It’s Halloween, and we have a very special podcast for you. We check out perennial season favorite Shaun of the Dead, Sean offers his thoughts on Tekken 6, and we relate our early ODST experiences.
“I found a flute!”
Call me voyeuristic, but I enjoy the background noises and all…feels like I’m actually travelling along with the GWC crew… reminds me of that Beavis & Butthead music album…only thing missing would be the “uh-huh-huh-huh’s…”
The V eat rats not hamsters. Hamsters do not have tails. Mice may have been used for snacks but they ate rats for dinner.
Does Texes have laws against podcasting and driving???
That was a very enjoyable podcast. I thought the Halo discussion felt a little crowbarred in, but it was still enjoyable and interesting to me, someone who has never played the game in any of its iterations.
The best podcasts, for me are the ones where there’s a good flow with all three of you, and your comments encourage deeper discussion of a particular topic, often resulting in some good yuks along the way.
Worry not, Audra.
You’re not the only one who never saw the 1983 version of V. I’ve never seen it either.
Not sure why I didn’t watch it when it first came out—but I know I was a Freshman in college at the time and didn’t have TV in my tiny dorm room. So that might explain it.
I played ODST a couple of days after it came out, I personally do not own a 360 (something I hope to fix relatively soon) but a mate of mine does, so the moment he bought I got myself over to his place as fast as I could and we set aside a few nights for the game. We did the same thing for Halo 3 and I said I would get a 360 then as well but just didn’t end up having the cash at the time and just never got around to it after that.
Anyway, my first impressions of the game put me off, cause the game play tactics are very different. But we stuck at it and after a half hour got fully addicted to it. The Co-op is, in my view, a lot more intuitive and requires to work as a team and cover each other at most times, unlike in Halo 3 where it just seemed as the second player was that extra player who sucked up half the ammo.
So a 360 is on my top priority list at the moment, I’ll probably end up grabbing one next week when i grab my copy of Modern Warfare 2, been looking forward to that game for ages. Just gotta hope those lobby groups don’t get the game banned in Aus like they did L4D2, or just as bad get it censored.
Jeff
Anything you guys put out I’ll listen to, and I have enjoyed the produced segments the last few weeks. However, this cast was a little difficult to keep track of where you were what was going on. Were you playing a produced segment? Were you having fun acting? Were you “live?”
Bottom line: I hope you had fun doing it because when you guys have fun, it transfers through and we have fun right along with you. And we manage to get a little scifi talk in with it.
Did that make any sense?
~Shooter out
They don’t say it or show it, but in Pretty in Pink, it’s pretty clear that Kate Vernon has given James Spader The Swirl.
Great cast! Especially love the bit about not assuming its a zombie till it actually tries to eat your brain.
By the by: According to wiki a ghoul is generally either a desert dwelling, shapeshifting demon or a cannibalistic sub-human, tho sometimes they are also undead.
I’ll take the blame for this one, I guess. There’s nothing worse than making a funny and having it fall flat. For anyone else who’s wondering what the hell this is, here’s the deal laid bare:
A few weeks back in one of our production meetings I brought up the idea that we could do something entertaining for Halloween; rather than just another talk-about-something-Halloween-related, we could try our hands at a little radio theater and maybe make it kinda funny. At the time I had sort of a rough outline of what we could do, but I expected we’d have time to flesh it out more.
In short: we didn’t. And in classic Chuck style, I refused to let it go. Some interesting facts and lessons learned:
[ul]
[li]We actually recorded two separate versions of this, in pieces. Without time to sit down and write a script, we had to improv most of it, and it took a couple of tries to get enough to work with.[/li][li]Improv is a lot harder than you’d imagine, and you (like me) probably imagined it to be hard at the start.[/li][li]All the sound effects you hear – except the zombies and the window breaking at the end – are our own. I’m responsible for the initial getting into the car bit, Sean and I recorded any gun sounds and gunfire you hear (just a little bit at the very end – and they are indeed a 12-gauge and a .22 automatic), and Audra foley’d every other sound you hear including rummaging, doors opening/closing, etc.[/li][li]Sound effect recording is a lot harder than you’d imagine, and you (like me) probably imagined it to be hard at the start.[/li][li]The ODST segment was indeed a produced segment and was scheduled for release this week anyway, so we included it. Again, with some time to script it we’d probably have been able to make it clearer that we were playing a segment. But it was pretty much improv’d.[/li][li]The call you hear to Juan is an actual Skype call, and it’s mostly unedited. Seems Juan is better at improv than most of us, and works great from a cold start (as I just called him up).[/li][li]Editing on this 'cast took in excess of 12 hours over two days, not counting the prep work beforehand, about 3-4 hours of effect recording, and two nights of improv sessions. The final product utilized over 80 tracks in ProTools, which means it had to be rendered in four pieces, then re-assembled and rendered to the final file.[/li][/ul]
All in all, this podcast suffered a lot from my underestimate of the time required to get it right. There’s a bunch of funny stuff and great ideas that just didn’t make it in due to time constraints. So I essentially learned two important lessons, one positive, one negative:
Negative: This stuff takes a lot of time, and if we ever do something like it again, I’ll need to schedule it months ahead of time, put together an actual script, break it down, and leave plenty of time to work through it.
