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Post by Casey on Apr 16, 2009 17:41:07 GMT
Do you have a question about the project that you can't find the answer to? Would you like to make suggestions about the project and give and get feedback? This is the thread for you! See these links for discussion threads on specific topics: Vocal Audition ThreadMusic ThreadSFX ThreadFor more general questions and discussion, please post below! |
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Post by uskuri on Apr 16, 2009 19:10:40 GMT
Casey, you are an organizational beast.
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 17, 2009 22:13:20 GMT
I was thinking about the visual part of this project. How exactly should we go about doing this? Should we make each panel of the pages roughly the same size or what?
EDIT: And should we mention the project on the wiki?
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Post by Casey on Apr 17, 2009 23:08:17 GMT
Wouldn't it be funny if... way back when I was in grade school (thirty years ago) they would show us these educational slide shows where they stuck a cassette tape into a player and some lucky kid got to operate the slide projector and the tape would go *beep!* every time he was supposed to advance to the next slide... we could go seriously old school and do that, just add a *beep!* at the page turns, and let people follow along with the webcomic or their bound copy...
If the final product is a long audio file, I think we'll be okay, but if the final product is a long movie... won't the file size get pretty huge, pretty quick? That's an interesting question to ponder...
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Post by fuzzyone on Apr 18, 2009 4:56:59 GMT
If we're posting the finished product as a video to Youtube, then File Size isn't as important as Length. Recently, I recorded 'Of New And Old' performing all the male voices, including Donald Donlan. All told, it was around 5 minutes. Now, That's NOT including all the girls' lines. And there are quite a few of those. Also, I haven't found a way to yell (Eglamore's "SURMA!" That closes out the chapter) Without it spiking the mic, and producing a popping and crackling. That's why I haven't uploaded it. Anyway, since Youtube has a time limit around 10 minutes,we should keep that in mind.
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reyo
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Post by reyo on Apr 18, 2009 4:59:59 GMT
This is, of course, a hypothetical situation that if far, FAR from becoming a reality anytime soon, but how epic would it be to have the webcomic completely animated?
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Post by Casey on Apr 18, 2009 5:27:41 GMT
Also, I haven't found a way to yell (Eglamore's "SURMA!" That closes out the chapter) Without it spiking the mic, and producing a popping and crackling. That's why I haven't uploaded it. Oh, well you would just do the same thing professional singers do... move away from the mic for that part! An interesting fact is that, in most music you hear on the radio the singer's voice is doing a lot of things and all staying at pretty much the same volume... that's mic technique and post-processing. In reality to do that kind of range, the singer's actual volume in the booth varies tremendously, all the way to outright screaming. This is never more evident for me than on my Rock Band nights when my friends come over... they have to stand away from me when I sing "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains... on the line "Feed my eyes" I have to literally scream to get the right pitch, inflection, and quality... and they always crack up laughing and start missing notes! Ah well, it's all in fun...  |
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Post by fuzzyone on Apr 18, 2009 6:03:30 GMT
Well, My problem is all I have is a Headset. It works well for most dialogue... But for that, I've tried pausing the recording, moving the mic away, and yelling... Suddenly sounds like a not-very-sensitive mic far away... I can Speak Conversationally with someone over a hundred feet away, indoors. Volume isn't the issue. It's NOT blowing up my mic, And leaving it as something worth hearing.
I wish I had something like the Rock Band Microphone... Of Course, that would mean I had Rock band, And I'd get to wail out on the songs I like.
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reyo
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Post by reyo on Apr 18, 2009 6:46:37 GMT
Also, I haven't found a way to yell (Eglamore's "SURMA!" That closes out the chapter) Without it spiking the mic, and producing a popping and crackling. That's why I haven't uploaded it. Oh, well you would just do the same thing professional singers do... move away from the mic for that part! An interesting fact is that, in most music you hear on the radio the singer's voice is doing a lot of things and all staying at pretty much the same volume... that's mic technique and post-processing. In reality to do that kind of range, the singer's actual volume in the booth varies tremendously, all the way to outright screaming. This is never more evident for me than on my Rock Band nights when my friends come over... they have to stand away from me when I sing "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains... on the line "Feed my eyes" I have to literally scream to get the right pitch, inflection, and quality... and they always crack up laughing and start missing notes! Ah well, it's all in fun... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND added to playlist. *grasps at Zune, looks around for 5 seconds, and bolts out the door as if chased by some faceless assassin* |
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Post by Casey on Apr 18, 2009 8:43:09 GMT
I wish I had something like the Rock Band Microphone... Of Course, that would mean I had Rock band, And I'd get to wail out on the songs I like. Well, I will just mention that you can get a Logitech USB microphone, which is what the Rock Band mic is, for around $20 at most electronics stores... or for that matter you can get an actual Rock Band mic as a standalone item at a game store for the same price. reyo: What, you've never heard that song before? See, we knew how to rock back in the 90s! Awesomeness is not just the domain of you youngsters!! |
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Post by Ulysses on Apr 18, 2009 15:40:02 GMT
The way Audacity is being pimped on here I'm guessing no one else has had trouble with it, but the Noise Removal for me always removes too much noise. I'm tempted to just put up an audition which is fuzzy but at least you can hear what I'm saying.
Does anyone know why this is happening, and/or how I can fix it?
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Post by Casey on Apr 18, 2009 16:35:12 GMT
Well... I never use noise reduction or any other modification on Audacity... so I might not be the best one to answer your question.
But I assume that you feel you need to use noise reduction because your mic is picking up a lot of background noise? Have you tried all the real-world noise reduction tricks in the "Improving Your Performance" thread?
Really in the bigger scheme of things though, for just an audition, I think people will be understanding of background noise... the big time to really worry about cleaning up the noise would be in production. So I would say don't worry about it too much, and don't let technology stand in the way of you having fun with your audition!
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reyo
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Post by reyo on Apr 18, 2009 21:51:57 GMT
Well... I never use noise reduction or any other modification on Audacity... so I might not be the best one to answer your question. But I assume that you feel you need to use noise reduction because your mic is picking up a lot of background noise? Have you tried all the real-world noise reduction tricks in the "Improving Your Performance" thread? Really in the bigger scheme of things though, for just an audition, I think people will be understanding of background noise... the big time to really worry about cleaning up the noise would be in production. So I would say don't worry about it too much, and don't let technology stand in the way of you having fun with your audition! Yeah, won't there be tech people to fix out that sort of noise once the people are picked and we're doing the "official" recordings? |
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 18, 2009 22:41:36 GMT
That's if we get/have tech people. This is, after all, a fan project so resources are probably limited. Unless we score a major coo.
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Post by Ulysses on Apr 18, 2009 23:20:23 GMT
That's if we get/have tech people. This is, after all, a fan project so resources are probably limited. Unless we score a major coo. Casey will organise his heart out and get us a deal with Pixar. |
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Post by xanbcoo on Apr 18, 2009 23:59:23 GMT
That is something we really need to consider. Who will be organizing and putting together the final product?
Would it be too much of a hassle to have different people handle different jobs like audio levels/direction?
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 19, 2009 0:52:12 GMT
We were thinking about using a voice chat room as a way to communicate, as well as for practice runs. It'll be much easier for everyone if they can hear and get feedback in real time.
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Post by Casey on Apr 19, 2009 2:28:20 GMT
In my understanding of the original project, I think Sand was the one who was "putting it all together"? But that might have been just my perception... maybe he's just doing music? I really don't know, I came into the game only (relatively) recently. I'll be happy to help out in any way I can... I mean it's a fan project so if there's anyone out there who feels they can help and wants to participate, I think we should try to get them involved.
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 19, 2009 2:32:06 GMT
I was originally going to be the one to put it all together, but with more people getting involved, it may be easier of various people take care of the indivdual parts. All I need is a basic run down of chapters to get the timing for the music right, hence why I'm making a transcript for the chapters. But if someone was willing to take over that duty, feel free to do so.
We might, in the future, need to create a thread for the various jobs that may need to be taken.
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Post by xanbcoo on Apr 19, 2009 7:55:16 GMT
I was originally going to be the one to put it all together, but with more people getting involved, it may be easier of various people take care of the indivdual parts. All I need is a basic run down of chapters to get the timing for the music right, hence why I'm making a transcript for the chapters. But if someone was willing to take over that duty, feel free to do so. We might, in the future, need to create a thread for the various jobs that may need to be taken. Problem with that is the complications in transferring the files back and forth. We don't want to have to wait for each person taking care of each job to have to send a large file to the next person, assembly line style. Seems like it would be hard to synchronize. Perhaps if the different parts were uploaded to one location, and people taking care of various jobs could download it from there and reupload it once they've taken care of it? I really don't know. |
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 19, 2009 17:15:32 GMT
There's actually a place called Gameflood where people can upload and distribute files, but to be honest, I'm not sure how well it could help us, since we're not actually creating a game.
