S2E30 - LARP talking... for some reason.

Sam.

Everything sounds good to me.

Hey, yeah, yeah, like, we're all on each of his level. No one's feeling shown up. It's all.

Okay. I guess we'll just kind of roll into it. Hello and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a podcast where Scott doesn't know what he's doing most of the time. And I didn't think of joke this time.

So.

I am Scott Paladin. I am working on a horny werewolf audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

Hello, and I'm Sam Stark. I am absolutely not working on Azen west right now because I am frantically editing the podcast store 236mm.

Hi, I'm Mike, aka Interiority, and I would be working on my own podcast, Sunded, but I'm currently waiting for permission to speak from Sam Stark.

I'm sorry.

That was an entirely visual joke, though.

And I just wanted to reference it in the audio. Moments before, Sam was holding up a finger as I was about to speak, and I felt shushed and chastened.

I'm sorry.

So, no, no.

My daw, like, just paused, like, for no reason, and I was like, oh, shit. Shit. Holding up my finger, like, okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, sorry.

Gotta make sure it's actually wr running. Well, how's your. What's your actual update?

My actual update is, I don't know, like, twiddling my fingers. It is the end of the year and I am, like, horribly, horribly busy. Yeah, I'm bouncing between geographic locations and occasional foreign countries and stuff like that. And in between, I'm trying to eke out a little bit of work on Sundered as I can. But, yes, I'm currently working on that at the moment. But I do have some exciting news in that I have two table reads scheduled for the month of December.

Sounds like a lot.

Including some people who may very well be in this podcast if they turn up. I mean, we were just discussing previously how none of us have the brain to actually schedule things or keep calendar appointments at the moment, so I'm not holding up full hope that people will be there. And I'm also incredibly forgiving if people aren't able to make it, because, quite frankly, I've been there myself.

Yeah.

So, yeah, hopefully 60, 70% of the people who said they will be along will be there. And I'll get to hear my script being read out, which would be nice.

That'll be so cool. Sam, how's editing on 236 going?

It's really actually super fun. I really, really love it. I Love having the freedom to kind of just do whatever I want. This is the first project I've ever done where I'm the only sound designer. So I. Somebody else does the. The. The dialogue edit, which is super weird because I'm used to doing that myself. And so I just, like, I just grab the lines and then I just put them in, and then I do the sound design. And it's. It's really fun. And I have made so much Foley in the last couple weeks. It's been really fun. Okay. Not the last couple weeks, but the last month or two. But yeah. Yeah. And there's been so many balloons in my booth. Like, I keep. I keep needing.

Yeah.

Needing a very specific balloon movement and stuff. Like, balloons is something that people know the sound of. You can't fake it. It has to be a balloon. And so it just so happened that my youngest had a birthday party and we bought a whole bunch of packages of balloons. And so I just have packages of balloons in my booth and I. And if I need a. If I need a balloon sound, I just blow up a balloon and do the movement. And it's. It's great. It's great.

That's great.

But yeah, it's been a lot of really strange combinations of things, as you probably understand, Scott, because you've done fully. And I'll, you know, going and asking my partner for very weird things, like, do you have something that does like a bound or, you know, just random stuff. It's very fun.

Yeah.

The. Yeah, it is a special challenge to hit something that people know really well.

Yeah.

Like that. That they're familiar with. If you're. If it's a sci fi thing, you can just kind of make up whatever it is. But, like, if it's something that, like, people are familiar with, you gotta really nail it.

So what's really interesting is paper, different kinds of paper. Like, there's a lot of receipt holding in store 236, because they're in a. In a store. And if there is. If there's a moment where somebody's like, pulling out their receipt or slamming the receipt down on the table or some sort of receipt handling, if you don't use, like a specific kind of paper, it's really obvious that it's not a receipt. And so I had. I just grabbed like a receipt like that I had from my own grocery store, and that's what I just. I have it in my booth all the time. And like, like, paper is so specific. So like Jude, the. The sort of manager handling Paper, as opposed to a customer handling a receipt. Super different. And they'll know. Listeners will know.

Do you. When you're doing Foley, do you tend to just, like, get the sound and then cut it in, or do you tend to listen to what's, like, the scene and then, like, act along sort of, you know, like, do it in time?

