Plotpoints Podcast Episode 116, 2017.12.08

What happened to this podcast?  Why does it sound like sh*t?  Notes at the end of these show notes if you’re interested.  CLICK HERE or go to bottom of these show notes.

Show Notes December 08, 2017 EP 16

Mark is hostless (and mostly clueless) BUT he taps two friends to help him and they respond big time to save his cookies…

Jeff Lyons and Lorenzo Porricelli make Mark’s life easier even as he works hard to confuse and complicate it.

This…is PlotPoints Podcast.

This week we dive into James Cameron’s life and work.  Blue people dreams?  Oh, yeah. 

Terminate this, Arh-nold!

00:00:00 Pre-Podcast: Apologies and Whining.  Waaah. Mark Sevi

00:01:12 Intro Mark Sevi

00:02:21 Table Talk

Jeff Lyons and Lorenzo Porricelli sit in and rock the joint!

Where are Toby and MC?  Hmmm.  What are you suggesting?

Mark Sevi, Jeff Lyons, Lorenzo Porricelli

QUESTIONS?  COMMENTS? 919-Scripts

www.ocscreenwriters.com

00:04:20 What Are We Watching? Mark Sevi, Jeff Lyons and Lorenzo Porricelli

#godless #skins #haltandcatchfire #merritwebber #coco cocospanishversion #gameofthrones jrrmartin

00:07:20 What Are We Writing?Mark Sevi, Jeff Lyons and Lorenzo Porricelli

00:17:05 Guily Pleasures and Under-Appreciated Films and TVMark Sevi, Jeff Lyons and Lorenzo Porricelli

#buckaroobanzai #wired #thehaunting #williamfriedkin #mame #putneyswope

00:22:32 FOCUS: SuperWriter, Producer, Director JAMES CAMERON. Mark Sevi

#terminator #theabyss #truelies #divingdocumentaries #pointbreak #avatar #terminator2 #t2 worldbeyondthestars #darkangel #lindahamilton #galeannhurd #katherinebigelow #aliens #piranha2 #titanic #alitabattleangel #alita

Xenogenesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpZRJ4HE4Q

Cameron’s credits: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009190/

00:46:00 This Week/Year/Whatever in Film History

#hayescode #mpaa

 

 

00:52:00 Q&A – Questions, Questions, Questions Mark Sevi, Jeff Lyons

jefflyonsbooks.com

How do I break in to television? Mark

Is long-form narrative TV a reflection of books? Jeff

01:05:30 Outro

Saying ciao until next time!

Jeff Lyons: http://www.jefflyonsbooks.com/

SCWA: http://www.ocwriter.com

SCWA Anthology Book on Amazon:  HERE

HEY! Tell us what is your favorite Scifi, Romantic Comedy or Comic Book movie? Call (919) Scripts and shout it out to us.

Resources: 919-SCRIPTS to leave a message/ask questions.

www.plotpoints.com (show blog and more)

www.ocscreenwriters.com – by writers for writers.

Be Inspired, Do Good Work!

Writers Guild Registration – www.wgawregistry.org

U.S. Copyright Office – www.copyright.gov

Podcast available on iTunes

All Material copyright (c) Mark Sevi

WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS PODCAST?

I record on computer through Audacity and output to a standalone PCM digital recorder.  This provides two different forms of backup for the ‘cast – Toby conceived this scheme and he did it right.

We do have different equipment to do this and usually it’s not a problem.  I have a PC and a Zoom H2 – the previous three podcasts were done using this equipment.  On the last podcast, I was getting this annoying clicking on the computer version so I just used the digital recording version – worked great!

This time the roof fell in.

The recorder I was using just died – it was supposed to be on AC but it thought it was on batteries so it died instantly after I started the recording and I didn’t realize it until I looked and the recorder was dark.  So the first five minutes of the podcast were lost on the digital recorder.  

Normally this would not be much of an issue but I could not get the PC and Audacity to go to stereo so my only source of stereo was the recorder – which was missing the first five minutes of the ‘cast.  I had the whole podcast on the computer in mono which is not great to edit because we split the mics left and right to be able to edit out issues easily.

Plus, and I am still puzzled by this, the only level that was good mic-wise was my mic.  I had to boost both Jeff and Larry’s mics tremendously after the fact in order to be heard. Boosting an audio signal is never good if you don’t have anything reasonable to begin with.  It just goes pear-shaped.

That’s why it sounds, at times, as if they are being punched into the audio stream from a bathroom.  I promise they were both present in the room – it just doesn’t sound that way.

I edited the first five minutes of the podcast from the computer (in mono) and then joined it to the stereo portion of the digital recorder that had really low mic levels for Jeff and Larry.  And actually, neither the H2 nor the PC had any sort of reasonable mic levels so it must have been something on the Mackie board that I did wrong.

Still checking that.

The result is so over-processed it sounds like I’m using a phase shifter on the podcast which isn’t hard to imagine given that I equalized, compressed, limited, low-passed, high-passed, amplified, reduced, etc. etc. etc.

This is the Frankenstein of podcasts and just about as pretty.

To add to the woes, although we’ve recorded at this venue in the past, this time the nearby airport must have been landing and launching F-16s and C-17s because every ten minutes or so you can hear this low rumble through the mics.

Sigh…

I’ve purchased a new (used) H5 and I will solve the Audacity problem by maybe going to Adobe Audition for the recording and editing.

In any case I promise not to ever do this again.

Maybe.

Mark, December 8, 2017 Newport Beach.