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We recorded our first video Sci Fi SadCAST last night – What an experience!
Setting up a video podcast is no mean feat – it’s complicated and can be disasterous if done badly. There are few regular video podcasts for good reasons.
The actual SadCAST preparations started on Wednesday when I finally plucked up the courage to go out and invest in some equipment for making the audio part of the podcast. The problem with the audio is that we were having four people in the studio (my front room) and three or four other Sci Fi SadGeezers (and lady SadGeezers) joining us via Skype, so the audio equipment was going to need fabrication. I bought four headsets (mono) a mic mixer, a Pre-amp and made a speaker mixer myself so that people could hear what everyone was saying on Skype and in the studio without feedback or echo. It took two days to get all this fabricated, wired up and working (and two visits to the electronics shop to complain that the kit they sold me didn’t work – in the end I took everything to their shop and got them to assemble it for me – and exchange the faulty pieces!).
At 6.00 pm on Friday (the day of the podcast) I got everything linked up and tested and only had about an hour to prepare the show. At 7 pm nobody had turned up. I was waiting for some of the crew and panellists to discuss the show and help organise the content/script. 9pm and no one showed up! It was two hours before the show was due to be shot and I couldn’t contact anyone by phone. Newkate (the lady wife) was so nervous about being on the video podcast that she went and had a lie down (and fell asleep).
At 11pm (half an hour before the shooting is due to start) I’m sat on my own in the front room feeling glum. Then they all arrive at once!
Headgehog and Lexxrobotech arrived via Skype then Mike and Sam and Newkate all surfaced. A little later we were joined by theFrey. We all rushed around for a frantic half hour trying to get the video cameras fixed up, everyone mic’d up and sound tests done. Mike started on the whiskey to calm his nerves a bit.
Finally, we were sort of ready – Mike was enjoying the atmosphere and the whiskey, which had seemed to go straight to his head. Then the show started!
I introduced everyone and immediately died a death! Half way through each sentence I wondered ‘what the hell am I doing’ and ‘Jes..s! I’m sweating already!’ and ‘oh crap, I forgot to say that’ (you know the sort of thing – all the stuff you should’ve said but was too nervous to remember.
The following few minutes can best be described and frantic, amateurish and (possibly for the people of the Skype line) scary. We seemed to wonder into disjointed elements of sci fi books, news, anime, shows and animation (non Japanese). Most of what the guys in the studio wanted to say was missed out and a HUGE amount of what we didn’t want to say like ‘F…ck’ and ‘F..ck..g’ and ‘oh god my eyes look awful’ etc. was uttered at various levels of loudness until finally we wrapped it up!
Don’t get me wrong; theFrey, Headgehog, lexxrobotech and Newkate gave some excellent and entertaining segments, which were both informative and interesting for all sci fi fans! But those of us who were a little less that sober completely bolloxed it up. I mean, this wasn’t freezing in front of camera because we were a little nervous; this was an all out, high decibel monologue of drunken drivel along the lines of, “Seriously…. No.. seriously you have to support this, this guy, no… seriously f..cking buy this right, coz f..ck man, this is f..cking great – hey you, do you know what I’m say… no seriously he did this in his garage, f…cking buy it right …..” etc. In that particular case I don’t think Mike actually mentioned what it was that he was actually reviewing.
When the recording finished and we said our goodbyes, I seriously wondered if I would ever live it down or if the show would ever be published. All the preparation, nailbiting and nervous exhaustion seemed for naught!
Me and Newkate went out for a breath of fresh air (it was about 1am at this point), we hugged and I said something like, “Wow, that was … erm…” And then we both just burst out laughing. The strange thing is, I’ve had lots of chats with sci fi buddies that have gone just like that and been just as much fun. I was dripping with sweat from nerves and regretful that it had not gone exactly the way I wanted, yet my dissapointment seemed less and less important.
We got back in to find that Mike had fallen over in a drunken stupour and knocked most of the equipment off the table, he was sitting, laughing on the floor with a cut lip and bloody chin. Both Sam and Mike thought that the recording session had gone very well and were pleased with the result.
!!!?!?!?!!!!
They were frantically checking video to make sure that it had all recorded and triumphantly affirmed the show was in the can!