Is that I do a lot of acting. Yeah. I would rather, like, stand there and hold the receipt and slam it down on my makeshift table to go with the voice than just make a sound effect, because then it just. It adds to the ambiance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have spent many hours listening to scenes with my microphone pointed at my own chair so that I can slightly shift and move around so that I can have the person moving in. Chair noise.

Yep.

So, yeah, like, I, I, I'm.

That.

That part is always so much fun. I can't wait to get around it again. Yeah.

I need a boom mic so I can go around and do Doors. And I have Walker, that program that does Footsteps, but it's very complicated, and I just. Sometimes I just need somebody walking across the floor. Like, I would love it if I could just, like, get my partner to just, like, walk across our, like, fake wood floor with, like, no shoes on.

Just one. Yeah, yeah, I have. I can actually grab it. Normally, I have this on a shock mount. This is a just an electro voice handheld mic, but it's got this little Tascam thing that just plugs into the end of the mic and then does recording off of it. The only problem with that is it can't handle condenser mics. It can only do dynamics. But, like, the. Something that's this small that you can just kind of carry around and, like, walk around the house being like, okay, what does this sound like? What does this sound like?

Yeah.

Super useful. Yeah.

Sorry, Mike.

No, no, no. It's all good. Like, I am, you know, an ignoramus when it comes to sound design and things like that. Like, so. So all of this is a wonderful education to me. Or, like, you know, an insight into what it's like to actually be talented.

It's not even talent. It's the inability to see all of the things that could go wrong. Like, it's a superpower to not be. To be. To be unable to talk yourself out of doing a thing because you don't know all the ways it could go wrong.

Yep, That's.

That's entirely all of my production there. Let's see. Okay. And then we haven't. I haven't Done my update yet? So let me do mine real quick. I said last time that we all met that by this point I should have almost everything recorded. That has come true. I have done all of the simultaneous recordings that are going to happen for phase one. I've gotten all of my ensemble except for one person whose email bounced. And now I have to find a new person for. And I've done all of my narration at least. Least the first pass of it. I have to go and listen and cut. So I'm missing some independence. And I think I've got one more session that I'm going to do one on one, at least with somebody, but other than that, like, probably 85% recorded at this point.

That's awesome.

Yeah. And then I get to go into the editing hole and cut everything together. That's where. And I've got a bunch of admin stuff to do. I've got to get everybody their totals so they can invoice me. Um, and I'm going to generate sample invoices for my actors so they don't have to use one if they don't want to, and then pay people and all that stuff. And then probably also I should be working already on the Kickstarter, I guess.

I probably.

I don't know. I've got so much to do, so I should. It probably should be doing more than I am, but I've got 85% of it recorded, so that's. I'm going to call that a win.

That's really awesome, Scott. Good job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicely done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's been. I'm so happy with the number of people who have mentioned how much they love the character I ended up casting them as, like, it's always such a good thing when they're like. When you're. Somebody's playing a character and they're like, oh, my God, this person's such a little shit. I love them. That's super rewarding. And everybody's been super nice and everything. It's been good. Yeah. I'm very happy. And then the narrator voice, I did, you know, probably maybe two and a half hours total of recording on that one, but I had to space it out because it's this, like, low growl voice. This voice right here. No, but now I'm doing a Southern accent. It's this voice without a Southern accent, and it. It tears up my throat. So, like, the moment that I started to feel like, okay, I can't do this anymore, then I just, like, stopped for the day to sort of Preserve things. I didn't want to cause problems. Problems. So, yeah, I had to go nice and slow on that one. But it's all. It's all done. Or at least it's all recorded. And then I just have a couple more independence to do. Feeling good. So, yeah. That being said, never ever schedule recordings in November and December. That is a terrible idea. I'm going to reiterate again that this is a terrible idea. You should absolutely wait until, like, at least January when things start to slow down a little bit. Oh, hello. Twig.

Twig. Yay. He's. Oh, well, twig.

He hears me talking and he's like, oh, well, I know that you have a webcam going, so I would like to be in your lap now. I'll switch it to Twig Cam.

I'm so sorry, audience, that you cannot see twig.

Yeah. Like, this is a really compelling reason for us to pivot to video podcasts.

