Um...so, just out of curiosity, at what point is the whole audiobook thing? I'm just kind of sitting around waiting for people to need me ...
What do you need? ... Where is everyone? How is the recording going? What's the holdup?
We have voice actors for nearly all of the early parts. They're passionate. From the lines I've heard, they're talented--the first chapter of The Message is especially good. Audio quality needs improvement, and I don't think it can be entirely fixed in post-prod, but we don't need terribly expensive equipment either.
Still, the question remains: what's the holdup?
Simple. There's no one minding the big picture questions: How is the recording going? Does this sound right? Where are we? and, most important, What do the VAs need to be doing now?
In theater, there are two jobs that look at the big picture: the director and the producer. The director is responsible for the overall artistic picture. He focuses on the end product and sees how each individual performance fits with others in the whole. If disagreements arise, when a decision must be made, he has the last word. The producer's job is to make sure that everyone else has what they need to do their job. He coordinates everyone and keeps them on schedule.
Morf is acting as director, even if he hasn't officially claimed the title.
We need a producer. So, I would like to submit my production plan for discussion among everyone working on the project.
Now I'd like to invite you to catch a thermal and join me on a bird's-eye-tour of the big picture as I see it. In this first post, I'll give the broad outline. A lot of what the producer does is telling people how to do their job, and so it's only fair that I ask your comments on the plan.
The most important thing to do to keep the project moving is to keep the actors busy. VAs are the busiest workers on this project (especially the narrators). So, we can speed up the project in two ways: decrease the number of tasks the VAs need to do, and decrease the time VAs spend waiting for something to do.
So, the first thing we do is infrastructure: the forum is great for discussion, publicity, and recruiting. For tracking production, a wiki (I assume everyone is familiar with wikis. If not, here's
Wikipedia and
tvtropes. See you in a
few days. Sorry for
ruining your life.) is a better choice, especially one on which we can host media files. Once the wiki is running, the VAs job looks like this:
"Hey, I've got some time to record"
Sign in.
Download script.
Read.
Upload file.
Mark as uploaded.
Take a break.
or
Download directors comments.
Rerecord, if another take needed.
Upload.
Before I forget: very important point: narration and dialog are handled separately. Lines may be recorded out of order. The timers and managers (see below) will make sure that everything ends up in its proper place.
Everything that isn't acting is handled by other people. The less the actors have to do the better. So, we create a couple of other jobs:
Redactors edit the text into the form which the actors and timers use. I'll have more to say on exactly how this works later, but if you take a look at the attached chapters from MM1, you'll get a good idea.
Scheduling managers (we'll need 1, I'd like 2 or 3, I can use up to 4) maintain the wiki, take care of scheduling, make sure that everyone has something to do, and
only if needed take lazy VAs to task.
Timers combine lines into finished work. This job requires the best audio production software, plus an ear for dramatic timing. Much more to follow in post later.
Proof-listeners listen to the finish work and make sure that it conforms to the received text.
The Accent Coach trains actors in their characters' accents.
Finally Distributors provide bandwidth for distributing the finished audiobooks. We'll use bittorrent.
I'd like to recruit redactors who double as prooflisteners. Redactors are busy at the beginning of the production cycle, prooflisteners at the end, so it makes sense for one person to handle both jobs. We can hold off recruiting distributors until we have something to distribute (and it's an easy job, you basically install some software and leave your computer online). The only one I'm worried about is the timers. The job requires digital audio workstation (DAW) software, and in my experience the only one that's both good and free is Ardour--Linux-native software that kinda-maybe runs on OS X, and doesn't at all on Windows. Audacity doesn't cut it for post-production: Ardour makes it look like Paint compared to Photoshop.
Next post, I'll talk about the wiki and file hosting. Over the next two weeks, or so, I hope to examine each of the parts of this plan in turn. In your comments, think about the big picture. Are there other tasks to be taken care of? Do some of these seem superfluous? Thanks for your time.
Now let's get this show on the road!
Peace, Weathel.
