Say What?
Face front, true shell-heads! Longtime TMNT fans, Kevin "
Jester" McGill and I, have embarked upon an ambitious project to do audio fan commentaries on the various aspects of the TMNT franchise. We’ve started out with the first five episodes of the original cartoon (yeah, so typical, lol), but our grand scheme is a much wider scope. We are open to doing various cartoons, movies, promotional videos, and even comics. Neither of us has a complete collection of resources at this point so keep in mind that we may be initially limited by what DVDs (and comics?!?) we may possess.
How does it Work?
Select your desired commentary track, then start your own copy of the TMNT episode at the same time you hit play on our audio commentary files. Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?
How do we Make these?
It’s a pretty primitive process, but it’s been relatively effective thus far. We both use Skype to communicate with each other. We pop in our DVDs and simultaneously hit play as we start the recording. In earlier episodes, I used Audacity to record our conversation and save it to an MP3 (files are compressed to around 10MB) after removing background noise and adjusting audio levels to try to bring balance to the commentary. As a result, the sound quality wasn't anything close to professional quality. Beginning with "Planet of the Turtleoids," Jester has been recording our Skype call directly, which gives us a slightly improved product.
Why Bother?
We recognize that there sure are a lot of opinion pieces that have been done on the TMNT cartoons. Nevertheless, there are considerably few commentaries that have been done by turtles fans who have a comprehensive knowledge of the totality of the TMNT franchise. Most fans gravitate to one particular aspect and hold bias against others. Kevin and I, like most of the people on this forum, are pretty much hardcore turtles nerds (with a few exceptions that we might have to tolerate), even if we admit to preferring certain parts of the franchise over the others. Our goal is to make informed observations about the subject matter while still trying to enjoy ourselves while rewatching/reading the material. We'll probably try to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable continuity contradictions and fill in the gaps of various plot holes. We have a genuine desire to keep it both fun and classy, so we make an effort to keep our language and humor fairly clean. Also, we want to showcase the TMNT fandom as well as the franchise, which leads me to the next question...
Who can Participate?
From the beginning, we agreed that we want to bring in additional TMNT fans as guest commentators. We think it will be fun to showcase the better side TMNT fan base, although we recognize that it is substantially more difficult to record three people in different locations than it is to stick with our establish routine. Our goal is to try to record commentaries (1-2 episodes per session) at a regular schedule (we’ve been doing it about once a week for the past month, but that pace may change over time).
We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but we’ll start off by inviting folks who:
(A) are longtime staples in these forums and/or the fanbase at large,
(B) have contributed something significant to the fandom, and
(C) are sufficiently articulate to make solid observations in a recording session while also keeping themselves well-mannered in language and take turns sharing opinions. [Wow…that should count me out –
Jester]
Still, it doesn't hurt to ask if you are interested! Jester and I have been recording our sessions around 10:30pm EST once a week. We will try to be flexible to our guest commentators' schedules.
We are always open to doing specific requests, and if you are selected to record a commentary with us, we’ll try to do it on the episode you want. If you don’t really care, we’ll probably just pick a Season 2 episode from the Old Toon.
The History of the Project
This was all really Jester’s idea from back in 2009, but lack of interest at the time left the idea dormant until I proposed we restart the whole project. Initially we recorded “Turtle Tracks” together and uploaded it as a
YouTube video. Thanks to
Krang’s good graces, we’ve been able to find
a home for our audio downloads on TheTechnodrome.com’s main page. On account of all the recent developments, we’ve decided (with Krang's permission) to lock
the older thread and make this the “Official” thread for our “unofficial” fan commentaries.
Anything Else?
We welcome your feedback, constructive criticisms, suggestions, and requests!