Would There Ever Be a Possibility...?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right, I FINALLY managed to read all the thread between my last posts... I have a few comments to that...

Originally Posted by MatthewM

One more question, for now - How are we going to incorporate the "Frodo said.", etc. into the dialogue? Do you know what I mean? For example Frodo speaks, and then in the book it says "Frodo said" to let the audience know who just spoke to avoid confusion. I suppose with actual voices it may not be hard to tell but to some it may.

Originally Posted by Rikae

Certainly I would prefer to stay as close to the original as possible, changing only those things (like "Frodo said") which would be awkward or redundant in this format. I would much rather see each character given a recognisable enough voice, than to hear "Frodo said"'s all over the place. The only other instance I can think of where deviation from the text would be the most sensible route is where sounds are described, as it would be far more intuitive and make the best use of the medium if we provided the sound itself. Other than this, why not stick to the text?

I think the "Frodo said" things should be left out. Just as Rikae said. In most of the audio plays, it is managed like that in the first scene a character is being called a name by someone else (if possible, several times), so this way the audience knows his name. Or, actually in our case it is quite possible that the character may be introduced by the narration. Or, if not, another classic trick is to introduce a character by adding some "situation briefing" at the beginning (which is made up by the screenwriters). See, in the Czech radio play the narrator was Bilbo Baggins and at the beginning, Frodo said something and Bilbo's voice interrupted: "This is my nephew, Frodo Baggins. He is a nice guy. He had been growing with the Brandybuck but I adopted him..." Of course, that play was without really just a conversation play and all was done by the dialogues, but the basic idea is this and it is also a variant to use. I see Mac probably imagined it to go in some way like that. But that will really take lot of effort and would practically mean writing a totally new story (stageplay).

Originally Posted by MatthewM

About the background music, I meant mainly for in between scenes, not over dialogue, really...if we use it wisely (and sparingly), like Rikae said, it could be nice...for example, a transition into another scene could be cued up with some bg music for a couple of seconds, maybe with the narrator speaking over it.

The only words we would have to change, as mentioned, would be words that signify sounds, in which we have to try and produce that sound - saying it would be quite bad for this medium, and I'm sure all would agree on that!

Concerning background music, I am really for just sounds in the background, and leave the music... maybe only during very long narrative sections, just soft one, and as Matthew said, between the scenes...

Now concerning the present things. I will record something soon - only a question, it does not matter what I record, Nog? Whether a dialogue, narration, a mix of both; a dialogue between two characters - should I act them or, like, what exactly is the purpose of this? Just technical thing (to find out that I need to buy a better microphone or probably a microphone with longer cable, as I am quite sure the computer humming will be heard in my case), or also to show my acting capabilities and such? (The thing I have in mind is, if I record a dialogue between Gandalf and Frodo, and in the end I turn playing Gimli, the sample won't tell much, as my voice or acting may not be good for Gandalf nor Frodo, but good for Gimli.) Speaking of that, I have no clear idea of whom I'd like to play - well, how could I when I don't know what chapter we are going to record or such. But I don't particularly care (although I just got an idea what I could record... we'll see).

Hm, not sure if I said all I wanted, but I will post if I remember. It has been enough for now anyway, I think

P.S. Oh yes, Nog: And mainly: How long thing should the recorded sample be? And in which format (I was not able to figure out from the posts whether it has to be wav or whether converting it to mp3 does not matter - I think depending on the length of it, wav can be quite a big file).

[Nogrod]

To the concerns of Lommy and Eönwë - and anyone else - I'd just want to say the following... Don't raise the level of expectations for yourself too high. This is no Hollywood or BBC production with professional actors, directors, studio conditions or equipment. We are amateurs all of us who have gotten an idea to do something fun together. Right? It would be awesome if we could - come fall - boast that we have indeed made one chapter from the LotR together over seas and continents. And we have had fun with it. And we can remember that thing when we're old in a way "well, then we did this thing back in the early third millenia... now where's that file again... I was soo young back then, just listen to my funny voice..."


I got Matthew's clips finally. I'm afraid most email-providers have a 10MB size limit what comes to attachements so we should start using mp3's indeed. Otherwise the files get too big to be posted. I'm trying to upload the next bigger one to Myspace though. If it works we could share larger files that way later. But just for now let's stick to mp3's (I know I myself said let's try to use wav.-files as they have a better quality but having sent a pile of files recently over this matter I think we need to accept the mp3 format - and it's not that bad compared to the relative differences in the recordinhgs themselves).


I'd advice against meddling with the text, at least in a way of adding things to it. One thing we could and probably should do would be to skip off those narrations which only state "Frodo said" or "said Gandalf" (and there are a lot of those!). When the narration goes like "Bilbo laughed" or "said Elrond Gravely" we should think whether that tone of voice can be acted out clear enough to omit that phrase if that is the only thing that precedes, cuts or follows a speech. But when the narration says fex. "cried Sam, unable to contain himself any longer, and jumping up from the corner..." then the narrator should read that all, also the part "cried Sam".


