Mr. Pendant

2009-02-16T15:14:00.000-08:00

Per suggestions in the comments on my last post, the Mr. Pendant blog has moved here:

http://misterpendant.pendantaudio.com

This blog location will probably go inactive after this post.

Here's the thing...

2009-02-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

I've realized the biggest problem in keeping me from updating here more often. Well no, the biggest problem is time.

The second biggest problem, then, is that Blogger ONLY lets you sign in with a google account. There is no way around this. Even if you use a different email than a gmail account, which I do, it will not let you log in if you are signed into gmail in a different window/tab with a different account.

So the problem is:

I am signed into gmail account X pretty much all day long, for things not involving Pendant at all.

If I want to sign in to post here, I have to first sign OUT of my gmail, sign in here, post, sign out, and then sign BACK INTO gmail.

This, in a nutshell, is a major hassle and so you dear folks get far less posts. Not that I think you care much, but there you have it.

Meanwhile, I recently redesigned the Pendant website and logo, which I'm sure you've all noticed by now (even though it was less than a week ago, I'm sure you all go to pendantaudio.com far more than you come here).

Hooray.

Good times!

2008-06-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

Just finished the interview... went for a little over an hour. You know why? BLAH BALH BLAH BLAH I talk too much.

But then if you read this, you likely listen to TWIP and so you already know this.

So frickin' much

2008-06-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

You see, this is what I was afraid of.

I get two new assistant prouducers (Brian to handle most of the web stuff, Susan to keep track of everything coming in that I need (art, scripts, episodes, trailers) and to yell at people to get them in on time (like Alicia does for actors)) and I have since been BUSIER since they started helping out than I was before.

The list of stuff I have to do was SO LONG, and SO BIG, that once I actually had time to start on it, it just started pouring in and I feel a bit like I'm drowning in it.

Ah well, no rush. I'll get through it all when I get through it all (which presupposes that there's an end, which is hilarious, because there's not).

I got Kingery 2x07 written earlier this week. Wasn't sure how it'd go since it's been six months or so since I've written a Kingery ep., but I pounded that sucker out in about two hours and I really like the ending. We'll be having our writers' chat about it soon, hopefully.

Did a TWIP interview earlier in the week, have an hour-long audio interview about Pendant that I'm doing for another podcast today, have a Superman commentary tomorrow night, possibly a Supergirl commentary on Saturday night, I still haven't gotten the Picnic photos up... oy oy oy.

Vindixie!

2008-06-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I wrote the commercial and end credits to Dixie 26 and got that all wrapped up. We also released Batman 29 aka Vindicatum 1. I think it went fairly well, although it didn't seem to generate quite the buzz that Imperium did (and it fell far short of topping our biggest single-episode debut day download number of 4000 (just in that first day) that Superman 25/Imperium 1 garnered). Our shows have much larger audiences now, so at first glance that might be a little baffling, but I think it's because we've got so many more shows now and we just didn't have the time to promote it that we used to... so maybe the hype wasn't there. I'm not sure.

Still, the crossover is off to an excellent start and the reaction on the yahoo group has been very positive and excited.

Tuesday night (I think it was?) I conducted the interview for Sunday's TWIP, and Monday night Seth and I did commentaries for Dixie 24 and 4 (in our quest to do back commentaries for the first season to put on the forthcoming cd/dvd set).

I was doing something Wednesday night that I can't remember now, but it meant I didn't get the Dixie 26 script out until Thursday morning. Which was for the best anyway, as I only then noticed I'd forgotten 4 people in the credits.

See, Dixie credits are an odd thing. They're easy as all hell to write, but they're difficult as all hell to get in the right order and make sure everyone is in there. There are people who appear in every credits sequence regardless of if they're in the episode or not (dixie, frank, freudenberg, withersby, the battalion, billingsley, geist/vreni, volker, robot, triplets, me, seth) and then there are people who only appear when they appear in an episode (zeta squad, scar troops, esmerelda, one-off roles, etc) and so there's never a set formula I can follow and it beats my brain into mush trying to make sure I've got everyone and in the right order.

Anyway, today I'll be recording and hopefully mixing twip, because it's got the dreaded Calls from the Public in it and again, while I enjoy them and think they're a great feature, they are a motherloving bitch to edit and take a LOT of time. Blah.

Phew.

2008-06-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

The script to Dixie 26 is done. And by "done" I mean "not really done, but done". Done as in all of the actual scenes of story are done and in place (though I will need to re-read and revise after I let it sit for a while and come back to it). I have the commercial and the credits to do. The commercials take some work, but the credits are usually a cakewalk (though making sure I don't forget anyone and get everyone in the right order can be a trick sometimes).

I'll hopefully get the commercial and credits done later today or at the very latest tomorrow, so that it can go out to the cast no later than tomorrow night. Then it's on into writing Kingery 2x07, and by the time that's done it'll be right on into writing Superman 47 and then... Dixie 27. Someday I'll get to work on our screenplay again. Really.

I got all 11 sets of credits recorded yesterday, which probably took me a good 90 minutes since I kept flubbing them for some reason. But that also includes sending them out to all the directors that need them, so I guess that's not too bad.

I've got CD-quality torrent packs to make, people seem to be clamoring for a Vindicatum T-shirt... and oh yeah, Vindicatum starts tomorrow!

Where my time is at?

2008-06-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

How has it been roughly three weeks since I updated here? It literally feels like it's been three months.

In preparations for the second annual pendant picnic I got swamped and just ran out of time to keep posting here. I just have to remember to leave the update window open in the mornings. If I can do that, I'll remember to update more here.

So much has happened since I last posted... we got new artists for Blue Harvest, Seminar, Vegas and Defiant! New directors for Superman and Seminar, two new associate producers... I don't think I can go into full detail on it all or I'll be here for hours. Besides, those details are in TWIP! You're listening, right? Good.

As for today, I tried to write the already-late Dixie 26. The picnic played complete HAVOC with my schedule... first there was Memorial Day, so Clark was home from school all day, so I didn't get much done (as an aside, he's out of school for the summer in two weeks! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?! Nothing will get done!) that day. Then I had three days of work and people started arriving for the Picnic on Friday. And due to people being here I got nothing done from Friday-Monday (this "nothing", mind you, included preparing and putting up new Kingery and Dixie episodes for release... thank goodness for new associate producer Brian's help!).

I have not taken four days off from Pendant in as long as I can remember. Even the week when we moved from Chicago to L.A. we planned *around* Pendant releases. We also had about half as many back then as we do now, but still.

We are not what you'd call financially well off, so we never have the money to take vacations (our last one was before Clark was born) and so just simply never take them. This was the closest we've had in forever, and it was really nice, but we're paying for it now.

Last week was really rough, but I finally got to where I got my Superman script out... something like 9 days late. Dixie is 7 days late as of today, but I am STILL far behind on sleep from the picnic. We only got 4 hours of sleep Saturday night and I can't ever seem to get to bed early because... hey, I'm working. Gah.

I just spent the last 90 minutes or so preparing credits to record. I have, and I kid you not, ELEVEN episodes worth of opening and closing credits to record. I think that was weighing on me (along with two comic reviews I had due today for SupermanHomepage.com, which should be up later today I think) and I just couldn't concentrate on the script. I was, of course, also barely able to keep my eyes open. That doesn't help matters!

So I prepared all the credits and I'll be off to record those soon, and then I should get Kingery 2x06 out to the cast. Pete wrote it, I had it, it was supposed to go out last Friday, and I forgot, and then lost it, and Pete resent it to me.

Sleep and time, I need me them.

Bah

2008-05-15T22:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes being an executive producer is just no fun at all.

Oy

2008-05-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

It's been not quite a week since my last update. It honestly felt like it was several weeks ago, I was surprised to see it was only six days.

I have been so ridiculously busy I haven't even had time to post here about how ridiculously busy I am.

I think the only solution is to open this page up first thing in the morning and leave the new post window up all day long, and just jot notes in it as I do things or remember things I wanted to talk about.

Otherwise I just don't find the time.

A roundup!

2008-05-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

When did I last update this? Wednesday? I have been way, way too busy. To busy to even come in here and post about how busy I am.

What have I done since I last posted? Uhh...

I dropped the trailer for Kingery ep 2x02 into 2x01 (the season two premiere), made the final mixdown, uploaded the episode, made the cover from Nick's artwork, uploaded that, wrote the preview text, updated the subsite and podcast and uploaded those, updated the main page of the website with the cover art, updated Top News and Up Next, wrote the press release, sent it to Pendant and then sent it off to M for promotion.

What else, what else...

