Post by jaysmith on Apr 6, 2011 18:38:53 GMT -5
I thought I'd annoy the leaping funk out of everyone by publicly posting the work process and challenges we're facing with the remainder of the HG World series. Part of this is my attempt to work out the details in writing and part is to explain just what has to go into these shows.
Had a productive meeting with the HG World team yesterday. We're in the home stretch for Googies Part 1 - an hour of solid acting, creepy stuff and probably the worst penis joke I've ever written.
Googies 1 (of 10) is about 99%. Mike, Bryan and Scott will move on to Part 2 right away and assemble that show until we have all the lines and pre-production work done on the Season 1 finale. Ayoub and Laura have that under control.
We also have "hiatus" scripts from Dayton Ward, Terri Osborne to process and two more scripts due in from Elizabeth Donald and Keith DeCandido.
It reminds me of something a professor told me about film projects. He said the real difference between a vanity project and a real collaborative one is that it can continue if you get hit by a bus.
As I project a rough timeline for the rest of the show, it looks like HG World will be the focus until 2014. I'm not sure how I feel about that. on the one hand, that's wonderful. It's a lot of production time for the remaining scripts. I'm excited to work on A Billion Smithereens based on the feedback I've received on the pilot. It's a fun story, a lot of weirdness without zombies, lighter with a lot of sex and violence. I really want to get to work on it. Unfortunately none of us have the bandwidth. It certainly makes it easier to put an end date on HG World.
So, to review. Season Zero is done. Season One is now a five episode block, concluding in with the next episode. Season Two will be the final season, made up of five episodes, an hour each. It will wrap up the story.
GOOGIES is supposed to sill the gap between Seasons Zero and One. The original format of the script set the length at one hour. I broke those down into 30-page/30-minute chunks, but we're still looking at a monthly production cycle. The benchmark "minute per page" doesn't work with Googies because the performance of the narrator is very measured. One page of content can be 90 seconds while another action page can fly past in 20-30... which means Googies 1 is coming in at about 70 minutes.
If this is confusing to you, don't worry... I'm almost as confused. But then, I suck at math.
Episode 5 is currently in pre-production. 40% of the lines have been received. We have overdue lines and reset the due date accordingly. Laura and Ayoub are conducting outreach to individual cast members to re-energize the team and get things moving. Based on past experience, I'm thinking we won't have it ready until late June/early July assuming we won't enter production until mid-April.
We continue working on the show, but we won't have a release schedule. There's really no labor involved in releasing an episode once it's finished, so the only thing we're doing is removing the pressure of a deadline. If this show is consistent in ANYthing, it is its ability to miss deadlines. Remove those and you remove about 75% of our frustration. On the other hand, it's like having an Olympic games where everyone gets a medal. On top of that, it isn't a strategy that builds an audience. In fact, it's one that bleeds listeners. I liken it to reading comics by creators notorious for long gaps between issues. I stopped investing my attention in stories that I knew wouldn't be finished or followed up for up to six months. If the series were self-contained that would be fine, but it is difficult to ask an audience to invest in a show emotionally if they don't know when the next episode will be available. Or worse, you announce a date and can't honor it.
So Ep 5 should go into production in two weeks assuming everything gets done that needs to be done and in a timely manner. At that point, Mike's unit will put a hold on googies production (which will likely be just started on G2) so we can get the season wrapped up neatly with a red bow.
Let's assume that Ep5 is squirt onto the web July 1st (which will now be known as the one date it won't be ready). Production on Googies will be our focus. In a perfect world, an episode should take a month. Even with our awesome new system and Mike pushing as hard as he can, I'm guessing that each googies part will require 60 days. With G1 finished, that means 120 days until we reach that 3 episode backlog. But wait... we have 10 episodes. If we only have 3 in the bank and it takes 60 days to produce an episode, we'll run out of bank pretty quick. We'll have three googies episodes in the bank on November 1st 2011.
