The Hyacinth Disaster (Page 1 of 2)

Though I've listened to Episode 1 a bunch already in previous forms, I did so again with a friend who was over last night. He dug it, clearly more than he expected to going in. Looking forward to listening to the rest!

errybody gettin mp3 cds fer crimmus

And I in turn found Argus to be well Teague'd. My favorite part of Episode 1 is Argus chewing Dread out.

I burned all episodes to a CD this morning and am listening in the car. I generally have issues listening along with stuff while driving, having to rewind a bit, but only did that once for something non-crucial (one of Dread's half-swallowed lines, seeing if a missing word was important; it wasn't). It flows really well and is super conversational among the characters, I buy it almost 100% of the time.

SPOILER: When everybody is celebrating after the positive scan at the end of Episode 2, I couldn't help but smile, even knowing what was coming up. A totally jubilant group of friends, all talking over each other,
all so excited that this stress was all worth it - I bought it completely and was swept up in it.

Edit: Episode 2, 9:40: I didn't catch it as a bridge whistle, but it works really well to show that it's open comms. It's more or less stated the first time and the audience just takes it going forward. Footprints in the Snow, was it?

(I'll comment on further episodes in subsequent posts so people don't have to go back up to read.)

I finished the series tonight.

Episode 7.

Straight up cried at Blue firing the missiles for each fallen comrade and her suicide run.

Thank you for letting Grimm get the last word of that verse out. I probably would have cried again if he was stopped a word short.

You should be damn proud of what you've made. Damn proud. I don't know that I'll ever make something with that kind of emotional impact but I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to have been a part of this one.

I'll accept that. I want to thank the director of the project, who coached me, gave me a reference, coached me some more, went through a lot of takes, then I tried something a bit different and it worked, so while each of us think we deserve it it's obviously me but I'll thank him so he feels good too.

I'd like to expand a bit on everything. Because the frustration of working months on something and having two-word "Nice work!" feedback is something I know and it kinda sucks. Writhyn just got out this huge project of his, it's incredible, let's send him love waves as much as we can.

On voice acting:

Everyone's work is top-notch. The characters I already knew got a whole new layer of identity, through everyone's particularities and quirks. Writhyn's prone-to-anger Grimm is counterbalanced by Teague's Angus, with Boter in the middle perfectly rendering Dreadnought's swagger-like young personality. I'm particularly impressed with Writhyn's work on differentiating Con and Grimm. At no point did I feel like I was listening to the same guy talking to himself.
Blue and Finch, I'll admit I have more trouble differentiating at times, because their voices are a bit similar [to me who doesn't know them personally]. But their contribution is of the same quality.

Props to BDA for providing Temple with the self-importance and arrogance I'd easily imagined he had.

On writing:

This is Writhyn's first serious writing endeavour if I'm not mistaken, and the man could already teach it in classes. Consistent seamless world-building, great story stucture, lots of setups/payoffs, great characterization for every individual... The action is always clear enough through the dialogues, although it requires attention to every moment. I'm notoriously bad with first listens but I know a second one will fill every blank (plus I'd already read the script, though it was a while ago). There is a strong balance between comedy and drama, in the sense that it never screams the genre to you; it always feels like actual humans, with their humour and anger, having a very bad day.

On sound design:

Great work as well. I feel like the voices might have benefited from a slightly louder mix but I haven't listened to it with headphones yet. Good spatialization work, especially for the moments inside the ship (Blue in the background, etc.).

The cherry on top? The website. It looks slick, it's full of details to apprehend the universe, and there's even a friggin' Lego model of the Hyacinth. It's only missing a trailer for some reason.

You pushed every button on this one, David. You have my respect and my admiration.

PS: Mr Chrystie, I do believe there's a new forum banner you could make, if you're still into that.

Last edited by Saniss (2017-12-06 21:33:15)

Sound design: after listening to episode 3 I went to Writhyn and said, "How about doing sound design on my project that you're acting in?" I was that impressed and got even more so by the time I finished. All of this with no music to help yank the heartstrings. (And what music there is, the opening riff, got stuck in my head for an hour. All fifteen seconds of it. Damn you, man.)

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that occasionally had trouble telling apart Finch and Blue. One scene in the shuttle I said to myself that I hope one of them uses a name soon so I wouldn't get too far behind on that.

And bravo on the payoffs. I listened to pre-final edits of the first episode a few times, I did a full read-through of the script once so I wouldn't get it in my head too much, but I knew more or less what was coming. (I had forgotten how early Conlin died, and the manner of Finch's death. And was, "I'm sorry I didn't get to sing with you guys," new, or did I just miss that in the script? That one gutpunched me a bit.) But whenever something was mentioned that would pay off later, I'd go, "Oh, there it is!" Saves me from a second listen right away, haha. (Plan is to listen to it with my wife on the way to my parents' house for Christmas. Wonder how the dogs in the back seat will fare with it.)

I forgot we have spoiler tags. So, spoilers ahead, and also a lot of gushing.

Last edited by Boter (2017-12-07 04:11:50)

Yay! The first "this isn't working for me" feedback! I was getting worried, for a second

You made me cry like a little baby.

How dare you write this Shit so damn good?

I sorta saw the end coming at the first mention of the black box, but by the time I made it  to the end, it was completely irrelevant, and I was so invested in the story. Once it all starts wrapping up, I fell apart. Congratulations, you made me really care about characters I can't even see.

I will recommend the fuck out of this.

fwiw, this just became a phrase I'll use for the rest of my life. In the category of 'things to say during a total-opinion-disconnect,' that's far and away the most useful piece of language technology I've ever seen.

Everyone memorize that shit like it's a script and break it out on a daily basis.

Ugh, fuck you for

Dude, I'm gonna be sharing the hell out of this with everyone I know. I deliberately kept myself blind to the development of this once it started to become a Big Thing around the forum because I wanted to be surprised, and that's a decision I'm glad I made, because listening to it all unfold with no knowledge of what was gonna happen was so exciting. This strikes the perfect balance between humor and pathos, and the central conceit means that you totally get away with the audio-drama necessity of describing what's happening to the audience without devolving into unearned exposition dumps. The cast are all great—same as when I first saw Sad Max, I'm minorly blown away by how good an actor Teague is, and Boter/BDA were also great. Props to you personally for playing two different characters so well, if I hadn't checked the webpage I never would've known.

My one big complaint is that the rapid dit-dit-dit sound effect is my alarm clock and I was quite literally flinching every time I heard it. I might have to edit the files to give that tone a different frequency in order to not break immersion the next time I listen.

And there definitely will be a next time. The audio drama is basically a dead art form, so to see you create such a damn great one was such a treat. Even though I'm happy I went in blind, I also wish I'd been involved in this thing in some form or fashion because fuck, it's just so stupidly fun.

I've been basically ignoring my own creative endeavors over the last year or so what with graduating college and getting a new job and whatnot. This has encouraged me to jump back in, which is the highest compliment I can think to pay it. Masterfully done, everyone involved.

I would love to have known what I was doing regarding compression and balancing audio. I basically wrestled and googled until I had some sense of where things ought to be, and then kind of achieved that. The imbalance that's left is the best I was able to do at my current level of "skill". Fair points.
And no, High-Explosives didn't get three'd. Come to think of it, if Blue had said it during her monologue that woulda been a great time for it.

Your last sentence sounds helpful but I don't think I quite understand it. Can you elaborate?

Regardless, thanks for checking it out!

Last edited by Writhyn (2017-12-13 22:21:56)