Episode #9: "Floating on Cloud Nine"

Pixar Planet Network Radio Pixar
#8

A most magnificent episode, indeed! Everyone involved in this edition of the show submitted some delectable information, and the very fact that all of the sessions included came about by way of pure team effort is wonderful. In addition, the pacing/timing, input, and topics highlighted positively reeked of awesomeness. Needless to say, I eagerly await the tenth installment in the series! :smiley:

Since this episode was so awesome, I thought I’d break my overall feedback on it into sections. Voila´:

Introduction: First of all, congratulations on being promoted to Acting Director and Host for Radio Pixar, Rachel! You carried on the show nicely and fluently, presented your information clearly, and sounded professional on the whole. Great work!

Thomas, I also loved your input! You had some great information to offer up to the audience and made the show more entertaining. By the way, was it you who pronounced “tomato” as “to-mah-toe”? 'Cause that was funny. I loved how you pronounced it. Heheh.

Trivia Question and Answer: Great quiz, The Star Swordsman. It was a hard one this time. Awesome. :wink:

Round Table Discussion (Part 1): Wonderful segment! The views and opinions that were presented were interesting, and the session itself was enjoyable and engaging. Hannahmation and thedriveintheatre: You guys made it so much fun. I especially like your accent, thedriveintheatre. So, yes, great input everyone! :smiley:

Pixarian and Pixar Planet Member Birthdays: Happy birthday to everyone who’s celebrated over the past few months!

Pixar at the Oscars: Nice recap. I like how a piece of the score from the WALL•E soundtrack, “2815 A.D.” (which is pretty forlorn and depressing music, by the way), was played when Rachel mentioned that WALL•E lost several of its awards/nominations to other films. :laughing:

Song Request: What a fantastic idea! I think I have a request for the next piece of music… (heh)

Up Video Game Report - Oh ho ho!! Ok, first of all, guys, I sound nowhere near as boring in real life. And as for all of that static in the background, I have absolutely no idea as to how that came about. My mouth was too close to the microphone, too, and I’m too verbose overall. I swear, I’m going to do my utmost to get on the next show so as I can resolve these issues. I’m gonna sound more upbeat, for one thing. :stuck_out_tongue:

Gosh, it’s so embarrassing to hear my voice on the air…

Vox Pops: Puh-ha!! Oh, gosh, you were hilarious, thedriveintheatre. That was too funny. And Hannahmation, I loved it when you said that Russell was, “… pretty much amazing”. I guess we’re on the same page, Hannah. :wink:

Animated Feature Symposium and Interview: Once again, there was too much static on my side of the island, and my voice sucks, but it was fun to participate in nonetheless! Again, thanks for having me on the show, Rachel. It was a fun experience. :wink:

Note to self: Fix boring monologue…

Those were only a few of the topics discussed in this latest episode, but all of the other segments were just as interesting and informative.

Overall, I highly enjoyed the latest Radio Pixar episode and look forward to the next show! Rachel, Thomas, The Star Swordsman, Hannahmation, and thedriveintheatre all brought something note-worthy to the table, and made the installment all the more entertaining and engaging. Keep up the great work, guys! :smiley:

I found that Radio Pixar will also play on QuickTime, so you can try that method if it’s taking too long for the episode to load on iTunes.

– Mitch

#9

Overall, it was great to see radio Pixar up and running again. I really can’t wait to hear the next ones. It was intresting to hear all of the discussions, news, and other fun stuff.

I love the listener submissions. It was fun to hear people so excited for Up. TDIT, you were by far the funniest. I love it.

The roundtable discussion was very informative and well done. I love hearing everyone’s opinion. Everyone had something to say. No one was taking over the discussion yet no one was left out as well.

As for me, I felt that I had a lot of energy in my voice, but I need to work a little on my enunciation and to slow down a bit.

#10

I liked it…i actually wanted to hear all of it instead of just the discussion like the prior ones. The News is still really long and sometimes borring (if you don’t care for news) but the entire episode was on the line much better.

I would definitely join in if i could get my sound recording system working properly.

#11

Radio Pixar Episode 9 was a great listen! I Also fun to participate in! A lot of good variety in the show as far as what was covered and it was nice hearing from a bunch of different people as well. The contributions from various Pixar fans really makes the show I think.