I should point out that Sam Shearon (known as Mister Sam is a nationally recognised artist and sculptor (checkout his website http://www.samshearon.com/ and checkout the press reviews of his exhibitions! – they’ll crack you up!)) and is a qualified and experienced media communication expert. Mike Bedd is probably one of the most talented Flash artists and animators that I’ve met (and I’ve met lots! – he designed this site), so when they say that things went well, I’d believe them, however sceptically.
We then went on to have a long discussion about post production techniques, masking, clip enhancement, street interviews as additional material, linking, captioning and various techniques for enhancing the video and making it into something that we (the sadgeezer sci fi community) would be proud of.
They left at 9 am this morning, confident that within a couple of days, they would have a masterpiece!
I can’t wait to see the finished product! I’m also nervous, sceptical, enthusiastic, frightened, and euphoric. This, in every scense of the word, has been real!
SadCAST # 01 should be available on iTunes, SadGeezer.com and various podcast directories in the next 5 days. Stay tuned!
The show will be in post production for a couple of days and should be up on iTunes and Odeo etc. by the end of the week. This first one will take the longest because there is a lot to fix (we messed up a bit in shooting) and we have to produce all the graphics links and clip segments (that will eventually be re-used in future podcasts).
Sorry for the delay. We want this inaugural SadCAST to be something that we in the sadgeezer sci fi community would be proud of.
Welp!
It’s finally out SadCAST #1 is downloadable from the SadCAST box on the right of the main page.
Tell us what you think!
i must be doing something wrong, because I can’t get RSS or Itunes to work. I’m using Firefox – how does this effer load? Or what are we supposed to do to enable/configure this feature?
bonnee wrote:i must be doing something wrong, because I can’t get RSS or Itunes to work. I’m using Firefox – how does this effer load? Or what are we supposed to do to enable/configure this feature?
If you have th elatest version of iTunes, the best way to subscribe to th esadcast is to copy the RSS url (right click the RSS | iTunes image and copy the link (http://sadgeezer.libsyn.com/rss). Now open iTunes and select from the Menbus: Advanced>Subscribe to Podcast…
That will then load the RSS feed into iTunes.
You should be able to search iTunes for sadcast, but it hasn’t reviewed the show yet and wont include it in their Music Store until that has happened.
SadGeezer wrote:Tell us what you think!
Quite funny. I was surprise to see the outakes, drunken rants and akwards silences made it into the final cut. I have to admit it was much funnier to watch than listen to.
Downloaded and watched it (using a player called juice). It was good for a laugh – no offense intended. The lighthearted and ramshackle approach was part of its charm, and helped set the general tone. It mostly worked as an introduction to everyone, and an attempt to find your feet ‘on air’. Hated the music though – the in your face aggression seems completely out of place. Can’t you find something more sci fi (electronic?) than the sound of people banging rubbish bin lids together whilst torturing kittens to death? 🙂
As for the content – I’m not sure what you want to be yet. An informal look at sci -fi, a weekly overview, a preview, or collection of opinions , etc? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d like to see more ‘substance’ or discussion/info that can’t be gleaned from anywhere else (including internet forums or news postings). Not sure what to suggest, but maybe you could model yourself on talk radio (where a theme or topic is discussed amongst people). Sci Fi attracts a range of people and opinions, and it would be nice if the show could reflect that.
It was great fun, and I look forward to seeing the next one, but I’m not sure I can remain interested indefinitely. Hopefully the podcasts will be able to distinguish themselves as something other than ‘good for a laugh’ and become mandatory viewing amongst sci fi fans across the world. Good luck with it.
I’m actually very proud of it. As a first attempt at a video podcast, we did better than ok I think. It certainly isn’t aimed at pleasing all of scifidom and it never would, no matter what the format.
Frankly we don’t know how it’s going to turn out, we have some outspoken people in the show, most are really knowledgeable about the areas of sci fi that interest them, some are VERY badly prepared 😀 and some are VERY polished and professional sounding. Besides the laughs, there was actually quite a bit of sci fi news. The skypers were pretty good, with lots of cool stuff – myself, Sam and Mike a little less so.
That was the first show, we had to test the technology, and reviewing in front of a camera and mic. Hopefully we wont be a nervous next time.
The music is by a local band called ‘When people become numbers’. They sound like a cross between a donkey and a very angry gerbil. We think they’re great!
Glad you guys liked it and we hope you still find it as nutty but interesting after a few more shows.
My biggest concern is the nude picture of lexxrobotech – we didn’t actually have his permission for that!
