imp_fireball
2010-08-12, 08:21 PM
Just a question that's been sitting with me for a while guys
Let's see... voice over? We'd need good voice overs. Here's the idea I had in mind.
The strategy would probably be 10 - 20 strips per episode. Dialogue would be fairly rapid to preserve verisimillitude. There'd be no delay for people to laugh with the jokes - I don't expect the voices to carry any sound room equipment with them, so the dialogue pacing would have to work a bit like how the oldest episodes of south park had conducted it.
If you don't get what I mean, those characteristics generally relate to:
- Whenever a character makes a side comment, they speak as any regular person would to one another but there's no pauses in between dialogue. Even jokes have no pause. This is important, because I find it ruins show quality to have any sort of pause unless it is intentional as part of dialogue.
- Voice acting! This is different then screwing up your vocal cords to try to sound 'cool' or whatever. You must treat the voice as if you are really talking to another person. It offers verisimillitude and helps breathe life into the characters that are otherwise stick figures on a page. South park used simple animations and crude drawings (by 90s standards... heh), but the voice work really gave so much life to the main characters that people began to truly appreciate them for what they were.
- South park never really placed emotion in their characters. Whenever a character showed emotion, it was mockery. Not as bad as the voice work in some anime (I'm sure you know what I mean; those shows that animate very little to keep within budget and slow down actual speech to fill up more screen time) - but they played with it. Thus it was funny. Officer Barbrady is one example - when he cried in that one episode (the one with the 'Chicken F***er'), it was quite funny. This was intentional on the part of SP's producers. South Park, as it still stands uses this strategy (but with better technology involved, of course).
-----
Alright, character rap off.
:durkon:
- Has a gravelly 'dwarven' voice (slight scottish/irish brosque; dialogue can remain with how the comic suggests he pronounces and enunciates each word). His voice is often of the tone of one with careful sympathy - the sort of kind that thinks ahead but with benevolence on the side (he knows he isn't the party voice; he merely offers advice to the leader every now and then). He's always choosing his words carefully. His low charisma means he might have often accidentally angered others in the past (which lends to his often cautious tone).
- When he's talking about his fear of trees, he's dead serious. His tone looses all caution in a fight, however; once then, he begins to sound all too much like a hearty dwarven warrior, determined to protect his friends but gain glory and honor on the battlefield all the same.
:roy:
- His voice is deep and slightly of that of a 'posh' british person. The tone shifts enough to allow viewers to immediately recognize that this man has good humor and only enough arrogance that it suits him in combat and his diverse martial art (along with ridiculing the stupid with immense sarcasm; the amount of startling sarcasm he suddenly exhibits could be hilarity in itself), nothing more. He has the slight mix of a black british person too (some people here I'm sure, know what that sounds like; there's a few more 'os' in the speech now and then; but not 'oos' like some africans enunciate.).
- The man is fairly charming. He knows that he's the 'hard line face' of the party. He's got all the charisma but he's humble enough to know that Elan is a much higher exemplar - if only that person weren't so incompetent.
:elan:
- Sounds like a british ninny. His voice is high and fair and seems to carry feminity (not 'gay' feminity but 'prancing' feminity like that of a soft-minded wealthy man wearing perfume from the baroque period). This could be played for laughs in the voice alone (his charisma means he's not only a 'pretty boy' but a 'prancing pretty pony boy').
- He also has the overtone of a pre-teen every now and then. He will occassionally quip 'aw man!', and like a pre-teen would even say 'I never get to do anything fun. You guys aren't the boss of me!'.
- He is always overly confident. His voice never really wavers except for brief moments when he might shed a tear and/or be frightened, etc. It's like he's an actor in a constant play - played for laughs in the sense that bards actually can adventure with blood and grit fighters and wizards in the standard game.
:haley:
- Haley sounds like a spritely young woman, brimming with confidence and spunk - but also great social maturity. Her voice is light, but songful and clear. She's the 'slip of the party' or the 'color commentator' to Elan's one-man-show.
- On ocassion she might lapse into 'teenage speak' with words such as 'like' and 'y'know?'.
:belkar:
- His voice cracks in an 'Eric Cartman' sense - in the way that he struggles to be heard (he's a halfling after all; they've got tiny lungs). The voice is naturally 'shorty', like most halflings portrayed in D&D fluff and in no way 'regular happy human, but quiet and waist high' like the LotR franchise has portrayed it.
- His tone is that of a rising kettle at almost all times. Even when he's talking to the little cat that follows him along later in the series, it's that of crass and scheming (even if the words themselves aren't at all uncivilized).
- He speaks about blood and violence as if he were talking about the weather.
- When he declares a vendetta, his tone is practically demonic with rage ("I'll kill that sonofabitch!") - but still funny in the sense that it comes from so short a creature and is in essence so bad ass.
- When he threatens somebody, words simply poor out of him without the slightest hesitation towards consequence.
- He typically does not think ahead. His timbre should reak of this. If he thinks ahead at all, he must devote time to 'scheme'. He's intelligent and creative, but not at all intuitive or sympathetic.
