Sulphur on 17/9/2017 at 16:02
I listened to the first half of your first podcast. From a pure listenability angle, it's good. You've got a good balance of airtime between the two of you, though it's obvious that Mege's using a different mic/it's a long-distance convo. Also, a Twin Peaks opening? Well, why the hell not. Coffee and Agent Cooper is always a good combination.
I'll be honest though: reason I'm posting is because I think you should give Elle a look-in anyway instead of maybe happening across it someday. It is definitely not a very sensitive picture on the opening scene alone (that is, rape), and definitely not a particularly thoughtful treatment of it, but as a character performance, Isabelle Huppert absolutely blows everyone away in it, and I think it's worth watching for what she does with it. It's not an uninteresting movie, but it's also not what we'd traditionally call a good movie. Most of it is some sort of twisted drama-comedy that's closer in tone to In Bruges than anything else.
Thirith on 18/9/2017 at 06:36
Thanks for the feedback! The sound quality will be better with the second episode already; I got myself a better mic and Mege's inherited a Sennheiser headset of mine, which actually seems to have a pretty okay microphone. Ironically, my new mic picks up a bit of an echo, though I've ordered a mic screen that should take care of that. (We recorded the next ep last Friday, and this time round the audio was better on Mege's side.)
With respect to the airtime thing, I was surprised at how easily that came. Sure, we've been meeting once a week and talking about films and stuff for years and years, but it is a bit different if you do it via Skype and know you'll be recording it. Doubly so since Mege is a bit of a Luddite and had never used Skype or Audacity before.
In any case, we still have a lot to learn: how best to perform (for want of a better word), record, edit etc. But it's fun and I'm enjoying the various steps. Especially editing is something I enjoy quite a bit; at Uni I did some (very minor) film editing of plays we'd done and recorded, and I always liked how you could make fairly substantial improvements with relatively small, simple tricks.
As far as
Elle is concerned, I'm pretty certain I'll check it out once it's on TV (which shouldn't be too long - I expect Film Four will have it within a year or two). As you say, Huppert is generally worth it, even if I'm ambivalent about Verhoeven. And while I wouldn't have expected a comparison to
In Bruges, that goes a long way towards selling me on it.
Anyway, for anyone who's interested in the podcast, here's the link:
(
https://adamnfinecup.com/)
Any feedback is much appreciated, especially if it's something we can act on. The podcast isn't on iTunes yet, as it's still in review, but I'm hoping that won't take much longer.
Aja on 21/9/2017 at 23:22
Yeah, it sounds good! The editing seemed transparent, and it sounded, for lack of a better description, like a podcast. Your partner's mic is obviously lower fidelity, but it didn't really hurt the flow of the conversation, and your voice sounded good although the esses were maybe a bit bright. You could try using an EQ with a very narrow width to soften them a bit.
Thirith on 22/9/2017 at 05:57
Thanks! I've got a bunch of things I want to try for the next episode to improve the sound, but I'm glad it does sound like a podcast. :-) I think the audio quality will only improve from here on out; I've had some helpful feedback from the Audacity forums as well.
Judith on 25/9/2017 at 14:12
On a laptop and generic earphones it sounds like the balance is actually quite a bit off to the left. And one more thing, as you record this over skype: if you want to have consistent sound quality for all participants, ask your co-host to record on his end too. He can use FLAC to save the file, and send it to you via dropbox, wetransfer and the like. That obviously requires more editing, but the result will be much smoother.
Thirith on 26/9/2017 at 06:14
Thanks for the feedback, Judith. We're not actually recording over Skype, we're just using it to talk; each of us records at his end. However, I think the mic jack at my friend's end is buggered, which caused the sound issues at his end. We decided to tweak it as well as possible (cutting the worst parts completely) but still go with it and then improve for the second and third episode. The second one will already be considerably better at his end, as he recorded it on a different computer.
The balance thing is weird, as I used Audacity's tool to 'centre' the sound. Obviously I didn't do it right, so I'll have to look into this.
Judith on 26/9/2017 at 08:56
Oh, my mistake then. For now it seems like your microphone is much, much better than your friend's. I only listened to the podcast for like a half a minute or so, and I mistook it for a Skype call ;)
Thirith on 26/9/2017 at 09:47
I can definitely see why. :) He's now got my Sennheiser headset, which has a much better mic, and he's using a computer that makes less noise. IMO he sounds pretty good in the second episode. I've got myself a new mic, but at least for ep. 2 the downside is that its higher sensitivity means that it picked up a slight echo on my side. I've now bought a mic screen, which I hope will solve or at least improve this for the third episode.
henke on 26/9/2017 at 13:38
Quote Posted by Thirith
Anyway, for anyone who's interested in the podcast, here's the link:
(
https://adamnfinecup.com/)
Any feedback is much appreciated, especially if it's something we can act on.
Yeah here's some feedback: don't do episodes about a bunch of movies I haven't seen yet! I can't listen to this! >:I
Thirith on 26/9/2017 at 14:24
I expect a list of all the movies you've seen on my desk by Monday.
