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Out Of The Game

I’ve launched a new podcast called ‘The Invisible Tour Guide’. It’s my first foray into the medium since Technoloics, the humorous technology and politics vidcast I co-presented with Jason McCandless and Francis McGillicuddy, shut it’s doors way back in 2006. I’ve wanted to get back into podcasting for quite a while now. Technolotics was an ungodly amount of work to get edited on a weekly basis, but enormously satisfying. There’s something deeply cleansing about about a net producer, rather than consumer of entertainment.

I’ve kept involved in audio production, producing a variety of shows on the excellent student radio station Trinity FM, as well as a couple of shows for RTE 2XM, and several dramatised readings for the podcast ‘Starship Sofa‘. But nothing beats the freedom, creative expression and accomplishment that accompany writing and performing your own work.

I’ve worked over the past couple of years, at learning to write comedy – something I never imagined I’d have the cojones for. There’s a big leap somehow, from believing you can produce an entertaining, well constructed story, to imagining you can be funny. Luckily for me one of the fine crew I met in Trinity FM was a man with no small comedic ambitions.

Andrew Booth had been writing parody reviews (and indeed releasing his own satirical zines) since secondary school. Finding a shared appreciation of the creative renaissance that erupted in British comedy in 90′s, from genius writers and producers like Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci to of course Chris Morris; we embarked on a variety of bizarre comedy project. While none of these projects – from postmodern reviews, to novels, to popular imaginary MySpace celebrities – garnered much critical attention, it was and remains a rewarding creative partnership. One that provided me with the confidence and experience to dip my toes in the waters of comedy. When Andy became editor of the always controversial, but frequently unfunny Trinity satire magazine Piranha!, I jumped at the chance to write and rewrite for the outfit. The results of our work, and the input of great writers like John Hoysten, can be seen in the issue of Piranha! released last September, of which we’re all justifiably proud.

Before the first issue landed, Andy and myself had the displeasure of attending a dry as dust recruitment meeting, attended by hordes of the sort of smug, social climbing, journo-critters to be you might imagine embarking on a media career at trinity. To take the edge off I decided to attend the event in character. I’d been obsessively watching Youtube videos of the wonderfully eccentric New York playwright Edgar Oliver, and attempting to mimic his inimitable prosody. Wandering about the obscenely grand Graduate Memorial Building, tiresomely sober (its never wise to drink around such people), Edgar’s voice escaped from me in the form of ‘Christoff Englebert’ – an unfortunate whose nametag I’d been gifted. Oliver’s voice, morphed through severely deficient mimicry into even more grandiloquent pomposity, was wonderfully empowering. I flitted hither and tither camply bitchy and flirtatious – terrifying all about me, loosed of the bonds of convention and propriety. It was, I imagine, much how a drag queen must feel, compering a wild night at a gay bar. Christoff maintained his voice all evening, and doubtless there are those whom to this day, remain convinced that the lunatic character is really a fellow student.

Around the same time, I came across a wonderful interview (on Jesse Thorn’s podcast ‘The Sound of Young America‘), with writer and humorist John Hodgman. Hodgman is a sort of American Stephen Fry, a humble jack of all trades, with a uniquely dry, urbane wit, and a tremendous ability to articulate his theories of humour. While Hodgman’s books are fanciful compendia of untrue facts, purporting to represent all world knowledge; the man himself has a habit in interviews of being oddly honest and literal, and as I listened to him speak about the history of volumes of arcane knowledge I had a flash of insight. If I could combine the character based humour of British comedy, with the fictive universe building of writers like Hodgman and Shea and Anton, I could produce something fairly unique that would be tremendous fun to perform. The copious notes I made that night include the phrase ‘Test several voices of varying seriousness, including Christoff’. There was in truth, no contest. Christoff became Professor Byron Frump, and his playground, art and history. I’d recently heard of a wonderful art project reminiscent of an alternate reality game which directed two listeners on a journey through Dublin city – moving independently, signalling to one another and interacting in mysterious ways, apparent only to them. I’d also seen wonderful videos of ‘flash mob‘ happenings, where strangers – directed by tapes or downloaded MP3′s – would dance, perform aerobics, or simply gather in huge numbers and identical dress, to the confusion and delight of their accidental audiences.

