Fan Audio Awards Tracking

[Nathan Butler]

Just to have a way to keep track:

People's Choice Awards will be polling Feb. 1 - 15.

Founder's Awards will be determined by Feb. 15.

Fan Audio Academy Awards are being determined by the seven academy members now. We currently have votes turned in from 6 of the 7.

[Nathan Butler]

Tabulation updated and first post edited to reflect second member having turned in their votes already.

[goodwije]

Bet it was me and Heather, we are the only ones on he ball!! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

[Nathan Butler]

Nope. Try again. Heh.

[Lunatic]

Hey Nathan...

What do you actually want us to mention on our Feb 1st show.

1- Polls are open on Galacticsenate.com!
2- Categories & Nominees?
3- others?

[Kheetor84]

Originally posted by goodwije@Jan 20 2004, 09:13 AM
Bet it was me and Heather, we are the only ones on he ball!! style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif
HEhehe. I got listen to all of the stuff before I vote. XD

[Nathan Butler]

Really, Dany, it could be anything. So long as people know it's open for voting and where to go, y'know?

[Lunatic]

No problem then style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[Nathan Butler]

Okay, another set of votes is in.

So the question now: If someone gets 4 votes out of 7 people voting and thus definitely wins the category, should we tell the other academy members not to worry about voting for those categories, to lower their workload?

And, for the record, of the three sets of votes in so far, there are three categories that are unanimous so far and eight that are three-way ties with 1 vote each.

[Nathan Butler]

Okay, now the dymanics change. We just had our fourth set of votes come in.

That means that anyone who has been unanimously chosen so far has gotten 4/4, which means at least 4/7, so they are the guaranteed FAAA winner for that category.

I'll tally these when I get home, but at this point, I believe that this afternoon, I'll be officially calling at least one or two categories that already have 4 votes for one person, group, or project.

That should cut down on all the categories that the other three voters will have to deal with.

I know for sure, for instance, that we have a Best Actress in an Audio Drama winner. I'll check on the others.

[Nathan Butler]

Okay, here's the lowdown: We have votes in from four of our seven members. That means that any categories with a unanimous 4 votes so far are guaranteed the winner (since there are only 3 more votes per category). Thus, I'm calling them.

Those categories that are DONE now, with a 4/4 vote streak are:
Best Mixer for an Audio Parody
Best Actress in an Audio Drama

At present, there are ties for:
Best Audio Drama (Shortform): 2-way
Best Audio Drama (Longform): 2-way
Best Radio Show Host: 4-way
Bset Actor in an Audio Parody: 4-way
Best Writer for an Audio Drama: 2-way
Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character: 4-way
Best Actor in an Audio Drama: 4-way
Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama: 4-way
Best Original Audio Drama Character: 4-way

And there are definite leaders right now for the following:
Best Radio Show
Best Radio Show Composition
Best Audio Parody
Best Writer for an Audio Parody
Best Actress in an Audio Parody
Best Mixer for an Audio Drama
Best Use of Music in an Audio Drama
Best Supporting Actress in an Audio Drama
Best Director for an Audio Drama

And so, we wait for the next votes to come in, which may very well end the Best Drama Director, Best Parody Writer, Best Audio Parody, Best Radio Show, and Best Radio Show Composition.

[Nathan Butler]

One academy member has told me two of her definite votes, which I've made note of an entered. With those in, we now have a front-runner for Best Radio Show Host, and we have a winner for Best Writer for an Audio Parody.

So . . .
Best Writer for an Audio Parody . . .
is now off the table.

[goodwije]

That is pretty cool that out of 4 of us only two catagories were unanimous seems we are a pretty well rounded group.

[Nathan Butler]

Yup. Now we're just waiting for the rest of the 5th person's votes, and for the 6th and 7th to get their votes in. I'm not sure about one of them, as I haven't heard anything from him in a little while. Hopefully, though, a definite winner will emerge for each category by the time that 6 of the 7 are in, so if one person doesn't get back to me anytime soon, it won't slow us down.

So far, we've got in the votes from Sheridan, Galasso, Goodwin, Bouteas, and two categories from Haskett. That leaves Chrystie, the rest of Haskett, and "Outloud."

::crosses fingers to have this done by the time he leaves town next weekend::

[Nathan Butler]

Okay, with all categories turned in by four of our academy members and all radio show and parody categories turned in by a fifth, the following categories are closed:

Best Radio Show Composition
Best Audio Parody
Best Writer for an Audio Parody
Best Mixer for an Audio Parody
Best Actress in an Audio Drama

Of those that remain, the following have a leader with 3 votes, which means that if the leader gets one more vote, that category is closed:

Best Radio Show
Best Actress in an Audio Parody
Best Audio Drama (Shortform)
Best Director for an Audio Drama

And the following are still stuck in a tie:

Best Audio Drama (Longform)
Best Writer for an Audio Drama
Best Actor for an Audio Drama
Best Supporting Actor for an Audio Drama
Best Original Audio Drama Character
Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character

And the following have leaders, but will require at least two more votes for that leader for the category to be locked, so it's still anyone's game:

Best Radio Show Host
Best Actor in an Audio Parody
Best Mixer for an Audio Drama
Best Use of Music in an Audio Drama
Best Supporting Actress in an Audio Drama

[Nathan Butler]

For the record, the Founder's Choice Awards have now been decided. There are four categories this time around, with one category being a 2-way tie for recognition. These are the ones for pre-2003 projects.

[Nathan Butler]

Radio Show and Radio Show Host votes are in from member #6. Neither closes, but Radio Show Host moves into the group of ties, and Radio Show continues to have a leader with 3, but the race is now closer.

Best Actor in an Audio Parody still has a leader with 2 votes, but then four others tied with 1 vote each.

Best Actress in an Audio Paordy still has someone 1 vote from definitely winning, but there is now a definite second place person only one vote behind.

We await only the drama votes from #5 and #6, and I'm going to have to PM or email #7, as he/she has yet to send in anything.

[Nathan Butler]

Gah, now Golden Globes have me all hyped to get the rest of the votes. GAH!

[Nathan Butler]

Oh man. Okay, so, we have all votes in for the first six members. One member remains, and I haven't heard from that member yet at all.

Here are the ones that are definitely won:

Best Radio Show Composition
Best Audio Parody
Best Writer for an Audio Parody
Best Mixer for an Audio Parody
Best Mixer for an Audio Drama
Best Actress in an Audio Drama
Best Director for an Audio Drama


The rest of the categories, it seems, are dependant on the final vote to determine who wins, or if there is a tie. In two cases, there could even, in theory, be 3-way ties.

[goodwije]

I was afraid of that. We are going to have to figure out some plan in case of a tie. Next year we may have to winnow the field first by picking 5 nominees to be voted on by seven (or however many) people.

[Nathan Butler]

Tie will be easy. We just have you all vote again, but only for those that are tied, which eliminates any extraneous votes that caused the tie.

However, what I'm more worried about is if I don't hear back from the seventh member. Do we go with what we have now, have the current leaders win and current ties get broken, or do we seat a new 7th member to cast the 7th slot's votes?

We can do either, honestly, if it comes down to it. Given that it would take another person a while to listen to it all, though, I'd probably suggest that we keep to the "impartial six" and just count as it is now, and if there are ties (as there for sure is for two categories), we try a re-vote, and if the re-vote comes out a tie again, we simply give the award as a tie, like I did for one of the Founder's Choice Awards.

I'd much rather do that than have to rush someone into listening to hours and hours of materials.

Thoughts from the academy members?

[Eaglet]

I know I'm not (haha) an acadamy member, but I'll respond anyway. I think that if you've only got 6 of your 7 acadamy membes responding, y'all need to vote a new acadamy member in. Just pertend that other guy didn't exsist. I'd hate to see a tie happen, really. I mean, who wants to have gotten 'Co-winner of the...' such and such award. No, if you're gonna have an acadamy, there shouldn't be ties. Oh, and I'm sure there's someone out there who's listened to most of the audio stuff already, and wouldn't have to listen to a WHOLE bunch before voting...


-Gregory

[goodwije]

well.. i think i would rather see the six of us re-vote as opposed to bringing in a seventh. Like you said it is a lot to ask someone to go through and listen to all these last minute. I was lucky enought o have a few weeks to get caught up. I have no problem giving the award out as a tie, but i would like to see a revote, only for the nominations that already have a vote in. I do not have my heart set on it though, if you guys want something else that you think works than i am for that too.

[Nathan Butler]

Well, here's one thing we might do. I can go ahead and figure up what the situation would be if it came down to going with just 6 people, and go ahead and hold any tie-breakers that way.

But I'll keep the info also that I have right now, so that if we end up hearing back from #7 or end up with a new #7, we can figure them out that way as well. I'd really like to have the academy set sown up before I leave town Saturday morning.

[CeeWulf]

Well, I'm not a fan of the idea of "re-voting". If the 7th person hasn't voted, then perhaps we should simply give him/her a deadline. If they don't respond by then, then find a new person to work as a tie-breaker.

I don't like the revote idea chiefly because I have no intention of changing my votes, and I think it's a bit silly for other people to be asked to, because basically that's what we're talking about here. That's not fair to the voters, and not fair to the people who are nominated because then someone will have lost simply to break a tie and not because they fairly got the most votes.

At the same time, I don't see anything wrong with ties. In the end, we could simly leave them. But, we should at least try to get a new person to vote if the original 7th voter fails to participate. If this does not work, then just leave the votes as is.

[Nathan Butler]

Any suggestions on a 7th if we need one? I can't think of many who would've heard stuff without being up for voting. UNLESS we ask Recombinant, who couldn't do it earlier, or Modica, who couldn't either. Maybe with only 13 categories to cast a vote on, rather than 20, it might be doable.

[Nathan Butler]

For the record: If we don't bring in the 7th person or a new 7th, then we would have a winner for:

Best Radio Show: Currently 3-2-1
Best Actor in an Audio Parody: Currently 2-1-1-1-1
Best Actress in an Audio Parody: Currently 3-2-1
Best Use of Music in an Audio Drama: Currently 3-2-1
Best Supporting Actress in an Audio Drama: Currently 3-2-1
Best Actor in an Audio Drama: Currently 2-1-1-1-1
Best Original Audio Drama Character: Currenlty 2-1-1-1-1
Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character: Currenlty 2-1-1-1-1

We'd have to do a tie breaker vote for the following categories, which would entail it being a 1-on-1 vote, so that those who voted for those not tied for 1st place can vote for one of the two tied for first.

Best Radio Show Host: Currently 2-2-1-1
Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama: Currently 2-2-1-1

The problem arises in that we have exact ties (3-3) for the following:

Best Audio Drama (Shortform)
Best Audio Drama (Longform)
Best Writer for an Audio Drama

Now, let's say, in theory, that those three last categories are all confined to two creative teams, leaving one audio drama out of the running for those. In theory, could we perhaps have the writer/mixer for that other audio drama, who was totally unaffiliated with either of the others, do the voting to break those three ties? Or if not that person, then whom?

Again, assuming we have no 7th.

[Nathan Butler]

And, nevermind. I have found us an alternate 7th. Parker Patton, who is intending on someday starting up a new fan radio show. He's heard pretty much everything already.

As I haven't heard back from the other academy member for quite a while, I'm going to go ahead and have Parker fill in, and that will be the last member until/unless the original member appears ago within the next day or two.

[Nathan Butler]

Okay, now I feel really dumb.

I couldn't get through to Outloud, slot #7, using the emails I was sending through GS. I thought nothing of it when I tried to enter his email address into messenger and found that it already said I had that contact's info in there.

So I see Parker Patton online and ask him to be slot #7.

Tonight, I go into email Parker to see how the deliberations are going.

In doing so, I check the email address in my Outlook address book. It's an email I'd seen before.

So I go to the members search and pull up Outloud.

The guy I got to replace Outloud *is* Outloud. Apparently, for whatever reason, there were no emails or PMs reaching him, I guess, because he apparently didn't remember or realize that he was one of the people voting in the first place.

So, I guess the original 7 is intact. Now I just have to keep an eye out for when he's online to find out what the voting status is.

[Nathan Butler]

I have now opened up People's Choice Voting. That's the last set. Once we get in votes from Parker and break any ties, we can close up the Academy awards, and the Founder awards are already done. Then on Feb. 15 or so, we'll close up the polling for the People's Choice and go from there in figuring out how we're announcing, though I have a few ideas on that.

[Uilmuteiz]

Now the question is.. can I vote for myself ^_^
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hehe.gif

[Nathan Butler]

Heh, if you so desire. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

S'anybody's game!

[Nathan Butler]

Alright, folks, with only 5 categories left for our last academy member to vote in, we have definite FAAA winners in . . .

RADIO SHOW CATEGORIES
Best Radio Show
Best Radio Show Composition

PARODY CATEGORIES
Best Audio Parody
Best Actor in an Audio Parody
Best Actress in an Audio Parody
Best Writer for an Audio Parody
Best Mixer for an Audio Parody

AUDIO DRAMA CATEGORIES
Best Audio Drama (Shortform)
Best Audio Drama (Longform)
Best Supporting Actor for an Audio Drama
Best Actress in an Audio Drama
Best Writer for an Audio Drama
Best Director for an Audio Drama
Best Mixer for an Audio Drama
Best Original Audio Drama Character

GENERAL CATEGORIES
Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character

The Audio Drama categories, particularly the overall bests (short and long) and writer were serious horse races here, but the final set of votes gave us locked 4-3 wins.

Votes are still coming in from member #7 on...
Best Use of Music in an Audio Drama
Best Supporting Actress in an Audio Drama
Best Actor in an Audio Drama
Best Original Audio Drama Character
Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character

Now, we do have tiebreakers coming:

For Best Radio Show Host, with all 7 votes in, we have a 3-way tie of 2 votes apiece for three different people.

For Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama, we have a 2-way tie of two people with 2-votes each.

Once the final five votes come in and we can determine if any more categories are going to need tiebreakers, I'll get in touch with all of the seven academy members with narrowed tiebreaker lists of just those who were tied for the winning slot, and the seven will vote again, effectively breaking the tie.

[Jans_Walker]

This is a little early to be doing this, but here are some suggestions for next year's awards. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

1) I would love to have each category explained in its own poll post. For instance, I had to think about what Best Radio Show Composition meant. And I believe it to be something about music. But I'm still not entirely sure. It could be show format. Format being a synonym to composition in my book. *shrug* Too late, I voted anyways.

2) Give people who have portrayed multiple characters an entry for each character they've portrayed in next year's polls. I honestly liked some portrayals better than I did others by the same people. But because they were lumped together I tended to not vote for those people even if I liked, say, 1 out of 3 of their character portrayals.

Take the Best Supporting Actor category for instance. Are we supposed to be voting on the person or their portrayal of a character? Lumping their portrayals together will sort of "average out" their standing in the mind's eye. Whereas having an entry for each of their portrayals will give people the opportunity to choose which portrayal of theirs was the best. Granted one person would be competing with himself, but he's not exactly helping his case when he gives one great performance and two so-so ones when the awards are done the way they're done this year.

So in conclusion, if we're voting for a person, then by all means do it the way it's been done this year. But if we are voting on a person's specific portrayal of a character, then it should be done the other way. This is probably the part where Suggestion #1 would come in handy at the voting booth. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif Descriptions of the category would make what's being voted on more clear to people like me who have to mess up your carefully laid plans. XD

3) Since it's not Feb 1st and voting hasn't "officially" opened yet, you could use your admining powers to reset the poll counters and implement these suggestions if ya like em. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[keithabbott]

Is there no way to make the top 4 polls nameless? I feel a bit bad voting for someone over someone else and having my name by it.

Keith

[goodwije]

So the new 7th member is the same as the old 7th member? LMAO.. now that is a great story. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

[Nathan Butler]

I'll drop back in for more detail later, but:

The RSC is the category that actually needed and thus has a description in its opening post. If we need better explanations, I'll edit the top post and add them.

As for performance vs. person, the lists are so long already at this point that if we're talking "Best Actor" I'd look at that as not best performance but best...actor. As such, it seems more efficient to me to lump the performances together.

As for making them nameless, the only way to do that would be to make them polls, and we can only have 10 items per poll. The other option would be to have me go through every day or so and delete all but the top post, and put the current tally in that post, so that names only stay on there for a little while. Thoughts on that?

[keithabbott]

I like that idea.
Keith

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>As for making them nameless, the only way to do that would be to make them polls, and we can only have 10 items per poll. The other option would be to have me go through every day or so and delete all but the top post, and put the current tally in that post, so that names only stay on there for a little while. Thoughts on that? [/b][/quote]

[Nathan Butler]

Done.

[Nathan Butler]

For the record: I'll try to get the last votes from Parker this weekend. It turns out that, even though I've taken off work for Monday, my situation has sort of screwed me out of my trip home, so I'll be around this weekend and maybe gone Monday.

So, I'll get the new releases out late tomorrow night, then hopefully I'll be able to send out the tiebreaker info to the academy members then as well.

[Nathan Butler]

Alright, folks, the seventh set of votes is now complete. We are left with only three categories with ties: Best Radio Show Host (3-way); Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama (2-way); and Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character (2-way).

I'm in the process of getting the lists of tied nominees to the academy members so they can make their tiebreaker votes.

[Nathan Butler]

And, an update on the tiebreakers. With 5 sets of votes in, we have a definite leader in every category.

In Best Radio Show Host, we have three contenders, with 3, 2, and 0 votes, which means that it's very much anyone's game.

In both Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama and Best Portrayal of an Established Character, we have two contenders, one of whom has 3 votes, the other with two votes.

Since each category has someone with 3 votes, the next set of votes to come in could theoretically close any or all of the tiebreakers.

[Nathan Butler]

Uh-oh, folks. Moment of truth time on the Academy award set. With the sixth tiebreaker vote set in, we can now close the Best Portrayal of an Established Film Character and Best Radio Show Host categories.

That leaves only Best Supporting Actor in an Audio Drama, tied at 3-3. The final academy member needs only make one vote to end the academy voting for 2004.

[Nathan Butler]

That's it, boys and girls. With the final tiebreaker vote in, we can now officially say that the Fan Audio Academy Awards for 2004 are now finished.

All that remains are the People's Choice Awards, which should end on Feb. 15.

[LizAscot]

So when and how are the awards presented? Is there some sort of 'ceremony'? I know that for the TF.N LLC FanFiction Awards, we set a time on the thread and every five minutes on award is presented. Are we doing something like that here as well?

[Nathan Butler]

We're still working that one out. What I'd like to be able to do is some kind of crossover between all four of the current ongoing radio shows, so that each could have some interviews on them with winners, but we haven't got it set up.

There are three sets of awards.

Founder's Choice Awards: These are awards granted by yours truly directly, as sort of "lifetime achievement" or "groundbreakers" awards for projects released before 2003 (which aren't elligible for anything else). I figure that I'd announce these on ChronoRadio, since I wasn't part of any of the five recipient projects, but these probably wouldn't have any interviews attached to them because two or three of the five teams would be unreachable, and the other two end up being people who will be heard anyway for other things.

Fan Audio Academy Awards: These are the ones that are being considered more "prestigious" (relative to the People's Choice Awards). They were decided by a group of seven fan audio community members who didn't end up having a credited role of any kind in a 2003 audio project. The group included: Dan Bouteas; Heather Haskett; Michael Sheridan; Teague Chrystie; Jamie Goodwin; Michael Galasso; and Parker Patton. There were only 7 votes to cast and these seven were to have listened to all nominees before voting. Whereas the People's Choice Awards can be altered by having people send out a call of "come vote" to their friends, can be influenced by project size, and doesn't assume at all that everyone has actually listened to all nominees before voting, the Academy set makes that process much more impartial.

If any awards end up being covered on the air with interviews, I'd think it should be these. This year, it'd be fairly easy, actually. There were 20 categories of awards, but if you figure that a project leader/creator will be the one to accept an award for a winning project, and you condense all the awards for any one person into one phone call (say, if someone won two awards, talk to them about both at once instead of two separate calls), we'd really only have to make a total of 7 - 10 calls. (It really depends on if a certain Tatooine TV cast member could get over to the creator's house to condense some calling, if anyone has the capacity to call Australia, and if a certain Resurrection cast member that doesn't frequent the fan audio community could end up being contacted).

People's Choice Awards: These are voted on directly by anyone registered at GalacticSenate.com. Their "prestige" really depends on how you perceive the community's integrity and honesty. These could be VERY thrown off by "socks" or by people voting without listening to everything, etc. However, we wanted to give the listeners a chance to speak out, along with the creators themselves. I figure that some of these will end up crossing over with the results for the Fan Audio Academy Awards, so we could deal with these people at the same time, but I wonder about situations where the PCA winner and FAAA winner is not the same person. That will have to wait a while.



So . . . I'm working things out right now with the other shows. I think I know at least 2 - 3 FAAA people we might want the SWD team to focus on interviewing, 2 - 3 FAAA people that I'd have on CR, and 2 - 3 FAAA People that Rich would have on ROTO. I don't know about DL 2.0, but they'd be the ones most likely to be able to get the last two FAAA winners on the phone. I've actually started to get in touch with a few of the winners (not all) that would end up on CR to start setting up some times to record an interview in Feb.

Our hope is to get the winner info out in early March. It'd include a Features section on Fanworks with winner rosters and such, along with anything the radio shows do about it. Thing is that I'm not sure how we'd do the announcements. Like, would I announce them all in the CR, then ROTO would do its normal March episode, just toss in some interviews, then SWD do their regular topic for whichever episode it is, then bring in other winners in as phone guests for a segment?

We don't know yet. The idea of message board announcements would be cool, though, too.

[keithabbott]

Might I suggest that the winners get some sort of trophy graphic? I know a lot of the folks around here have their own personal web sites and such and who knows might want to post it. Could be nice I think but obviously not necessary.

Keith

[Nathan Butler]

That's being done, yes. Rich is working on some as we speak. It'll appear on the Fanworks pages for any winning projects / people, and winners can certainly use them on their own sites as well.

So far, I haven't seen any final versions, but I know generally what they'll look like.

[Lunatic]

Even if we don't have any problem to call people anywhere in the world, I dont see me and Seb (SWD) doing interviews simply because we haven't listen to most of whats out there in the fan-audio production. I voted only on 5 or 6 category in the PCA because of that.

I wouldnt be confortable talking with a winner that I could not recognized or that I've not listened.

As for announcement of winner there no problem there. Since I dont think we will be winning something we would be neutral as announcers.

Or we could call members of the FAAA board as presenters on the phone (Live) to mention the nominees and the Winners... winners who would be interviewed on one (or both) of the non-Live show. That way if they cannot be there during the Live show, they could be interviewed when they're available.

Those are just ideas..

Weve received your e-mail Nathan, so Ill talk to Sebastien about that.

[keithabbott]

Lunatic, if you haven't listened to Rise of Nobility, you really should. You're missing out on some good stuff.

You'll love our Padme Amidala. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

Keith

[LizAscot]

Wow Nathan, I don't think you could have answered my question anymore thoroughly!

So are the results to the FAAA still being withheld from the general public? If so, when will they be released? (Forgive me if this info has been already posted somewhere. I'm still getting used to this site!)

[Nathan Butler]

Dany: That makes sense. I was mainly thinking about you guys because a certain winner has been interviewed on both CR and ROTO, and was for some reason wanting to see about someday getting a chance to be on SWD.

Perhaps a better way, then, would be for me and Rich to do a show of interviews, and then you could be the ones to announce? That way, you could announce, then as soon as they're announced, we can release the files with the interviews or somesuch?

Elizabeth: See, I don't know about that one. I know who won all 20 categories right now. We had all but 3 end in definite wins, then those three were done as tiebreakers, and all that's taken care of. (Unless we have to redo something with the Parody Actress category because Jeff seems to now be telling me that the information he gave me to change some stuff early on was wrong, so I have no idea what we're going to do about that).

The trick is that I want to be able to get interviews lined up, and the only way to do that is to inform the winners. Now, who to contact:

For Best Radio Show and Best Radio Show Composition, I figure we contact the entire creative team or team leader, while for Best Radio Show Host, we contact the exact winner.

For Best Audio Parody I figure we contact the creator, while for Best Writer, Mixer, Actor, and Actress for the Audio Parody categories, we contact the individuals.

For Best Writer, Mixer, Actor, Supporting Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress, and Director for an Audio Drama, I figure we contact the individuals, while for Best Use of Music, we talk to the music people, the for best overall (longform and shortform), we talk to the creative team or main creator.

For Best Original Character, I don't know if we'd want to talk to the creator or the actor/actress or both.

For Best Portrayal of an Established Character, I figure we contact that individual.

Now, here's where it gets dicey. I have to contact them to set up interviews for CR and ROTO. Doing so, though, and publicly saying "yes, I've contacted the winners of such and such," pretty much gives away to the other nominees that they msut not have won. It might also have an effect on the outcome of the People's Choice Awards, if people want to vote for who they already know won an FAAA, or if they decide that if there were only two main people in the running, they wanted to be sure a PCA went to the one who didn't win an FAAA.

So . . . I don't know what to do about that, especially if we want to have SWD announce the winners.

Maybe we can have me announce the Founder's Choice Awards and a couple categories on CR, then have the ROTO team announce others on theirs, then SWD finish with the ones we won't be able to set up interviews for on their show? I dunno yet, but I'm already starting to figure out who to put where in terms of interviews.

We'll figure it out. And everyone will know in early March. It's just that the winners will likely know before then.

[Nathan Butler]

Another question: With two shows to work with and a full slate of interview subjects so far from the FAAAs, do we try to interview people from the PCAs? The FCA's are out of the question because of contact issues, most likely, but what about the People's Choice stuff? It's not the "biggest" (most impartial) set of the three, but it's not the most partial (Founder's Choice) either.

Right now, I'd lean toward just FAAA interviews, but I'm sure that'll piss someone off.

(For the record, if we credit the main creator for any projects where a project, rather than a person, got nominated, then we gather up all the individuals who won awards, along with using the actor instead of the creator in the case of the original character category, the FAAAs leave us with 10 individuals, which means 10 interviews already, assuming that two that would be hard to get in touch with would be available.)

[Lunatic]

I think we should concentrate on the FAAA for the interviews and the Big Live show announcements since its the most prestigious and impartial award.

[Nathan Butler]

True. But . . .

That brings up the issue of announcements. Last I talked to Rich, it was looking like it'd make sense to have the announcements shared, like CR announce Founder's Choice, CR and ROTO, which would be doing the interviews with all the FAAA winners, announcing the FAAA's right as we start the interviews for each winner, then having SWD announce the PCA's, as that's more an interactive thing like the SWD live show.

[keithabbott]

This kind of reminds me of the tough back and forth conversations we had during the production of RoN. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/banghead.gif

hehe. I'm sure you guys'll figure it out sooner or later.
style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

Keith

[Nathan Butler]

Heh, sooner definitely, given that I'm interviewing one of the FAAA winners tomorrow night and probably another before the week is out. We've figured out who will be interviewed for CR and who will be for ROTO, so now it's a matter of getting stuff set up.

Right now, it's definitely looking like CR and ROTO will leave the PCA's totally alone, so that SWD can announce them. That also lets us get the interviews done beforehand without having to accomodate people who won awards in both sets. We can focus on the FAAAs.

As for the prestige issue, I'll mention that when I'm doing the intro for the CR segment, but hopefully the reason we look at those as more impartial and less prone to politicking and people not listening to everything to make an objective choice before voting should be fairly obvious. But we'll make sure we clarify why that's the case.

[Lunatic]

Nathan, we basically wont do PCA simply because everything's there on the GS board for everyone to see. So there is no point of mentionning the winners, doing a presentation or wasting air time if everything is public. As for interviews, well, I've already explain my point earlier.

You seem to got everything cover Nathan, so we'll pull out of this one.

[Nathan Butler]

Mmmmokay. The PCAs should be mostly taken care of, but we're going to yank the threads when the voting is finished, so the results may be known to some, but not to all, and many won't have stopped by to vote and be curious about it.

But if that's what you want, we'll confine it to CR and ROTO.

[Nathan Butler]

Also on the PCA's, a primary reason why they aren't being considered in the same vein as the FAAA's.

Theoretically, a creator or team member could, say, register everyone in their house separately to vote, or have people listen to just their thing at, say, work, and vote, without any semblance of the people actually having a clue about any other projects that they're voting against, or how what they've voting for actually stacks up to anything else. In other words PCA's become (and, according to some, have already become) more a matter of who can mobilize the most people to register and vote than any form of actual content-based voting.

Based on what I'm hearing now? There will be no PCA's next year, only FAAA (since FCA's will not be needed, as all would've been covered by FAAA's and FCA's this year).

Now, the PCA's will continue this year, but when I hear something akin to "I've registered my brother, my sister, my mother, my dog, etc." or "so I showed our thing to this guy I know and he's gonna vote for us but he hadn't heard anything else" type of statements more than once or twice in an awards process, my personal faith in that voting becomes effectively nill.

Have fun voting and politicking, folks. This will be the first and only time the PCA's will exist.

[Uilmuteiz]

Originally posted by NathanButler@Feb 3 2004, 05:01 PM
Mmmmokay. The PCAs should be mostly taken care of, but we're going to yank the threads when the voting is finished, so the results may be known to some, but not to all, and many won't have stopped by to vote and be curious about it.

But if that's what you want, we'll confine it to CR and ROTO.
Nathan, I thought that's what SWFW.com was for... you know you do a news about it and there you go.

we May mention some of the winners but we won't go trough all the positions and all.

you said you talked to Rich about this.. fine.. next time maybe you could include us next time and see what we can do. We all have the same goal here Making Fan Audio more popular.. let's help us out instead of .. well.. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/banghead.gif bashing our heads on walls.

[Nathan Butler]

Yeah, we can do it that way. No big deal at all. With my current feelings on the PCA's after finding out some . . . politicking issues . . . is to almost want to discount them entirely. Nice to see they won't have much airtime, though I'm sure i'll mention it briefly.

[Steve Mollmann]

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. This year I'm running the annual Star Trek Book Awards, and there's one short story author who must have organized a massive campaign for people to vote for his story because a massive amount of people voted for it but not in any other category. Now another author seems to be doing something similiar. It really pisses me off because the way things are going now they're both going to win their respective categories. It's not that these are bad stories (in fact, I haven't read either), but I know they can't be that popular considering I've seen barely any discussion on either one, positive or negative.

I suspect the problem in the fan audio community is that most people involved in it also work on projects; there seem to be very few people here on GS who just listen (correct me if I'm wrong) so just about everyone has a stake.

[Nathan Butler]

Heh, that's why finding the 7-member academy was a little tough. Finding 7 who hadn't been in ANYTHING in 2003 was rough. But I think we'll have an easier time for the next set, as by then a lot of people will have gotten out of participation and into listening, so that they can basically vote on the next batch.

Perhaps. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[keithabbott]

I don't think you can expect anything less than politics when it comes to voting for your peers. You see it in the Academy Awards, you see it in the Grammys..and you see it in reality shows like The Gauntlet on MTV.

Some people are going to vote for their friends no matter what. In my case, I voted all RoN on stuff we were involved in because I personally saw all the hard work that went into the production and I believe every single person I voted for was the best. So in a sense guys, I don't think you can expect too much less.

Now, when it comes down to other projects that I was not personally involved in, I showed no favortism for anyone who participated in RoN. Of course, that's just me. Who knows what everyone else is doing.

Honestly, I'm not really in favor of best of award shows. I'm more in favor of recognition awards for excellence. It's just like a courtroom with jurors. It's very hard to find someone unbiased as you guys stated who has nothing to do with situation.

I've tried to encourage our crew and cast to vote, but I would also hope that they would take the time to listen to the other projects out there and make up their own minds as they see fit. Of course, that's easy enough said than done.

The ironic thing is, I dont think most of our cast and crew have even voted. Maybe 1/3rd if that. Kinda sad really but I think most of them have moved on from the whole experience.

Keith

[Nathan Butler]

See, that, in part, is exactly why I don't want the PCA's to return next year. The notion that looking at the hard work that went into something and using that to judge the final products against others where one wasn't privy to the work going into it, when it should be judged on final output only, is just another skewing process to my eyes.

I can say that I, for one, took the time out to vote objectively not for our own projects in every case, but for which best fit what the category called for, as did others I've spoken with, but I do not, and cannot, expect that kind of objective integrity from anyone other than myself, as I'm the only one whose actions I control. I would've HOPED that would have been the case across the board, but apparently not. That, though, is something I expected and could understand. But when it becomes a matter of politicking, rather than politics, that's where I draw the line. People answering the "call to vote" without hearing ANYTHING in some cases, just because a buddy did something? Yeah, that's the end of that.

But, since the awards have already begun, they'll continue as promised. But we'll cast no illusions about the politicking and subjective, rather than objective, flaws of the PCA setup. Personally, at this point, I wish I'd either had a little less faith in the community to be objective rather than practitioners of bigpolitick, or that they'd lived up to the extra faith I did credit the community with.

Oh well. Learning experience.

[keithabbott]

Just imagine what would have happened if you posted the news of the awards on TFN LLC's main page. Oh brother would things get scewed. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif At least I know I listened to all the competition and non-competition at least once this year. So I don't feel bad about my votes.

But like I was saying, awards can be bad mojo. Someone always gets left out. It's not like it's the 100 yard dash. There's never a clear winner in the arts. It's all subjective. Even the most album sales is subjective. If mom and pop don't subscribe to Scantron..those sales don't get counted.

My idea of awards is, hey crew...you did a great job. Lets go get a pizza. I'm buying. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

And before any of you crew and cast members start calling your lawyers regarding that pizza offer...I already bought pizza. . If you weren't there you missed out. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/innocent.gif
Keith

[scribe88]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>Honestly, I'm not really in favor of best of award shows. I'm more in favor of recognition awards for excellence. It's just like a courtroom with jurors. It's very hard to find someone unbiased as you guys stated who has nothing to do with situation.

[/b][/quote]

The fact is that it is ALL subjective, even for professional novel and short story writers trying to get a story published. What one person considers "excellence" is another person's dog doo. I've heard of so many incidents of one editor buying something and raving over it when other editors sent it back with critical comments that I try not to take anything personally and I would hope everyone else could try to do the same.

It's like I tried to say on that "other" thread. It's only fandom. It's only a hobby ... no one's even getting paid. When it ceases to be FUN for everyone and turns into a matter for sniping and discord, that's a problem. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif

However, I have learned one thing: No more Gungans! (and no more references to pedophilia ...)

[goodwije]

I was quite proud of my votes and objectivaty to be honest. I tryed my best to vote honestly based on the works themselves. I would hope, and expect, that all 7 of us did so.

[Steve Mollmann]

Well, as long as you voted for me, it'll be fine. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

[goodwije]

I very fairly gave you all the same amount of time to bribe me. It is not my fault Steve gave me the most money. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rolleyes.gif

[Nathan Butler]

Another thought, primarly directed at Rich: With the scheduling issues, perhaps what might make more sense is to announce the winners on ROTO, then we can launch the site areas about it, then instead of interviews on ROTO or on CR, I just do the interviews as I get time, and we just every so often start to put up interview clips with the winners as small separate files. Saves bandwidth, saves time, saves hassle, but still gets everything out there.

Ya think?

[Uilmuteiz]

style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif *feeling left out* style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif

As you said Nathan, Live and Learn.

If I may however, instead of going for 7 people who didn't do nothing, you get some people to vote on things other than what they do.

For instance, Me, Lunatic, Kit and Raven could have voted for Audio Drama for we have no strong bonds to it.

and then some actors directors and extras from Audio Dramas could have voted for best Radio Show for they have no strong bonds with us.

I actually went and listen to some of the audio works before voting.

that way I could make my own idea.

I'm ok with the current results of the PCAs to be quite honest.
The results represent well the Fan Audio Community I've seen around here thus far.

[Kheetor84]

Hey, some of us just started to crawl of the "Real Life" rock into wanting to be noticed in this strange fandom... Like me going on SWD as their female perspective.

[Nathan Butler]

Sebastien: I quite agree on that one. I thought about setting up a separate smaller "academy" for each subject instead of one big one, which would've made staffing it easier.

That may be what we do next year, in fact. This year, I wanted to get things kicked off with people who could hopefully be impartial overall, so we'd only have the one set of votes to deal with while the different voting sets were going on. In the future, since we'd only have the FAAA setup, I think that would be an easier proposition to deal with.

As for the results . . . I'm starting to definitely lean toward something that goes through Fanworks rather than through any one radio show.

My thought now is that it should go like this.

1. Polls close Feb. 15 around noon ET.

2. Feb. 16 or so, perhaps later, the winners are announced on Fanworks with the launching of a brand new section under Features. Right before we do this, we set up something either the night of Feb. 15 or earlier in the day on Feb. 16 (President's Day in the U.S.) to announce winners live on the message board, like Elizabeth was saying some fan fiction groups had done.

3. In the weeks after Feb. 16, I do some interviews with the FAAA winners.

4. Starting March 1, we start putting up short 5 - 15 min. interview clips (not as ChronoRadio, but JUST an interview on behalf of Fanworks) for the winners, which would be linked to from the project and individual person pages, right alongside their "award image."

5. We release the interview clips every so often over the next month or two, spreading them out to keep things interesting and help out bandwidth and time considerations.

I think that way, nobody loses, because there's no one radio show doing everything, and the interviews would go on the Fanworks site itself, not just under the CR or ROTO banner, plus that keeps Rich from having to gather the entire ROTO team for interviews with his really hectic schedule. That also eliminates any issues with "who will announce winners" because the winners would be announced and discussed live here.

That's what I'm looking toward at the moment, and I'll probably announce that on the main page sometime in the near future, likely tonight or today. Once I say it officially, I can be prodded to stick to it. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

[Nathan Butler]

Looks like Rich will be releasing a special edition of ROTO for ROTO #5 that will have the "how does it feel" type clips from the interview series, then we'll still have the smaller interview files out there as well with a new one each week or so.

I've already gotten 2 of the 10 interviews done. (Wouldn't you like to know which ones so you know who the winners were or, if you were nominated, whether your category has already been covered? Muwahahaha!)

[Nathan Butler]

By this time next week, we'll know who all the award winners are, and at least one of the interviews will have been released.

[LizAscot]

Cool. *crosses fingers* style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif

[Nathan Butler]

I will say that of the 20 categories, there are 8 categories where the current PCA (polling) winner is different (sometimes vastly so) from the FAAA (presumably impartial group that listened to everything before voting) winners. Five of those eight cases are instances that, given that I've been told already about specific instances of issues raised above ("get out the vote" movements, per se, rather than objective voting in some cases), can be traced to that exact phenomenon. Those necessarily trying to determine who won the Fan Audio Academy Awards by using the current People's Choice voting as a guide may be highly surprised when the objective results are announced on Sunday.

I'll also say that there *were* some shutouts, projects that, surprisingly (very surprisingly in some cases), did not end up with any FAAA accolades. In one case, a presumed shoe-in lost out on several on a 4/3 vote or a tiebreaker. I'm sensing some disappointed people, but I'm thinking that when we announce, I might mention who was right there in a horserace with the winner before announcing who in that horserace ended up winning.

Again, another reason the PCA's won't be returning. I can just see the people kvetching about the disparity now . . .

[keithabbott]

That's just the way award presentations typically work. How many times has LucasFilms been shut out or not even nominated. Yet they've made many of the most popular and successful movies of all time. And from one award show to the next, the winners are all different.

My favorite band of all time, The Innocence Mission, has 4 major label releases, received hundreds of positive reviews (well over 90% are positive) from all over the world. Yet, their record sales are next to zero compared to Madonna, Nirvana and Tori Amos. They'll never win an award because of one reason or another. That's just the way it works out.

But I tell ya what, when I have a connection with a piece of artwork, whether it be visual or audio, on a one-to-one basis...there's nothing more rewarding than that. No matter how many people like the same piece of artwork, it doesn't take away from the 'perfect moment' I've experienced of absolute gratification. It can be my artwork or someone else's. It doesn't matter. Just this morning I was in absolute bliss listening to Yellow by Coldplay. That song just sends chills up my spine and takes me to some other place.

Now that's what inspires and satisfies me.

[Nathan Butler]

That's usually my feelings on stuff like that. Particularly films, where I don't tend to agree with the Oscars or Golden Globes very often.

The fan film community was always trying to pull off a unified set of awards, though, so I figured that we could/should start this genre out right for awards this year, if we were going to ever do them at all.

It's been about 50% fun and interesting, 50% frustrating and a pain in the butt.

On the plus side, I'm getting another interview out of the way tonight. From another country no less.

[keithabbott]

Here's a new phrase for the books...

"There are certain constants in the universe, but subjectivity isn't one of them." - Keith Abbott, Feb. 2004


style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif

[Nathan Butler]

3rd interview down, but not the one I'd expected to do last night. That's 7 left, and we have an email call out to one person that may be impossible to reach.

[Nathan Butler]

For the record, it is just about 7:00 p.m. ET right now. People's Choice Award polling will end 41 hours, at noon ET on Sunday.

We will hold the awards "ceremony" here on the board at 5:00 p.m. ET on Sunday evening, before the airing of the next SWD episode.

[Nathan Butler]

Got another interview out of the way. That's a total of 4 out of 10 done. We're going to have trouble getting in touch with 2 of those 10. I know that at least 1 of the remainging 4 will be taken care of on Monday.

That leaves only 3 that I know I can get taken care of. I just have to get in touch with those people again.

S'not too bad, really. The trick will be those 2 that will be hard to get to. One is out there "pursuing the dream" and the other is someone that isn't so much part of the audio community as someone that the audio and film communities call on when needed.

[Nathan Butler]

Check that. One of the two people, the one "pursuing the dream," will just be rolled into the interview with the creator of the project she won for. That gives us 5 out of the 10 already covered now.

As for the other one that may be out of touch, I'm going to get in touch with that project creator as well to do an interview if I don't hear back from the winner himself. That way, all the bases are covered.

[Nathan Butler]

Alright, folks. PCA voting is over and we'll be announcing the winners tonight starting at 5 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. CT, 2 p.m. PT.