G1 Release = 11/11, G2 Release = 12/11, G3 Release = 1/12, G4 Release = 2/12, G5 Release = 3/12, G6 Release = 4/12, etc.
G4 Complete = 1/12, G5 Complete = 3/12 (we're out of banked eps), G6 Complete = 5/12 <-- oops.
This is an issue. A Bi-monthly release schedule may help keep pace with production to spread this out.
G1 Release = 11/11, G2 = 1/12, G3 = 3/12, G4 = 5/12, G5 = 7/12, G6 = 9/12, G7 = 11/12, G8 = 1/13, G9 = 3/13, G10 = 5/13
G4 Complete = 1/12, G5 = 3/12, G6 = 5/12, G7 = 7/12, G8 = 9/12, G9 = 11/12, G10 = 1/13
Following the pattern...
S2.1 Complete = 3/13, S2.2 = 5/13, S2.3 = 7/13, S2.4 = 9/13, S2.5 = 11/13
S2.1 Released = 7/13, S2.2 = 9/13, S2.3 = 11/13, S2.4 = 1/14, S2.5 = 3/14
If we hold to this very LOOSE model, the last episode of HGW will air March, 2014. If we cut those scripts in half, January 2015.
Getting the scripts finalized will help, particularly if we have a unit dedicated to getting the lines in and approved, ready for production. To avoid problems associated with an extended production cycle (actors moving on, becoming unavailable, growing old and retiring) we need to be very aggressive with pre-production.
So then the Pre-production schedule should have a 30 day window. Pre-production includes:
Script Review and correction/clarification. Check for continuity issues, production challenges, "red flags", and anything that sounds like Jay wrote a script half zonked on cold medicine.
Casting any new roles.
Production Read-through with Mike's Unit.
Rehearsals/Table Read
Deadline enforcement and follow-up
Line review and selection, feedback and re-do
For my part, it's finishing the damned scripts. But there is a lot of work to be done on the front end for episodes we won't even commence until Holden is a freshman in college. That's...
Season Two Episodes 1 through 5 (4 & 5 have not been written, revisions are expected to 1, 2 & 3)
Googies series 3-10 (9 & 10 have not been written).
Fun Fact: A typical episode has 10 voice parts across 60 pages. Episode 5 has about two dozen voices.
Casting is a tedious fishing expedition that can take two weeks start to finish. The current method requires posting a casting call to one of about four sites where volunteer voice actors hang out. I have to write up a description of the character, sample lines and the submission requirements. Like fishing, you can land an amazing catch. More often, however, you get the voice actor equivalent of the slush pile. Most are good but you can tell actors who are auditioning just to "take a shot" at something they either don't really understand or don't care if they get. Worse case, you get no bidders or no acceptable candidates. Best case, of course, you land some Grade-A Awesome.
A Production Meeting is held to review the script for sound effects and music cues, to flesh out the various "cues". In the past, where it was just Mike Stokes and me working on shorter, less ridiculous scripts, he could anticipate and plug in effects. Scott and Bryan don't know my brain so well so this meeting attempts to elaborate on my script's shorthand. Laura also has an opportunity to discuss script issues (logic, clarity, contradictions in line tags, total lack of narrative sense). The deliverables from this meeting are a spreadsheet of sounds Mike's team has to assemble from the library or record in the field and a list of challenges we address long before Mike turns the script page a month down the road.
A Table Read is our dream of getting all the actors from across 12 time zones to participate in a live reading. This dream has been achieved twice, on smaller cast episodes. And you can tell the difference in quality with these episodes. We're pushing t schedule blocks of time with the same actors in their story arc, so we can get better performances out of them and cut down the number of "takes" they submit. I have always been an advocate of collaborative effort in drama.