I realised that if I took this character (who my notes describe as ‘across between sister Wendy, and an ex-british army cricket reporter’), into the real world, his natural proclivity to pontification (well mine), could illuminate the absurdities inherent in high culture. Humour could emerge from the juxtaposition of elements of real life with an absurd headphone soliloquy. Listeners could perhaps be convinced to perform bizarre and inappropriate acts. Museums could become comedy venues, and galleries have their inherent pretension exploited.

I set to work developing a ‘location based comedy’. A programme which would follow the listener into the real world, fusing character based humour with ludicrous lies. I wanted the comedy to emerge not from stupidity or buffoonery, but rather the characters absurd pretension, and surreal take on things. There’s a tendency in much contemporary comedy – from Elton’s Baldrick, to Atkinson’s Mr. Bean, to Larry David’s Larry David, to every Will Ferrell character – to derive humour from a characters bumbling stupidity. I find this lazy and boring, like filling a cinema screen with explosions. Don’t get me wrong, slapstick when done well can be ingenious – my friend Tom makes wonderful short comedic films in the vein of Buster Keaton. That said – obnoxious ‘shouty make a scene man’ (the focus of most SNL sketches) has been done to death, as has ‘untalented but likeable guy’ (I’m talking to you Mr. Apatow), and ‘sweet quixotic looser’ (Wes Anderson territory). How much more interesting are satire, parody, surrealism, word play? How much more funny are clever, disturbing protagonists? Hence professor Frump, Fulbright scholar and ‘Lord of Cotton Wolf on Surrey’, ‘born into a life of almost unimaginable privilege’.

Ten episodes are planned – there’s no natural limit to a podcast, and I’ve learnt from Technolotics the limits of my interest in a project. Each show will include background sound – recorded on location, and densely scripted fictional history. Each episode will be a real tour – which can be listened to wandering around its location, or at home. The plan is for each successive show to become more like a radio drama – with additional characters, effects and music. There’s a tension here with the more passive situational humour, but there’s method to my madness. The ultimate aim is to teach myself how to write scripted comedy. I’ve an idea in mind for a sequel to the Invisible Tour Guide, something a little more conventional, which might be suitable for radio. I’d like to put a script together and ultimately get it into production at Radio 4, or one of the independent British production companies. Wish me luck!

The first two episodes of The Invisible Tour Guide are available to download free from http://www.TheInvisibleTourguide.com. New episodes will be available every Monday.

Over the past year, I’ve contributed a handful of readings to the wonderful Starship Sofa science fiction podcast. Ciaran O’Carroll and Tony C. Smith began the show in 2006, as an in depth discussion of the life and works of a variety of New Wave and Golden Age Science Fiction authors. Ciaran left the show last year, but far from this being the harbinger of podfade, it spurred Tony on to new heights of fevered podcasting activity. The Sofa began to acquire the audio rights to a host of science fiction stories, poetry and factual articles, and started soliciting it’s own fictional content in the form of flash fiction.

Today’s Sofa has grown from a single weekly podcast to a pot-pourri of science-fictional productions, regularly releasing a variety of shows under the banner StarShipSofa: Science Fiction Audio Magazine.

Tony manages to regularly crank out the Round Table (a discussion of SF stories with some of the Sofa’s dedicated crew of readers and writers), Engine Room (a peek behind the production curtain), Aural Delights (short stories, essays and the like, read by a variety of professional and amateur micsmiths), and Sanatorium (an audio diary of his own eccentric doings).

