[SSP] Endless Blue Episode Four COMPLETE [10/31/11]

[rebelcheese]

I wanted to do something very different from what I normally do, and do something not normally seen on the VAA: comic book drama. This is highly experimental, and made primarily for everyone's enjoyment (as well as my own).

I hope you enjoy this experimental work. If people want me to make more, I'll make more.
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Seven years ago, the Arctic ice cap was blown out of existence, causing worldwide flooding and calamity. In the panic following, nuclear war ensued, with the destruction of the human race prevented by a few brave men and women who sacrificed their lives in the process.

Now, only two billion people remain alive on Earth. The man blamed for this disaster? Robert Bruce Banner.

Guilty in absentia for the murder of more than four billion people, he is wanted, dead or alive. Preferably dead.

Too bad, then, that Robert Bruce Banner is also The Incredible Hulk.
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EPISODE 4 STREAM/DOWNLOAD

Length: 19:06

Episode Four Summary: Bruce Banner's travels bring him to Las Vegas to meet up with an old friend. However SHIELD is hot on his tail and they send their best operative, the new Black Widow, Monica Chang, to bring him down.

Bruce Banner: Motlyfool
Monica Chang: Beckie
Betty Ross: MissAck
Tony Stark: Ryomasa
Pepper Potts: Jordan
Carol Danvers: Tomoyo Ichijouji
Sharon Carter: Lightofhope18
Emil Blonsky/Abomination: mrwest16
Extras: rebel_cheese

Guest Mixer: dragonknighttara

Guest theme: "Coming Down" by Five Finger Death Punch (this was supposed to be Theme Song 2 starting in episode 7 but I guess since this is the last one might as well use it). Support the artist as always.




EPISODE 3 STREAM/DOWNLOAD

Episode Three Summary: A mysterious wanderer searches for her purpose. Meanwhile, Jennifer Walters discovers she, her children, and Rick Jones have been taken captive by the infamous merc with a mouth, Deadpool. Enough said.

Jennifer Walters: dragonknighttara
River & Willow Walters: Shudo-Ranmaru
Rick Jones: Akumaryu
Rebecca "Rikki" Barnes aka Nomad: Merodi
Deadpool: TriPredRavage
Biker Dude: rebelcheese using a bad Beavis impression

Guest BGM: "Aku no 3 Heiki" by Toshihiko Sahashi, Gundam SEED OST 3.

Song played on motorcycle stereo: "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath.

Song played inside rest area: "Bad Day" by Fuel.

All songs copyrighted to their respective owners and record labels. Support the artists as always.

Concric, as always, is appreciated.


EPISODE 2 STREAM/DOWNLOAD

ALTERNATE STREAM/DOWNLOAD

Length: 19:30

Episode Two Summary: In the aftermath of their chance meeting, Bruce Banner finds himself ambushed by an old foe swearing vengeance. Jennifer, River, Willow, and Rick must escape the chaos before they're pulled into a battle they cannot survive. Meanwhile, Natasha Romanova's replacement as the Black Widow, Monica Chang, discovers, the hard way, that being SHIELD's most elite operative comes with a greater share of danger than she imagined . . .

Bruce Banner: motlyfool
Abomination: mrwest16
Monica Chang: Beckie
Jennifer Walters (& her teenage version): dragonknighttara
River & Willow Walters: Shudo-Ranmaru
Rick Jones: Akumaryu
Nick Fury: McTricky
Elizabeth Ross: MissAck

Song played on car stereo: "Side of a Bullet" by Nickelback. I apologize to all Nickelback fans for the song being used in a mocking manner. If you actually LIKE the song or band (I won't hold it against you I swear! XD) please support the artist by either purchasing the "All The Right Reasons" album or by purchasing the song from a legitimate .mp3 outlet.

Concric is again appreciated, I can hear a difference in mixing quality from episode one. However, I have no idea if it's a good difference or a bad difference, so . . . XD


EPISODE ONE STREAM/DOWNLOAD

Length: 24:00

Episode One Summary: Amnesiac Jennifer Walters comes to L.A. in search of her past, along with her two young children River and Willow. Powerless and with little memory of all but the last seven years, Jennifer is determined to find her past so she can move on to the future. Meanwhile, a suspicious SHIELD sends their new Black Widow to watch her closely to see if she is just like her infamous, Public Enemy No. 1 cousin . . .