I recorded and mixed all of TWIP... I helped James Rossi refine his show pitch back and forth through emails, helped Seth finalize the script to Kingery 2x05... finally sent the script to Superman 45 out to the cast (it was done a WEEK AND A HALF AGO! Ugh. That's how busy I am... done 10 days early, still goes out three days late), sent the Kingery 2x05 script to the cast...

Talked with another new artist interested in working with us, hopefully we can set something up there...

Got the Superman casting call posted, the superman and supergirl casting calls put on the website, three new due dates added to the website... got the fund drive page done and ready to go, got the picnic page done and ready to go with information, directions, etc.

I know there's more, but I can't remember now... so, so tired. Off to do something that's not work... relaxing? Is that what that's called?

Let's give it a try!

And more and more

2008-04-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

Got the interview done for TWIP, and sent the Kingery script out to the writers to schedule our meeting to discuss it.

Then I got an intriguing original show pitch from James Rossi. It had a few issues, but on the whole it was interesting with one particular portion that was very fascinating and exciting. I mentioned possibly seeing more development there, or even refining the pitch to center around said portion. We'll see what he thinks.

Certainly has promise either way, though.

Bizzy bizzy

2008-04-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Last night I uploaded TLSOK 40 and LDOK 12, and updated the podcasts, so that they were ready to go to coincide with the launching of Radio KAL 40 at 12:00 am eastern time.

This morning I updated the subsites, Top News and Up Next for the official release of the shows, wrote the press release, sent it to pendant and then on to M. for promotion.

40 is really important to me, so hopefully folks will listen and comment on the mailing list and we can get some discussion about it.

Then I read Supergirl 17 and sent comments to Blinkie, read Seth's revised version of Kingery 2x05 and sent him comments on that, and then read Pete's first draft of Kingery 2x06 and will have to set up the writers' chat to discuss it soon.

Then... huzzah, the Vegas shirt design was approved and is a go, so I spent quite a bit of time adding new merchandise to the store. There's so many more clothing options now, our older designs couldn't be on half as many shirts before. I should go in and add more.

I'm also thinking, now that I know more intricate designs with background "fills" are ok, that I might go back and redo the Kingery shirts to have the "sign background" behind the words, and the crown... if possible. See, these types of shirts can only have three colors maximum in the design, so it depends on if I can find a color arrangement for it that works.

I also made a few changes to the script to Superman 45 for continuity reasons, and sent it to Kristen for checking and now it's all ready to go. I still have to send it out, though.

Now I have a TWIP interview to do and then... I don't even remember what else. Lots more.

But for now, why not go listen to Superman 40 and extol its 40-ness!

You know you want to.

My brain doesn't work so well

2008-04-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that I've also checked the web stats and then got the Fund Drive page ready to go (yes, it's that time of year again... I was just billed for the yearly web hosting. ouch.) and it'll be going up on Sunday.

Also sent out a reminder to the mailing list that I need information on all the various and sundry Pendant Picnics people talked about setting up at the same time that the main LA one is going on. Only about a month away now, so it's time to get those directions and other goodies up on the site so folks can make plans!

About time! T time! T-shirts?

2008-04-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

Sent off what I think is the last of the information needed for the magazine interview... no, wait, I'm wrong. I still need to send some cover art over for inclusion, but I am waiting to hear back on one thing for that.

But then I sat down in Illustrator and recreated the Once Upon a Time in Vegas logo in the closest approximation of the actual show logo that I could, keeping in mind some things as they are in the logo don't work for this certain type of printing. The word "Time" in the regular logo, for example, is too thin for their printing requirements and in order to make it thick enough it would be so big as to encompass the entire shirt (that's skinny fonts for you). So that had to change, and I'm not sure if you can print with backgrounds with this (the "a time in vegas" in the logo, for example, is on that white diamond-shaped background) printing type. I also had to get rid of all the lighting effects and such.

So we'll see if they reject the design because of that, and if so we can still make them the way we did the Dixie patch shirts, they'll just have the actual show logo as a rectangle on the front of the shirts and will only be able to be printed on white shirts, mostly.

Whereas if this slightly modified version of the logo gets accepted, we can print them on black.

Anyway, more than you cared to know, but that's where the last 2 hours of my time went.

Some day...

2008-04-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, some day I will have camera batteries again. Hopefully that "some day" will be tonight. Or I will kill her!

Sorry, El Guapo took over for a minute.

I mixed the trailer for Superman 41 and then dropped all the trailers in and made the final mixdowns of TLSOK 40 and LDOK 12, mixed down the commentary for LDOK 40, took the art for both shows and made the covers, wrote the preview text for both and then updated the subsites (note: not uploaded yet!). Sent all the goodies off to Steve to put trailers for the shows into Radio KAL and get all that ready to go, and then the eps and the subsite pages and podcasts will all get uploaded tonight (even though the official release date is tomorrow... I've covered that here before, right? I think so, but I am too busy to go look).

All of that took me about two hours. I also totally spaced on setting up a TWIP interview for next week so I sent an email off about that, but if I don't hear back I'll have to send a ton more and see if someone can get it done really quickly this week.

And the wind up...

2008-04-28T17:52:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I think at least every other new show pitch I get has that very same subject line.

Got a pitch for a show today that was interesting, and I personally would have likely enjoyed it, but it had a severe logistical problem that would prevent it from being something we could easily produce.

I get some of those from time time... people aren't used to looking at things from a production aspect, so while the stories and characters may be good, it's just not something we can do for one reason or another. In this case, it was a large and expansive cast all with British accents with more needed on a routine basis for small roles, extras and others as well. We have some lovely Brits in Pendant, but even if every single one of them that I know of had a role, and the other people I know of who can pull off a British accent well had a role, we would still come up far, far short.

It's why we don't have a Harry Potter show, even though I'd LOVE one and it would be HUGE for us in terms of drawing new audience in to the group as a whole... it's just not possible to cast a show of almost entirely British people, sadly. So until I get something like "Harry, Ron and Hermione start up a new school like Hogwarts in the US!" as a pitch, with a story that somehow actually makes that not suck as an idea, it's not something we can pull off effectively. We've got members with lovely accents all over the world, but the vast majority of members are Americans and so a show that is predominantly people of other accents is a huge logistical problem.

Oh, I also added the WW32 deadline to the website. How's that for changing topics fast enough to give you whiplash?

Progress

2008-04-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

Finished up the Dixie 25 commercial and end credits today, finally. Added another 10 pages, so now it's at 33 pages total.

And I do have those photos I mentioned yesterday, but of course as soon as I have the photos my camera batteries die and I can't get them off the camera. So... soon, hopefully.

Checked the web stats and then answered a ton of email. I don't know why, but a ton of questions came in through the form on the Pendant website over the weekend all at once. Weird.

An all-expenses paid TWIP

2008-04-27T07:53:00.001-07:00

Got TWIP uploaded, the podcast and subsite updated and uploaded, Top News and Up Next done and wrote the press release, sent it to Pendant and forwarded it all on to M for promotion.

Last night I did the commentary for Superman: The Last Son of Krypton issue 40 with the director, Tom. I can already think of a few important things I wanted to mention that I forgot. We had to do it late, we were both tired, and there was only so much time and too much to talk about for this one. Argh.

Also, my apologies in advance. I ended up coughing a few times in the middle of it, despite my best efforts not to and the combination of lots of water to drink and well-timed pauses in my speech. Blurg.

I spent all of yesterday doing a bunch of extra work that I didn't really have time for but that was very, very important, but more on that later. I have... photos.

Tomorrow is today

2008-04-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Got TWIP all mixed for tomorrow, which took me about 90 minutes. Listened to a sound sample from a new member that wanted to check her audio quality and got the new final master mix of Superman 40 (we made one little tweak).

So much more to do, no time to do it in. Zoom.

coughcoughThis is TWIPcoughcough

2008-04-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Twip is all recorded. I had to record around all my coughing again, but it's much better than it was the last two weeks.

I was going to go right into finishing up Dixie 25 now, but I've got a nasty headache and I'm going to see what I can do to kill that first.

Can anybody find me... Sembody to love

2008-04-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

Dropped the trailer for Sem 15 into Sem 14, made the web mixdown of the ep and the commentary, uploaded both, updated the subsite and podcast, uploaded both, updated Top News and Up Next, wrote the press release, sent it to Pendant and sent it off to M for promotion.

I've got to record TWIP and hopefully finish writing Dixie 25. Those are next on the to-do list.

But first I need a few minutes. Just listened to Superman 40.

Brain = melted.

Tom is a genius director. Ryan, Fiona, David, Blinkie, Philip... this cast has never been better.

Holy crap.

The sundry

2008-04-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats and got the new Seminar casting call up on the website.