When we first started, a lot of producers said that it wasn't practical to get a lot of actors into the same Skype room for rehearsals. The result, to me, is an audio drama that sounds phoned in. You cannot convince people of intimate and passionate relationships (positive or negative) between characters if the actors are unable to cooperate on an approach. In HG World, much of the drama comes from these relationships. An argument, for example, is not a pair of actors raising their voices. It's verbal combat. Actors react to each other, not just the words. Perhaps over several episodes where the actors are listening to the final product they can anticipate the style of their fellow actors, but it still leaves an unacceptable learning curve. I will bet that even the casual listener can point out the relationships where the actors communicate versus those who don't.
As it is, (most of) our actors submit each of their lines with three takes. This is how most shows with satellite casts do it. The takes are guesses at how the other actors will deliver their own lines and how the director wants it.
Once an actor submits the lines, Ayoub reviews them for quality. If there is a lot of noise, clipping, hiss or the files aren't recorded in the proper format, Ayoub deals with the actor to correct the issue. Once he signs off, it goes to the Line Director for a second review.
The Line Director (Laura...and whoever she gets to help) review all the submissions. To put this in perspective, leads have anywhere between 30 and 100 lines. They submit 3, sometimes more takes to review. There are typically 10 voice parts per episode...sometimes more. That's a lot of babble to sort through. On top of this, the line selection process requires matching delivery styles so the actors sound like they are in the same room. We also have actors who leave the recorder running through their session, capturing every blooper, throat-clearing...even side conversations.
The "direction" comes in where Laura finds the delivery wanting or where the performance just doesn't work. She will request new takes and provide further guidance to the actors and set a tight deadline for resubmission. She also works with actors so their submissions are uniform and free of useless crap.
Once all the lines for an episode are in and takes have been selected, the episode is considered to be "in production".
Once Pre-production is complete on an episode, it goes to The Editor or Editors for assembly. Basically, Bryan Lincoln, Scott Pigg and whoever else is sitting around with Reaper open take a scene and drop the selected line reads into the mixer, add some of the pre-selected sound effects and get the scene ready for Mike's filtering and additional TLC.
When this process is complete, Mike takes control of the scene to polish it, add music and assemble the scenes. Everyone in production must "sign off" to release the episode.
At that point, we throw it up on Podbean and let people consume the flesh, so to speak.
In lecture #2 we'll discuss process economies and regular challenges we face.
Had a productive meeting with the HG World team yesterday. We're in the home stretch for Googies Part 1 - an hour of solid acting, creepy stuff and probably the worst penis joke I've ever written.
Googies 1 (of 10) is about 99%. Mike, Bryan and Scott will move on to Part 2 right away and assemble that show until we have all the lines and pre-production work done on the Season 1 finale. Ayoub and Laura have that under control.
We also have "hiatus" scripts from Dayton Ward, Terri Osborne to process and two more scripts due in from Elizabeth Donald and Keith DeCandido.
It reminds me of something a professor told me about film projects. He said the real difference between a vanity project and a real collaborative one is that it can continue if you get hit by a bus.
As I project a rough timeline for the rest of the show, it looks like HG World will be the focus until 2014. I'm not sure how I feel about that. on the one hand, that's wonderful. It's a lot of production time for the remaining scripts. I'm excited to work on A Billion Smithereens based on the feedback I've received on the pilot. It's a fun story, a lot of weirdness without zombies, lighter with a lot of sex and violence. I really want to get to work on it. Unfortunately none of us have the bandwidth. It certainly makes it easier to put an end date on HG World.
So, to review. Season Zero is done. Season One is now a five episode block, concluding in with the next episode. Season Two will be the final season, made up of five episodes, an hour each. It will wrap up the story.
GOOGIES is supposed to sill the gap between Seasons Zero and One. The original format of the script set the length at one hour. I broke those down into 30-page/30-minute chunks, but we're still looking at a monthly production cycle. The benchmark "minute per page" doesn't work with Googies because the performance of the narrator is very measured. One page of content can be 90 seconds while another action page can fly past in 20-30... which means Googies 1 is coming in at about 70 minutes.
If this is confusing to you, don't worry... I'm almost as confused. But then, I suck at math.