Legate - and others who have not recorded anything yet: it's pretty much the same what you record now. Take something you like.

The first thing we need to see is, do the equipments work and how they do it? This far we know that Oddwen's equipments work well enough as well as mine (and Lommy & Greenie can use mine as well) and that Matthew has some problems with the technical stuff. I've sent one clip from Matthew to Nerwen for her to see whether she could get better results from it with her dad's stuff.

But there surely is the other dimension as well. It would be useless for me to try a Lobelia just as a technical trial as that would in no case be my character. So keep your favourites coming. After we have a host of them we all have heard we can start to discuss who should take which role.

And we need a narrator as well. I think it would be good if the narrator was someone who speaks English as a mothertongue and has decent equipments because the narrator is the one who has basically the most lines.

About the length then. Oddwen read almost a page and that I think should be the maximum. Matthew has made some takes from almost oneliners to a few sentences. That I think is the minimum.


Regarding the chapter we should try eventually I'd say we should try to choose one which has lots of hobbits and elves in it so that all the females could find characters to themselves - if we are to try female voices as hobbits and elves in the first place; I do think myself it's a good idea as there are so many females compared to males in relation to the roles in the actual books.

Although a chapter with a few orcs as well might do as I could run the female orc-voices through a guitar amplifier with distortion or something... it might sound interesting as well.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

All right. I will have something for you hopefully tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

I'd advice against meddling with the text, at least in a way of adding things to it. One thing we could and probably should do would be to skip off those narrations which only state "Frodo said" or "said Gandalf" (and there are a lot of those!). When the narration goes like "Bilbo laughed" or "said Elrond Gravely" we should think whether that tone of voice can be acted out clear enough to omit that phrase if that is the only thing that precedes, cuts or follows a speech. But when the narration says fex. "cried Sam, unable to contain himself any longer, and jumping up from the corner..." then the narrator should read that all, also the part "cried Sam".

Yup, I am sure once we choose the text, we will be confronted with such choices while going through the text itself - unless we really make it totally different and write our own stageplay - and so that will wait once the text is chosen.

Speaking of Orcs, I like very much the Uruk-hai, but not sure if it's everyone's cup of tea...

Or hey, what about the Voice of Saruman? That provides some good dialogues (but that will be quite a challenge to make a convincing Saruman - and even more convincing Gandalf in the end... Besides, I think MatthewM wanted Boromir there...).

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Speaking of Orcs, I like very much the Uruk-hai, but not sure if it's everyone's cup of tea...

When Greenie comes over tomorrow I'll try to persuade her to try an orc just to see what could be done with the voice.

I also think she's pretty outstanding Gollum as well (I've heard her acting him). So if I can talk her over to try that as well...

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Besides, I think MatthewM wanted Boromir there...).

Indeed!

So, if we can agree that we are looking for a chapter which has speech from Men, elves, and hobbits...perhaps one from Lorien?

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

When Greenie comes over tomorrow I'll try to persuade her to try an orc just to see what could be done with the voice.

I also think she's pretty outstanding Gollum as well (I've heard her acting him). So if I can talk her over to try that as well...

Well, that is done now. We did a discussion of Shagrat and Gorbag and I also did a bit of golluming...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

Well, that is done now. We did a discussion of Shagrat and Gorbag and I also did a bit of golluming...

Aah, I also thought about Gorbags when I was choosing what to do, but then I left the idea as I presumed we won't be probably doing Orcs anyway... so I picked something "neutral" (Strider). It's not the crown of creation, but now for the basic purposes it should serve well. Hope Nog gets it all right.

[Thinlómien]

This is beginning to look better and better...

To the concerns of Lommy and Eönwë - and anyone else - I'd just want to say the following... Don't raise the level of expectations for yourself too high. This is no Hollywood or BBC production with professional actors, directors, studio conditions or equipment. We are amateurs all of us who have gotten an idea to do something fun together. Right? It would be awesome if we could - come fall - boast that we have indeed made one chapter from the LotR together over seas and continents. And we have had fun with it. And we can remember that thing when we're old in a way "well, then we did this thing back in the early third millenia... now where's that file again... I was soo young back then, just listen to my funny voice..."

Okay, I agree with this, but I just want to protest a bit. For you can't count me to this category... I don't want to be Frodo because it is against my mental image that Frodo would sound like me and as for Legolas, well, is it too much asked that he would deliver his lines understandably?

If we're doing Lórien, I might reconsider doing Haldir... I like him and I would have great fun with some of his lines. Maybe I must test one day.