And speaking of Seminar, I read another submission for it a day or two ago (I forget to put everything here, but I try). It was pretty good... it needed a tweak to the ending to give the character and the story an actual arc, but it was a simple matter of changing one or two lines and adding one other. I suggested that to the writer but I've yet to hear back.

There was one other issue with it, though, and my guess is it's because this was the writer's first audio script.

I would bet dollars to donuts (what the hell does that really mean, anyway?) that said script was thrown together from a short story, because probably 80% of it was voiceover narration that read exactly like prose, even sometimes pausing mid narration for a character to speak and then picking right up with it again, the way prose does.

Now I've made no secrets about my feelings on narration in scripts. I think, most often, it's lazy writing and it's all about telling and not showing and makes for poor stories. I don't think this person was a bad writer, though... as I said, I think it was a case of a mistaken "Oh, I can slap my short story into script form verbatim and it'll work fine" line of thinking by someone not experienced with scriptwriting. The only times I think narration works is when adhering to convention (it works in Detective Mac, because it's a send-up of film noir detective movies which used it extensively... it works in Dixie, because it's OTR-styled and OTR was all about narration... even though I STILL use it much more sparingly there than a lot of OTR did).

So if someone wants to submit a "script" that's 80% narration there has to be a really good reason WHY it has to be narration and not an actual script. Perhaps the writer of said Seminar submission had a reason, which I asked, but again - no reply yet. I don't think there's a reason, though, because nothing in-story necessitated it. I think it was just an inexperienced scriptwriter learning the ropes, which is fine and good.

I hope she decides to rework it into an actual script, because with the slight tweak to the ending I mentioned it's a really good story.

FYI - if you want a rare example of when narration is used WELL and actually adds something to the story (instead of detracts, as it almost always does), I would suggest the film "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang". Hilarious, smart, witty, and yes... a surprising and good use of narration.

The time black hole

2008-04-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

Yessir, nothing eats time like writing. I look up and two hours have gone by and I'm like "buh?" and my mind says, "yuh!" and I'm all "blurg!"

And I just said I was a writer. Ha!

Wrote about 15 more pages of Dixie 25, bringing it to page 23. I still have to do the commercial and end credits, though, hopefully tomorrow. I really like it so far... it's another jump in time as we jump to the new season, and there's a lot of changes and a lot going on. I am passionate about it, and this is good.

FYI, most Dixie scripts are around 25-28 pages... with the commercial and end credits already in there. So this one's going to be a bit longer than most, but then, it's episode 25!

It has a couple new roles, too. Not recurring, but good roles anyway.

Did you ever Wonder?

2008-04-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

Note: no tiara!

Dropped all the trailers in and made the web mixdown of Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira issue 27, resized the cover art and put the show logo et al on it, uploaded the episode and the cover, updated the WW subsite and podcast, uploaded both of those, wrote the press release, posted it to the mailing list and sent the goodies off to M for promotion. That took me about 90 minutes or so.

This is the last episode directed solo by Fiona Thraille, and she does a fine, fine job. Listen to it!

And now to get back to plugging away at Dixie 25.

Keep on talkin'

2008-04-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats, like usual, and conducted the interview for Sunday's TWIP.

I'm still sick. We're ALL still sick. Can't shake this damned cough, not any of us.

More miserable nights of no sleep ahead, and still piles of work to be done.

To the trenches!*

*- or bed

Marathon Man

2008-04-22T11:04:00.001-07:00

Last night we had the Kingery writers chat for the script to episode 2x05. We got started almost 30 minutes late and then went for a good 90 minutes or so.

And then this morning, tired of having a HUGE pile of stuff to listen to and only getting to it at the last minute, I sat down and burned through WW27, Seminar 14, Supergirl 12, Kingery 2x01, Kingery 2x01 commentary and Dixie 22 and 23.

Man, that's a lot. The amazing thing?

I still have seven more new, completed episodes to listen to.

Musical interlude

2008-04-21T14:19:00.001-07:00

Listened to a piece Kristen is considering for the theme to Project Muzak and a slight revamp idea Pete had for the TaoD theme.

Interesting stuff. Good stuff. Stuff I like.

zoom.

Bleep blorp

2008-04-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats and set up a Pendant email address for Russ, new WW director. Putter putter putter.

Happy trails

2008-04-21T13:52:00.001-07:00

Just wrote the trailers for Supergirl 13 and Superman 41, and sent both off to Seth for recording. I will be happy once Dragonblink will take over writing the trailers for the Supergirl episodes she's writing, beginning with issue 16. One less thing I have to do is one more other thing I'll get to do!

Newishness

2008-04-21T13:06:00.001-07:00

Listened to the third directing test from Jack Hosley, which was good but needed some tweaks so he's going to work on that some more.

Read scripts to the first three episodes of Andrew Eckhart's (Roberts in The Kingery) original series idea, and I absolutely love them. They need some continuity/grammatical editing, but the story and characters are vibrant and rich and I get a big kick out of his scripts and his sense of humor.

I've got the script to episode 4 already and he's working on 5 and 6. Once 5 and 6 are in and 1-3 are revised and finalized, we'll be able to move into casting. Hopefully that'll be within the next month, I'd really like to get it started soon. Stay tuned for more information on it, it's a corker (and no, that's not a clue as to what it's about).

Updates are better than downdates

2008-04-21T11:39:00.001-07:00

Added due dates for act II of the Tempest (which I think is Shakespeare... 10?) and Project Muzak issue 1 to the website, as well as added the first casting call for Once Upon a Time in Vegas that we've had in a long, long time.

Go audition, guys (literally guys, sorry ladies... only one role this time around, and it's for the gender with the outies, not the innies).

Semmy Davis, Jr.

2008-04-21T11:16:00.001-07:00

Sent Kat the scripts for Seminar 18 and then notified the writers that their scripts made it in and which episode they'd be in. Kat got them later than I'd have liked, but at least we have them now.

WE STILL NEED MORE SCRIPTS, FOLKS.

So get writin'.

Billy boy

2008-04-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

So I never made my other post about Vindicatum yesterday. I'll try to get to that soon.

As for today, the sixth episode of The Pendant Shakespeare aka the Wild Bill Variety Show went up, featuring great readings of some of old Bill's sonnets.

So I made the web version (and added in a thanks at the end, as it was curiously missing) and uploaded that and updated the subsite and podcast, top news, up next, press release, sent it to pendant and sent the goodies off to M.

Then I wrote the first 8 pages of Dixie 25, which went pretty well and weren't at all what I'd written down for this episode in the outline. Yeesh.

It's still covering some of the same basic things, but in a different way and much of what I've written for this episode will probably in effect be episode 26, meaning the "10 episode season" might already be pushed to 11. We'll see how it goes.

I then had to yell at someone ELSE for drastically late lines, which I am getting really tired of doing. Argh.

I have a ton of little things to do, which I'll update about here as I get them done. So I guess that means I'd better start doing them.

TWIP the light fantastic

2008-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

So I got TWIP uploaded this morning, wrote the preview text, updated the subsite and podcast feed, the Top News and Up Next, wrote the press release and sent it to the Pendant list and off to M. for promotion, yadda yadda yadda.

Before I did that, though, I put a little something new up on the website. I won't spoil it yet for those of you who've not listened to TWIP, because I like to torture people, yes I do.

But I'll make another post later today to talk about said New Thing.

I wish I had weekends

2008-04-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Seriously. What do people do with two days off in a row?

Beats me.

Checked the web stats earlier and then mixed all of TWIP this afternoon. I'd have rather been off playing with Clark, but we did get to go for a nice walk through the lovely 75, sunny and breezy LA weather after that, so all was not lost.

Also talked with Heather Frizzell (Julie in The Kingery) about an original show concept she had which I think is intriguing as long as some obvious pitfalls are avoided. The good news is she saw and noticed and was aware of the very same pitfalls, which means she can avoid them and all is well.

So I think she's working on a full, official pitch for that, which is good because hooray more original shows.

I've got a ton of little piddly stuff to do (write a Supergirl trailer, get the lines to Seth to record, set up an email address for Russ, and on and on), but for tonight I think I'm done.

Slipping through the cracks

2008-04-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

Talk progresses with the possible fourth new artist, news at 11.*

Just added a Kingery casting call to the website that I somehow completely missed and forgot to put up there. If you folks ever notice a casting call not on the website, PLEASE let me know. I try to be sure I catch them all, but as we can all see I fail early and fail often

* - or as soon as I have it

Short days kill me

2008-04-18T11:47:00.001-07:00

Clark is off school two hours early Wed-Fri this week, which, though I love him dearly, makes it really hard to get stuff done.