Great job to all who contributed! Especially to our hosts Rachel and Thomas!

#12

It’s finally on iTunes. I didn’t hear it all, but here is my feedback: I don’t know how scripted the news portion is, but I think that it could be a bit more concise. You wouldn’t want people shutting it off because the news is going on for too long. I usually never have a whole hour to just listen straight through like this, and other people may have the same problem sometimes. Maybe, you could divide the show into sections so that you could put up a schedule with times, like 18:00 min. - trivia; 20:00 min. Round table discussion - and so on. This way, if you have to stop listening to it, you can easily find your place again, or, if you want to listen to a specific part, than you can jump to it easily. Also, if the show is going to be more regular, than you could have more frequent 20 - 30 min. episodes, rather than 1:00:00 ones once in a while. Just a few thoughts. :slight_smile:

  • C-3PO
#13

Haven’t gotten a chance to listen to the full episode, but I’ve listened to quite a bit, so here are my thoughts so far.

The new format is very cool. I really like having a roundtable on every episode, the news was great, the members specific section was cool, and I really liked the little interview with Mitch at the end.
One thing I would like to hear is a more conversational tone to the show, kind of like a morning radio talk show. I know that you’re all new at this, so it’s goign to take a while to get comfotable doing the show, but I woudl like more of this in future episodes. It really makes it more entertaining to listen to, epsically things like, which can be boring for some people. It definitley started to go that way in the roundtable, and TSS was pretty lively too.
I also, would have really liked to here the whol roundtable. That was my favorite part of the cast, and I was dissapointed to here I had to wait to hear the rest. I actually enjoy long podacasts, (the main one I listen to is typically two hours long), so I say put the whole thing in.

Other than that though, great job guys, can’t wait for the next one, and I’ll have to make sure to get a listener submission in on time.

#14

I agree with DocKenobi here in that I think the show could be more upbeat orally, although, as was stated, getting back into the thick of things does take some getting used to, especially after a long hiatus. Still, some of the conversations (and the news section, especially), were a bit stiff, although I suppose you could say, “Hark who’s talking” in this case, as I was just as wooden.

– Mitch

#15

I meant to ask this, was this whole show recorded live, or were the parts recorded seperatley and then edited together?

#16

Parts were recorded separately then eddited together.

#17

Ah, ok. I’m not sure how hard it is for you all to find a solid time to work together, but it might help if the show was recorded live. Might help make the show more conversational and upbeat if everyone can play off each other. Just a though.

#18

Well, we all live in different parts of the country, so getting people together was really, really hard to do. Plus, it was easier for everyone to work on their own time to record what needed to be recorded.

#19

I figured as much, seems like there’s different continents involved as well. I just felt that a mostly live show would help liven things up a little.

#20

It could be modeled out of current fan commentaries, however you do it - was listening to the Ratatouille commentary and if that was live, that was a really good job.
There’s always the possibility of Skype, provided everyone has adequate upload connections, or even using Skype as a guide, getting everyone to record their voice locally, then sending it to the editor then syncing it. You could help syncing it by getting someone to “clap” at the start to use as a reference when syncing.

#21

Awesome episode!!! :sunglasses:

#22

Thanks Dolly, on behalf of the RP team. :wink:

#23

Yeah, Skype would be a great way to do a live show.

#24

Thank you for the episode. I enjoyed it. I do, however, have a gripe. I’ve been trying for months now to avoid story details about “Partly Cloudy”- a task which really shouldn’t be too difficult even for an active Pixar fan, as the shorts are never hyped to the press the way the features are. I’d been entirely successful until I listened to Radio Pixar #9 and the host blabbed the premise and story set-up faster than I could reach the pause button on my iPod.

How 'bout a warning next time?

#25

Yeah, I’m with doctorossi on that though I’d forgotten about it- I had to fast-forward through certain bits because of the Up spoilers that I’ve been sort of trying to avoid (though not very successfully :laughing:) but also keeping in mind that there may be many others who don’t want to be spoiled, a warning actually within the show would be a good idea even if the outline of the show is available, just so people know when potential spoilers are coming up.