Little do they all know, though, that the one person who has all of the answers is right under their noses.

NOTE: The first scene is a "flash forward" scene taking place near the end of the overall story. Think of it as a hint of what's coming.

Cast:

Robert Bruce Banner aka The Hulk: MotlyFool
Jennifer Walters/Young Jennifer and a certain alter ego: dragonknighttara
River & Willow Walters: Shudo-Ranmaru
Rick Jones: Akumaryu
Nick Fury: McTricky
Elizabeth Ross: MissAck
Monica Chang aka "The Black Widow" & Soldier: Simbaga
Elaine Walters: sschopfer
Sergeant and The Soldier Stupid Enough To Hit Bruce: rebelcheese (and yes, I suck, I apologize for that)
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Applies to all episodes:

SFX: The Freesound Project, Soundsnap, and the VAA SFX Library (primarily Sapphire's, Sukisho's and General Ivan's SFXs).

Theme song: "Only Rain" by Bad Religion, copyrighted to Epitaph. Support this artist by buying the song off iTunes, amazon.com, or, even better, by purchasing the album "The Dissent of Man" in any format you desire.

BGM Main Themes: Casshern SINS OST. Supplemental BGM: Gilgamesh OST. Both composed by Kaoru Wada. Importing these OSTs legally is highly recommended, they're both stellar.

Concric is massively appreciated so I can keep improving. Unfortunately, I think my better mixing comes later in the first episode and not in the "first impression" moments . . . but that's my opinion. I'll keep improving, I promise.

[Akumaryu]

Not bad. Not bad at all. Critique time!

Jennifer Walters & Young Jennifer/dragonknighttara: Your voice is lovely to listen to. Especially the more narrative parts. Really kept me invested in the story. And the more action-y parts were awesome too! I think you brought a very nice feel to this character. Your emotional work was very natural throughout, and I really have nothing to critique. Some of the angrier moments were extremely intense and very well-acted. Such a pleasure. For Young Jennifer, it wasn't a large part, but it was very child-like. The giggle really put me into the scene. Nicely done.

Robert Bruce Banner & The Hulk/MotlyFool: As Bruce, it was really cool hearing you in this role. He's very different from what I'm used to hearing you play. The calmness with which you delivered your lines was very in-tune with the character, and absolutely believable considering his situation. It was natural and smooth, no complaints at all. The Hulk was another role I'm not used to hearing you play. Again, really believed it. Ragey screaming and smashing abound, but it sounded really cool. Great work!

River & Willow Walters/Shudo-Ranmaru: KIDS! I actually really enjoyed your twins. They sound like kids, and they've got the perfect attitudes. You also didn't miss the comedic aspects of the scenes either, which was really fun to listen to. Made me laugh, which is always good. Nothing really to critique on.

Sergeant & The Soldier Stupid Enough To Hit Bruce/rebelcheese: Well... I'm assuming you dieded. Sounded a little put on, but it wasn't too bad. Maybe pay more attention to your diction when you're speaking so that your lines are more understandable.

Elizabeth Ross/MissAck: What is it with you and being awesome subordinates? I don't know anything about this character, so I'm hoping to learn more about her in future installments. You sounded peeved, and the interaction with Fury was solid. A few of the snide remarks seemed a TEENSY bit under-acted, but not enough to pull away from the scene, so not a big issue. Mic quality was a bit of a jump from the other roles, but there's nothing that can really be done about that. No other complaints here. Nicely done.

Nick Fury/McTricky: In my opinion, you sounded a bit young for Nick Fury. It's a tough thing to sound like an old guy when you're not. You did have some older qualities to the voice, but the deliveries were a little bit youngish. I don't really know how to explain it, but it does sound a bit young. Other than that and mic quality, really had no issues with your acting. I just had a hard time seeing it as Nick Fury. Maybe I'll get used to it. Hope to hear more from you in future episodes.

