GWC Podcast #192 (Halloween!)

[i]Chapter XVI: A Widow’s Story
Very shortly before I left Tsavo I went (on March 11, 1899) on inspection duty to Voi, which, as I have already mentioned, is about thirty miles on the Mombasa side of Tsavo. At this time it was a miserable, swampy spot, where fever, guinea-worm, and all kinds of horrible diseases were rampant; but this state of affairs has now been completely altered by drainage and by clearing away the jungle. Dr. Rose was in medical charge of the place at the time of my visit, and as it was the good old custom to put up with any friend one came across towards nightfall, I made him my host when my day’s work was over. We spent a very pleasant evening together, and naturally discussed all the local news. Amongst other things we chatted about the new road which was being constructed from Voi to a rather important missionary station called Taveta, near Mount Kilima N’jaro, and Dr. Rose mentioned that Mr. O’Hara (the engineer in charge of the road-making), with his wife and children, was encamped in the Wa Taita country, about twelve miles away from Voi.

Early next morning I went out for a stroll with my shot-gun, but had not gone far from the doctor’s tent when I saw in the distance four Swahili carrying something which looked like a stretcher along the newly-made road. Fearing that some accident had happened, I went quickly to meet them and called out to ask what they were carrying. They shouted back[COLOR=“Red”] “Bwana” (“The master”); and when I asked what bwana, they replied “Bwana O’Hara.”
[/COLOR][/i]

Sean · November 4, 2009, 2:15pm

Yes, it is a ref. to a movie but wrong movie.

http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_poster/hatari_1962.htm

ThotFullGuy · November 4, 2009, 3:15pm

I’m toooootally gulible. I got 40 minutes into the podcast, and I didn’t know that whole “smell” thing and the “going to the Rover” bit wasn’t real. I didn’t know until I read this thread.

To be fair, I haven’t watched Shawn of the Dead since last year, so I didn’t have it fresh in my brain…BRAIINS!!!

sircastor · November 4, 2009, 4:32pm

Crew, this was a wonderful podcast. I hope the experience won’t deter you from making another effort next year, or sooner. As soon as my it hit me that I was listening to radio play, I was totally pysched. I enjoyed the show, and I look forward to hearing something like it in the future.

Phil · November 4, 2009, 8:33pm

Great podcast! Good fun all around. Like Thot had no clue about ODST, but google is everyone’s friend…

In the classic scene the head V eats a guinea pig…

//youtu.be/VObQfWMgmIM

dxf · November 4, 2009, 9:22pm

I tivo’d the new V, didn’t watch it yet, but I heard this time, the Leader eats the big-eyed guinea pig from Bedtime Stories.

CodyfromOhio · November 4, 2009, 9:41pm

Chuck:

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.

Wait…you guys have production meetings for the Cast? That is frakin awesome!!

I loved this cast Chuck and I think your being too hard on yourself.
I’ve really liked these last few casts but I’ll admit I do kinda miss the old stlye at the same time.

So don’t be so hard on yourself, I loved it. And it was a really cool idea and I would love for more casts like this.

Kirokai · November 4, 2009, 10:10pm

Ah! I love that movie!

kantia8 · November 4, 2009, 10:15pm

Hey, I am about halfway through the podcast, and all the Zombie talk made me wonder if any one had played the game “Plants Vs. Zombies” It’s from Pop Cap games and it’s super fun. There is a little music video in English and Japanese that you can find too on You Tube. Can’t wait for the “Contact” podcast, this is one of my favorite movies.

The_Operator · November 4, 2009, 10:47pm

Happy Halloween to the crue and everyone on the forum

Hope you guys had a good one…

CylonMATRIX · November 4, 2009, 11:56pm

I haven’t watched Shaun of the Dead either and most of the references flew over my head

The_Operator · November 5, 2009, 10:30am

ya gotta see it, OG. It’s the good stuff!

ben · November 13, 2009, 11:15am

this podcast was awesome, i remember thinking. . . this sounds like shaun of the dead storyline. . . then i realised what was happening. . .yes im that dumb haha

you should do more like this, themed podcasts they really gave it pace loved it

Glimfeather · November 15, 2009, 4:35pm

Check out the subtitle on the second segment in this article about newly discovered bone flutes.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090624-bone-flute-oldest-instrument.html

Casilda · December 4, 2009, 12:41pm

I’m way behind listening to the podcast (oh, work and holidays…) but Audra nearly embarrassed me in the middle of the library, I nearly burst out laughing when she sang a little bit of this:

//youtu.be/7PQATa34TrY

And spouse and I loved The Terminal. Very sweet movie.

fastcart · January 6, 2010, 2:12am

I can’t tell you you guys really smelled something or you made something up to go someplace else.

Morena is definitely Elven hot.

I’m embarassed that Boston was in the middle of that whole ATHF fiasco.

I don’t want to watch Pretty in Pink, but I’ll look up old pictures of Kate Vernon. (Google has failed me.)

I was getting car sick listening to the podcast. (:

ROFLMsbO!! I called the fake smell excuse. You guys are awesome!

The ODST segment was cool. I’m not into those games nor do I have a console, but I’ll see what music I can find on Youtube. I’m into jazz or “new age” sounding music.

The ending. ^^

Ok, now that I’ve listened, why did Audra pick a flute? One time in band camp…?

Oh ok… d:

Yeah, it sucked that I waited until the Christmas holidays to marathon a bunch of podcasts. Listening to it out of season is not recommended, but I enjoyed it as always.

fastcart · January 10, 2010, 1:11pm

I found an ODST playlist on Youtube. I won’t link it here for fear it may be taken down. But, it seems cool so far. Thanks for the pointer.

noblepuker · February 17, 2010, 2:47am

I’m just now listening to this podcast (at halfway point).I’m new to the cooler and i’m slipping old podcasts in when i can.

sean “resident evil aren’t zombies”
chuck “what are they then”
sean “they’re more like chemically altered sub-human”
audra “like highschoolers?”

HAHA,good one audra.You were kind of ran over when u said it,and didn’t get the laughs you deserved.Consider this official recognition.

Thanks for the audio entertainment you three.