🙂
I stand corrected – didn’t mean to take anything away from all the hard work or an impressive first attempt. 🙂
Brilliant and hilarious. The look on SadGeezer’s face, alternating between mortification and desperate effort not to giggle and was by itself Oscar-worthy. “Disjointed elements…” love disjointed elements… Having been buried alive in the middle of beautiful nowhere for so long, I almost forgot what NORMAL people look like! Thanks guys!
Hey Geezers!
I’m Faldor, i saw you’re podcast on itunes and reconised the name from reading some LEXX reviews a while back. so decided to check it out.
I’m a media student so i know all about film making [well… bits of it] and i think you’ve got a very good set up going on but perhaps you could do with a none drunk camera minion there on the free cam, not that theres anything wrong with a drunkard trying their hardest and failing miserably to point the camera at the guy next to them, it has its charm 😛
it should be quite easy to set up a camcorder that can function as a webcam, [like mine] and set up a live webcam chat [like on yahoo and i think skype does it now], then record on the camera then send the editor that footage and bingo live link up 😀
you could also have segments recorded seperately by people and sent to you. there was a webseries called Inside Report[/url] that worked entirely like this
I hope that dosent sound too negitive, i really enjoyed the show and think it could go far 😀
Faldor wrote:…
it should be quite easy to set up a camcorder that can function as a webcam, [like mine] and set up a live webcam chat [like on yahoo and i think skype does it now], then record on the camera then send the editor that footage and bingo live link up 😀you could also have segments recorded seperately by people and sent to you. there was a webseries called Inside Report[/url] that worked entirely like this
We haven’t actually worked out how to get skype working with the webcam yet :/ But I’m keen to add the feature. We’ll definately we working on that.
Yep, checked Inside Report out – looks pretty good! We’d love to do that. Pet has sent us a video animation that we will be using in SaddCAST 2 and I agree with you, it would add LOTS to the show to have video sci fi reports from people around the world included in the show. We’ll be asking for this each week from now on (meant to last week, I just forgot)
I hope that dosent sound too negitive, i really enjoyed the show and think it could go far 😀
Not at all, yours, bonee’s and everyone elses comments are very much appreciated. This stuff is all new to us.
do you know if your camera can be used as a webcam? if it can it should have a USB connection. use the same type of USB cable that connects most mp3 players to computers to plug your camera in.
then go into skype, click Tools > Options > Video
then you should be able to select your camera and be away.
that worked for me atleast 🙂
It would be good if you could also sit around in a sauna and talk – preferably without towels. There’s no real need to turn the sauna on – we can provide all the steam at home.
Haha,
I’m pass the message on 🙂
BTW: The Frey
“Muscle cars and motorcycles” ROFL!
I thought this was great fun. Off to preorder the Dune book. 🙂
Ryan says it such a cool way.
It sounds like Dewn… but with an ‘OOOOOOOoooo’ placed somewhere in the middle. Its so much better than the plain old ‘Dune’ the way I say it.
Im going to make Ryan say that everytime I speak to him from now on.
In fact, it should be part of the podcast theme tune.
Funny accents the cast have. They should all be like me and sound normal.
lexxrobotech wrote:They should all be like me and sound normal.
Those are exactly my sentimonies. It’s a perfectly cromulent pronunciation. It embiggens us all, axe anyone. 🙂
lexxrobotech wrote:you mean the “Deoooown Book”.
”lpet” wrote:No, it’s Doooooooon!
lexxrobotech wrote:Ryan says it such a cool way.
It sounds like Dewn… but with an ‘OOOOOOOoooo’ placed somewhere in the middle. Its so much better than the plain old ‘Dune’ the way I say it.
Im going to make Ryan say that everytime I speak to him from now on.
In fact, it should be part of the podcast theme tune.
Hahaha!
The podcast really is the battle of the accents. And with the addition of even more skypers, it’s only gonna get more diverse.
To be honest, my ears aren’t sensitive enough to actually notice the difference between how “Dune” is said by everyone else on the SadCast. But evidently everyone else can…
Although after moving down to Atlanata, I’m quicjly becoming more and more aware of my Mid-Atlantic accent.I’d love to see the battle of the “Dune” pronunciations left in at the end of the SadCast. After rewatching sadcast 1, I realized it was cut. But it’d be a cool little thing to have in there every time, as a running gag.
Dune: dyōōn
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