Humor is a subjective thing, and I certainly prefer more subtle than overt in that regard, though perhaps too subtle at times for my own good. For instance, in AA TV Episode 1 (the technical disaster one thanks to the hard drive), I inserted the comment about the Route 16 developers showing restraint by not ripping off the hyphens for its name from Rally-X and Pac-Man. The "humor" for me for Episode 2 was mostly the absurd green screen opening trying to mimic mancopter. I did the outro with my "flying" in space to further highlight the absurdity. Again, subtle stuff, though I get what you're saying about the narration. These are by no means meant to be intellectual treatments, other than the AA level of general professionalism (i.e., not working "blue", trying to be informative, trying to be respectful of the subject matter, etc.).
I can certainly try to spice the nararation up a bit and think Episode 3 will be a good, though risky opportunity to try that (no guessing what I'm doing next, as it's probably too easy!). I have a cutesy thing planned for episode 3 (in fact, I had this planned before I decided on AA TV itself - for a proto AA TV), though it's less funny than it is just trying to inject a bit more life into the intro stuff. Nevertheless, like I said, there is a potential for some humor in the narration for that, but I have to also be careful about being offensive given the subject matter.
I was pleasantly surprised by two things so far. One, that both videos were approximately the same length, and that was without anything even remotely resembling planning in regards to timing (I just wrote what I wanted and let it be as long as it needed to be), and two, was the timing of the "whoa" on the green screen in the outro of Episode 2. I obviously recorded the "whoa" with a plan to do something with it, but the planet flying close by turned out to be a pleasant coincidence. As I've said, even though I did what I did back in 2004 with the Atari 2600 reviews and was quite pleased with that, that was a very different era, very different technology (I was working off of miniDV tape and firewire!), and very much a long time ago. I've wanted to get back into this for some time, and this will now force me to do it. I've experimented with various things here and there (like "The Goodnight Gamer"), but I think this is format/formula I want to stick with and refine.
I'd also like to add that without Matt doing what he's done with Matt Chat, I probably wouldn't have been so inspired. I hope to someday be able to tie our efforts together, perhaps with other like-minded individuals (meaning those that make themselves crazy by trying to "produce" something rather than something more casual). And if you appreciate "wit" you should see what he stuck in the script for our film, Gameplay, which I'm working on some scene matching on lately. Good stuff there.
Anyway, I appreciate the feedback and the patience, as I'm being very honest in saying that I hope to improve each episode and - as is rather counter to my typical mode of operation - don't mind putting out episodes with clunky elements early on. It's the best way to learn and improve, while still providing watchable content. My new video camera came, though I'm still waiting on the power supply, and I still need to work on the audio mixing and recording in the first place. After another episode or two, I can then start to refine my "voice" more, as in the personality I wish to project.
Humor is a subjective thing, and I certainly prefer more subtle than overt in that regard, though perhaps too subtle at times for my own good. For instance, in AA TV Episode 1 (the technical disaster one thanks to the hard drive), I inserted the comment about the Route 16 developers showing restraint by not ripping off the hyphens for its name from Rally-X and Pac-Man. The "humor" for me for Episode 2 was mostly the absurd green screen opening trying to mimic mancopter. I did the outro with my "flying" in space to further highlight the absurdity. Again, subtle stuff, though I get what you're saying about the narration. These are by no means meant to be intellectual treatments, other than the AA level of general professionalism (i.e., not working "blue", trying to be informative, trying to be respectful of the subject matter, etc.).
I can certainly try to spice the nararation up a bit and think Episode 3 will be a good, though risky opportunity to try that (no guessing what I'm doing next, as it's probably too easy!). I have a cutesy thing planned for episode 3 (in fact, I had this planned before I decided on AA TV itself - for a proto AA TV), though it's less funny than it is just trying to inject a bit more life into the intro stuff. Nevertheless, like I said, there is a potential for some humor in the narration for that, but I have to also be careful about being offensive given the subject matter.
I was pleasantly surprised by two things so far. One, that both videos were approximately the same length, and that was without anything even remotely resembling planning in regards to timing (I just wrote what I wanted and let it be as long as it needed to be), and two, was the timing of the "whoa" on the green screen in the outro of Episode 2. I obviously recorded the "whoa" with a plan to do something with it, but the planet flying close by turned out to be a pleasant coincidence. As I've said, even though I did what I did back in 2004 with the Atari 2600 reviews and was quite pleased with that, that was a very different era, very different technology (I was working off of miniDV tape and firewire!), and very much a long time ago. I've wanted to get back into this for some time, and this will now force me to do it. I've experimented with various things here and there (like "The Goodnight Gamer"), but I think this is format/formula I want to stick with and refine.
I'd also like to add that without Matt doing what he's done with Matt Chat, I probably wouldn't have been so inspired. I hope to someday be able to tie our efforts together, perhaps with other like-minded individuals (meaning those that make themselves crazy by trying to "produce" something rather than something more casual). And if you appreciate "wit" you should see what he stuck in the script for our film, Gameplay, which I'm working on some scene matching on lately. Good stuff there.
Anyway, I appreciate the feedback and the patience, as I'm being very honest in saying that I hope to improve each episode and - as is rather counter to my typical mode of operation - don't mind putting out episodes with clunky elements early on. It's the best way to learn and improve, while still providing watchable content. My new video camera came, though I'm still waiting on the power supply, and I still need to work on the audio mixing and recording in the first place. After another episode or two, I can then start to refine my "voice" more, as in the personality I wish to project.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
[About Me]
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.