A question

[scribe88]

Whoever got up the idea for the Fan Audio Awards, many thanks, and I'm sure everyone involved in making an audio presentation this year appreciates your efforts.

However, I've noticed there is no Best Director category.

Considering at least the efforts our director put into our project, I think there ought to be one.

Thanks for your consideration.


PS... How on EARTH are you going to choose a winner from all those names?? Some of those nominee lists are quite long!!

[Nathan Butler]

The awards were an idea bandied about by a few, then the Fanworks staff, mainly me and Rich, got the ball rolling on the actual setup.

As for the length of nominees lists, we were more looking for who is elligible, rather than who was already considered "top flight," just so that people have the full range of options. Not everyone knows or remembers every part without a reminder. If there are ties, we'll do tie-breakers.

As for Best Director, we don't have that because in most cases, it seems, the Director role barely exists. Most teams record in various places, not all together, and the most that has been done directorally for, basically, every SW fan audio project that I/we know of, except for your RON, only had a director, if at all, in the sense of someone recording a template of the full script, so people could hear correct pronunciations and intonation. I'm not sure it would make sense at this point to have a Director's award, though I would think that it would make sense to highlight the director in some fashion, perhaps with their name under the best drama awards and such.

Otherwise, I can't speak for Betrayed Federation or Resurrection myself, but at least six of the elligible audio dramas were ones I wrote and mixed, and I really don't think that recording a template track counts as something for a Director. There really isn't much, in my view, on most projects that would call for a Director role, given that the mixer and writer tend to be so intimately involved in what little exact character direction actually exists. For the most part, it seems, fan audio drama, at the moment, tend to allow interpretation to rest with the actor, not specific constaints.

To those who worked on Betrayed Federation, Anthology: No Way Out, and Resurrection (even the Michaels with Smuggler's Run and Logan Chronicles): Am I wrong here?

[Steve Mollmann]

Well, "Betrayed Federation" was entirely recorded in one room at one time, with the exception of one actor who couldn't make it. The very idea of having people send in recordings from across the world had never occurred to me; I always took it as a given that the actors must be together, in the same room, talking to one another for an audio drama to really work.

So, yeah, "Betrayed Federation" had what I would call a director, in that I "directed" the recording session, and supervised and oversaw all the performances on the spot, having them adjust things, and so on.

[Nathan Butler]

Hmm. I'm curious how we should proceed then. For Anthology and Second Strike, there were template recordings that acted in that capacity, but I figure Resurrection may have only had direction when re-recordings were needed.

I had imagined that most audio dramas at this point were multi-region, rather than actually recording on site, even, to an extent, RON, given that people like Michael Smith were included.

Okay, well, I'll add those to the list. I suppose it's Pamela Kinney, Steve Mollmann, Nathan Butler, and Ted Alderman.

[keithabbott]

Notice that there's no "Best Producer" either. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif But, I guess that depends on the crews...since there are so few...well...I figured it wasn't much an issue...mixer...producer..director...in most cases are the same. But in the case of RoN, they are different people in some circumstances.

Keith

[Nathan Butler]

We're generally considering Producer and Mixer to be a merged job. Again, it goes back to the fact that most projects have a tiny crew that share duties, for the most part.

[scribe88]

Just because the whole crew doesn't record in one place at one time doesn't mean no one is "directing." We didn't have a template at all; the thought never even occurred to anyone on our crew to do such a thing.

Our director first of all ran the auditons and did all the casting. She then directed by "remote control" on the folks who weren't in town, basically sending direction by phone and email, reviewing what the person did, and sending more direction if the performance wasn't up to snuff. For the local actors, she did direct the performances as they were recorded. Some actors didn't need much help, but then again some did! I personally thought that that sort of work was especially valuable with the children, and I don't think we would have gotten the performances we did get out of them without it. I certainly could never have done it. (But then, I don't like kids ...)

She had some advice (wanted and unwanted), but basically our director picked out every take that was used. I should note that as the writer, I WROTE, and that was it up until the very end when the mixed scenes were offered up for comment; the rest was Keith and Pam, and I would go for months not being involved in any way.

I guess most audio dramas don't run that way; I only know how we did ours.

Anyway, thanks for your consideration in this matter. I hated to see our director left out, because I know how much work she actually did on the project, in capacities that others who worked on it only touched on briefly from time to time. I appreciate the thought and discussion on this issue.

[Jans_Walker]

I am actually directing for my NJO Project in the way Ms. Kinney did her long distance directing for RON. It is a viable position and should be recognized. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

I must also say that the way the RON team handled production is really the ideal as far as fan audio is concerned. Why? Because it worked, in terms of storytelling, quality, and performance.

Well, the ideal ideal would be to have access to voice actors and a professional recording studio and a staff who are professional, but this is the next best thing. Surely it's something we can all try to emulate in one way or another for our projects.

Chris

[Spacehunter24]

Originally posted by NathanButlerSWT@Jan 18 2004, 11:27 PM
For the most part, it seems, fan audio drama, at the moment, tend to allow interpretation to rest with the actor, not specific constaints.

To those who worked on Betrayed Federation, Anthology: No Way Out, and Resurrection (even the Michaels with Smuggler's Run and Logan Chronicles): Am I wrong here?
Well, in my case, I was definitely directing on SMUGGLER'S RUN. I spent a lot of time with Joe on (almost) every line for both of his characters. In fact, I'd say I did more directing on this audio drama than I have on any of my actual movies so far. On those, I was basically a "say this, do that" director, mostly just telling an actor where to stand and what to say in general terms, but on SMUGGLER'S RUN, I was actually directing him and really working with him to try and get the best performance possible.

[Nathan Butler]

Locking this one up. Now that there's a Best Director category, the issue has been addressed, and hopefully we can toss the "how to best direct an audio drama" topic into a new thread devoted to that topic by itself.

Someone start if if you want to discuss. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif