Phoenix Rising

It’s official. I have done all of my required tasks for Pendant. Superman 56 and its commentary are out the door. My talented co-director is now sole director, and I’m now an EX-director. Until Jeffrey comes up with something else for me to do, no doubt. Of course, I have plans that may delay any future action, but they’re so nebulous as to be non-existent at this point, so maybe I shouldn’t say that. In any case, I’M DONE!

Remember that post where I said I lost the 140 line scene, and then in comments revealed that I was being a drama queen? I was loading that scene up to add the music, and it won’t load. At all. And the forums for the software say ’save often!’ Well, FUCK, it WAS saved, I opened it and it all was there, and now it’s gone, so it’s not like I fucking DIDN’T HAVE A GOOD FUCKING SAVE FILE! FUCK YOU!

Thanks to Tenzil, video of me being a complete idiot:

VIDEO PROOF

I’m coming up on finishing the last episode of Superman I’m directing for Pendant, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I mean, I knew going in that I wouldn’t want to direct the show for too long. But with this web project which is almost done (although now the pressure is not NEARLY so high as it was during the time that my co-director was doing all the work, it’s not nearly as hard), I didn’t have time to do it. And my boss at real-job is giving me crap due to lack of focus on his projects, although that may just be lack of sleep as well as too much to do…

But it’s a change in my life, which will give me free time to do more things I enjoy. Not that I didn’t enjoy working on the show, on the contrary. But while it is a creative endeavor, I was unable to really go to town creatively, because of the time constraints I did nothing to ease (again, purely my fault here. Not placing blame).

Anyway, on to different things.

This weekend was pretty busy, relative to normal.

Friday, my lovely wife and children went up to visit the breeders of our new puppy. They’re also selling their very well trained 2.5 year old Blue Merle male dog, if anyone wants such a thing (Their website). That evening, before they returned, I went to Friday night soccer with Tenzil. Saturday was the 4th of July, duh, wherein we go to Kennywood to celebrate the birthday of Tenzil’s first kid (oh, and something related to independence). This year was excellent because said kid has a cell phone, so we just sent our kids out with him to go on all the rides, while we adults did what we wanted. We checked in every so often, and everything was just fine.

We (being GreenLion, Tenzil’s sister, and I) finally caved and did the SkyCoaster. What’s that, you ask? Well, it’s basically a free-fall ride. You are strapped into a big harness (each one individually, and then the three of us were linked together), then lifted 180 feet in the air. Then they count down 3-2-1-FLY! The person on the right (Tenzil’s sister, in this case) then pulls a ripcord, and we freefall for about 3 seconds, then swing back and forth several times, until they hold up a loop for us to snag, and then we get down, and go change our shorts. It was fun. I’m looking for the video that Tenzil took, but not finding it on Youtube. We got home at like 11PM, and put the kids to bed. I mean, they were already asleep, but we got them upstairs to bed.

Today, I had to run to the store to get something RIGHT at opening time, deal with the end result of that, then Tenzil, GreenLion, MightyBob7, amfetterolf, chatty, wildpaletz, and monkat came over for gaming. We finished a HUGE battle that started last session, finished a fairly long story that is like 10 sessions old, and now we have no idea what’s going to happen next. I don’t think. After that, I had to boot people out of my house, because my lovely wife returned home from the pool, and we had to go next door to the 3 year old girl’s birthday party. They’re very nice people, and Serena and their little girl get along wonderfully.

Now I have a headache, which implies either allergies, a cold, or a significant change in the weather. And of course, tomorrow, I have to get up like 2 hours earlier than usual to take Austin to C-MITES summer camp, where he learns his first programming language, ALICE…Don’t know anything about it, but I’m sure he’ll enjoy it.

Blech.

Just got done with a 140 line scene for Supes 56…and Audition crashed on me before saving. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

testing…ignore this

I joined Tenzil and GreenLion’s soccer team this year, and today was the last game of the first session prior to the end of session tournament (which not really a tournament, it’s just two games: Play for 3rd and Play for 1st). Lots of people on all teams were away, so there was quite a bit of ‘Hey, can you play on our team?’ stuff going on. We had a 30 minute game at 4PM, which we unsurprisingly lost to Blue, and then a half-hour break, then a 1 hour game at 5PM against Gold, which we actually won. For the 4PM game, we recruited a Gold player to join us. For the 5PM game, we recruited a White player. Then, after our 5PM game, I played goalie for White, and did pretty well for myself, except for the scraped knee. I was informed that someone broke their ankle in the Open league, and in the game I played goalie, one of the girls on White fell awkwardly and separated a rib. I tried to help her by cracking her back (at her insistence, I didn’t offer but didn’t mind doing it - she’s not unattractive, after all), but didn’t really succeed, as my technique is particularly suited to backs, and not so much to ribs.

Good fun. But 3 hours of soccer.

In an effort to broaden my audio drama experience, I’ve picked up a few production companies outside of Pendant to listen to. Here are my observations:

1> Pendant is a very writerly production group. By this I mean that a main goal is to show off your writing chops. This is shown by all the long term story arcs and interpersonal conflict in the shows. Also, the writers generally have more authority than the directors, and if a writer insists upon a specific change, it gets done. This isn’t to say this is a BAD thing, it is what it is. As a director, you are told this before you take on a directorial role, so it’s not like it’s a surprise.

2> This is not meant as a slam on Pendant, but audio drama companies that meet up together and rehearse ahead of time and record their lines together, instead of recording them line by line and mixing them later, have a more authentic conversational style. I try as best I can to mimic that when I direct, but it’s not always easy when two people don’t see the scene the same way. With a director in the same room as the actors, you can get around the limitations of recorded lines.

Some recommendations:

Decoder Ring Theater. Home of the Red Panda and Black Jack Justice. Very good stuff.

Afterlives: An interesting story set in a universe of Heavens and Hells, the main characters are all dead and are trying to solve what appears to be an epic mystery in the Afterlives.

Umket Industries Presents The Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion Adventure Theater: Pulp-ish (not quite pure pulp) WWII show. DISCLAIMER: I work with Pendant, who produces this one.

Austin had his first experience pitching competitively tonight. It was against a team we’d played before. He pitched the first inning. Allow me to describe my thought process:

Last week: Coach informs me Austin will be pitching tonight. I say to Austin, “This is your first time pitching. Expect to get the maximum runs scored against you (5), and not to get any outs. If you manage to get a strike, I’ll be proud of you.” I didn’t want him to think he would succeed against these guys on his first try.

Tonight, after the game: HOLY CRAP! A ground out and 2 strikeouts! Only 4 runs score! VICTORY!

He was proud of himself. I’m proud of him.