There's a reason why video podcasts are that way is because, you know, you can. You can feature the pets.

Yep.

Do we have a. Do we have a. A theme or a conversation thing topic?

No, I. I try to think of these things, but then sometimes it just gets away. Honestly, it's because I didn't remember that we were recording today until last night when you, Sam, were like, I'm ready for tomorrow. I guess we are recording tomorrow. So I didn't think of any. I didn't have any prep time where I thought of anything. So if anybody has an idea, otherwise we can just wing it.

Well, I mean, I got home on the train from London at midnight last night after being delayed and, like, trapped in a train station for a while and then having to have the train company buy me a taxi home.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So, yeah, you know, I probably could come up with a topic, but it would probably be fairly surreal at this point. It might involve me falling asleep halfway through. That's fine.

I am. I'm working on some stuff right now that I guess I could use some insight, maybe. I have been selected to be the audio track lead at NorWestcon, which is the Pacific Northwest, like, sci fi, fantasy, horror, like, literary convention thing.

Yeah.

And it's a brand new track. It's. It's. I was sort of the one that asked for it. I didn't realize they were going to make me in charge of it, but. Hey, whatever. But I have put together my eight panels that are specifically for the audio track, and I have chosen a bunch of the pros that I like a lot and which ones could like, moderate really well and stuff. And there's a bunch of narrators that are coming that are friends of mine that are going to be great on the panels. And I've been, the last two hours, actually, I have been trying to put together the, the descriptions of each panel. And that is the worst. That is the worst because it's like, you know how when somebody like you, you, you're like, and you know, I work in podcasting, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then somebody's like, explain something that you're in in 10 seconds. And you're like. So it's the same thing. I'm like trying to do like a summary of, you know, this hour long panel. And I feel like I'm trying to do like the jacket on the back of a book or something, because I have to be, I have to entice. Like, I want people to come to the panels, but I also don't want to make them too long because then they'll be like, and then just go to the next thing. And it's, it's so hard, like condensing what you need to say into this like three or four sentence thing. And I'm going a little bit long because these are new. I mean, they're not, not all of them are new panels, but like, this is a new track. And I'm trying to put in like descriptors of like, why you would want to go to this panel and like, what specifically it's for and everything. And man, my brain, my frigging brain is falling apart at this point. So I don't know, I, I, I would just love to hear what you. I don't write, I don't write short. I think I've talked about this before. I don't write short. And it's so hard to just condense it.

And what you're trying to do is write copy too, which is a different thing. Like, it's just a, like when you're trying, yeah, when you're trying to write, like not a narrative, you're just trying to write the five sentences that would go under like a product description or in this case, a panel, which is, I mean, basically the same thing. A panel is a product, even if you're just, people are paying with their time. Yeah. It's just, it's almost a completely different set of muscles.

Yeah.

Um, so I very much sympathize because that is so hard to even, I mean, like, yeah, you're talking about like writing the back of a book thing. Like Trying to write product descriptions for story. Like, you know, I've sold stuff on marketplaces before on digital marketplaces, and like, trying to write. Take a story that I wrote and condense, even if it's only 5,000 words.

Yeah.

And then like, well, how do I get people to want to read this in a hundred words? And you're like, I don't know. The only thing I can think of is, do you want to stand in the lap?

Why sit.

The only thing I can think of is as a person who is looking at the panels, you would have questions yourself about the things that you would need to know or want to know about the panel. So. And some of that stuff's obvious, like, who's on it. Right. And what have they done? You know, so if it's, if it's not somebody whose name would be immediately recognizable, you know, like, what's their big project? Stuff like that. But then also, like, you know, what's the vast majority of the talking going to be about? You know. Yeah. Like, you're, what's the selling point, I guess, is kind of the way to put it. Like. Yeah. What's the thing that, like, you expect people to take away from the panel?

