Originally, this was going to be an off-the-cuff and unscripted little exercise while working the bugs out of a new audio setup, but I thought better of it. You guys deserve more than that. Download the MP3 (Dropbox) The Spoony One's review of Bioshock: Infinite Giant Bomb's mini-wiki page on Audio Logs My YouTubevideo about Audio Logs Have I mentioned I like the game Singularity?
It's rather funny that hosting video on the web is fairly easy thanks to services like YouTube or Vimeo, but hosting audio (podcasts) is a little less user-friendly. If I make a video, I can use the embed codes on YouTube to post it here for people to see. If I want to host an audio file, there aren't many embedded players that can compete. When I started producing my audiologs again, I'd considered using SoundCloud. Unfortunately, they cap basic users at 2 hours of total content, and I simply can't afford more space. Before, I was posting my audio files to Tumblr, but that player can't be embedded elsewhere, only linked. It's simply not convenient. I'll still likely use SoundCloud, but only for certain projects, while I'll try something a little more conventional for Venusian Radio. Pilot Episode: Chipmunks 1987 vs. 2007 -- Originally, my first episode was going to be about Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson, but I wanted to warm up first, test the waters with my new recording setup, so I went for an easier target. The Filler Episode -- Still haven't worked out the bugs in my hardware, so after finishing a script for a future episode, I gave myself a challenge. It may be breaking a rule I made on my DeviantART journal of devoting myself to fewer-but-larger projects with no filler or cop-outs, but it's no reason I can't produce content simply because the results aren't quite yet up to my standards. I'm not sure how well linking to the MP3 files directly works. It always seems to work best on other sites, while in my experience it's always such a hassle, with people saying the links don't work or they get asked for login information. We'll see how well this works out.
Follow up to my Camera Complaint video, wherein I explain
the rather poor audio quality. Interestingly, it's not because
the microphones were of poor quality, but rather because I
was standing on the wrong side of the camera.
Some time ago, I decided to share my terrible acting skills with the world and create a series of bogus audio recordings of the (possibly) lone crewman of a spaceship overcome by a terrible calamity. I have to give credit where credit is due and point out the article Snap, Crackle, Plot by Graeme Virtue as well as his Science Officer's Log Blogger page. Additionally, there's Jason Killingsworth's Start Press: The Spirit of Radio. They all deal with these little items of video game fame known as audiologs:
So, in short, I made a few of my own, bogus audiologs for a game that never was. I uploaded the videos to my YouTube channel, but I'd also uploaded them to Revver where, after taking a surprisingly short amount of time in showing them live, the videos were given maturity ratings, effectively on the power of words despite there being no foul language and no innuendo. Heck, there isn't even any music or sound effects.
Part One:
This received a 13+ rating from Revver's internal review board. I wasn't disappointed or upset or anything, as I had no idea what sort of "rating" my content would warrant. After all, the fact that novels lack a sort of rating system compared to theatrical motion pictures would imply that simply describing a gruesome act (either via printed text or even spoken, as with an audiobook) is not half as objectionable as a movie showing it to us. In the case of Part One, the act in question is the hysterical aftermath of some sort of outbreak or invasion, wherein frantic and paranoid crew members begin indiscriminately killing one another.
Part Two:
Part Two received no rating, implying a general appeal and lacking in any overly objectionable material. This seemed rather odd to me; I mean, it was obvious I was making episodic content, so why wouldn't they just stick with the "13+" designation as the default rating? It's not uncommon for a film series to have ratings go up, as was the case for Revenge of the Sith and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which received PG-13 and PG ratings respectively while their prior chapters were rated PG and G, but it's quite a different issue when the ratings go down. This was the case for Conan the Destroyer and Weekend at Bernie's II, both PG-rated sequels to R-Rated films as well as Be Cool, the PG-13 sequel to the R-Rated Get Shorty. To give further perspective on how ratings going up for a film series is more common than going down, consider the James Bond films, which had all been rated PG up until Licence to Kill in 1989, which was originally rated R upon release but later re-rated PG-13, which ended up being the typical rating for a Bond film henceforth despite retaining relatively consistent levels of violence, suggestive dialogue, and sexual scenarios throughout. Granted, the PG-13 rating didn't exist until the late 1980s, so the shift ultimately had more to do with social standards than the actual content of the films.
Part Three:
Here is where I apparently cross the line, or at least come as close as is possible to it without actually crossing it since that would probably just lead to the video being taken down. As for what tripped the alarm and got me the "17+" rating:
Decomposition
That's the only thing that might be considered objectionable in the whole recording. I mean, I doubt anyone's offended by vending machines or the continued use of coined currency in the distant future. So, apparently discussing and describing mass hysteria and homicide is worthy of "13+" but taking the extra step to mention that those victims of said hysteria and homicide will start to reek a bit when no one's around to clean up takes us straight into adult territory. It's like in old westerns and, probably more noticeably, the jailbreak scene in Star Wars where people just seem to vaporize after they fall out of frame, clutching their fatal shot wound. It's something we can probably find examples of everywhere, but the fallacy of the logic behind it: showing humorous or inaccurate results of violence is all right for children, but once you start showing the real consequences (like in a public service announcement against drugs, gangs, guns, and the like) suddenly the material is objectionable.
Part Four:
Like part two, it received no mature rating, implying mass appeal. This is just baffling since the plot ultimately leads to my character requesting what basically amounts to a mercy killing (possibly in the idiom of self sacrifice, if there was indeed any sort of calamity) and begging his wife for forgiveness about not being able to come home.
At the risk of turning this into a catch-phrase: Am I missing something here?
Part The Last of this series of bogus audiologs for a game that never was.
Ugh, don't get me started on this one. I did so many re-takes I lost count. The biggest problem of all was fitting my own arbitrary time-length. Originally, when I thought this would be three parts, each one was going to be successively longer, 30 seconds for the first, 60 for the second, and 90 on the third. That ended up not really working out, so now it's four parts, each approximately 30 seconds with the last being just below 90. I couldn't let it go over because, in addition to DevART, YouTube, DailyMotion, and others, I've been uploading these to Flickr, which has a very strict 90-second limit.
In terms of the story, now that it's essentially finished (I did have an idea for a sort of "side-story" centering around the loader going haywire, just as a little throwaway), I wanted to give a few more details about what happened, but still leave it relatively ambiguous.
In terms of the technical side of these four little productions, they were all recorded the same way: on a cell-phone, specifically a Motorola ZN5, which, it turns out, has a really good little voice notes feature, with alarmingly good quality. Unfortunately, the format this little wonder records in is AMR, which is okay for playing back on phones, but it has to be converted into something else if you're going to do anything else with it. Luckily, I found a little freeware program that converts AMR to either WAV or MP3. What's funny about the AMR format is that its sampling rate is around 8kHz (to give you an idea, your voice on the phone is about 11kHz, and a CD is 44kHz) with heavy compression, but the artifacts created as a result are barely noticeable. Compared to an MP3 recording (on one of my more sophisticated devices) at 11kHz, the 8kHz AMR recording sounds leaps and bounds better.
There you have it: simple and readily-available recording devices and as little editing as possible. Hopefully, that "less is more" approach has paid off.