Rick Jones/Akumaryu: Well, knew it was you the moment you opened your mouth. But it was a unique character, and you didn't sound quite as white collar as you usually do. Nice adjustment to your speech to make him sound more street-wise. It was also nice to hear you outside of a teen role. This is a good age range for you, and it didn't sound put on to me. I really can't complain here, and trust me, I'm trying.

Elaine/sschopfer: I don't think I've ever heard you before. You sounded VERY motherly, though. It was nice.

Monica Chang aka "The Black Widow" & Soldier/Simbaga: Australian Super Soldier! Soldier line was cool. Black Widow was EXCELLENT. Wish it was better quality (and wasn't panned to the left for no apparent reason), but the acting was on it. I really enjoyed your take. Can't wait to hear more of you later. You sound so slimy. XD

Mixing & Scripting/rebelcheese: The different mic qualities and recording spaces became a bit apparent as the episode went on, mostly because of the different recording volumes. You might want to spend a little more time checking to make sure that the characters in the same scene have equal volume when you're mixing so that certain people's lines aren't tremendously louder than others. Some of the sound effects were a little low-quality as well, though almost everything was well-placed. After the opening song, when I assume soldiers are running, the steps sounded really regular and repetitive. Maybe try spacing them out at different intervals so it actually sounds like different people running at the same time, instead of a horse or something. Scripting-wise, this was well-done as well. Some of the lines sounded a little odd, but overall, it was very believable and easy to follow along with. Nice project indeed.

4.95/5.0 This project has received an Akumaryu Seal of Approval®!

[MissAck]

Cheese! This is really awesome.
I'd love to hear more.

Some of the levels were a bit off but the story was good enough to grab my attention away from it.

Great job! ^.^

[rebelcheese]

@Akumaryu: Thank you very much for your thorough critique! Yeah, I'll definitely check my levels next time, I had thought I had done a thorough job of evening everything out but now that I listen to it again I realize that I hadn't done as good of a job as I had thought. I will definitely make sure levels work next time.

Ah, footsteps. My biggest weakness even with loops. I will definitely try to space it out more, or, better yet, try to find a clip with multiple people running at once. That way it'll sound more natural.

Thanks again. I hope to do more.

@MissAck:

Thanks for listening and reviewing! Yeah, I definitely think I messed up on the levels but I'll rectify that next time. The more I mix the better I get at it. Practice makes perfect, right?

I think there will be an episode 2 at least. I hope I can send something soon. ^^

[Merodi]

...I remember listening to this audio comic drama (?) a while back, but never getting the chance to review it until now. My apologies for that, and hopefully it'll still prove useful despite my lateness.

While I enjoy comics, I can't say I'm completely familiar with the plethora of story variations and timelines out there. So listening to this the first time I was a little confused as to why certain things were happening, mostly backstory related. A narration of the text that's presented in the thread, introducting the situation/setup, might be helpful here and wouldn't take away from the rest of the story. That being said, the following review is done in real-time.


-Whoa, Shudo-Ranmaru did both Willow AND River? I was sure they were two different people. Kudos on that, Shudo! You voice children very well - they sound believable and are easy to listen to.

-Jennifer Walters sounds very good, but some acting feels "split up" in places. Noticeable especially in the beginning, sounding out of breath while running but then speaking normally when stopped, reacting to Willow's mention of a fight a little too calmly. Also, the transition of Jennifer Walters into her..."alter ego" was a little underplayed, including the voice transition. Wanted to hear more build-up; kinda sounded instantanious. Portions of Jennifer's speech during that time I can't make out, I think due to overlapping SFX/BGM.

-LOVE THE INTRO SONG! Definitely going to check it out after this.

-One thing to consider working on is the transition between scenes; they seemed a mite quick in this episode. Police scene was a little underplayed. Cops felt distant (maybe improve mixed timing to fix), and perhaps add some more ambiance for the scene, along with a fade-in of overlapping tv/comp sound effects to show that a video recording is being watched, or perhaps a filter to sound like a vid watched on a monitor. Otherwise it sounds like the cop scene and the control room scene take place in the same location.