Exactly. That's what, that's what I've been focusing. What is. What are you going to get out of this? If you go to this panel? And that's been, like, the long part of it, because it's like, for example, like, I don't know. One of them is I have, like, beginning narration, like, for beginning narrators, like, how to get into the business. And then there's another one where it's like, people that have been narrating for a little while and maybe need some guidance on, like, the business side, like, the industry side of narration.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I was trying to put in, you know, a couple, couple sentences of, like, you know, how to navigate publishing houses, blah, blah, blah. Like, just a quick, like, if you go to this panel, these are the things you're gonna learn. And I, and it just, it went on so long, and I was like, I, I, it's, I hate condensing so much. And I'm getting really. This is actually making me sort of stressed out for when Azz in West becomes an actual show, because I realized I'm gonna have to, like, condense every single episode into, like, an episode description. And I was like, maybe I'll just have Jack do that.

You just gave me a sharp shock down my spine that I'm gonna have.

To do that, too.

Yeah. It's the worst. The other thing, and this is unrelated to your panel's thing, but for any kind of writing, pull quotes or pulling lines from a short story or an audio drama episode or something like that, but trying to get the one line that summarizes the tone of the entire episode. Oh, my God, that is like. It's such an art. And it feels so daunting to try to do that. Like, if you can find it, you know, okay, that's great. But like, sitting down, being like, well, how do I take this 5,000, 6,000 words. How do I find the one thing that's already in there that, like, summarizes.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's so rough.

People like Mel, who can just write store 236 and then write all the descriptions for all of the episodes.

Yeah, yeah. Truly, these are. Yeah, they're a different sort of human. Yeah. They're built different. Like us mortals who like sitting there going, well, how do you. If you remove any one part of this, then the whole thing falls apart. So how do I condense it down to, like, it's component beds?

Yeah. And I've talked a lot on this podcast about how it takes me. It takes me so long to. I'll. No, that's the opposite of what I'm trying to say. It doesn't take me any time at all to write a very, very long thing, but I have so much trouble cutting. I don't know what is, like, important enough to keep and what. I don't. I don't know, like, what to shave off or can be shaved off most of the time.

Yeah, it's a little bit. It's probably related to the whole. I hate the. I hate the phrase, but, you know, the kill your darlings thing where it's like you. If you care about the work you care about. If you put all of your effort into every bit of it to make every bit of it as good as possible. It is so hard to then figure out which parts of those aren't equal to each other because you put everything you had into all of it. And to identify. To identify from there, what is the chaff? When you've tried your darndest to make sure there was no chaff at all. You know, you want to make it 100% wheat. And then you're like, well, now how do I. How do I somehow cut this? How do I condense it from there?

Mike, I can't remember. Do you write long and then cut, or do you write and then have to Build out later. Like Jack.

I generally write longer than cut, but the thing is, I actually do copywriting as a part of my day job, day to day.

And you've been silent this whole time?

I haven't had the opportunity to jump in. Plus, there's been great, great dogs on the video, right?

So many cute dogs.

I've not really wanted to like. It's. You know, I feel like my attention's been elsewhere. No, it's not easy. I don't find it easy. I am not one of these people who built different. Even though I'm doing it as a job, it's still hard to do. So writing long and then cutting down. The only way I've found to really kind of be able to do it easily is to do what you said before. You put everything into the first long draft. You try and make sure there's no chaff in there whatsoever. And then if you are working for someone else, this problem solves itself. But, you know, doing it for yourself, you have to put yourself in the mindset of, what would the client want from this? Essentially.

Yeah.

And then you give yourself feedback, as if you try and distance yourself a little bit and kind of go, okay, well, I want the essentials. And what are the essentials from this?

Yeah.

And to get around the. The impulse you have inside you to stop that or argue against it or whatever, you really have to just go, I'm doing a job for someone else. To be effective, it needs to. This needs to go. I've done my part. If it. If this is losing something valuable, it's not my fault. You know, like, it's. It's someone else's decision, and, you know, I'm just gonna kind of go along with that. So. So that's how I make it comfortable for myself, is I try and kind of, like, distance myself a little bit from, you know, the. The requirement to cut stuff down. And then I kind of go, all right, fine. It's. It's what. What someone else wants. I'll just do it. And I find that's easy. If I'm in a position where I'm. I'm fighting for everything, that's when it's. It's hard. Yeah, it's. It gets a bit tough. So what I would say is that when you're writing kind of like little blurbs and stuff for stuff, like, try and go for a blend. Like, go for a 50% of, like, you know, what you really strongly feel is the descriptor for it, like, what's the most Important thing, like, try and distill it down to that. And then the second piece is something completely made up. So, like, this number of panelists are going to be nude or like this panelist is going to be coming up with a suitcase full of money and periodically throwing it out into the crowd. Just something a little bit extra just to entice people into these talks. And I find that works really well, you know, like, I'm product, you know, copy and stuff like that. Just kind of like making kind of, like, stuff up. Like, you know, like it's going to, you know, cure cancer.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, yeah. That really helps drive sales.

