Would There Ever Be a Possibility...?

[Nogrod]

Okay. I should be doing other things than this indeed as I have millions of things pressing on my schedual, but now I have frustrated myself already for almost an hour with MySpace. And I'm really getting annoyed with the site. It seems they only give you a chance to upload videos and pics there and no more audiofiles.

So anyone knows a site where you could upload audiofiles for free? Or any other means of sharing these files without e-mailing them as most e-mail programs seem to have a 10MB limit (the full version of trial-clips this far is 10,5 MB in mp3 )?

I'll send the clips we have so far for everyone who has given me their mail-addresses when I first take my Bilbo out from there. That should make it under 10MB and thence sendable. But in the future we'd need to find another solution.


The contents of the file are:

1. Oddwen's read-out from Many meetings which has been meddled a bit leaving Oddwen the narration and the role of Pippin. Frodo is played by Lommy, Merry is played by Greenie and Gandalf is played by me.

2. Greenie playing Gollum!

3. Greenie playing Shagrat and Nogrod playing Gorbag.

4. Matthew's new takes on Boromir, three short ones.

5. Legate reading Aragorn and hobbits on Weathertop.

6. Nogrod playing Gimli in The Ring Goes South.


And remember, you can get the file by sending me a PM with your e-mail address! And Mac, Rikae, Gwath, Nerwen, Eönwë... and everyone else... I'm waiting for your clips as well!

[Gwathagor]

I say...Greenie's quite good as Gollum, and MatthewM's new Boromir takes are great.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Wooow but it's so COOL!!!

Love it!

And Greenie must do a Gollum for sure (Gwathy, "quite good" is too weak words). Woooow

(other edits coming soon)

And Matthew's Boromir gives me the creeps (that means he is great, and also don't interpretate it as anything against Boromir, Matthew - it's just how it's meant to be).

And I will emphasise once again - the Hobbits are not supposed to be taken seriously... *ahem*

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

And I will emphasise once again - the Hobbits are not supposed to be taken seriously... *ahem*

I'd say nothing there should be taken "seriously". These are just trials to see if the equipments work (I hope Nerwen finds a solution to your background hum Matthew as I feel I'm quite armless with it!) and to give people an idea how other people sound and what they might do.

And I don't think this should be taken as a serious undertaking in the first place if serious means "dead-serious" or going for perfection. We'll never attain that anyway.

Greenie made her Gollum basically prima vista, just choosing the part of the text and reading it with one take. The same goes with our Shagrat and Gorbag (well, we tried different voices a few times to each other thinking what would sound nice but in the end we read it straight with no rehearsals).

So lower the bar of expectations and just go on with it. These are no "final takes" or measures of your performance. This is testing. So go on acting! Do overdo your characters! I think the least interesting ones are those who are played "safe" (like my Gandalf in the first clip). Just jump into it and do not care how you sound.

After we have tested enough we can go on recording the actual stuff and then everyone has their chances to rehearse as much as they want and to make as many retakes they wish.


About the roles...

Matthew would like to be Boromir. To me it's okay as he seems to have a good touch with him. We just need to get rid of the background hum if possible. Let's see what can be done. But that also means we should find our chapter from The Fellowship of the Ring? Or could you Matthew think of acting someone else?

If we have a chapter with Gollum Greenie should do that. But that's if we have it as it seems that the best choices for a scene would be indeed taking place in Lorien or Rivendell looking at the people involved.

I can take whatever role you wish me to take. I can make my voice pretty low so it would probably fit that kind of characters; dwarves, wizards, baddies, ...

Other ideas or preferences?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I'd say nothing there should be taken "seriously". These are just trials to see if the equipments work (I hope Nerwen finds a solution to your background hum Matthew as I feel I'm quite armless with it!) and to give people an idea how other people sound and what they might do.

Of course. Still, some of them are pretty good even for a trial.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Other ideas or preferences?

As for me, I don't have any preferences - it will depend only on the chapter chosen, once that is known, I may have some. But otherwise, I don't particularly care. Not even about the chapter, that is.