- If he's faking sympathy, he will sound like he is genuinely sympathetic. His voice will still carry the 'skinny old style eric cartman' with it however.
- His laugh will be natural but 'frat boyish' ("Is this guy serious? Oh man that s*** is hilarious. Get me a beer. Woo!").
- He sounds like someone who would enjoy hard rock and roll and practice ritual casual misogyny ("Go make me a sandwich." not "Ah! A woman. Get away! I've got mace and I'm not prepared to use it.").
-------
Alright, well obviously the order of the stick party carries with it alot of charismatic people. That's why Durkon seems so underplayed by the other adventurers (he probably has an 8 or so in charisma compared to everyone else's 11 or 12 minimum).
:xykon:
- His voice cracks with high pitch (not skeletor from he-man high but a more menacing, a bit deeper monarch from venture bros high) and carries with it a cackle or sort of 'death rattle'. It's tone is fairly regular - like that of a man in the business who is full of himself and knows it.
- He has a perfect, smooth laughing cackle that goes with every laugh ('ye-eh-ha-ha-ha!).
- He speaks quite quickly from time to time in a sort of 'brush off' tone ("Oh, nevermind that.").
:redcloak:
- His voice in tone and pitch is low and rough but shallow, like a rumbling in the back of his throat. He knows his place but carries a quiet shame every now and then which he actively fights with down inside ("I'm not really ashamed, I'm just happy to be serving Xykon. It's okay.").
- He's wise, somewhat impatient (rubbed off from Xykon) and middle aged (or a very smart young'un with a heck of a lot of maturity) and his tone should reflect this.
------
:nale:
- In contrast to Elan's 'pretty pony boy' affair, Nale is deep, smooth and suave. A bit like side show bob but with a little less of the purple prose that bob typically exposiates.
:sabine:
- Afro american 'high class hooker' like. Her tone is eloquent, seductive and beautiful - she feeds off of the intimacy that she can extract from mortals.
- She seems to take humor in evil and her tone becomes almost razor sharp from time to time. Especially in battle.
:thog:
- Very very deep and rumbling. He enunciates each word as if he were using it as a club.
- When he cries, it's funny because he sounds like what a hippo might sound like if it were to cry (or what a locust from gears of war sounds like when it is wimpering and on the ground). When he shouts 'yay', the word is brutal and savage (utterly lacking any child-like pitch) but full of far too much excitement. If he gets any more excited, be careful.
- His laugh is heartless, and incredibly low (almost diaphram), like bouncing on mogles on a ski-hill (for an actual ogre to laugh, there would be larger mogles).
- He is constantly excited, like a big dog on a leash (if thog were an ogre, this would be a bear on a leash). Practically bipolar.
Let's see... voice over? We'd need good voice overs. Here's the idea I had in mind.
The strategy would probably be 10 - 20 strips per episode. Dialogue would be fairly rapid to preserve verisimillitude. There'd be no delay for people to laugh with the jokes - I don't expect the voices to carry any sound room equipment with them, so the dialogue pacing would have to work a bit like how the oldest episodes of south park had conducted it.
If you don't get what I mean, those characteristics generally relate to:
- Whenever a character makes a side comment, they speak as any regular person would to one another but there's no pauses in between dialogue. Even jokes have no pause. This is important, because I find it ruins show quality to have any sort of pause unless it is intentional as part of dialogue.
- Voice acting! This is different then screwing up your vocal cords to try to sound 'cool' or whatever. You must treat the voice as if you are really talking to another person. It offers verisimillitude and helps breathe life into the characters that are otherwise stick figures on a page. South park used simple animations and crude drawings (by 90s standards... heh), but the voice work really gave so much life to the main characters that people began to truly appreciate them for what they were.
- South park never really placed emotion in their characters. Whenever a character showed emotion, it was mockery. Not as bad as the voice work in some anime (I'm sure you know what I mean; those shows that animate very little to keep within budget and slow down actual speech to fill up more screen time) - but they played with it. Thus it was funny. Officer Barbrady is one example - when he cried in that one episode (the one with the 'Chicken F***er'), it was quite funny. This was intentional on the part of SP's producers. South Park, as it still stands uses this strategy (but with better technology involved, of course).
-----
Alright, character rap off.
:durkon:
- Has a gravelly 'dwarven' voice (slight scottish/irish brosque; dialogue can remain with how the comic suggests he pronounces and enunciates each word). His voice is often of the tone of one with careful sympathy - the sort of kind that thinks ahead but with benevolence on the side (he knows he isn't the party voice; he merely offers advice to the leader every now and then). He's always choosing his words carefully. His low charisma means he might have often accidentally angered others in the past (which lends to his often cautious tone).
- When he's talking about his fear of trees, he's dead serious. His tone looses all caution in a fight, however; once then, he begins to sound all too much like a hearty dwarven warrior, determined to protect his friends but gain glory and honor on the battlefield all the same.
:roy:
- His voice is deep and slightly of that of a 'posh' british person. The tone shifts enough to allow viewers to immediately recognize that this man has good humor and only enough arrogance that it suits him in combat and his diverse martial art (along with ridiculing the stupid with immense sarcasm; the amount of startling sarcasm he suddenly exhibits could be hilarity in itself), nothing more. He has the slight mix of a black british person too (some people here I'm sure, know what that sounds like; there's a few more 'os' in the speech now and then; but not 'oos' like some africans enunciate.).