Channel your inner snake oil salesman.

Yeah, yeah, Basically. Basically, like, you know, I think we lost something when we kind of, like, moved away from the sales tactics of the old west. So you can bring those back in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This will. This will cure your rheumatism and.

Helps with hangovers.

Yeah, I'm not helpful at all. Like, yeah, it's.

It's.

It's. It's hard.

There's something to be said for. This is me a little bit just kind of speaking aloud. So I don't know if this is even good advice, but it sounds good, so I'm going to say it anyway, which is the idea of. Because one of the things that I feel like when you're trying to make those little blurbs about, you're like, you're writing the selling point, right, which makes it feel very important. It makes it feel like, like, I got to nail this. Because it's the only point, like, the vast majority of people are going to hit this or not, right? And then they're going to decide to come to the panel. They're going to decide to pick up, to buy the product, to read the book, to listen to the show or whatever. And so it feels super important. But that is certainly antithetical towards writing. Like, when. At least to me, when you feel the pressure on to, like, get it right, that makes it so much harder to do anything at all. So possibly just writing, like, five or ten as many versions of that thing as you can just, like, try to do multiple versions of it so that no individual one is, like, the thing you have to nail. You have, you know, that at. You're gonna. If you write the description five times, you know, at least four of them can be crap. I only have to nail it, you know, I only have to nail it the once, and you can try different things and be a little experimental, and that may be helpful. As well because that, because definitely the feeling of like, I have to, I have to condense this and I have to get the best bits does create that sense of like, tension of like, well, I have to do it. I have to, I have to, I have to. And that makes it harder to just be creative and like do a good job. If you're like putting a bunch of pressure on yourself to nail it.

I think that is good advice because I actually did that for one of them and it's the, it's the AI Voices panel.

Yeah.

And I was really nervous about that one because this one is going to spark a lot of like, debate. Yeah. And everything. And, and I, I did that. I, I like wrote it. I, I guess I, I went from like writing it from a certain perspective and then writing it from another perspective and then writing it just like putting everything I wanted in there and it was like really way too long. And then I went back and I kind of like cherry picked all the best things from each one and I ended up with something. I think it's one of my shortest ones actually. And it's very, just like, it's concise and it's, it's. I feel pretty good about it. So obviously that that tactic works. The only reason it couldn't work with like the audio production pipeline is because I was churning up a thousand words and that's just way too much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Okay. I'm going to keep that in mind for when I get, get the stuff too because I'm. Yeah. The, the, the I've. It's funny to bring in a little bit of like, day job stuff. The longer I have gone as a, as a professional adult in the world, the less I feel like it's important to role play as an adult where like. And this is maybe one of those things where like, you feel like you have to nail it. You feel like you have to make it professional. You feel like I have to make it the thing that everybody else does. Right. Like it has to look like the book jacket. You know, it has to look like the, the official way. But like as I, in my, in my professional life, in my day job and stuff, I've. The longer I've gone on and more like that stuff is just garbage. That's just the boring version of life. And it's much more fun when you can just like be funny, joke around, not take it seriously. And that is when you have the, the freedom to just be like, I don't give a. I'm just Gonna do the way I like. And even if it's not the right way, that's also been successful. Like, it's useful. It like, people understand you. They get, they feel who you are and they, and if you're funny, people like that and like, you know. So like when writing resume cover letters and the boring crap, answering questions on job interviews is also one of those. We're like, not job interviews. Answering questions on the resume. Like they, they've given you a little riddle.

Yeah.

Blah, blah, blah, where it's like, I'm not, I know I don't want to. I'm not going to give you like the pay the pat business answer anymore. I'm just going to give you like whatever I think is funniest. Because if a human reads it and they find it funny, then great, and I'll make a connection. But like the, there's definitely something to be said for just like, this doesn't matter as much as you think it does. Like, it does matter, but like, getting these things like, perfectly nailed is important, but probably not as important as you.