The importance of the Star Ship Sofa, in this era of struggling old media, and horrendous science fiction magazine sales in particular; can’t be overestimated. The show is introducing a new generation of listeners to science fiction as it was meant to be enjoyed. Not merely as an alternative setting for a samurai or cowboy adventure, but as a fertile ground for new and strange ideas about mankind’s place in the universe, our relationship to technology, and the nature of consciousness itself. Great science fiction stories exude what’s become known as sensawunda, a glorious feeling that – like deja vu – has the quality of a unique and singular emotion. It’s clear that Tony and his fellow ‘Sofanauts’ share an enthusiastic familiarity with this addictive state.

So far I’ve done six readings for the Sofa (including two not yet released), you can download four of them (as part of Starship Sofa ‘Aural Delight’ shows) below…

Billy And The Wizard by Terry Bisson
The Spenser Inheritance by Michael Moorecock
Passion Ploy by Matthew Hughes
Gigantic by Steve Aylett
The Serial Murders by Kim Newman – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & 4.

I’ve enjoyed these readings enormously; even when I haven’t liked the stories, which has been quite often! Producing over the top characterisations, coming up with unique, appropriate (and often awful) accents for each character, and gaining skill in intonation and production, has been a whole lot of fun. Thankfully Tony has been heroically lenient with his narrators, allowing a great deal of leeway for creative interpretation. This is a good part of the reason I’ve just equipped myself with a new podcasting rig, as I’d previously recorded readings in TCD’s radio station. The show was also one of the main reason I began writing science fiction again, and hence sold my first story last year, to Irish magazine Albedo One.

You can check out everything Sofa related at Starshipsofa.com, including the sites excellent forum.

Caveats

You should be aware before you start that posting remixed video online (if you don’t own the copyright to your source video) could theoretically get you into legal trouble.

These instructions are for Windows. Here are some simpler instructions for the Mac. Let’s face it, video stuff is faster and easier with a Mac, if you can afford one.

It’s also important to note before you begin, that uncompressed video files are enormous. You’ll likely need at least 1 free Gigabyte per 5 minutes of video you plan to convert, and much more to do editing later.

If anything goes wrong, I disclaim all responsibility. These instructions are provided as is.

All that said, here’s how to do it..

Download the video

There are lots of ways to download a video from YouTube. Here are a couple.

Throw the address of the video you want into one of these sites
- Keep It Simple, Video Downloader 2.0, KeepVid.

or

Install Firefox, GreaseMonkey, and one of the these scripts.

Once the file has downloaded, you’ll have to convert it before Movie Maker or Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 (haven’t tried this with more recent versions) will open it.

Download Super

The free program ‘Super’ will convert almost any multimedia file to almost any format.

Download Super. The link is difficult to find on the horrendously designed site, but keep looking, it is there!

Convert the File

1. Install and Run Super
2. Find the file you’ve downloaded, and drag it into Super.
3. Along the top of Super, set the settings like so [Image]
   • Output Container: avi
   • Output Video Codec: huffYUV
   • Output Audio Codec: WAV -(pcm U8)
4. Right click anywhere in Super, and click ‘Specify the Output Folder Destination’. [Image]
5. Select the folder where you’d like to put your finished file and click ‘Save Changes’
6. You may wish to increase the size of the output video (by default Youtube’s resolution is 320*240). To do this simply change the Video Scale Size setting (e.g.: 640*480) [Image]
7. Your finished settings should looks something like this [Image]
8. Now click Encode. After a few seconds the video should start to encode [Image].
   In a few minutes (depending on video length), the process will finish.

That’s it!

You should now have a video that most video editors can import and edit without glitches. Happy remixing!

In addition to providing a predictably terrifying list of interrogation techniques in use against detainees accused of ‘terrorist activities’, from electrocution, to sexual humiliation, water deprivation and physical violence; and documenting how bounties offered for Al-Qaeda members led to the imprisonment of innocent civilians; this episode also describes a fascinating chapter in the history of Habeas Corpus.