This morning I dropped the trailer for Vegas 10 into Vegas 9 and mixed down the web version of the show, made the web version of the commentary, uploaded both to the website, wrote the preview text and updated the Vegas subsite and podcast, uploaded those, added the announcement to Top News and put in the Up Next info., wrote the press release and sent it to the Pendant mailing list and then send the press release materials off to M. for promotion.

Dealt with several sundry emails about Pendant, recorded all of TWIP 74 (which was painful, as I'm still quite sick, and I had to stop due to coughing a number of times), sent off reminders to directors for completed episodes and casting calls results that I need and... something else that I can't remember now. Blurg.

All week long I've also been dealing with stuff for the upcoming Pendant Picnic, and trying to work out transportation details et al with the numerous people flying in from around the country. Which is mind blowing, but very cool.

Now I'm off to write that fourth new artist back and see if we can work something out with him.

WE NEED SCRIPTS

2008-04-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

Just spent another 20 minutes or so on more follow-up questions for that big print magazine interview, but it's good. I don't know all of what they'll use, so it'll be interesting to see what makes the cut.

If I can find all the emails I've sent off, after the magazine comes out I may post my full responses so you can see the things they didn't cut (not that I would blame them for cutting, I know how editing goes).

Then I read a faboo script for Seminar from James Tyler (director of The Kingery), and folks, may I say again...

WE NEED MORE SEMINAR SCRIPTS.

Badly.

If you're reading this, GO WRITE A SCRIPT FOR SEMINAR. Right now.

Go on, shoo!

Your claims, let me stake you them

2008-04-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats for yesterday and then spent 90 minutes or so finishing up the Vindicatum subsite. Not only do we have the promo poster for it (and have for a while), but we now have a preview trailer and so all looks good to go to whet folks' appetites.

Now I just need to decide exactly when to put it online.

Pillows to power, covers to speed

2008-04-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

Answered a few emails that came in through the Pendant site, checked the web stats, and got Superman 45 off to Kristen for continuity checkin'.

And now, to sleep, perchance to... nah, just to sleep.

Zzzzzz.

The life of a Pendant show

2008-04-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

Russ Smith, soon to be new director of Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira, posted something to his journal, explaining to his friends how Pendant generally works... sort of taking a show from pitch to airdate. I tweaked it some to make it hit all the right points, and I thought it would be of interest to folks. It also shows you just how much work goes into making even ONE episode of one show, and we do eleven (soon to be twelve and beyond) every single month.

Here' s his original breakdown (with my mods/changes in italics).

---

1. Someone pitches a show concept. Once the pitch is approved, a pilot episode is written. Once the pilot is approved, the show officially becomes part of Pendant and moves into production.

2. The show gets a director, and is written by the person/people who pitched it. Pendant writers are essentially in many ways the showrunners I think it's fair to say. I just sat and listened to jeffrey (Executive Producer) ask a show writer (producer) when and if her series was going to end. In public. So you see that she has a lot of latitude there. Original shows, once approved, are run entirely by their creators. I do sometimes catch problems or issues and ask for fixes, though.

3. We've almost got enough to start the lifecycle. The writer writes scripts. (Go figure.) The clever writer writes a lot of them so that they are tight and so he or she can have a life afterwards, I gather. Usually between 3 and 12, depending on a variety of factors, but never less than 3. Sometime during this process -- maybe before, maybe after, I'd think -- casting gets done. Once the first three scripts (minimum) are approved, casting for the first episode begins. That means someone sends out to the Pendant mailing list (and it gets put on the website as well) a casting call, with part descriptions, audition lines, blah blah. People audition. Someone decides on who gets cast and announces the results. Is this the writer? The director? Both? Neither? It varies by show. It defaults to the writer, who in many cases is also the director. It is the writer's choice; they can do all casting themselves, or they can hand it off to the director. I do all the casting for Superman, but Seth now does all the casting for Dixie (I write both). I also co-write Kingery, and casting there is also done by the director. Anyway, someone decides! People are cast!

4. The script is sent out to the actors for that episode as well as the director. A deadline is set for the actors to deliver their lines to a central address. If the actors miss the deadline, they are attacked by ninjas, or something. Any actors who miss deadlines are reported to Associate Producer Alicia Laine Matheson. She will give them a deadline extension. If they miss the extension, she refers them to me and I bring the hammer down on them and we either get the lines or we recast the role. It should also be noted this is only for people we've not heard from. People on vacation or who are sick, etc, and let us know they will be late with lines due to these things are fine. Just as long as we know. Eventually the lines all get sent in, one way or another, and by "eventually" I mean "very soon after the original deadline if not before." Seriously.

5. A quick script for the preview narration ("Next time, on Wonder Woman, Champion of Themyscira...") is written by the director and sent to the astounding Seth, Preview Narrator Guy (as well as many other jobs, mind you.) Seth reads 'em and sends 'em. The director uses his or her produced (or, often, semi-produced) material and those lines to create a preview and sends it on.

6. A quick script for the credits is sent to jeffrey. Just the cast list, actually, as I have too much to do to keep track of every small (or large) new role that pops up in every show. So for the shows I do credits for, the director sends me a cast list and I record the credits, send them back, and the director mixes the opening and closing credits together. The point is, the header and footer get on there and you've got a completed episode, hopefully with a huge buffer time before the airdate. Yeah.

7. The director (hi!) uses the script and the lines and his or her vast collection of SFX and amazing ability to read the writer's mind (cough) to create the audio magic that comes out of your mp3 player or whatever when the whole thing's done. Well... most of it. There's still stuff left to do once the scenes have been produced and stitched together and so forth. Completed episodes are usually sent to the writer (in cases where the writer is not also the director) for checking, and tweaks are made, if necessary. Then the completed episodes are sent to me, and more tweaks are made, if necessary. They are usually NOT necessary, but occasionally something weird will happen in a mixdown and something will get cut off or a director will accidentally misinterpret something that might change the actual story. Again, rare in both instances. Space is also left between the final scene and the end credits for me to drop all the preview trailers and "next time on..." blurbs into.

8. While the director works on steps 5-7 (and keeps on top of reminding actors when line deadlines approach and notifying alicia of stragglers), the script for the episode is sent to the artist. The artist has full control over what they produce for the cover (only in rare instances do we ask for anything specific), with the only guideline being that no large story spoilers are revealed.

9. The completed episode comes in to me (ideally at least two months before the episode goes live, when shows are on schedule). Then the director and writer record a commentary track for the episode.

10. Airdate! Magic! As the release date approaches, I drop the show's next episode trailer and all the trailers for the other shows in (the latter applies to DC shows only). A few days before release the art comes in, and I plug the logo, episode number, etc onto it. On the day of release, web-quality versions are made of the final episode and commentary, and those are both uploaded to the website along with the cover art. Preview text for the episode is written, the show's subsite is updated, the main page of the website is updated, the podcast file is updated, the show's release is added to Top News, info. on the next episode is added to Up Next, a press release is written and sent to the Pendant mailing list, and then the press release and art are sent off to the Director of Promotions to promote on various message boards, mailing lists, etc.

I would say "and then it all begins again", but by the time an episode goes live, we're not nearly "beginning" again. Shows ideally operate 3-4 months in advance on a continually-running schedule.

To use arbitrary dates to show time passage:

A first script goes out Jan. 1.

Lines are due in on Feb. 1, when the next script goes out.

The first episode is completed on Mar. 1, when the lines from the second script are coming in and the third script is going out.

Somewhere in March or April the commentary track is recorded for the first episode.

May 1 the script is sent to the artist for the cover.

June 1 the episode goes live (at this point the director has ideally just finished episode 4, lines have just come in for episode 5 and the script has just gone out for episode 6).

Also of note is that all scripts are personally approved by me before they go out to the cast, and in the case of our DC shows, also need the OK from our Continuity Editor.

Things like Vindicatum are plotted much further in advance, so that the stories in all the shows can lead into it through their seasons. Vindicatum's basic story was planned around 12-15 months ago, and we started actually writing it two months ago or so (although I wrote the outline for it about three or four months ago). And before I even wrote the outline for V., the basic story for the third crossover is indeed already in place and some seeds are already planted for it out there.

Keep your stinkin' money!

2008-04-16T13:30:00.001-07:00

I just got an email from someone who wanted to purchase an add on Pendant and wanted to know how much it would be for a text link on the main page and a square 125x125 graphic link on every other page on the website.

That's a first.

...and done again

2008-04-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Spent the last 90 minutes adding trailers into Bats 27 and making the web mixdown of that and its commentary, putting logos and sundry whatnot on the artwork for the covers (Adam sent in an alternate cover as well... combine the two and get a big picture, whee) and then uploading all of that, updating the subsite and the podcast and uploading all of THAT, adding the announcement to Top News and adding the Up Next, and then writing up the press release, posting it all to the Pendant mailing list and then sent the goodies off to M. for promotion.