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Post by Casey on Apr 19, 2009 17:41:34 GMT
Yeah, I agree with that. It seems to me that the work flow is going to be to first produce one audio track that has all the dialog, and then that goes to Sand so he can make the music and SFX that time with the dialogue, and then it goes to whomever is going to sequence the visual frames with the combined audio track to make the final movie. So the sequence of events that I foresee happening is as follows: 1) Submit auditions for vocal parts for a chapter until audition close date 2) Open voting for those auditions for a week until parts have been chosen. 3) Coordinate the chosen talent for a week of rehearsals in Ventrilo and text chat, as schedules allow. At the end of rehearsals (when everyone's satisfied they know what they're doing) the talent goes and records their individual parts locally. 4) Talent sends their raw audio files to whomever is splicing them together into the dialogue track. (I have the capability to do this, unless someone else wants to.) Then that dialogue track gets sent to Sand. 5) Based on the timing of the vocal cues, Sand creates an audio and SFX track, and then sends that to whomever is doing the actual Movie Maker movie. (This could be Sand, or me, or someone else with time on their hands) 6) The two audio tracks (vocal and music/sfx) get put into Movie Maker and the frames/wipes/scrolls of the comic's pages get timed to the audio, creating the final product. Of course the next round of voting can start as early as the last one finished, the next round of vocal rehearsal can start as soon as the last round's tracks are recorded, etc, so we have a rolling production... we don't have to wait for the first two chapters to be completed before starting on the next two or whatever. Anyway, that's how I see it, with my way-too-organized brain!  |
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 19, 2009 18:02:18 GMT
I just realized that we may need more dialogyue than is actually supplied by the comic itself, to help the readers keep track of the action. I'm probably going to have to add the extra dialogue for the first few chapters into the transcripts.
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Post by Casey on Apr 19, 2009 23:11:48 GMT
Do you think so? I guess I'm not clear on this but are we creating an audiobook with no visuals, or are we creating a "follow-along track" for someone to listen to while reading the comic or looking at frames that we create into a movie?
Can you give me an example of what you're thinking of, where we would need to add vocal narration? I'm just trying to get a sense of what you've got in mind.
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 19, 2009 23:31:17 GMT
Here's how I see the prjects if done a certain way...
Audio only: Would probably be like one of those old radio shows and would need more dialogue. Especially for the parts where there isn't much action.
Movie with slides: Allows the viewers the appreciate Tom's art, but would take more time. Like one of those old Dr. Seuss stories where the visuals are taken from the books and are not animated.
Follow Along: With cues for advancing to the next page. Probably our best bet. The only problem I can see with this is that some people's browsers may load longer than the transitions between the pages.
Personally, I'm pulling for the Follow Along and betting that someone else will take the audio and turn it into a slide show in the end anyway.
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Post by Ulysses on Apr 19, 2009 23:52:33 GMT
I thought it was going to be a Movie where the audio is matched up to a panel from the comic. This would look best (close-ups of Tom's work etc.) but as you say, it would take much longer. The trouble with a Follow Along is that it relies on everyone's browsers being about the same speed, but it's certainly our next best option to a Still Movie.
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Post by Casey on Apr 20, 2009 2:32:53 GMT
I'm personally leaning towards a movie. I saw a number of different ways to move about the printed page in people's auditions, including frames, a gliding camera over the page, and full page shots. Any combination of these I think would be great.
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Post by Aricos on Apr 20, 2009 2:44:58 GMT
Regardless of the format, if we have time and energy, we might want to give sound effects a try? (Think of things like footsteps, sword wooshy noises, BAPs etc.)
I think it would add to the overall picture and it might also give visually impaired people a chance to discover GKC without it getting confusing.
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Post by sandjosieph on Apr 20, 2009 2:49:05 GMT
I'm actually listing some of the sound effects in the transcripts of the chapters. I've also included the various "Oohs" and "Aahs" that don't actually appear in the comic but would add to the panels that don't have either dialogue or written sound effects.
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Post by nikita on Apr 20, 2009 16:18:52 GMT
Maybe we could make a list of the sound effects in a separate thread were people can also link the recorded effects so that whoever compiles the final recording has them all in one place.
A separate thread because the one for music and sfx is already more or less music-only and music and sound effects are quite different things.
edit: I'll make a list
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