Episode 5 is currently in pre-production. 40% of the lines have been received. We have overdue lines and reset the due date accordingly. Laura and Ayoub are conducting outreach to individual cast members to re-energize the team and get things moving. Based on past experience, I'm thinking we won't have it ready until late June/early July assuming we won't enter production until mid-April.
We continue working on the show, but we won't have a release schedule. There's really no labor involved in releasing an episode once it's finished, so the only thing we're doing is removing the pressure of a deadline. If this show is consistent in ANYthing, it is its ability to miss deadlines. Remove those and you remove about 75% of our frustration. On the other hand, it's like having an Olympic games where everyone gets a medal. On top of that, it isn't a strategy that builds an audience. In fact, it's one that bleeds listeners. I liken it to reading comics by creators notorious for long gaps between issues. I stopped investing my attention in stories that I knew wouldn't be finished or followed up for up to six months. If the series were self-contained that would be fine, but it is difficult to ask an audience to invest in a show emotionally if they don't know when the next episode will be available. Or worse, you announce a date and can't honor it.
So Ep 5 should go into production in two weeks assuming everything gets done that needs to be done and in a timely manner. At that point, Mike's unit will put a hold on googies production (which will likely be just started on G2) so we can get the season wrapped up neatly with a red bow.
Let's assume that Ep5 is squirt onto the web July 1st (which will now be known as the one date it won't be ready). Production on Googies will be our focus. In a perfect world, an episode should take a month. Even with our awesome new system and Mike pushing as hard as he can, I'm guessing that each googies part will require 60 days. With G1 finished, that means 120 days until we reach that 3 episode backlog. But wait... we have 10 episodes. If we only have 3 in the bank and it takes 60 days to produce an episode, we'll run out of bank pretty quick. We'll have three googies episodes in the bank on November 1st 2011.
G1 Release = 11/11, G2 Release = 12/11, G3 Release = 1/12, G4 Release = 2/12, G5 Release = 3/12, G6 Release = 4/12, etc.
G4 Complete = 1/12, G5 Complete = 3/12 (we're out of banked eps), G6 Complete = 5/12 <-- oops.
This is an issue. A Bi-monthly release schedule may help keep pace with production to spread this out.
G1 Release = 11/11, G2 = 1/12, G3 = 3/12, G4 = 5/12, G5 = 7/12, G6 = 9/12, G7 = 11/12, G8 = 1/13, G9 = 3/13, G10 = 5/13
G4 Complete = 1/12, G5 = 3/12, G6 = 5/12, G7 = 7/12, G8 = 9/12, G9 = 11/12, G10 = 1/13
Following the pattern...
S2.1 Complete = 3/13, S2.2 = 5/13, S2.3 = 7/13, S2.4 = 9/13, S2.5 = 11/13
S2.1 Released = 7/13, S2.2 = 9/13, S2.3 = 11/13, S2.4 = 1/14, S2.5 = 3/14
If we hold to this very LOOSE model, the last episode of HGW will air March, 2014. If we cut those scripts in half, January 2015.
Getting the scripts finalized will help, particularly if we have a unit dedicated to getting the lines in and approved, ready for production. To avoid problems associated with an extended production cycle (actors moving on, becoming unavailable, growing old and retiring) we need to be very aggressive with pre-production.
So then the Pre-production schedule should have a 30 day window. Pre-production includes:
Script Review and correction/clarification. Check for continuity issues, production challenges, "red flags", and anything that sounds like Jay wrote a script half zonked on cold medicine.
Casting any new roles.
Production Read-through with Mike's Unit.
Rehearsals/Table Read
Deadline enforcement and follow-up
Line review and selection, feedback and re-do
For my part, it's finishing the damned scripts. But there is a lot of work to be done on the front end for episodes we won't even commence until Holden is a freshman in college. That's...
Season Two Episodes 1 through 5 (4 & 5 have not been written, revisions are expected to 1, 2 & 3)
Googies series 3-10 (9 & 10 have not been written).
