, only very slightly differentiated from a group like Yahoo AudioAuditions. In fact, it could be multidirectional, with groups in multiple formats looking for help with multiple aspects of production. My quick, back of the envelope vision looked something like this:

Quote

/site/productionWantBoard.php?sort=date
BUTTON: Subscribe to feed
BUTTON: Email subscription
BUTTON: Unsubscribe

WANTED: Full audio team (cast, crew, production)
SHOW: Star Trek: Virmire Seven
URL: www.virmiresrangers.com
PRODUCTION WINDOW: One eight-minute episode.
TIMEFRAME: Begin work May 1, 2011; submit finished product June 29, 2011.
NOTES: Animations will only be 75% done on 1 May, so there will be some overlap and collaboration.
IN EXCHANGE: Will produce new, high-quality album art for all your audio episodes up to now.

WANTED: Animation team (the works)
SHOW: Star Trek: Excelsior
URL: www.starshipexcelsior.com
PRODUCTION WINDOW: One sixty-minute episode.
NOTES: Audio work is already complete; just need animations. Answering studio will have complete discretion over art direction -- a chance to define a new visual style for the post-Nemesis era.
IN EXCHANGE: We'll do 120-minutes of audio work for you, across as many episodes as that requires.

WANTED: Sound effects library access
SHOW: Star Trek: Monkey House
URL: welcometothemonkeyhouse-st.net
PRODUCTION WINDOW: Indefinite
IN EXCHANGE: Can we get this from someone pro bono?
NOTES: Please? We'll pay it forward some day when we're able to.

AVAILABLE: A full cast of voices, not doing anything right now!
SHOW: Star Trek: Diplomatic Relations
IN EXCHANGE: You decide!
CONTACT: captainbob@diplomaticrelations.gov

WANTED: CGI Artist
SHOW: Star Trek: Farragut
URL: www.startrekfarragut.com
PRODUCTION WINDOW: Three weeks.
NOTES: One of our CGI artists is having a baby, and we need someone to fill the gap for a few weeks so we don't slip our schedule again.
IN EXCHANGE: We'll mention your show's ship and captain in our next episode, and put your website in the special thanks on the credits.

AVAILABLE: A TOS replica bridge
NOTES: It's to scale, it's nearly as good as Phase II's, and it's been in my basement since the 1980s but I can't find any use for it. If you have a cast and some cameras, maybe we can get something going?
CONTACT: tombaugh@comcast.net

TEXT FIELDS: Make your own post!
BUTTON: Submit new posting.

What would you think of a scheme like that? Am I in the same ballpark as you guys?

And Barb's right, of course -- so far this is purely speculative. I'm hopeful that it could turn into an if-you-build-it-they-will-come scenario, where once the resource is established and a couple collaborations/exchanges work out, more productions will find its use.

[Kirok]

Wowbagger, on 31 March 2011 - 05:07 AM, said:

I think it should go both directions -- not just animations looking for actors, but the other way, too. Otherwise, it is, like you said, only very slightly differentiated from a group like Yahoo AudioAuditions. In fact, it could be multidirectional, with groups in multiple formats looking for help with multiple aspects of production. My quick, back of the envelope vision looked something like this:

What would you think of a scheme like that? Am I in the same ballpark as you guys?

And Barb's right, of course -- so far this is purely speculative. I'm hopeful that it could turn into an if-you-build-it-they-will-come scenario, where once the resource is established and a couple collaborations/exchanges work out, more productions will find its use.

That would be flamin' awesome!

For my part I see no reason why we could not add single paragraph want ads in the TU eZine... "Lonely animator looking for sound director for meaningful relationship" ... in conjunction with 'stop press' announcements of Trek fan productions and TU forum news.

Interesting that you should mention widening the scope of this because, with the number of fan fiction books we are publishing I'm going to need a lot more cover art. Taken to its extreme it would be something like Wreckamovie.com