After the Purple Moon Episode 1 up

[Yoko Strawberry]

Here is the trailer for radioplay! Hope you enjoy and I would really love critiques so I can get better since this is my first project!

Trailer

Cast (In order of appearance):

Tomoyo Ichijouji
Tanja Milojevic (LightningBolt)
Micheal Nash (AdamCrow)
Andieluca
The Hallstar

I'm not going to do what characters everyone plays right now since I want it to be a surprise~! ^_^

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Well, here is the first episode! Enjoy!

Episode 1

Cast (In order of Appearance):

Narrator: Tomoyo Ichiouji
Raquel: Tanja Milojevic (LightningBolt)
Newsperson: .Gavin
Susan: Hari (Hari26)
Gale: Micheal Nash (AdamCrow)
Dietrich: TheHallstar
Nurse 1: Chris Cree (Psi Phi)
Nurse 2: Amy Levandoski (Alevan)
Personal 1: .Gavin
Personal 2: Hari (Hari26)
Becky: Andieluca
Computer: Robert Thomas Hawke

SFX from VAA Library and Sounddogs.com

Music from Freeplaymusic.com

[Tomoyo Ichijouji]

Let's see...the things I liked, I liked your choice of music especially and the SFX seemed appropriate too. From what I know of the characters, you picked fitting VAs for them.

Mixing-wise, the first three words were maxed out for some reason; a few seconds later it's fine, so I have to presume it was a maladjustment at the beginning with the vocal track, so watch out for that. At some points later on in the trailer, like with Andieluca's second line, the music overpowers the speech, so be careful of that, too. The sobbing bit I think should end on some bit of dialogue rather than fading out on quiet sobbing, to keep up the intensity. Also, the music goes on for too long after the last bit of speech; it should really only go on afterward for a few seconds at most.

Also, there is one male voice that has a very crackly microphone that I'm not sure if it's because of a purposeful audio effect to sound like it's over an intercom or if it's bad microphone quality. If the latter, do watch out for that because it's going to be very distracting in the actual radioplay if the quality will be similar there.

I know you want to keep the characters a surprise so I'll refer to them by description instead:

Lower female voice speaking first (me) -- I normally don't remark that much on my own performances XD;; Except there's nothing I can think of off the top of my head that I want to fix here? It seems like it's mixed well with everything, so props to the mixer.

Girl with slight British accent (LightningBolt) -- The microphone, to a lesser extent, has the 'through an intercom' fuzziness to it, so a better quality mike would improve it. The "no way" did not sound convincing unfortunately, though the bit after that sounded alright.

Her next line in the trailer was pretty well acted, very distinctive voice and accent that I liked in particular, though I think it should have been said slightly faster to sound more authentic.

The scream should have been longer and louder in the context of the trailer. Convincing sobbing, though!

Medium smooth male voice (AdamCrow) -- Good voice and expression, and clear microphone; no issues that I can hear.

Tough-sounding girl (Andieluca) -- Good voice and expression again, and clear microphone, except for the way you said "forever" -- the emphasis on "for" sounded a bit strange to me, I think it would have been better if there was either even emphasis or more on "ever".

The second line was mostly well-acted, though it's drowned out by the music and hard to hear; again, it's the last word that kind of dropped in intensity for me, where "you are very wrong" was said too fast/with odd emphases that makes it sound less natural.

Coughing sickly male voice (The Hallstar) -- Again, I'm really not sure if this was intentional, but the noise shouldn't have been overlapping Andieluca's lines as early as it did. It really does sound like it's over an intercom of some sort; I'm kind of hoping that was the intent. The voice, accent and expression are quite good, on the other hand, so if only the crackling and mike quality could be fixed, that would solve a lot of problems.

The trailer as a whole in concept works well in making you curious about what's going on, with mainly technical and arrangement issues that I listed. This has potential to be a great piece with some touch-up and tinkering. I'm looking forward to working on and hearing the actual radioplay!

[LightningBolt]

This was an excelent trailor! I would just recommend to try to balance the volumes out a bit more. Maybe try making the music a bit lower, and the gasp in the trailor is a little too loud. Besides those minor recommendations, I really think you've done an excelent job mixing!

[Yoko Strawberry]

Episode 1 is now up~! ^_^

[Tomoyo Ichijouji]

Er, I'm trying to be more bold in handing out my critiques and starting with the productions I'm in, so in my aim to be honest and helpful here's my really long critique. XD;;

So, from the beginning:

I think I heard some clipping in the Narrator's intro and that may have been because of the music you added (you're mixing this in Audacity, right? I'll speak from that context because that's what I use too). It's easily fixed actually, just adjust the little decibel sliders on the left side until you get a combination that has the voices nicely audible but without the sound levels peaking. (You can tell by playing it back in Audacity and watching the sound levels, if they reach the red marker at the end).

One thing for the intro music -- it's way too long for a radioplay. It can be more than a minute for anime and visual productions because there's a visual component to focus on as well as the music, but radioplays don't have such a component -- it's best (well in my opinion anyway) if it's around 15-30 sec, that's around how long my attention span would hold for plain music playing XD;; As it is I skipped it over until I found the play itself. Also, I didn't really feel like the music matched the play itself that much but maybe the lyrics do, I couldn't hear it that well, and any that's my opinion XP

For the scene at Raquel's house, that was pretty good. You had the guy on the TV screen sound like it was coming from the TV, though I think the volume on it should have been lower, and/or perhaps make it come from the more extreme L/R to make it seem like it's in the distance, since Raquel wouldn't be sitting right next to the TV from how it sounds. But I'm a bit confused -- it sounds like she hung up a telephone when she turned it off, I think a different SFX should have been used there. The telephone scene with Susan though was good; it sounded like it should have and everyone's lines were at natural levels. Also, good job with the FX on the lines that were Raquel's thoughts, I knew what it was immediately upon hearing it without remembering the script. =P

As for after the doorbell rings -- the footsteps suddenly sound different, she had heavy boots earlier but these sound like lighter shoes. And the SFX for when she starts feeling faint and presuming that she goes unconscious is pretty vague as to what's happening; did she fall onto a stretch of cloth? Were the guys at the front door holding it? It's pretty confusing. The spaceship SFX may have gone on a bit too long as well, maybe put the engine zoom part closer to the takeoff.

Now for when she wakes up...it sounds generally fine, but one of the nurses sounds like some kind of AI or robot, or is that the mic thing again? x_x;; That's why mic quality is important at least so it's not easy to make that mistake. And the "blink blink" SFX I think I heard sounds...too far away from Raquel's voice, maybe not in the foreground enough? It doesn't sound connected to Raquel even though I think it's supposed to. And I think Gale's voice should have sounded closer when talking with Raquel.

It's better than the trailer, I think. Just a few things that could be adjusted in the future.