- The man is fairly charming. He knows that he's the 'hard line face' of the party. He's got all the charisma but he's humble enough to know that Elan is a much higher exemplar - if only that person weren't so incompetent.
:elan:
- Sounds like a british ninny. His voice is high and fair and seems to carry feminity (not 'gay' feminity but 'prancing' feminity like that of a soft-minded wealthy man wearing perfume from the baroque period). This could be played for laughs in the voice alone (his charisma means he's not only a 'pretty boy' but a 'prancing pretty pony boy').
- He also has the overtone of a pre-teen every now and then. He will occassionally quip 'aw man!', and like a pre-teen would even say 'I never get to do anything fun. You guys aren't the boss of me!'.
- He is always overly confident. His voice never really wavers except for brief moments when he might shed a tear and/or be frightened, etc. It's like he's an actor in a constant play - played for laughs in the sense that bards actually can adventure with blood and grit fighters and wizards in the standard game.
:haley:
- Haley sounds like a spritely young woman, brimming with confidence and spunk - but also great social maturity. Her voice is light, but songful and clear. She's the 'slip of the party' or the 'color commentator' to Elan's one-man-show.
- On ocassion she might lapse into 'teenage speak' with words such as 'like' and 'y'know?'.
:belkar:
- His voice cracks in an 'Eric Cartman' sense - in the way that he struggles to be heard (he's a halfling after all; they've got tiny lungs). The voice is naturally 'shorty', like most halflings portrayed in D&D fluff and in no way 'regular happy human, but quiet and waist high' like the LotR franchise has portrayed it.
- His tone is that of a rising kettle at almost all times. Even when he's talking to the little cat that follows him along later in the series, it's that of crass and scheming (even if the words themselves aren't at all uncivilized).
- He speaks about blood and violence as if he were talking about the weather.
- When he declares a vendetta, his tone is practically demonic with rage ("I'll kill that sonofabitch!") - but still funny in the sense that it comes from so short a creature and is in essence so bad ass.
- When he threatens somebody, words simply poor out of him without the slightest hesitation towards consequence.
- He typically does not think ahead. His timbre should reak of this. If he thinks ahead at all, he must devote time to 'scheme'. He's intelligent and creative, but not at all intuitive or sympathetic.
- If he's faking sympathy, he will sound like he is genuinely sympathetic. His voice will still carry the 'skinny old style eric cartman' with it however.
- His laugh will be natural but 'frat boyish' ("Is this guy serious? Oh man that s*** is hilarious. Get me a beer. Woo!").
- He sounds like someone who would enjoy hard rock and roll and practice ritual casual misogyny ("Go make me a sandwich." not "Ah! A woman. Get away! I've got mace and I'm not prepared to use it.").
-------
Alright, well obviously the order of the stick party carries with it alot of charismatic people. That's why Durkon seems so underplayed by the other adventurers (he probably has an 8 or so in charisma compared to everyone else's 11 or 12 minimum).
:xykon:
- His voice cracks with high pitch (not skeletor from he-man high but a more menacing, a bit deeper monarch from venture bros high) and carries with it a cackle or sort of 'death rattle'. It's tone is fairly regular - like that of a man in the business who is full of himself and knows it.
- He has a perfect, smooth laughing cackle that goes with every laugh ('ye-eh-ha-ha-ha!).
- He speaks quite quickly from time to time in a sort of 'brush off' tone ("Oh, nevermind that.").
:redcloak:
- His voice in tone and pitch is low and rough but shallow, like a rumbling in the back of his throat. He knows his place but carries a quiet shame every now and then which he actively fights with down inside ("I'm not really ashamed, I'm just happy to be serving Xykon. It's okay.").
- He's wise, somewhat impatient (rubbed off from Xykon) and middle aged (or a very smart young'un with a heck of a lot of maturity) and his tone should reflect this.
------
:nale:
- In contrast to Elan's 'pretty pony boy' affair, Nale is deep, smooth and suave. A bit like side show bob but with a little less of the purple prose that bob typically exposiates.
:sabine:
- Afro american 'high class hooker' like. Her tone is eloquent, seductive and beautiful - she feeds off of the intimacy that she can extract from mortals.
- She seems to take humor in evil and her tone becomes almost razor sharp from time to time. Especially in battle.
:thog:
- Very very deep and rumbling. He enunciates each word as if he were using it as a club.
- When he cries, it's funny because he sounds like what a hippo might sound like if it were to cry (or what a locust from gears of war sounds like when it is wimpering and on the ground). When he shouts 'yay', the word is brutal and savage (utterly lacking any child-like pitch) but full of far too much excitement. If he gets any more excited, be careful.
- His laugh is heartless, and incredibly low (almost diaphram), like bouncing on mogles on a ski-hill (for an actual ogre to laugh, there would be larger mogles).
- He is constantly excited, like a big dog on a leash (if thog were an ogre, this would be a bear on a leash). Practically bipolar.