Seemingly, we should pick a part with equally as much dialogue for each character and if possible enough to that point that everyone gets just one character (or more or less, how many will there be of us, anyway?). These first chapters of Second book (especially chapter 3-5) come to my mind, while of course that would disqualify our nice Gollum, but otherwise there's plenty other characters and I think good balance between narration and dialogue (I am still afraid that the narrator will have about 50% of the work on him/herself).

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

MatthewM's new Boromir takes are great.

Originally Posted by Legate

And Matthew's Boromir gives me the creeps (that means he is great, and also don't interpretate it as anything against Boromir, Matthew - it's just how it's meant to be).

Thank you! Your compliments are much appreciated.

The clips sound awesome. Great job to everyone. I love how you get those P's rolling, Greenie. I'm very excited that we are getting closer and closer to this.

Nogrod, to your question on the chapter- yes, I definitely would like to be Boromir, I'd rather not act as someone else. So I favor choosing a chapter from The Fellowship, in specific from Book II. Like Legate said, there would be plenty of roles for each to take and a decent amount of dialogue for each. If we wish to incorporate Elves, I would suggest a chapter from Rivendell (The Council of Elrond) or any of three from Lorien- although I think one of them (Lothlorien, I believe) does not have much dialogue from The Fellowship.

edit: I'm working on the mic situation...hopefully I will find a solution with the background noise.

[Oddwen]

I'd say nothing there should be taken "seriously". These are just trials to see if the equipments work

...he says, as he spreads my stuttering & slurry take across the globe.

Great job everyone - I echo the general consensus circling Matthew's Boromir, and Miss Greenie (er, hi, welcome to the 'Downs by the way) - your voice has a bit of a creepy/harsh edge, even when you're not an Orc or Gollum - I'd love to hear your Wormtongue.

I use my Xanga blog for my files - though I don't know if there's a size limit, as none of mine are larger than seven megabytes, and you have to have a Xanga account to upload. You can't download either. They take aac, aiff, au, aug, mp3, wav, and wma files. *shrug*

the Hobbits are not supposed to be taken seriously... *ahem*

Same here. I think they *all* should have Spanish accents.

[Gwathagor]

I don't have any proper recording equipment or software, Nogrod, just the built in microphone on my computer. Do you still want a few readings?

[Nerwen]

Hello, all. I have finally had time to listen to the recordings.

Comments:

–Firstly– Greenie IS Gollum!

–Legate has a good mike set-up, which is giving a nice clean recording. Everyone else– not so good, and it will be a problem, even if I use filters to notch out the background noise/breathing/electrical hum etc.

–I have a bit of acting and singing training, so if we go ahead with this I can coach people on mike technique. This may help somewhat.

Finally, it's great hearing what people sound like. But tell me, Legate, did you inhale helium to do Frodo?

[Nogrod]

When do we hear your voice Nerwen?

Gwath, please give it a try anyway.

And Nerwen, before you try any extensive operations with the clips wait a moment until I can send you the "original versions" of the recordings. The big one you got via e-mail is something I have already meddled with... (fex. faded the hum from Legate's recording - even though that was an easy one because the wavelength it was was easily blocked without the main quality of the voice suffering)

I'm just having a minute-by-minute schedual right now (and the hours of the day seem not to be enough) but sometime the next week it should ease up a bit and I can then try to send you those unedited versions. Adding effects over effects or filters over filters rarely produces good results.

Let's see this continuing!

[Rikae]

Sorry I haven't been keeping up lately - I've been preoccupied with college and various other things - but I'm still here and eager to help.
Nogrod, I have to say (again) - your Gimli is absolutely fantastic! I am a little confused as to why the orcs seem to have Scottish accents...... well, anyway, I will try to get you a recording this weekend at the latest, and nag Mac to do likewise.

[Brinniel]

Hey ho,

I've been skimming through this thread for the past few days (I admit I haven't had time to read throughly) and since this project seems rather intriguing I just wanted to offer future possible help.

I'm certainly no actress and I hate recording my voice...I'm more of the behind the scenes girl. For the record, I am a film major who has some experience with audio behind me. I'm actually planning to switch my specialisation next semester to post-production as I love to edit and I've been looking into doing sound design (sadly, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get into the audio class I want next semester...). Anyways, I can't really help out much with recording since I don't live near anyone, but in the future I could possibly help out with editing the audio together and adding sound effects (depending on my schedule).

