Unreal Estate: The Radio Play: Episode 1, Scene 1

[LoopyChew]

Hope you don't mind; bump for C&C request. ^^;

[Edwyn]

Nicely done. :) I liked the weird sound quality shifts in the first couple of minutes indicating the "Blue Sky of Death" state of Grunwald at the beginning, a nice way to set the scene. Mucho kudos to Crimson Firefly for having such an extremely heavy load of lines and coming through in spades: reading along with the UE text, my eyes crossed at just how much she went through. Like, yikes. Kudos all around to the actors too, though I thought the extras (council members) seem a trifle half-baked.... But their appearance were brief enough to be quickly discounted. Overall, this is a very solid mix.

Problems arise in pacing however. I've noticed you made some attempt to abridge the original text (so the narrator doesn't have to mention every single gesture that a character goes through) but it still doesn't change the fact that this was almost 15 minutes of just set up. 15 minutes is a long time in audio terms. Most radioplay episodes don't last for more than 10 minutes, much less 15. And this is the first SCENE of the first episode, which makes things doubly difficult. While I realise that it's probably sacrilegious to even think of abridging the text even further, this is an ADAPTATION of the work - so some leeway needs to be given to make UE interesting in audio format as opposed to its original text format. You might want to think of cutting out some of the narrator's lines for future episodes, since the majority of this episode I heard was Crimson Firefly talking. Which isn't bad per se, but it becomes a problem when the narrator becomes more of a character than the main characters themselves. Not to mention at times it sounded like more of an extended monologue than narration to the main events.

But anyhow. I quite liked this scene, just that niggling issue on pacing.

[LoopyChew]

Mucho kudos to Crimson Firefly for having such an extremely heavy load of lines and coming through in spades: reading along with the UE text, my eyes crossed at just how much she went through. Like, yikes.

I know! Crims deserves extra recognition for the insane amount of narration she had to do.


Kudos all around to the actors too, though I thought the extras (council members) seem a trifle half-baked.... But their appearance were brief enough to be quickly discounted.

Well, I can't speak for Lafing Cat... <_< >_>


Problems arise in pacing however...

This was something Myth and I had spoken to 2f at great lengths about (way, way back when we set out to do this in the first place)--the problem is that a lot of his writing style/humor in general is in the narration, so there's no real good way of dropping it short of rewriting it completely (not something any of us were really keen on). On the other hand, I don't want Crims to lose her voice either. <_<

Poking through the future adaptations of scenes, there shouldn't be nearly as many superlong narrator interludes, though they'll be there. It's just that the earlier scenes tend to focus more on narration and events, while later parts are dialogue-driven.

Thanks for the feedback!

Lawrence

[Crimson]

I kinda got tired of my voice while listening to this >.>;;; While recording I *tried* to keep my tones fresh and interesting, but in the end I'll agree with Edwyn on the fact that there is simply too much narration.

One major comment I will have to give is volume levels... some things seem too loud, others seem too quiet at times. For example the squeak of the windmill door hurt my ears, but in other parts the bgm almost drowned out the narration and I was straining to hear.
Your use of filters and echo is very good, but be careful that you don't overdo it. Mallory's line "better this cheap trick than to worry him about how I really fix the engine each time it crashes" is really difficult to hear because the line is delivered pretty fast and the echo blurrs it all together.

I have to say, the SFX you used for the "a house fell on him" part was priceless XD.

As for the cast:

Lawrence: Towards the beginning of the radio play you seem to rush through your lines a bit much, however by the time you got to Mallory's exchange with Meiko you improved your pacing, and it really payed off by showing off exactly what that scene was meant to sound like. And I couldn't really hear your council member's line... it was mixed in too quietly on one hand, and a bit too forced on the other.

Hisoka: Sometiems your voice sounds a little phony, but usually it's pretty good.

Mizura: I'm quite impressed with your Meiko! I wasn't sure how this radio play would do without Myth as Meiko, but my worries have been put to ease. Very business savvy and cool and in control. Good work.

Lafing Cat: My, my... what a unique voice XD.

As for me... I think I have a very atypical narrator voice, which doesn't quite fit with the lines I'm supposed to deliver. I can't help but think a male voice might give a stronger impression of what the RP is all about, especially since a lot of the narration echoes Mallory's feelings and thoughts. I also really can't tell if my delivery is very good as far as the humour goes. Aside from the fact that I read the script, I've also read all those lines MANY MANY times before... so anyone, tell me what you think works and what doesn't. :D


Mucho kudos to Crimson Firefly for having such an extremely heavy load of lines and coming through in spades: reading along with the UE text, my eyes crossed at just how much she went through. Like, yikes.


I know! Crims deserves extra recognition for the insane amount of narration she had to do.

Eheheh... thanks guys ^^. I remember struggling with spitting all those lines out the first time I recorded them, back with the original cast and all. Really, though... it's amazing practice for any kind of role 'cause it stresses that I pronounce everything clearly and get through lines no matter how long they are. It's gotten a lot easier since then too, so no worries! As long as I keep filling up my glass of water, then I'm all good to go ^^.

[Edwyn]

Just throwing out a random suggestion, but why not have two narrators to mix it up a bit? Not to steal Crimson's thunder or anything, but it'll halve her workload and given a greater audio texture to listen to.

[LoopyChew]

Just throwing out a random suggestion, but why not have two narrators to mix it up a bit? Not to steal Crimson's thunder or anything, but it'll halve her workload and given a greater audio texture to listen to.

I'm working on trimming the narrator's lines. Even before the HD crashes that caused the initial RP delay, the later episodes were better-adapted to radio play format, and didn't depend so heavily on the narrator. I'm still working things out. Needless to say, as the characters are introduced and better-fleshed-out, there should be more dialogue and less monologue.

It'll still be faithful plotwise and characterwise, but 2f's writing style requires intense amounts of effort to adapt successfully, but it can be done. The narrator will still be around, but there shouldn't be so many monologues, so her workload will halve anyway.

(Plus, the two-narrators concept would be kind of confusing, I think, without either 1. rampant fourth-wall breaking, or 2. a constant dual perspective--e.g. he said/she said. Interesting concept, though--on the off-chance I ever do another radio play, I'll have to keep that idea in mind.)

Thanks for the post!

Lawrence