Positive: If you filter out the frustration over time issues, this is kinda fun. Who knows? Maybe I’ll try something like this again in the future, though it’d almost definitely be separate from the podcast.
Anyway, hope you enjoy what’s there at least a bit. And next week we’re back to our regularly-schedule podcast, discussing Contact. We’ve already got some pieces of this week’s 'cast together, and you’re not going to believe it. Let’s just say this: don’t miss it. If you’re going to take a week off from GWC at some point, this shouldn’t be it. Those who watch Contact this week and participate in the podcast/discussion are going to get a really special look at it. Seriously.
Personally, I really enjoyed it, and now I’m definitely jonesin’ for next weeks ep!
I’ve got to give it another listen, as I kept losing track. That said, I really enjoyed the change-up (especially once I realized what was going on.)
ETA: I take it you don’t listen to a lot of serial theatrical podcasts, Chuck (e.g., Second Shift.) They are notorious for taking months to put out an episode.
Other podcasts time to create a produced episode = months
Chuck time to create a produced episode = days
I thot the 'cast was excellent. An experiment to be sure, but one that was enjoyable adds a new approach for the Crüe.
Mission accomplished. Crüe had fun and that translates to the audience. Mission, have fun and talk about interesting things along the way. If there is the occasional zombie attack, all the better.
“I found a flute!”
Hey, flutes can be deadly. Although I’d personally go for a bassoon if you’re relying on a woodwind to get you through the zombie apocalypse. 
I really enjoyed the 'cast, once I realized Rover = Winchester. Very cool idea for Halloween. And I do hope Sean’s brother is okay.
Like Chuck, I’d never sat through a zombie movie before SotD. But once I saw this brilliant rom-com-zom, I had to take a look at the Romero trilogy that inspired Simon and Edgar. I still won’t actively seek out a film involving the zed-word, because they scare the bejesus out of me, but it did introduce me to a genre that I otherwise would have avoided.
George Romero was on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and I think he said that before Night of the Living Dead, zombies were associated with voodoo. And Romero’s script didn’t use the zed-word, either; he referred to them as “flesh-eating ghouls.” He also insists that they shouldn’t be fast because if they tried to run, they’d snap their decaying ankles. Gotta’ love Papa George.
He also broke his own rule several times. Which is understandable, since otherwise they’re the mummy sans bandages.
Hehe, true. At least Imhotep wasn’t restricted by that whole “arms held out in front of him” craaap.
I haven’t seen Zombieland yet (but I’ve heard good things) so I don’t know their take on undead policies and protocols.
I’ll back Chuck up for this one - I’ll give ya points for effort!
You know, television as we know it did not branch off from movie features, but rather they were a spinoff of old radio theater shows like the one in this podcast.
PS Call me slow, but I never had any trouble with the accent before - It took me some time to figure out that the carbon the GWC crue were talking about were carbine weapons? Am I correct?
PPS Who owns the 12-gauge?
PPPS And where were the zombie dogs?
Lol. Everytime I heard it I repeated it in my head with the pronunciation I am familiar with. Strange ways down in Texas. 
Note: Cant believe Kate Vernon was in Pretty in Pink! Guess I gotta find my copy and watch it again.
Once the engine warmed up, I thoroughly enjoyed being taken for the ride. It was a fun change of pace, and I was standing right there beside you with my Mossberg 590 12ga (with attached bayonet and extended tube magazine loaded with 00 buck.) Well, in spirit anyway.
Interest completely peaked now for the Contact podcast!! Waiting to see what (or who) you’ve got up your sleeve for this one.