Though, I'm not sure how quickly everyone's planning to put this together...as I wouldn't be able to help out for a little while. I'm currently studying abroad in Europe and when I return to the US, I'll be back home for the summer (therefore lacking equipment). But I return to my college in September where we have computers with all sorts of audio programs as well as recording studios and foley studios. Computers are easy to access, and it might be possible for me to reserve a room since I will be in a Film 2 class.

Anyways, this is a really cool project and if you'd like me to help out, let me know.

(I apologise for any typos. German keyboards are funky...the y and z buttons are switched and it confuses me).

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

But tell me, Legate, did you inhale helium to do Frodo?

Nope, toluen. But really, you'd wonder how often I speak like that (with my brother, that is. It was developed from making a caricature of one of his former classmates who spoke similarly.)

Brinn, I am sure any help would be appreciated... especially in the technical fields. And even if you wanted to join and do some recording yourself (I think your voice would be okay for that, and everyone has a bit of acting talent at least).

Originally Posted by Brinniel

(I apologise for any typos. German keyboards are funky...the y and z buttons are switched and it confuses me).

Yes, tell me about that. Every time I go abroad and write something on the computer there, they have Z in the left-down corner and Y in the middle of the upper line. How can anyone write with that?

[THE Ka]

This is a lovely idea and I can't wait to see what happens (especially with Oddwen involved, heh heh.).
Though, from past experience, if I may add some advice:

A few years ago I joined, as did a number of other Downers on a project to make a fan-based film of The Silmarillion...
Yes I know, impossible feat, but we were dreaming big. The main thing, as others have said, about making an animation is that not only would we need deep pockets, skill, but TIME. I'm talking relatively, on a job-scale amount of time and effort. I only helped majorly in the drawing/storyboard section, and voice section (Hee hee, sort of a girlish wish to voice Irmo, even though he has about one line in the whole deal.), and it took quite a lot of time just to get started and plan the very beginnings out.

In short, from bad past experiences, a film of any level is something that is near impossible, unless you have connections, money and ultimately, lots of time.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Despite what some people will tell you, it's not just a matter of pressing the "Make Dragon" button and letting it all take care of itself.

Oh dear gods, if it was really that easy the Silmarillion project would have been up and streaming online now... So. Much. Drawing and plans. No. Money. For Software.

The radio idea, that is definately able to pull off, and thankfully there are a few online radio sites. The only thing I would see being an obsticle is seeing if whether its a hosting thing, or if it is an account basis. Then, it depends on if there are any fees.

Another idea could be hosting a part of the Downs or another independent site with Podcasts. There are a few small radio stations I listen to that upload their shows online in the form of mp3 Podcast recordings and they always sound very clear. Only thing would be a problem of whether any of us can do this.
Excuse any repitition, I've been skimming the thread for a bit off and on.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

They are nice scenes but there is one problem considering the actual trial of making one whole chapter and that is the fact that The Council of Elrond is composed mainly of long monologues...

I truly feel sorry for whoever has to voice Gandalf...

I don't know if I have any skills in this field which could immediately help with the project (I only have a microphone, and probably low quality at that), but if there is a need for any help or extra/fill-in voices (I am quite fine with doing male voices, I've had to play male parts before. Just might come off a bit effeminate.), or research I'll be glad to help. It would be so wonderful if we could pull this off.

~ Ka

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by THE Ka

I don't know if I have any skills in this field which could immediately help with the project (I only have a microphone, and probably low quality at that), but if there is a need for any help or extra/fill-in voices (I am quite fine with doing male voices, I've had to play male parts before. Just might come off a bit effeminate.), or research I'll be glad to help. It would be so wonderful if we could pull this off.

Do join, it'd be great. The more there's people the merrier it is.

And Brinn too, great to see you in, whatever you'll be doing.

Originally Posted by Legate

Yes, tell me about that. Every time I go abroad and write something on the computer there, they have Z in the left-down corner and Y in the middle of the upper line. How can anyone write with that?

Easily. It's the natural order of things. How can anyone write with something else?

[MatthewM]

Has anybody contributed any more recordings?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by MatthewM

Has anybody contributed any more recordings?

Sadly no.

I'm still waiting for Mac and Rikae... and Gwath should give it a try as well.