Man that takes a long time.

But the ep is up, so listen to it, because it is very fine.

...and done

2008-04-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

Got another 9 1/2 pages of Superman 45 written and now the first draft is done, meaning it clocks in at just squeaking onto page 29... says the man who tells other people their scripts are getting too long. Tom's going to have a heart attack when he sees it. It's not all action or anything (no, that's issue 50... ahem), but he was still hoping for shorter, "back to normal length" scripts.

Oops.

Also got an email yesterday from someone who wanted to do covers for one of our shows that already has an artist. But he said he was "better" (though failed to supply any actual art samples) and based on him telling me that alone I, apparently, am supposed to kick an artist off of a show and replace them.

Even if he was "better", I'd never replace an artist just because I thought another artist was "better" (much less for someone TELLING me they were better and expecting me to grovel at their feet or something). Just like I'd never randomly replace an actor or director with someone else. People work hard for us, and I appreciate it. And if deadlines are met and there's no issues, as far as I'm concerned everyone has their "job" until they no longer want it.

Actors, artists, directors... once you've got a job (or twelve), they're yours until you don't want them any more (unless you miss deadlines and put things in jeopardy, then whips get cracked).

On and off again

2008-04-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

Just heard back from Paul and he's excited by Muzak and so that's officially a go. He's going to start working on promo poster art and then on into covers.

Read Kingery 2x05 in preparation for tonight's writers' chat about it, but then then chat was canceled because Neal couldn't make it, Pete got sick, and then Seth had a class (and it was his script, so he kind of has to be there). Now it looks like we're shooting for next Monday night, if that works for everyone.

Trying to corral the schedules of six different people is not an easy task.

Muzak ahoy

2008-04-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

Paul, the new artist who contacted me about wanting to do covers, has selected Project Muzak. I gave him some more info on it and am waiting to hear back, but all should be a go.

Then there's ANOTHER new artist who just wrote me today, so we'll see if he's got an interest in Seminar or Defiant.

New artists = good!

Same Bat-time

2008-04-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

Did the commentary on Batman 27 last night, which took about an hour what with a little bit of chatting between myself and writer/director Pete Milan and then the actual commentary (it's a 40 minute long episode chock full of awesome). Also of note? I already have issues 28 and 29 in their completed forms (yes, Vindicatum 1 is in) and Pete's working on the preview trailer for said ep. 29 right now.

As soon as that's in, I can slap it into the Vindicatum subsite and put allll the Vindicatum goodies up on the website.

Looked through the thumbnails Carl sent over for the Superman 41 cover and picked the one I thought was best so that he could get started on the actual cover, and made a small change to the Blue Harvest subsite to fix a typo.

This morning I wrote another 8 pages of Superman, and this episode is interesting. Fewer scenes overall, and the ones that are there seem to be longer. I'm digging on it, as it gives me more time for character interaction. So it's just squeaking onto page 18 now, but there's still one more scene to write which I hope to do later today or tomorrow at the latest. Ah, I do so enjoy being ahead on SOMETHING.

Still sick, have a massive headache, but that ain't gonna stop me.

Foooooooood

2008-04-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

Got the TWIP interview done, that took about an hour like usual. Then I updated the FAQ page and the Cast sections of subsites for Blue Harvest, Superman, Wonder Woman and Kingery with new casting call results, which took 30 minutes or so.

And now, lunch while I listen to Batman 27 in preparation for doing the commentary on it this evening with the good Mr. Milan.

Supplies!

2008-04-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Put the due date for lines for Blue Harvest 10 on the website, and in so doing noticed Neal had hidden a casting call in with the new script release where I hadn't seen it (nor had much of anyone else, apparently, as Neal said he's had a really low turnout so far). So, put the casting call up on the website and re-forwarded that to the list as an actual casting call, which should help.

Recording while sick - fun for the whole family!

2008-04-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

Just did my lines for Dixie 24 and Vegas 9, and recorded credits for The Kingery 2x05 and WW 28 AND 29.

I'm still sick but I think my voice is mostly better. Or was, before all of that recording.

Ow.

Sent the script to Kingery 2x05 off to the writing staff to try to schedule our chat about it (Seth sent it to me last week and it quickly got pushed to page 2 of my email and I forgot all about it, damn it) and hopefully we can get that done soon.

Now I have a TWIP interviewee to go look for and more interviews to try and set up.

Actual writing? GASP.

2008-04-14T10:12:00.001-07:00

Yes, the one thing I love most (next to Susan and Clark) I don't get to do nearly enough, thanks in large part to how busy Pendant keeps me. Argh.

But! I just got the first nine pages of Superman 45 written, which contains some Bobbi Havner/Lois Lane gold, and some John Henry/Natasha also gold. I usually write all of a Superman script in one sitting, but I'm still sick and writing always wipes me out (word), so I think I'll let this sit for a while and finish it later today or tomorrow. I've got two more scenes to go, and there's good important stuff in them and a bit of action at the end.

But I have a metric asston of recording to do, so I'm off to prime the mic and pump stuff out.

That sounded dirty.

Argh

2008-04-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Just noticed, in posting the thumbnail from the original Dixie promo poster, how woefully out of date the cast list on it was. So I just spent 30 minutes finally redoing that and uploading the new and correct version to the website.

Art ahoy!

2008-04-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats... all is stat in the world of web. Or... yeah.

Rebecca Hicks will be the new cover artist for Blue Harvest. Her art should debut next month with episode VII. We bought a book of hers at Wizard LA called Little Vampires which is fantastic and is about... little vampires, as you might suspect. They like blood oranges. It's adorable. She also drew a very cute Superman just for Clark. We're gonna frame it and hang it on the wall in his room. She does more than just cutesy art, though, so don't worry that Blue Harvest covers are going to look like a cartoon aimed at the 2 to 5 year-old crowd or anything.

And as I mentioned before, we should have Julie Lindsey on Vegas. I worked with her on the story for her webcomic (The Mage's Daughter) which we may continue again at some point, and she did character design for my original manga concept that I pitched to TokyoPop, and she also did the art on the original promotional poster for "Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion" which you can see here.

I put her in contact with Alicia and Rene to work on character designs... I'm not sure that she'll have something for Vegas chapter 9 which is out this Friday, but if not then hopefully for 10.

And so now I'm talking to the other artist interested in doing covers for us, Paul. He's got a choice between Seminar, Defiant and Project Muzak, so we'll see if any of those float his boat.

Three new artists in short order! Hooray.

Questions questions

2008-04-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats and then spent a good 20 minutes answering questions for another interview, this one for a comics blog (I think).

The magazine interview is mostly done... I have a few last follow-up questions to answer, and I'm waiting to hear back from a couple people on extra information needed for the article.

Now I've got an email from a new artist to respond to, and then I have to try to work out who will be on which shows.

Owwch

2008-04-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that in addition to my TWIP recording time on Friday, a good deal of time was spent combing through my plethora of auditions for the new role in Superman: The Last Son of Krypton.

Really tough decision this time around, but I covered that all in the casting call results.

Today I sent the script off to the winner for line recording, and of course put up TWIP, updated the TWIP subsite, made the Top News posting, the Up Next posting, made the press release and sent it to the mailing list and then sent the release info over to M. for promotifying.

My head has felt like it was going to explode ever since I woke up. Boo to pain.

Early bird gets the...work

2008-04-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

Woke up early this morning after a night of sleeping poorly, and started in on mixing TWIP 73 about 15 minutes later.

Took me about 2 1/2 hours, but that's because there's a rather lengthy Calls from the Public and, while fun and a good segment, is an outright bitch to edit. Warbles, clicks, odd silences, crosstalk, etc. all have to be edited out... which means listening through the entire segment, clipping a bad part, stitching the pieces together, making sure the edit is ok and not jarring, and then continuing to listen. And the raw CftP was about 1:03:00 long, so you can imagine where most of that 2 1/2 hours was spent.

Also checked the web stats, and I have to say, so far this month the search terms are letting me down a little. Nothing really wacky or outstanding yet, but we still have three full weeks before the month is out.

Oh you wacky intarweb people, searching for the wacky things. Get back to amusing me with your tomfoolery!

You crazy artist types

2008-04-11T17:00:00.001-07:00

On the subject of artists, I should mention we should have some new folks coming on board soon.

There's Julie Lindsay, who I've done a couple comic projects with and who will hopefully soon be doing Vegas covers for us, there's a friend of Neal's who may be doing covers for Blue Harvest (and possibly Project Muzak), and another new artist who contacted me yesterday about wanting to work with Pendant and has good stuff, it's just a matter of working out where all the new artists are going to find out who ends up on which shows exactly.

