Audiofivers

[Nate the Great]

This is a combined poll/discussion. As usual I'll have to go by way of Jupiter to reach the point, but...

A long time ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, life was wild, rich, and on the whole, tax-free. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women, and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small furry--oh, yeah, the point.

It was once suggested by someone at 5MSG that it'd be fun to make audiofivers. The term was coined by us as a neat idea to do. Reading a fiver aloud with a full voice cast comprising (of course ) of the fivists of 5MSG. Of course these would be freely downloadable. The idea was actually the simplification of a more advanced idea called "videofivers," which would be a lot more complicated (and possibly illegal) to do. Turns out none of us had the equipment or knowledge to start Photoshopping hundreds of images or the ethics to start ripping footage off of DVDs (were the DVD sets out back then? I can't recall). However, most of us should have a barebones Sound Recorder in the Accessories menus of our Windows taskbars, right? Record a line at a time and let the technowizards among us string them together with basic sound effects.

What are your feelings about reviving the idea?

So, you can see the poll options yourself. Please comment.

[Nate the Great]

By the way, I ain't a technowizard. Basically I'm just stirring up trouble again.

[Zeke]

I still have a copy of the audiofiver test run you guys did. I don't think the idea is worth reviving unmodified -- an audiofiver takes longer than a fiver, you can't delineate scenes, and let's face it, we're not voice actors. What I have been considering is the possibility of doing Flash videos à la Newgrounds.

[whoiam]

I'd be happy to contribute my monotonous English accent to the cause. I'm also fairly adept at .wav editing, so I'd be happy to do the stringing together of completed files.

As to Zeke's objection about being unable to delineate scenes... my (admittedly sketchy) knowledge of actual audiobooks indicates that a pause usually suffices... but that in the interests of time, we could just use a stock beep to indicate scene transitions.

It may not make perfect sense, but then, fivers have always implied the plotline, rather then stated it. So a slightly insane audio recording would fit rather well, I think...

[Nate the Great]

Erm, which audiofiver test? There was no "complete" audiofiver in any form, ever, at least as far as I remember. I have a sound test file for myself and one for Hejira. That's it, right?

I agree that a simple beep would be fine, maybe a quick audio cue to indicate whether we're onboard ship or on a planet.

As for the length of the fivers, why not five the fivers? With the correct editing I'm sure a handful of scenes would be fine. We all know the plots, so basically we'd be doing what Monty Python did to turn their sketches into a movie.

Hey, a flash movie (videofiver) is fine, too, but would it be the "powerpoint presentation" format or the "mystery science theater 3000" format? I mean, snapshots or actual motion?

It's just that if writing a fiver is a one, and audiofivers are five, videofivers are like thirty. A lot more work, a lot more time, a lot more bandwidth, and way better odds that people will give up when Real Life rears it's ugly head. I think we really do need to tiptoe into this.

"We're not voice actors?" Hey, we may not be professionally trained, but we have moxie, spunk, and enough cheesy geekitude to choke a cat!

[Chancellor Valium]

I can do a mean Palpatine impression, if that helps...

re: beeps. Beeps are annoying. Pauses aren't. Catch my drift?

As for fiving fivers, why? The term is a relative one. Most certainly don't take five minutes to read...