Fun Fact: A typical episode has 10 voice parts across 60 pages. Episode 5 has about two dozen voices.
Casting is a tedious fishing expedition that can take two weeks start to finish. The current method requires posting a casting call to one of about four sites where volunteer voice actors hang out. I have to write up a description of the character, sample lines and the submission requirements. Like fishing, you can land an amazing catch. More often, however, you get the voice actor equivalent of the slush pile. Most are good but you can tell actors who are auditioning just to "take a shot" at something they either don't really understand or don't care if they get. Worse case, you get no bidders or no acceptable candidates. Best case, of course, you land some Grade-A Awesome.
A Production Meeting is held to review the script for sound effects and music cues, to flesh out the various "cues". In the past, where it was just Mike Stokes and me working on shorter, less ridiculous scripts, he could anticipate and plug in effects. Scott and Bryan don't know my brain so well so this meeting attempts to elaborate on my script's shorthand. Laura also has an opportunity to discuss script issues (logic, clarity, contradictions in line tags, total lack of narrative sense). The deliverables from this meeting are a spreadsheet of sounds Mike's team has to assemble from the library or record in the field and a list of challenges we address long before Mike turns the script page a month down the road.
A Table Read is our dream of getting all the actors from across 12 time zones to participate in a live reading. This dream has been achieved twice, on smaller cast episodes. And you can tell the difference in quality with these episodes. We're pushing t schedule blocks of time with the same actors in their story arc, so we can get better performances out of them and cut down the number of "takes" they submit. I have always been an advocate of collaborative effort in drama.
When we first started, a lot of producers said that it wasn't practical to get a lot of actors into the same Skype room for rehearsals. The result, to me, is an audio drama that sounds phoned in. You cannot convince people of intimate and passionate relationships (positive or negative) between characters if the actors are unable to cooperate on an approach. In HG World, much of the drama comes from these relationships. An argument, for example, is not a pair of actors raising their voices. It's verbal combat. Actors react to each other, not just the words. Perhaps over several episodes where the actors are listening to the final product they can anticipate the style of their fellow actors, but it still leaves an unacceptable learning curve. I will bet that even the casual listener can point out the relationships where the actors communicate versus those who don't.
As it is, (most of) our actors submit each of their lines with three takes. This is how most shows with satellite casts do it. The takes are guesses at how the other actors will deliver their own lines and how the director wants it.
Once an actor submits the lines, Ayoub reviews them for quality. If there is a lot of noise, clipping, hiss or the files aren't recorded in the proper format, Ayoub deals with the actor to correct the issue. Once he signs off, it goes to the Line Director for a second review.
The Line Director (Laura...and whoever she gets to help) review all the submissions. To put this in perspective, leads have anywhere between 30 and 100 lines. They submit 3, sometimes more takes to review. There are typically 10 voice parts per episode...sometimes more. That's a lot of babble to sort through. On top of this, the line selection process requires matching delivery styles so the actors sound like they are in the same room. We also have actors who leave the recorder running through their session, capturing every blooper, throat-clearing...even side conversations.
The "direction" comes in where Laura finds the delivery wanting or where the performance just doesn't work. She will request new takes and provide further guidance to the actors and set a tight deadline for resubmission. She also works with actors so their submissions are uniform and free of useless crap.
Once all the lines for an episode are in and takes have been selected, the episode is considered to be "in production".
Once Pre-production is complete on an episode, it goes to The Editor or Editors for assembly. Basically, Bryan Lincoln, Scott Pigg and whoever else is sitting around with Reaper open take a scene and drop the selected line reads into the mixer, add some of the pre-selected sound effects and get the scene ready for Mike's filtering and additional TLC.
When this process is complete, Mike takes control of the scene to polish it, add music and assemble the scenes. Everyone in production must "sign off" to release the episode.
At that point, we throw it up on Podbean and let people consume the flesh, so to speak.
In lecture #2 we'll discuss process economies and regular challenges we face.