Hooray for Pendant artists!

Now go bookmark their blog. And check it every day.

But only after you check this one.

Pendant takes over Blogspot

2008-04-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

I am told a conglomeration of our awesome artists have started up a joint blog about all the work they do on our cover art. Not much there yet, but I imagine there will be soon:

http://pendantart.blogspot.com

Don't go expecting to see covers BEFORE the episodes they accompany are released, however.

Remember you this - the spoiler assassins are everywhere.

No time for mixing!

2008-04-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

TWIP will have to wait for tomorrow, I think.

Just checked the web stats and then got casting calls for Star Trek: Defiant and Project Muzak up on the website.

Yes, that's right, Project Muzak issue 1 is now casting. Wanna find out what the show is long before it airs? Audition and get a role, and then you'll know!

Zooming along

2008-04-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

TWIP is now all recorded. I might try to mix it today if I have time, but that's iffy at best. I'm also still waiting on some casting call results from directors (et-HEM), anyway.

Clap-clap-clap-clap!*

* - this will make more sense after you've heard TWIP. Come back to this post after hearing it on Sunday, you'll see. I guarantee at least 2% more sense made.

We named the DOG 'Indiana'! Oh wait, wrong one...

2008-04-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

Got Star Wars: Blue Harvest episode VI made into the web version mixdown (with my own un-dulcet tones now on credits), uploaded it and the commentary to the site, updated the BH subsite and podcast files (yes, it has two... more on that in a moment) and then updated the Top News and Up Next sections in the database, wrote the press release, posted it to the Pendant mailing list, and then sent the promo materials off to M, new Director of Promotions.

I still have more auditions to listen to and then I have to make my casting decision and then record TWIP. I also have lines to record, but I got sick yesterday and have a horrible sinus infection or something so my voice might not sound right.

How the HELL I wrote an entire season outline for Dixie while feeling like my bones were just leeched of all energy, I don't know (yes, I store my energy in my bones... where do you keep YOURS?).

Now, the Blue Harvest podcast... if you recall, there was (another) hullabaloo with iTunes and us getting BH listed in said program. We've had the same problem with a few other shows and due to their STUNNING COMPLETE LACK OF SUPPORT for the program, issues arise and are problems and it takes months to fix. This time I honestly didn't think we were ever going to get it in there. It's just horrible. I'm appalled at the complete lack of customer support, especially from a company that prides itself on being about people and caring. Baloney.

Anyway, the first podcast was rejected and there was no way to get it in there. In the course of trying to get the show listed a few duplicate podcast feeds were made with different file names to see if THOSE could get listed. Somewhere along the way, whoever FINALLY manually went in and added BH to iTunes grabbed one of the duplicates instead of the original for the listing there.

So just delete the original, right? Except that it had already been listed on the website as the podcast feed for two or three months and a lot of people were already subscribed to it. So I changed the website to display the feed iTunes uses and probably 95% of all subscribers now use that feed. But there are still some people using the original feed, so I just copy/paste and put up a duplicate feed for the show so that the people who started subscribing right away and before the show was even in iTunes still get the show.

Wasn't that a long and mostly boring story? Aren't you sorry you asked?

YES YOU DID TOO ASK.

Eureka!

2008-04-10T09:06:00.001-07:00

Had four new auditions for the Superman show this morning. People like to wait until the last minute, I guess, which probably means I'll get still more auditions tonight.

After that I finally, FINALLY got the Dixie season 3 outline done! I am so happy to finally have that out of the way. I may have over-packed some of the episodes, so the total number of episodes might change, but right now season three is ten episodes. But again, when I'm writing the actual scripts I may find I've put too much into an episode and move things around or split one into two, so it might go 11 or 12 eps. But I wrote it as ten and right now it's looking pretty solid there, I think.

It's interesting to me how the first season was 13 episodes, the second 12, and the third 10. I wonder if it's me subconsciously just trying to move the seasons along faster, because I have plotted the story for this SO far in advance and I'm really dying to get to those later seasons.

Mmm, muzak

2008-04-09T20:14:00.001-07:00

Just spent a good 75 minutes or so training the lovely M. Sieiro Garcia on how to promote all of our shows. Our Director of Promotions, Tom Backus, will be taking a few months off and M is oh so graciously filling in for him.

Also read the script to Project Muzak issue 3, which really kicks everything up both cast and story wise and was a whole mess of fun, and it's now good to go... which means casting is about to begin!

Although, believe it or not, I think there's only ONE role to cast for the first episode... but whatever could THAT mean?

Hmm. Who knows...

More... engage?

2008-04-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Just went through the Defiant season 3 outline in detail and sent Theresa a few questions and comments about it. And then I read the script for Batman issue 32, which is good to go.

But now I have a headache (totally unrelated to the outline!) and so I'm going to go get more caffeine.

Sweet, sweet coffee.

Back up

2008-04-09T15:04:00.001-07:00

Checked yesterday's web stats, and Dixie seems to have picked back up a little to around normal download numbers. We'll see where it and the rest of our shows end up by the end of the month.

That's all. Move along, nothing to see here.

Give it a try!

2008-04-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

Listened to three more auditions and one sample sound file from a new person wanting a sound quality check.

Had one person who auditioned ask for more feedback, which I happily gave him. The issue there, of course, is that a lot of people have asked for feedback on their auditions and how they might improve them, and then I tell them and they never audition for anything ever again... possibly because they get offended, I don't know.

I find that's true of a lot of things, though. People ask for feedback and criticism, but if you give anything other than "it was faboo!" they get offended and angry. This is not directed at any one person in particular, mind you, so if you read too much into that I'll send the assassins.

My point is just that it can be tough for people to take feedback sometimes, and I hope this isn't another one of those cases.

I can talk

2008-04-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

Just recorded credits for Supergirl 12 and Blue Harvest 6.

Onward I go.

Engage

2008-04-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

Defiant 23 is up. Got the web version of the final mixdown uploaded, made the cover from some "extra", "generic" cover art Brian Robinson sent when he was doing Defiant (I have two others, so Defiant will have covers at least through this last arc... after that, who knows), wrote the preview text and got it all uploaded to the website.

Updated the podcast, updated the Defiant subsite, updated the main Pendant page with the Defiant cover and the new episode announcement, added in the Defiant Up Next information, and... I think that covers it for now.

Fixing the problems you'll never know about

2008-04-09T07:43:00.001-07:00

Had a slight issue with the credits for Star Trek: Defiant episode 23, which should be going live shortly.

When the episode went out, we didn't have assistant directors helping our main directors catch up. So when I recorded the credits for Defiant 23, there was no credit for its present assistant director Andrew Eckhart. This, of course, is a problem.

However, I wasn't aware of this until I got the final final mix from Chris Brittain last night. Chris lives in the UK and is eight hours ahead of me, and with the time difference there was no way for me to re-record the credits, get them to him, have him remix them and send the whole episode back.

So I re-recorded the end credits (the part where I needed to add in the AD credit, anyway) and remixed the end credits myself, because I've got all the Defiant files. It's mixing down into the new final version that everyone will hear shortly, and I'm sure no one will be any wiser, but Andrew got his due credit, which is good.

But this has made me realize/remember two things:

1. Man, I miss Defiant. I mean, not its existence, it's still going strong and I've taken a cursory glance at Theresa's plans for season 3 right now, and I'm excited. But I miss writing it, I miss directing it, I miss it being a bigger part of me, if that makes sense.

2. That theme gets me every time. I know it's from Star Trek: First Contact, and I enjoy that movie, but that music isn't associated with that movie in any way for me. I have no tie between them. I probably associate it more with Defiant now, but that's not the reason either. It's just one of those rare pieces that just enraptures me with its beauty. I can't think of a more fitting theme for Defiant, really, but regardless, that is a damn fine piece of music.

Ok, off I go. The mixdown is almost done and then it's post and promote time.

Just take one dip and end it

2008-04-08T17:54:00.000-07:00

Checked the web stats for yesterday and Dixie seemed about normal for a premiere day, although a little bit lower. My guess is it's due to the week off... we don't have them often, but when we do it always seems to take people a few weeks to realize we're back.

Which is odd, considering we have so many new releases on a weekly basis, you'd figure they'd be back the following week anyway.

The way of the audience is mysterious to all but Gorlock, the almighty overlord of audio.

I heard them first. Neener.

2008-04-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

Had a few more auditions for Superman: The Last Son of Krypton to listen to, and then listened to Star Trek: Defiant episode 23 and the rough cut of Star Wars: Blue Harvest episode 6, the latter of which Neal has decided to utilize me on credits for and Seth on trailers for.