#26

Well, overall I think Radio Pixar Episode #9 can be classed as a hit. :sunglasses: Thanks for the feedback guys for this comeback episode. It’s incredibly hard to look at something with the same perspective as someone who hasn’t ever listened to the episode before. I’m glad you enjoyed the show, and thanks again to those involved, and also for the fans for listening and giving feedback.

Now to address a few specific points…

I suppose that’s a personal opinion that varies from listener to listener because other listeners were saying that the news was concise. Well, the reason that news went on for so long was because there was such a long delay between the the last episode of the show and Episode 9. The Up segment was just a Wrap-Up (well, actually more like an Up-date) and we won’t be having it in future episodes, and the Up news will be read out with the other Pixar news rather than having its own segment, I think. 12 minutes for Up, WALL-E and general Pixar news isn’t really that long, is it? Especially when you’re listening to a Pixar podcast.

There’s the argument of not having any news in the show, because listeners can just go to Upcoming Pixar, but the benefits such as giving Pixar fans news using another medium, as well as the cross- promotion with Upcoming Pixar is too good to pass up. If you don’t won’t to hear news, there’s nothing stopping you from skipping that part of the show, which will always be placed after the introduction. I guess that’s the risk we’ll have to take. iTunes has a feature up the top, if you use it to listen to Radio Pixar, where it lets you know what segment you’re listening to, so if you can’t listen to the show within 45 mins -1 hour, you can easily find your place again. Giving a time stamp for every segment is one way of detailing the show notes, and I’ll talk to the other staff about doing that in the future. There’s a more detailed list of show notes on the Radio Pixar page.

Shorter, more frequent shows? I dunno, for me it would be about quality vs. quantity. Getting a show out every 3 weeks is hard enough as it is.

I think that was me that said “tuh-mah-toe” when I was talking about the Rotten Tomatoes wins that WALL-E received: “tomato, tomata, potato, potata”. :slight_smile:

Ok. I completely forgot to give a spoiler warning that time, but next time we will. Also, try to remember that if you’re going to listen to the news, there may be spoilers, just like if you were going to read Upcoming Pixar. The blog entry for Partly Cloudy didn’t have a spoiler warning, so I followed suit. But next time I’ll give one before each spoilerific segment anyway.

Things like what, exactly?

One reason I didn’t sound lively was because I was nervous, and also, to answer your question, we recorded most of our segments separately (except for the roundtable, intro and outro, and interview which was recorded live). From now on with the shows, we might try to include more banter with the host and co-host so we have more expression in our voice. Some segments sound better when they’re scripted, such as a report, but others like the news could be talked about with the co-host, then they can chip in their opinions, yeah. It is pretty hard to schedule I time where we can all record together, and it is a lot easier to record separately. I don’t think we could record the whole show live, but for the introduction and news, that’s a really good idea.

Each show is going to be between 45 - 60 mins long, so if were to include the whole roundtable (30 mins), that would be half the show dedicated to one segment, meaning there wouldn’t be room for the other segments we had planned. Everyone’s attention span is different. Some said that 1 hour was too long for a show, but you have no trouble listening to shows that are 2 hours, so we struck a medium and said 45 - 1 hour. Well, maybe our tactic of splitting the roundtable in two parts has worked, after all, it left you wanting more, didn’t it? You’ll just have to listen to Episode 10 now. :wink:

Thanks again for the critique, everyone!

#27

I competely understand that you, and I’m sure alot of others where nervous, it’s a lot of pressure doing anything like that. Also, you guys are new at this, so it’s gonna take a little while for you to get into a groove, or what have you.

Yeah, this was something I was going to say would benefit from a live recording. Forgive me if, I’m being forward, but the reason people would go to Radio Pixar for the news instead of just checking the blog, is that they are getting something extra. You mentioned this in your reply to me, and I really think that some kind of comment one the news from the hosts would be that extra thing to make people want to listen to the news, even though they can just read it. You kind of want to make people say, when they read a story, “wow, this is cool, I can’t wait to see what Radio Pixar says about it.” Now, again, I know you guys are just starting out, so all the kinks have to be worked out. Despite all my criticisim, I really do think you guys have done an amaizng job, so far, and I do look foraward to seeing the show grow.