We Have Reached the End of Cake.

[tealin]

Night Watch, Part 5

That's all, nothing more to see here, folks, get along home...

Unless you're a radio play director (or Jim Dale), in which case ...
When you go to Radio Director Academy, do they train you out of remembering how people talk? I'm talking specifically about repetition. If someone says, annoyed, 'he wants a small brandy,' it is understandable to emphasize the word 'brandy' because that is the focus of the sentence. But if this person says, a few minutes later, 'Now he wants a large brandy,' the focus is no longer on 'brandy' but on what makes it different from the previous sentence, i.e. 'large.' Does anyone -- ANYONE -- actually say he wants a small brandy/now he wants a large BRANDY? No! That doesn't make any sense! They say he wants a small brandy/now he wants a LARGE brandy!'

Also, just because a character repeats a phrase doesn't mean it has to be said differently the second time. Sometimes people repeat themselves just to drive the point home; they might repeat it a little louder but I'm willing to bet that more than half the time they do not change the inflection pattern or interpretation of the sentence for the sake of variety.

Finally, and this is a personal thing, why not use your fancy dancy sound mixing board to do things to the vocal track when you need to? Like, say, make Young Vetinari sound young, or make Detritus sound like a troll ... or make Death sound slightly more like a supernatural anthropomorphic personification and less like an old man? Man, I would love to have access to a filter that changes tone colour; none of the freeware sound editing programs I've used have that. You've got it and don't use it! Gnarr!

In short, everybody be a little bit more like Dirk Maggs, please.

I wonder how directly descended from Carcer Moist is. Charming criminal who can smile his way out of anything? You just have to make him not a murdering psychopath and you're on your way to a great character. Hmmm...

Comments

Sheesh

[noodledaddy.livejournal.com]

There's nothing to see because it is A RADIO PLAY!

And a darned good one at that.

Re: Sheesh

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I need to send you some Dirk Gently ... that is a darned good radio play.

Or ... radio movie, more like.

Dangit, MAKE SOME MORE ALREADY!

[brendanm720.livejournal.com]

[points to icon]

Thanks for the link.

[shadowmaat.livejournal.com]

Just found this description of the Night Watch radio play. Good thing I wasn't drinking anything when I read it. LOL!

"My name is Sam Vimes. I had an accident, and I woke up in the Year of the Astounded Beetle. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home."

Or maybe it's just the cold meds making it seem so hilarious...

[flamingbentley.livejournal.com]

life on mars references for the srs win!

thank you for sharing. :D

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Ahh, that would be why I didn't get it. I do remember hearing about Life on Mars when it started and wondering whether the creators were Discworld fans...

[flamingbentley.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure -- i didn't catch any c/overt discworld references (apart from, er, sam and sam, but personality-wise they're not extremely similar), but it's not a far stretch.

[plottwist13.livejournal.com]

Are you upset about the magic tinkly tinkly noises? I hope not, I've grown attached, personally. LOL no the young Vetinari thing is pretty awful though. And some of the voice acting is pretty dismal too. I mean, I've never even listened to a radio play before and I'm wondering why they did, you know, one thing instead of the other, why was this decision made to deliver the line like that, why they apparently picked the world's oldest man to play a 17 year-old kid, etc hahaha. But maybe I am too picky.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Did I mention magic tinkly noises? They're practically a radio play cliché, I can't begrudge them their canned an mushy sound effects even though I don't think it would have been that hard to come up with something more dramatic. My beef is more with the really obvious misinterpretation of lines.

The Old Young Vetinari will, I think, remain one of the Great Unsolved Mysteries of Radio. He wasn't even a particularly good Old Vetinari.

But they managed to dredge up a good Vimes, against all expectation and experience. 10 points to whatever-it-is productions.

[trutitipudlian.livejournal.com]

Hey there, have you read the latest Discworld monthly? According to them Sky One, "has already commissioned a third Pratchett drama, Going Postal, which will air next year.'

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaurgh, my head hurts.

[trutitipudlian.livejournal.com]

In a good way or a bad way? I was hoping for animation myself thanks to you.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Well, I have come to the conclusion that the Going Postal animated movie will never get made, at least not nicely, or at Dreamworks which would be bad in a whole different set of ways. I was hoping for a bit of a higher-profile production, which would have less-than-obvious CGI and maybe a director with an actual sense of timing and character. So yes, my head hurts in a good way. A very good way. Ow, the pain, I'm so happy! [/Marcus Brigstocke]

Do I even have TIME for a Going Postal Project?

[fani.livejournal.com]

I was kind of pissed when I heard that. I was going to pitch it to my studio and get them to get the rights for a series for it.

Boo!

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

No. Bad. Five years in TV has taught me never to do anything I care about in that medium unless it's specifically created for TV, no matter the intentions of the people making it. Especially when you're supplicants to the tyrant Teletoon.

Bad. TV bad. Gneurh.

[beckychan.livejournal.com]

I've really got to actually listen to those. >_> I don't tend to get on the comp much once I get home from work, though, and I can't listen at work.

Have you ever tried CoolEdit? It's my audio mess-wither of choice.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I think I used CoolEdit a few years ago ... that was what we had at school. Maybe they've updated their list of filters but 'tone colour' seems a really hard one to come by, it wasn't even in the free trial versions of non-free sound editors I tried. The closest I got was the 'wah-wah' pedal effect which is sort of the same idea but you can't apply it uniformly by definition. You have spoiled me, Texas Instruments!