So I'll have those to record tomorrow, which I'd better do early since the episode is out on Friday!

Tonight I have a TWIP interview to do, and hopefully I can finally start spending a little time on the Dixie season 3 outline.

Ugh, my head

2008-04-08T11:23:00.000-07:00

Just finished answering a huge round of follow-up questions for the print interview article, which probably took me a good 90 minutes. Really good stuff, very good questions, but man am I wiped out now.

Need to hear back on one little issue with the questions and then possibly get some info. from some other people (cryptic, I know - more later) and then it should be done and good to go. I wonder when it's going to be printed?

I should maybe ask that, huh.

Keep fightin', Dix

2008-04-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

Just got done making the web versions of Dixie 21 and its commentary, uploading the episodes, writing the preview text, updating the Dixie subsite and podcast and then adding the new episode announcement to Top News, putting Kristen's excellent cover on the main page of the site, doing up the press release, sending it to the mailing list and then sending the release info. off to Tom for the rest of the promotion. Phew.

Putting up episodes is worky worky.

So, so much more to do.

Do you hear what I hear?

2008-04-06T15:33:00.001-07:00

Just listened to two redos of two different tests by our two budding directors. Both passed each, meaning one is now ready to go and the other is just now starting on the last test. Good news all around.

Then I listened to a few more auditions for Superman. I've already gotten more auditions for this than I have for most roles in recent memory... who knew Hades would be so popular? It's christmas time in hell!

String up the lights and light up the tree
We're gonna make some revelry..
Spirits are high, so I can tell
It's Christmas time in Hell!
Demons are nicer as you pass them by
There's lots of demon toys to buy
The snow is falling, and all is well
It's Christmas time in Hell!

No weekends for me

2008-04-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

Got TWIP up this morning, added the announcement about it being up to the website, added the Up Next TWIP episode that will appear tomorrow and then did the press release and sent it to the mailing list and off to Tom for promotion elsewhere.

Then I listened to some early recording samples from some new actors who needed a sound-quality check on their recordings (here's a tip: NEVER filter or muck with your lines in any way, people) and then listened to some more work done by the budding directors from last Friday's director class.

And THEN I read through the first draft of the season two finale of Defiant, which was excellent (the last scene, especially, just oozes really, really good Trek to me).

I've got another script to read and another director test scene to listen to still, at the very least. Possibly more.

I haven't checked the web stats yet today, but I did yesterday and one thing I noticed is that while downloads were down overall (since we had no new releases), they were still really strong and above where they would have been on any given week a year ago... a week that DID have new releases.

So it's very encouraging that even with decreased downloads during a week of no new releases we're still up from last year.

And I'm spent

2008-04-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Director's class is over... 4 1/2 hours, and while the budding directors were working on their mixing tests, I got all of TWIP mixed and ready to go for Sunday, too.

And the new directors are truly off to a fantastic start, so I am most pleased.

I think that means I've been working for... 15 1/2 hours? Minus 90 minutes for eating and bathroom breaks, so... 14 hours?

I AM GOING TO BED.

Once more into the breach

2008-04-04T17:54:00.000-07:00

Just about to start yet another director training session, with some folks interested in possibly taking over directing duties on Wonder Woman and one person who wants to know for other reasons and thinks that will somehow keep her out of the mines.

HA.

Little doth she know!

This is probably going to take the next three to four hours, and I've been working since 7 am (only stopping to eat and for bathroom breaks, maybe a total of an hour combined all day).

Chugga chugga, I'm a machine.

Listen! Do you smell something?

2008-04-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Listened to the first few auditions that have already come in for the Superman casting call that I posted. One was sure I wouldn't cast him no matter what (?) and another was either trying to butter me up or really, REALLY likes the show.

Neither tactic is going to make me cast someone, of course, as I only ever go by who's best for the role, but... people are as people do. Oh Forrest Gump, I never could understand you.

I then went through and looked for late lines for Superman, only to discover one person sent in their lines for issue 43 but missed 42 entirely, and a couple other people haven't sent in EITHER 42 or 43.

I've always said it and it's still true... chasing after people, waving a big pointy stick and trying to get lines from them (much less on time) is still the hardest part of everything.

Why you'd almost think they didn't agree to or audition for these roles and they'd been forced into it or something, the way you have to ask and remind and ask and remind and ask and threaten to recast just to get in what they agreed to get in.

TWIPped out

2008-04-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

Got all of TWIP recorded, though mixing is another matter. That will probably happen tomorrow, and shouldn't take too long... one of the benefits of only doing Calls from the Public once a month.

By the way, the Calls we recorded last night will NOT be in this TWIP. It was already long with the web stats and search terms for March, so I'm saving it for next week.

I also re-recorded the closing credits for Superman 40 with a last minute addition that I'm sure Tom and I will talk about in the commentary.

And the cast comes off in two weeks

2008-04-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

Got the casting call posted for the new Superman role and was immediately chastised by someone for comparing "heaven" and "hell" to "the elysian fields" and "tartarus". Because they're totally not the same at all.

...

Anyway, got that done and then put up on the website a casting call for a role that will be appearing in Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman and a Batman-specific casting call.

I then noticed that we've got SIX open casting calls on the website at the moment, for a total of seventeen roles.

Wow.

Up and gone

2008-04-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

Got Superman 44 out to the cast finally, and added the due date to the website. I've got one casting call to post for the show and two or three others to put up on the site, I think, and a whole lot more.

My list of stuff to do today isn't shrinking quickly enough.

Still here

2008-04-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

Almost an entire day without an update? *gasp*

Fear not, plenty has been going on. Apparently I'm being interviewed soon for another blog, I did this coming Sunday's TWIP interview (that was yesterday, actually) and tonight we also had Calls from the Public for March, which lasted about an hour and may or may not have resulted in the dispatching of a cadre of spoiler assassins (R&D is checking the tape for exact wording).

I also didn't get Superman 44 out to the cast yet. Argh. I would do it now, but Clark just got sick so we've got that to deal with.

I was going to record TWIP tomorrow, but I can't do that if he's home sick all day, so we'll see how that goes.

What.

2008-04-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

Someone today actually brought up the idea of TWIP shirts to me.

Nay, says I, nay. Who would ever want one of those?!

Especially based on the STELLAR (ahem) sales of merchandise from our much more popular shows... if we even offered TWIP merch. we'd probably somehow end up OWING money on them.

Haw.

What say ye, readers? TWIP shirts? Nay or nay?

Good to go

2008-04-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

Superman 44 has the all-clear from the continuity maven, so hopefully I can get that out to the cast tonight.

I've got one casting call to do for it as well.

And I also just sent a reminder to the mailing list about Calls from the Public, which returns tomorrow night at 6:30pm pacific on Gizmo. This is our now-monthly show where anyone who's interested can join in to talk about the past month's worth of Pendant shows, and I air the show in TWIP.

Whoops

2008-04-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

I knew it was only a matter of time before I started forgetting to log things here. What I'm surprised by is that it's taken this long for it to happen or, rather, that it took me this long to notice.

Monday I mentioned that I had to do the Dixie 21 commentary with the director of the show, Seth. And then I never mentioned it again, because I am made of super awesome stuff that forgets things.

So Monday night at around 7pm pacific, Seth and I met on Gizmo and recorded the live commentary for Dixie 21. Immediately thereafter we did the commentary for Dixie 3... meaning we now only have TEN MORE back commentaries to do for the CD set we're making.

We'd better pick up the pace on those or that set's not going to be ready for a year.

Addendum

2008-04-02T14:12:00.001-07:00

Added a link to Kristen's Book of Destiny blog to the FAQ page of the website.

Also realized I never added the "Blogs" section to the FAQ pull-down menu, so I went in and added a link to the Blog section of the FAQ page there.

I think that covers it.

Does Pendant ever stop growing?

2008-04-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Our Earth-P continuity editor Kristen Bays has created a sister blog to log all things Earth-P, related to her duties and possibly with episode synopses and the like. Do check it out:

http://earth-p.blogspot.com

More... stuff

2008-04-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Spent a while going back and forth with Dragonblink (get your minds out of the gutter!) about issue 17 of Supergirl, and then a while going back and forth with Susan (seriously, OUT of the gutter!) about Superman 44, which she had some very good feedback on.

Now Supes 44 is off to Kristen for the continuity check, and after that it's out to the cast.

Then, from a writing-for-Pendant standpoint, I have the Dixie Season Three outline to do, and then I'm going to try to write as many Superman episodes in as short a time as possible to free up my time in the coming months to work on writing that's NOT for Pendant.