Think it is, especially when it's for a con. It's like, obviously you want professionalism, but like, this is a convention. It's like a bunch of nerds are going to get together, dress like Lord of the Rings characters. It's fine. And I guess I have a lot of, I have a lot of anxiety for it being perfect and like sending it off perfect. And it's, I'm not like the last person that's gonna look at it. Like the, the, the head of like the programming is gonna have to read it and a bunch of other stuff. So, like, there are gonna be other people reading it before it goes in the program. So I'm, I'm as usual being too hard on myself.

No, but, yeah, but I feel, I feel you though, like, that, that instinct. I feel the same thing when, when writing that kind of stuff. So it's, it is, it is a real, it's a real instinct to just be like, okay, well, I have to, I have to make this perfect and professional and it has to be up to all the standards. And I guess there's also, I don't know about you with me in these kinds of situations. There's also the feeling of like, ah, they're going to figure out that I'm a fraud. Right? Like, there's the imposter system of like, oh, if they read, they're like, oh, this person doesn't know how to write copy. Well, they're not a real person anymore, and I no longer respect them.

Oh, man. Every day. Every day, that is my life. I get behind the microphone and I'm like, oh, my God. If I make one mistake, they're going to be like, this person doesn't know how to voice act. What the hell is going on? Every day. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, the. Yeah, the.

That's just.

There's just a bunch of stuff all mixed together. You went back on the lap.

Oh, my God. So many cute dogs today. We're inundated with cute dogs. I'm so sorry, listeners, that you can't see them.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. You're talking about cons. This is. I'm just going to derail us. Is that okay? Okay.

I.

No. No, it's not. Yeah. How dare you?

Well, I mean, like, you could. You could be like, oh, actually, I have to go. You know, I don't want to waste time. I don't. I would respect it. The. I haven't felt a desire to LARP in, like, a long time. You know, live action role playing. I did a little bit of it when I was a teenager and I was like, this is. This is ultra nerd stuff that, like, even I'm not totally there for, but I saw a video about the Hobbit. Larp. I forget what it was. The Brandywine Festival, I think it was.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Which at least the version of the thing that I saw was just a bunch of people were like, oh, we're going to go and make hand sew dresses during this time. We're not even going to do, like, the big plot. We're just going to go and hand. Like, we're going to cosplay and roleplay as tailors and dressmakers, and we're just going to hang around. And I'm like, I have never wanted. Like, I'm not a big con person. I'm not a big LARP person, but that sounds like fucking rad. Like, just going and hanging out, but, like, in the woods and like, doing a craft while you're doing it. I'm like, that's. That's fucking rad. I don't know why that came to mind while you were talking about con stuff, but I was like, I just. Something about it made me think of it.

I would enjoy that, too.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, like, the. The.

You.

The world of a. Getting to live in a fantasy world of just like the domestic side of it. Like the. The sitting around, hanging with your bros instead of having to worry about quests. That sounds Rad.

What were you gonna say, Mike?

Yeah, No, I was just gonna say I die. Super relate. Because I used to love myself for a while before health problems and stuff got in the way and I went to like one of the larger, like UK festival. So like, you know, a few thousand people.

Yeah.

In a field like a lot of like, you know, like player versus player antagonism. A lot of big kind of like, you know, political things happening on kind of like nation state levels, etc. Etc. And all that sort of stuff just bounced right off. Like it just didn't. It didn't go down with me at all. Like, what I enjoyed was sitting around the fire with friends.

Yeah.

And like the best LARP experience I've ever had was one we did partially online, partially in person, which was like a Regency larp, which is kind of like, you know, private bridges, all those sorts of things. But, you know, like, it wasn't like we were doing kind of anything, which was big and earth shattering. It was like we went to each other's houses every week and had a little party and ate biscuits. Polite. Polite, restrained conversation.

Yeah.

And like, you know, like, you know, where you come up with kind of like, you know, pithy jokes or something like that. You say, and everyone would say, declared, you know, an incredible wit. Yeah. And that was the most delightful thing ever. That was. That was wonderful. That was. That was exactly my level.

It's not so rad.