-Elizabeth Ross/MissAck sounded a little casual with the "so I was in love with him" line, although maybe this is something that's come up a lot in her character's history, I don't know. Still, nice performance and good chemistry with Nick Fury/McTricky.

-Maybe an extra second or two between scenes; first time throught I got confused as to why Rick Jones was in the control room. The introduction of Jennifer's kids to Rick struck me as odd the first time through, felt like an excuse to state the kids' names. And confused about Rick's life being classified, yet being an odd jobs' guy. Line about the gun was awkward too.

-Jennifer has great audibles for the action taking place, something that gets overlooked quite often. Kudos on both the VA work and the production/mixing for that.

-Find something to indicate a transition to flashback. It can be a SFX woosh, or a music swell, or putting the scene through an echo filter. This was another transition that got confusing because I wasn't aware a change was occuring until it already took place. Jennifer's thoughts might benefit from some kind of reverb as well; when she mused over whether her children could have powers, I was wondering why Rick didn't respond.

-Dragonknighttara is incredibly talented at making all of her voices sound related, but very distinct and telling of their ages/physicalities. And her acting carried across all of them. Very good job.

-Sschopfer made me smile - she is a perfect fit for the role, and it made me smile to hear that kind, motherly voice she has.

-Work on balancing the BGM - I love the choices you've made, but sometimes the track(s) get too loud for the scenes. SFX are in good balance though, and nice choices made. with the exception of one or two walking tracks, the SFX blend in smoothly with the mix and sound naturally-occuring. Great job!

-MotlyFool does a great job of playing both Bruce Banner and the Hulk. Like dragonknighttara, both voices sound distinct yet natural, which is especially impressive for the Hulk. I've seen/heard portrayals of the character as being slow, or monsterous; Motlyfool gives that deep monster voice while still keeping a human quality about the Hulk, which is just awesome.

-Why would suggesting Jennifer could turn into a monster be a test to see if she'd turn into one? Doesn't seem so clever on Bruce Banner's part. Also, how does River know that the cash amounts to $200 so quickly, and why is he disappointed? The significance of the amount of cash should be made clearer if there is one.

-Simbaga sounds great as the Black Widow; love the deep sultry voice. There was some amplified room ambience on her lines near the end which was a little distracting, but otherwise great.


Overall, I enjoyed this episode. You have a great cast of talented actors, and your mixing has definitely improved since Twilight of the Twins (thought it'll always be my favorite, I'm biased). Were you planning on continuing this? Here's hoping...I'm definitely curious to hear more of the story! Great job to all!

[rebelcheese]

In case you're wondering what happened to my Merodi reply, it involved some mild spoilers so I kept it private.

Anyway, I have posted a preview of episode 2. It's coming at long last. The cast upheavals and then me working two jobs at once really killed the mixing time, but it's almost finished. Almost . . .

[TriPredRavage]

I thought the preview sounded good! Motly and West sound great against each other.

Ooooooone thing, though. You forgot to credit McTricky in the preview for his "Yes, Monica?" XD

[rebelcheese]

I thought the preview sounded good! Motly and West sound great against each other.

Ooooooone thing, though. You forgot to credit McTricky in the preview for his "Yes, Monica?" XD

. . . Aw, crud.

I always forget the people who only do one or two lines. ^^; Though McTricky has more than that in the full episode, but . . . you know what I mean.

Fix'd.

Thank you for your feedback. ^^

[Mrwest16]

Currently listening to the preview. I'll critique later.

Hate to be picky but could you change the 14 to a 16? I know, I know, I'm extremely anal about that. Sorry. lol

[rebelcheese]

Currently listening to the preview. I'll critique later.

Hate to be picky but could you change the 14 to a 16? I know, I know, I'm extremely anal about that. Sorry. lol

I've fixed the credit for the episode proper. Thank you for the reminder, I keep messing that up in my head. ^^;

Episode 2 is up at long last! I've done a couple of subtle tweaks to the first scene as well.