Nerwen, where are you? We'd like to hear your voice too?

Also the Ka should absolutely throw us a line or two with her male-acting!

And Eönwë, don't freak out with your breaking of the voice. Just give it a try!


I'll try to get the gang here to do something tonight as Brinn is visiting us here in Helsinki (they are now having a city-tour while I have been in a choir-seminar and I'm now back home preparing a meal to us). We have here possibly the largest gathering of the 'Downers ever: Brinn, Lommy, Greenie, Aganzir, Volo and me. That makes six 'downers spending a weekend together...

So maybe we could pull out some reading to you as well...

So those of you who haven't done it yet, please send me your e-mail addresses so I can send you the things we've done so far and for you to receive my mail-address where you could send your contributions - just short clips to begin with so as only to see if the equipments work and to give us others a taste of your voice.

Looking forwards to more contributions!

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I'll try to get the gang here to do something tonight as Brinn is visiting us here in Helsinki (they are now having a city-tour while I have been in a choir-seminar and I'm now back home preparing a meal to us). We have here possibly the largest gathering of the 'Downers ever: Brinn, Lommy, Greenie, Aganzir, Volo and me. That makes six 'downers spending a weekend together...

Awesome! Can't wait to see what comes out of that.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Nerwen, where are you? We'd like to hear your voice too?

I am making an ad for my film class, so I'm going to be pretty busy this week, but I'll send you something when I can.

[Nogrod]

I'll have something quite fun to come for you just as I have time to edit it properly...

So we made the scene where the fellowship is in front of the gates of Moria while Brinn was here. Six different actors with one take! I have edited the laughs from between it already and thrown the voices here and there but I will still look at it once before I send it forwards...

Just wait to hear the performances and our home-made sound effects!

And remember you can join "the club" by sending me your e-mail - and hopefully also your own contribution...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Noggie, if you have a place to host that recording on the internet, would you please give us the link? It would be great fun for all of us, not just those involved, to be able to hear it!

[Gwathagor]

I recorded a few bits on my entirely crappy integral microphone and it sounds truly truly awful. But, at least you now know kind of what I sound like when I read.

[Oddwen]

I went ahead and uploaded what we have to my Xanga audio page- it's streaming only, contents are in post #121 above. Should be the first one on the list.

Any objections? Too bad! Mwahaha! Hem.

[Nogrod]

Thanks for your clips Mac and Gwath! I'll be mixing them a bit tomorrow and will then send them back for everyone to hear. As well as our six-actor spectacle from the Journey in the Dark.

If I find a free audio upload page I will send them there as well (I need to check that xanga page). Otherwise I could send them to Oddwen who could in turn upload them to her xanga-account...

Thanks for uploading those first ones Oddwen!

And Esty, do join the "gang"!

[Nogrod]

Done!

So I opened an account in xanga. The quality of the file isn't the best one there as Oddwen already noted but it works.

Just go here, sit back and relax...

It's all done with one take. I have just edited the bursts of laughter and the different noises resulting from us changing places around the mike to produce something like a more or less fluent storytelling.

As it's done with one take there are a lots of mistakes and all that but this is more a documentary of us having fun than any ambitious project to produce a highquality radio adaptation. Then there's too much Gandalf and it starts slowly but after you reach eight minutes it becomes quite fun indeed.

Pay heed to the sound effects in the end! Pure home made effects!

The actors: Aganzir, Brinn, Greenie, Lommy, Nogrod, Volo

[Brinniel]

Hurray, it's finished! Thanks for posting it, Nogrod.

Now let's see if others can guess who is playing who... (I'm sure I won't be difficult to guess since I'm the only American. )

Btw, for future reference to anyone who wants to post audio, I searched on google and there's tons of audio hosting sites. For example, here is one.

[Lalaith]

Oh, I loved it. The wolves were *magnificent*. Did you use them when playing live werewolf, too?
But Nogrod, this is getting scary.
You have always really reminded me (personality wise) of my eldest brother. Then, I saw your picture as Tom Bombadil, and I find you look like my eldest brother. Now I have heard your voice (Gandalf, right?) and - what do you know - you sound just like him, too.

[Oddwen]

Heh - great job all y'alls on that - your Wargs were much more convincing than the movie.

[Gwathagor]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Oh, I loved it. The wolves were *magnificent*. Did you use them when playing live werewolf, too?
But Nogrod, this is getting scary.
You have always really reminded me (personality wise) of my eldest brother. Then, I saw your picture as Tom Bombadil, and I find you look like my eldest brother. Now I have heard your voice (Gandalf, right?) and - what do you know - you sound just like him, too.

Yes, and what you DIDN'T know is that your brother is leading a double life in Finland on weekends.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Whoa, Nog, it was wonderful! (All of you!)

"Ouvrez... bitte?"

But especially Gimli had really great accent and Boromir was mad!

And was that squeking of Frodo supposed to be an epigony of my fantastic and original Frodo?

[Thinlómien]

I've heard this so many times but it never fails to make me laugh. (I'm in the school library, listening to it with headphones and people are looking at me and wondering why I'm giglling and grinning... well, they have no clue. )

I'm laughing at the animals and Gandalf's "clear" mellon and everybody's voices and the whining Hobbits and well, everything...

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

"Ouvrez... bitte?"

I totally cracked up at that point.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I'm laughing at the animals and Gandalf's "clear" mellon and everybody's voices and the whining Hobbits and well, everything...

I know, I kept expecting Frodo to say, "Are we there yet? Can I have an ice-cream?"

...but overall it's pretty darned impressive. Out of curiosity, Nogrod, did the wolves and the opening door come from an sfx cd, or what?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Out of curiosity, Nogrod, did the wolves and the opening door come from an sfx cd, or what?

Nope! They are purely home-made.

The wolves are Aganzir, Brinniel, Greenie, Lommy & Volo. They went to different rooms and howled there. After that I mixed their voice a bit, panned them moving in space and added loads of echo...

The opening of the doors is a combination of two different voices. There are two rocks picked up from the backyard grinded together and then there is my iron mortar which is scratched with the mortar hammer (or whatever is the name of that thing you grind the spices in a mortar). And the resulting sound is given a lot of echo as well as the lowest frequencies are turned to the maximum.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Legate

But especially Gimli had really great accent

I agree. We had this idea that Gimli would have a Russian accent and Legolas a Swedish one.

Actually, Legate, in case you didn't notice, there was also some Czech in the part where Gandalf uses different languages...

[Volo]

I'm laughing although I haven't even listened to the final version. It was very interesting to do and now I want to get a home studio too. :S
Russian accent indeed...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

Actually, Legate, in case you didn't notice, there was also some Czech in the part where Gandalf uses different languages...

In fact, I didn't. Nogrod's voice is often very quiet, or sometimes even when he starts loud, the end of the word ends in silence. Only now listening of it with the volume up, I noticed that, but really not on the first hearing.

[Aganzir]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

And was that squeking of Frodo supposed to be an epigony of my fantastic and original Frodo?

No. As a matter of fact, her voice is really like that.

[THE Ka]

I wish I could listen sooo much, but sadly the audio is missing on my computer (it crashed a few months ago, I've been rebuilding the drivers and cards... No fun a'tall.), so my project now has been to relocate the audio component for the computer, which may take a bit, but should happen.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Also the Ka should absolutely throw us a line or two with her male-acting!

I've been practicing over the past week, and actually hoping my throat cold holds out so I don't make it sound as if anyone the fellowship bumps into is pulling multiple Dernhelm(s).... Eventually...

~ Ka

[MatthewM]

I'm at school right now so I can't listen yet but I can't wait to hear this!

[Nogrod]

As any discussion here will take time should we slowly start discussing about the part or chapter we should go for with a first "real" trial?

I'll post those clips of both Mac and Gwath soon into the xanga so you can hear them too. Sadly Gwath's mike is inbuilt to the computer and one really can hear it - he has nice voice and his pronounciation is just lovely.

So if you Matthew and Gwath could still look around for possibilites of fex. lending a mike from school / friend / friend's friend or something? Others I think have no problem.

And if there's no solution to Matthew's and Gwath's problems I would suggest we just take them in and suffer the quality of the recording equipment for the sake of getting two really good actors and friends in.

And the rest just keep on sending me your clips! Send me a PM to get my gmail -account address.

And let's go on suggesting a suitable chapter to try!