I know. I know what you mean.

Yeah. I can't even. Okay, so living in America, being an American, we're so used to like fantasy movies and fantasy shows and all that being. Everybody's got a fudgeing British accent or Scottish or whatever. They're obviously from somewhere in the UK and like going to a LARP with actual British people, like going to a LARP in the UK would be like actually being in a fantasy for an American. Because, like you go to an American larp, because I also used to larp, you go to an American larp and it's either like a very generic Lord of the Rings LARP or it's a Colonial, like Civil War LARP, or. Or it's a Viking LARP and there's a whole bunch of Viking LARPs around where I live. All the LARPing, it's. It's pretty cool. All the LARPing that I've ever done is. Is Viking LARPing. I've never actually done a, like a fantasy one, but if I could go to one in England, it would seriously be like actually Going to a fantasy because everybody here is American. They do terrible accents. So I don't know the.

Yeah, a Viking larp sounds like one of those things that, like, either the people that are going to be the coolest people you've ever met or you have, like, a reasonably high chance of, like, stepping in a landmine of, like, people with terrible politics. Yeah, Vikings are one of those things where, like.

Yeah.

They attract. This is one of the things I used to, very briefly in high school, did civil war reenactment stuff, which I liked mostly for, like, you go out into the woods and you have a campfire and you're wearing old clothes and you're just, like, hanging out with some bros. And then you, like, run across people. You're like, oh, you're doing this for an entirely different reason. And it's not. It makes me. It makes me uncomfortable to be involved at all.

Yeah, I am. I am sure that if I did it now, it would be a very different experience. But when I went to the. It was, like, probably 10 years ago. It's literally just a bunch of, like, super nerdy people that also do the lord of the rings larp. And there was also that Viking show on AMC that was really good for a while, and so that it got really popular for a couple years. And. Yeah, I would not do that now. I would absolutely not do the Viking larping now.

Yeah, it's one of those. I mean, like, it comes down to, like, the cool people are cool people. What. No matter what they're doing, like, it's just. But, like, yeah, you can. That's where the crossover into, like, the regular, like. Because, like, you know, historical reenactment is just larping.

Yeah.

But, like, the cool people are the ones who are like, I am deeply into textiles from the 1850s, and I would like to talk to you about, like, all of the. Like, you know, I'm. I. I am not myself interested in clothes very much, but watching somebody describe, like, in detail all of the different fashions over the course of decades in, like, the 18th century. But it's like, it's their special focus where they're like, I am deeply into this, and I can identify what year that frock coat was from because of the cut and, like, that. I will listen to that person talk all fucking day. That is so cool.

When you did your going to people's houses and doing the regency larping, Mike, did all the ladies have, like, the really just crazy beautiful, like, dresses and, like, the hair done up in the little curly things and everything.

And yes, I will send you.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes. I mean, like, you know, like, occasionally we would do it online. So, like, you know, people didn't feel the need to fully dress up or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But most people did. Upper body at least. Yeah. Something approximately. You know, like it was one of these laps that was fairly kind of like loosey goose in terms of, you know, exact standards. Like, it's not a reenactment. It's, you know, like people do the best they can. But still, people went completely overboard. But we did do a very. We did do a very large ball in meatspace. Like, we went to historic naval dockyard which had a actual 18th century ship in the dock outside, and we went to the Georgian ballroom overlooking it, and we held a ball and people went over and above in terms of their costumes. So. Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, like, my flatmate at the time made her own dress set for it.

That's cool.

Did all the research, went into it and made a really wonderful costume. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a great outlet for those sorts of people and a great way to meet those sorts of people as well, because I too, find them fascinating. And they're actually, generally speaking, pretty much the most wonderful people in the hobby you'll meet.

I'm super envious. Yeah.

LARPers and Kinksters are like the nicest people overall. The thing is, because they're pretty much the same group, just.

Yeah, there's a lot of overlap.

That Venn diagram is mostly circle, but.

Yeah.

Have you guys ever seen the movie Night Knights of Bad Asdom?

Oh, that sounds.

No, I've heard of it. It's Peter Dinklage one.