We'll see if I can get all that done or not.

Ha.

Posts for hitchin' to

2008-04-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Got the latest Seminar and WW casting calls posted to the website, and sent an important email to all writers of Earth P superhero shows about a slight change to procedure that no one else will ever know about but which should help make our universe even more cohesive.

More to do, so off I go.

So much to do

2008-04-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

Got two new audio websites linked to from the Links section of the FAQ page, at their requests.

Then I wrote all of Superman: The Last Son of Krypton issue 44, which took me about 90 minutes total (I always write those really, really fast... Dixie is another story, those usually take me 3-4 hours or so).

The first draft of 44 is now off to Susan for reading (she reads all my stuff first, as I do hers, because we're cool like that) and then I added the due dates for WW 31 and Sgirl 16 to the website.

And now, more calls...

Stat up for yourself!

2008-04-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Went through and checked the web stats for yesterday, taking the normal amount of time, and then looked at the cumulative monthly stats and made my notes to get those ready for reporting in TWIP this weekend.

It was the biggest month ever for Pendant (again) in several ways, and it wasn't just squeaking by like I thought it would be. Very cool.

But compiling all that information takes me about an hour, so there's that time gone.

I've got a UK-based audio group that wants to do a link exchange, so I'll need to get that up sometime today, hopefully. Should only take a couple minutes, it's just a matter of having a couple minutes when I'm doing nothing else to get it done.

What the hell, javascript? You used to be cool

2008-03-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

Dealt with a few emails from James re: an issue with Kingery 2x02 and then got a peculiar IM from Jane Parrish.

Well no, the IM wasn't peculiar, Jane is a lovely and talented woman. But she was telling me about a peculiar problem on the Pendant website... the Kingery and Vegas pages (and Defiant and Indy pages, it turns out) were for some reason redirecting to nikedesigns.com, which is a now-defunct URL of a personal website I used to have many years ago... where Pendant was also first hosted until it had a place of its own (I got the domain name right away, but it just pointed to a folder on nikedesigns.com for the first 6-9 months or so).

Anyway, it turns out there was some old javascript code on those four pages, I think from the old download counter I used to have on the links. Which makes it odd that it would be on the Kingery and Vegas subsites, as those shows didn't exist back then.

But when making a new subsite I usually just take an existing one and modify it, rather than recreate it from scratch every time (this way, I only created it from scratch once! I is smrt!) and so the old code probably got left in there.

So I clipped it out and reuploaded the pages and all was well in Pendantland.

What's particularly vexing is that I have not modified those pages beyond adding to the Cast sections. I certainly didn't go in and add some old code for a website I haven't had for two years now... so that old javascript code has been sitting there doing nothing for all this time, and then just today for some reason it decides it needs to redirect anyone trying to get to the page to a website that doesn't exist anymore.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Are you filled with Wonder?

2008-03-31T12:38:00.000-07:00

Just made a post to the mailing list, seeking people who would be interested in taking over directing duties on Wonder Woman: Champion of Themyscira.

Fiona, the current director, is really good at it but needs to step down, and let me know that a month or so ago.

In that time I talked to every single one of the directors from my last "Director's Class", where I trained people on how to direct audio shows, and all of them turned it down for reasons ranging from lack of confidence in their own skill, lack of time, or lack of interest.

So I figured we'd go about it the same way we did when I had to give up directing Star Trek: Defiant, which was to ask the list if anyone was interested and hopefully a big fan of the show is and can be trained.

That netted us the fantastic Chris Brittain as director of Defiant, so hopefully WW can reap benefits on the same level.

If you're reading this, and you like the show and the character and what we're trying to do with Earth P and might be interested, send me an email at jeffrey@pendantaudio.com and let me know.

NO previous audio editing experience is necessary. We can train you on all you need to know. All you need is a strong interest in the show and character and Pendant.

Come on, you know you want to.

Some things blow

2008-03-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

Just recorded FIVE sets of episode opening and closing credits, with a long stoppage in the middle due to people running a leaf blower out in the hallway.

Yes, the hallway.

One of the idiosyncrasies of living in California... our apartment building is open-air and has a completely open courtyard and so leaves and twigs and feathers and all kinds of things that don't belong inside often get scattered around the hallways.

Then I set up (or started trying to set up) two TWIP interviews for the coming weeks and sent off emails to a couple directors enquiring about ETAs for completed episodes.

Oh, and also set up a time with Seth for tonight to do the commentary on Dixie 21, and then possibly also on Dixie 3 and 4. We're trying to get commentaries done for all the old episodes to put on the Special Features DVD we'll be including with the forthcoming Dixie CD set, but finding the time to record those is much easier said than done.

Which reminds me...

Listen to Dixie 21 before doing the commentary on it.

A first in a while

2008-03-31T10:27:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right, I actually did NOTHING for Pendant yesterday.

It's incredibly rare that this happens, but I had no new TWIP to put up (no new shows for Pendant this week, also a rarity) and so I decided to take full advantage of the situation and just give myself a break.

I know there was no new TWIP two weeks ago, but I was also at Wizard World LA promoting Pendant that day (for the third day in a row), so it wasn't exactly much of a break.

Oh wait, I did check the web stats yesterday... which was only 15 minutes, but still a day without Pendant doesn't truly ever happen around here. Susan spent a while writing her WW script, but then, that's not me.

Today I answered a bunch of Pendant emails that had come in and accidentally fallen by the wayside for a while, including one from a girl who just loves Ace of Detectives and would we please consider here for a role... oh, and where can she get a microphone?

Now I'm glad she likes the show and wants to participate, but I don't understand the whole "well I like the show, give me a part in it" mentality some people have (she's not the first to have emailed me something like this). Is it perhaps due to many other people producing radio shows on their own or something, who'll give roles to anyone who asks? My only thought is it must be something like that.

Anyway, I explained to her where she could obtain a microphone and how our casting call/audition process worked, and encouraged her to audition for any roles she was interested in and wished her luck. Hopefully she will.

Sometimes, though, I just get baffled.

Enough of this, though, for now I am off to record credits.

Miscellanyfragilisticexpialipendant

2008-03-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Susan wanted to get some writing done for WW:CoT, so I decided to bite the bullet and spent the last 75 minutes adding relevant links on bio pages to TWIP episodes where said subject of the bio was interviewed.

Did that make sense?

No. It did not.

My brain is fried. I go eat and watch some Quantum Leap now.

More Misc. Miscellany

2008-03-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Just spent a good 90 minutes working on updating the FAQ page (it now links here and has all the results from the 2007 Pendy Awards) and then updating all the show subsites with the Pendy results and THEN updating all pertinent bios with the 2007 Pendy results (all people who won a Pendy get a special graphic and mention of the award on their bio page).

That's really a LOT of tedious busy work and not much fun, but I'd been putting it off forever because I just don't have the time and it was annoying me, so I'm glad to get that done.

Next, in terms of bios, is yelling at people who I still don't have a bio for to send me one and trying to add links to specific TWIP episodes to bio pages for everyone who's been interviewed on the show. Yeah... 70+ bio updates just for that alone.

Rapture!

Miscellany

2008-03-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

Put the latest casting call for "Supergirl: Lost Daughter of Krypton" up on the website and then updated the Staff section of the FAQ page and the cast sections for Supergirl, Superman, Star Wars, Shakespeare, Kingery, Dixie, Batman, Defiant, and Wonder Woman.

Took me over an hour. Yick.

One step forward, two steps back

2008-03-28T16:06:00.000-07:00

Read the final, FINAL version of Project Muzak 1, which is now completely good to go. Read the second version of issue 2 which had just a couple minor issues which Kristen is fixing now and then it will be good to go as well.

Once issue 3 is scripted we'll go right into casting and then the first script should go out to the cast... er... in about three weeks, I think? Something like that.

We'll worry about that in a few weeks. Right now, this means I need to get my ass in gear and get a show logo done. And a subsite.

Which reminds me, I never finished the Vindicatum subsite.

...whoops.

It's still months away so there's plenty of time, but damn it! I can't ever get ahead because I keep remembering how behind I am.

Electric Boogaloo

2008-03-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Just put up the preview trailer for Season Two of "The Kingery", available exclusively through the Kingery podcast. I had to trim that down (for some reason it had like 30 seconds of silence at the end), and then uploaded the mp3 file, updated and uploaded the podcast file and then updated the front page of the website with the announcement.

I was going to put it up for download on the Kingery subsite along with all the other preview trailers we've got there, but then I wasn't sure if that'd be too much of a spoiler for new people coming in? I figured it was best to keep it to just the podcast, but maybe I should put it on the website anyway.

I am undecided!

But regardless of that, it's up in the podcast right this very second.