John Ronson, an author and documentarist in the vein of Louis Theroux, takes a look at the suspension of this Magna Carta granted right, during the British restoration, an act which led to the impeachment of the Earl responsible (Lord Clarendon); and 450 years later, to an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to the US Supreme court, by All-Party Parliamentary Group of 175 members of the British parliament.

Compelling and disturbing listening.

Links: MP3, Transcript, Podcast Feed

Just back from Barcamp Ireland 3. What a day, so packed I couldn’t possibly get to half the talks (which ran concurrently), but I managed three lectures and the panel discussion. The event was held in the beautiful Digital Hub, off Thomas St in Dublin. The building is fantastic, with bare brick walls and natural lighting throughout, and would make a fantastic billionaires studio apartment.

I’ve posted some wikified notes. I grabbed several mini interviews, on TFM‘s sweet but pricey Roland wav recorder (check out the uber cheesy website), not enough material for a full blown podcast, but I’ve thrown them up, below. Also attempted to moblog throughout the day, with mixed results.

Mini Interviews

Sean O Sullivan of Rococo.
Robin Blandford creator of Comment Casting.
Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications.

Update: Fixed the wiki link!

Download: Podcasting Eats Itself – 17.9megs

Here are links to the shows I recommend in the podcast..

This American Life
1 Up Yours
Two Irish Geeks and a TV
Love and Radio
In Our Time
Starship Sofa
This Week In Tech
Slate Magazine Daily Podcast

While you’re at it, if you’re short on recommendations you could do worse than throw in a vote for..

Two Irish Geeks for best podcaster.

Sinead Gleeson for Best Art and Culture, and Best Music Blog.

Tuppenceworth for Best Politics Blog.

TCAL or Tuppenceworth for Best Group Blog.

Bernie Goldbach, or Simon McGarr for Best Contribution to the Irish Bloggersphere.

Tom Rafferty, James Corbett or Bernie Goldbach for Best Technology Blogger.

If many young students are not yet using modern technology to express themselves, three have done so successfully. Technolotics.com is billed as an irreverent look at technology, politics and the media by three Irish students and for a year it stood as one of the few Irish videoblogs.

Technolotics is cheap and cheerful and it proves an important point. Viewers don’t need RTE-grade production values to engage with new personalities. Technolotics found an audience.

Makes me happy and sad at the same time. At last a media mention from someone we hadn’t met personally, but unfortunately a little after the ship has sailed. Sadly it doesn’t look like a Trinity Digicast society is going to become a reality this year, but who knows, perhaps after this whole final year project ship has sailed, I’ll have the energy for another podcast or vidcast project. There are definitely more avenues to explore in this space than are currently getting attention, particularly in the sketch comedy area.

Listen:

Download:

High Quality – East Coast, West Coast 128k, 44.8megs
Low Quality – East Coast, West Coast 64k, 22.4megs

While I was at the anti DRM demonstration at Apples 5th avenue store, I also interviewed a member of New Yorker’s for Fair Use, Jay Sulzberger. The interview was too long to include in the program, but if you’re interested in issues surrounding DRM, net neutrality or wiretapping, check it out below.

Interview – Jay Sulzberger, 96k, 12megs.

Show Notes:

00.00 – Introduction
00.52 – Car to airport
02.33 – LAX
04.30 – Inglewood
07.15 – Backpackers Paradise Hostel LA
09.42 – UCLA Campus
10.40 – Hollywood Hills
12.15 – LA Hostel Morning
15.37 – Yosemite Bug Hostel
16.31 – Yosemite Bug (contd) – Talking about LA and SF
24.29 – Yosemite Bug (contd) – Dave’s Story
30.36 – Verner Falls Yosemite
31:40 – Half Dome Yosemite
33:45 – Central Park, NY – Talking about Vegas
44:22 – 57th and 5th, NY
46.28 – 5th Avenue Apple Store – Interview with Free culture NYU
48:58 – End

I’m releasing this under a Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

All music included comes from the album Bad Things Happen Every Day, by Magnatune.com.