Yes, Peter Dinklage. And I can't remember his name, but he's in True Blood. He plays Jason and he's great. Everybody. And I think Abed from Community is in it. There's a whole bunch of great actors in it. But I highly, highly recommend it because it's very, very silly and way more gory than I expected it would be. But it's really fun. It's really, really funny.

I think I have seen this like a million years ago. I'm looking at the poster now.

Well, you should definitely watch.

Now I've lost Riverside. Where is. Oh, there we go. Okay.

But yeah, audience definitely check out Knights of Badass. There's my plug for the day.

Okay, so I think we've. We talked about a real topic and then we talked about LARPing for a little while.

Yeah.

So I Think that's probably a good episode. Let's go ahead and set some goals. I'm gonna double check because we're. We'll be talking again in two weeks. So that should be mid December. That's not quite holidays yet. Yeah, it should be the. The 15th. So, yeah, nothing's happened.

Okay.

So we'll probably have an episode that day. The next one probably won't happen because that's gonna be like, in the midst.

Of.

Scheduled availability stuff. So. But yeah, next one. So in two weeks, I will. I should have all of my independence done in two weeks. I'll have my secondary narrator stuff should be done. I just have to schedule that. And then I'll be into dialogue editing. I don't know that I will have that done in two weeks, but I will have a. I can already start on a chunk of it while I'm waiting on some of the independent stuff. So I need to. Yeah, I need to. Oh, crap. And I have to. Okay. Yeah. So I've. I've got a couple little admin tasks. I'm going to get my. All of my audio in and start the dialogue at it. I will be into the dialogue edit by the time we. We talk again. I think that's a good goal. Okay, cool.

Super fun.

Cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Excellent.

Sam, how about you? What are you gonna do for your editing?

I. I'm gonna finish up episode four, sound design, because that comes out this week. And then I think Mel said that we could have, like, a quick season break to give me a little bit of time to catch up on stuff. So I. By the time we get back together again, I'll have four done, because I have to have four done in, like, three days. And then I could. I think I also will have five done. So those are. Those are. I'm setting, like, as few goals as I possibly can right now because.

Sure.

It's too much.

Yeah, That's a lot right now. Mike, how about you?

Well, I'm gonna go directly from this call to working back on the script for Sundered again. Going through. Trying to remove some of the placeholder terms, trying to get my lore brain on, to fill in the stuff where I said alien planet name and just left it as that. For that six months, I have had friends and author buddies kind of like, sit down. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Sorry. They were. Okay, well, now they've. They were. They were. Guys, could you. Not right now.

Amazing.

I'm gonna try and keep this interesting, guys. I'm sorry if.

Now they can't fight if one of them's on my lap. Hopefully. I'm sorry we were interrupting.

Yeah, it's fine. I was just saying I got some friends and some older buddies like to look over the script and helped me help me with it. So fill in the bits I'm missing and kind of like go well if this is named that then maybe this is named like that.

Yeah, yeah.

The one thing I'm not gonna is the fact that half my characters are named after people from the Emperor's New Groove. Disney's just gonna have to fight me on that. I'm keeping that all the way through to the final. So yeah, so that's mainly what I'm gonna do. I've got a table read scheduled for tomorrow. The next one won't have happened by the time we record again but hopefully that's still gonna be in the schedule. Additional to that I'm gonna have to find an excuse to put on my Napoleonic era Royal Engineers uniform again and just prance around the house. But I mean like very, very seriously and like you know, this isn't any. I haven't even properly discussed this with many people yet but little bit of a peek into it. I am thinking of doing kind of very low effort, very light hearted palette cleanser of an audio drama based on the things I did in Saidlop a while ago.

Oh my gosh.

With my character who was a major and my good friend Dr. Lou Sutler creator of English Choice.

Yeah.

Who was also an army major in that and we had a very not quite gay but pretty much bromance going on in that and a lot of shared adventures and it's something that I actually think would translate quite nicely to audio as like a very kind of like light hearted fun. Like you know, a little bit kind of like you know, Bridgerton fantasy romance sort of thing but also a little bit Boyzone adventure y sort of stuff.

Nice.

But yeah, like putting that together I think might be quite an interesting fun thing to do after I've. I've worked on some of this.

Excellent.

Nice.

Yay.

Cool. Well in that case we will catch the audience in two weeks.

Bye bye.

Bye.