MIA: Faye Valentine.

[B E C K]

So would you want like name VA or unknowns? Cause the unknowns will save you a lot of cash, but they could also suck ass. Hence why they are unknown. And you going to have an American company or Japanesse company animate?

I would actually like to do unknowns for this specific project, especially any regional singing talent.  The location of the story is actual here, so getting people from around this area could work very well.  I have given it some thought and if I were able to do so, I'd scout the acting communities in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas as well as the musical acts around here since I want to incorporate music.  I'm not planning a musical or anything, but I would like an opening and closing theme and one of the characters is a singer so I would ideally like an actor who can sing for him.  Also, I have multiple characters with accents and I'd, again ideally, like to use people who actually have those accents, can imitate them with subtlety, or at least have a large familiarity with what a genuine one sounds like.  The villains and side characters are negotiable on how good their accent may sound, but I have an Australian and and an Irishman that are main characters and I don't want them sounding all Steve Irwin and Lucky Charms.  If I have to record those sorts from larger more international cities like New York or LA, I just may.  I also toyed with the idea of doing a simulatenous Spanish dub for release in the Southwest region and Mexico.  I don't know how well that would work out or how much the Spanish speaking market would even have interest in what I'm doing, but I thought it was still a neat idea nonetheless.

I don't want anything too flat-looking or saturated, like my arch-enemy TMNT: Fast Forward.  If it looked like the pre-Fast Forward Turtles, I wouldn't mind.  Since I haven't really looked into it, I don't know how far we've come with Flash so I'm wary of it.  I would like to incoporate some of the techniques used by anime though the look doesn't have to flow that way.  I don't know if this would necessarily mean ADR (thus bringing in the complication with the VAs having to match lips) or what.  I think if the actors didn't have match lips, it may give them the freedom they need to sound the best they can.  I don't know if it would be shipped overseas or not, that would depend on cost.  Likely, I would think so.  There are likely cheaper places than Japan to animate something, but for a mere pilot I'm not certain if that would be done entirely in states or what.

[Rama]

I like that you want to use local people. I just hope the unions don't come down on you. Don't know how much trouble you'd have with that in Texas. I'd say none, but with Funimations HQ and stuido in Huston, I don't know.

And I've thought about using local bands for Music before. There is a band called Faatherton around here that I've become a pretty big fan of. I was thinking of contacting them, or at least the guy that writes their songs,  to do a "Theme" song for my main character to use on my web page when I get it up and running, and maybe more music for other connected Media down the line.

I don't know how far we've come with Flash so I'm wary of it.

Well I do know the entire pilot for the Venture Bros. was done in Flash. That was a couple years ago and it looked pretty good, but you could still tell it was Flash.  

[Wickedly Yours E]

Mine is told through flashbacks in the 2nd book. When you first meet them (well that's not true she shows up in the first book as a brief cameo, which I did just cause I wanted her in the first book.) you'd think one of them had killed the other one's mother or something the way they fight, but as the story goes on you see in flashbacks how they meet and all that important stuff and you also learn what caused the downfall of their releationship. This is all being told as we move forward with the main story Highlander style. I don't have anything as grand as the universe getting blown up, since my books are set on earth in the near future.

Well, specifically planets containing large military presences...which included Earth. Now they're wastelands.

....Anyway.
I've used Flash before. It's tricky when you start and can take a lot of getting used to, but once you get it down? It's pretty easy.

[B E C K]

I like that you want to use local people. I just hope the unions don't come down on you. Don't know how much trouble you'd have with that in Texas. I'd say none, but with Funimations HQ and stuido in Huston, I don't know.

Yeah, I thought about that.  Especially if I ended up recording people from places with greater union pressence.

[Rama]

Yeah it might be better to look for people and a place to record in a more rural area. Like I know if I recorded something like that here, no union would even know about it till the thing was already out. Rual would cost you less as well, but the problem is I doubt you'd find the kind of varitety in accents that you are looking for.

Well, specifically planets containing large military presences...which included Earth. Now they're wastelands.

Well there is no space travel in my book, despite the fact that it's a Sci-Fi novel. I know that's kinda like having a Fantasy book where no one has a sword, but I wanted to keep it somewhat groundeded in reality. I actually cut stuff back. In the first draft it was set in the year 2252, and the main chracter had a laser gun and drove a hover car, but now it's the year 2052 and there is no laser guns or flying cars.

[B E C K]

Well you've written the first book you had planned already, haven't you?  You just need to edit or somethin'?


How far along is your story, E?

[Rama]

Well you've written the first book you had planned already, haven't you?  You just need to edit or somethin'?


 

Not exactly. I wish that was the case actually. I have people that have been willing to edit it for me. So that wouldn't even be any work for me. They'd edit...I'd add the edits and then off to the publishers.

I have a complete first draft. The story had changed so much that it was easier to  rewrite the whole thing rather then going back and changing only what needed to be changed. I'm about 3-4 chapers into this rewrite. I don't plan to do another rewrite after this one. I'm going to have it edited and change anything I need to, but this is my last complete rewrite. They just take too long. I need to get this done and sent out by late summer at least. I just can't go another year still polishing. I'm a prefectionist and a "negative nacy". Those don't seem to mix well. So I have to just get this done and send it out and accept it'll never be perfect.

[B E C K]

I think that's my problem, too.  I always want to go back and constantly retool, which makes it better but not any more done.

[Rama]

Exactly. I just read it and know I could do better. I don't always know how to make it better, but I know it could be. That drives me nuts. I've pushed in all my chips on this one...I don't have a sucessful carrer and in law and am just doing this on the side. So if this doesn't work out, I don't have a plan to fall back on. So I have to make this work, and I get the feelin that if I get through this it will. I can't explain it, but I just got this feeling that this will be what I'll be known for.

I've felt that since the day I started this. Usually story ideas would come, I'd work on them for a few months, then the notes and drawings would go into a file and that'd be the end of it. Not this though. I've been working on this, and it's eight sequels for almost 2 years now and it hasn't gotten old or stale for me and I've kept working on it. I just think this is it for me....again if I ever get the balls up to actually send it off.  

[B E C K]

How does that even work anymore?  Do you send off a paper manuscript or can you just burn it on a CD now?

[Rama]

Depends on the publisher. Some yes...some no. I prefer the paper manuscript myself.