Pixar Fan Commentaries

Fandom Fan Commentaries
#141

thedriveintheatre- Yeah, I think that sounds about fair, the requirement, I mean. I don’t think it’d be a very good idea to have someone completely inexpeirenced commenting on a feature film. I mean, I know I couldn’t have done that on my first try, I would have fainted, haha. xD

(Oh, and the commentaries I’m most interested in are the Ratatoullie and WALL*E ones. << >> Those are the two I HAVE to be there for.)

I think I’ll show up for one last YFTR practice round. I think it’d be good for me. I’ll probably be more in the backround this time, though, to give the new people a chance to talk.

Oh, and will do. xP

#142

I’m with Lighting Eclipse and thedriveintheatre, the one I’m most looking forward to doing is WALL•E! But I still have a lot to say with Ratatouille and Toy Story.

So here are the participants for the Toy Story fan commentary in October:

  • rachelcakes1985
  • qxgnxamy
  • The Star Swordsman
  • Lightning Eclipse
  • thedriveintheatre
  • Pixar.rocks
  • lizardgirl

That’s a really good group and I’m looking forward to doing the commentary with you guys.That’s enough participants for now, right?

I don’t want to make it seem as if I’m leaving people out, but maybe we could cap the number of participants for this one, then have the Ratatouille commentary with 10 participants and then see how we go to find a good number for future commentaries after that.

#143

It looks like a good set of people to do the commentary on. Now all we need is a target date.

#144

I agree, Rachel, that sounds like just the right number of people. There’s enough for the commentary to be interesting, but not so many as to make it confusing and risk people speaking over each other.

#145

Hey Pixar Planeteers! I’ve compiled a list of tips to help us make really good commentaries. I’m not saying ours needs improvement, per say, (in fact I think we are getting better and better each time), but it’s here so we can make the feature film commentaries the best they can be. I don’t consider myself an authority on doing commentaries, as I’m just as new to this as you guys, but hopefully you’ll find these useful! If you have any other tips, please share! =)

  • Don’t be shy. You signed up to the commentary so you obviously think you have something to say. Just research as much as you can (see below), attend as many practice commentaries as possible, and relax - we’re all Pixar fans, and all seem pretty friendly (I think so, anyway), so you’ll be fine.

  • With the practice commentaries, after you’ve attended one, listen to it when it’s been uploaded and be as constructively critical of the session, and yourself as you can. The practices are also to get yourself relaxed and used to being recorded and being a part of that medium, but it’s also the chance to improve on your performance for the feature film commentaries.

  • Try to speak clearly, if you have trouble with this, slow down your speaking. It may be a good idea to practice recording yourself then playing it back to get a feel for what you sound like so you can make adjustments.

  • Don’t take over the commentary, but at the same time, don’t sit there saying nothing. If you see the research section below, you will be more prepared, and hence the quality of what you will say will improve because of preparedness which will make for a more interesting commentary.

  • The whole idea of these fan commentaries isn’t to be exactly like the Pixarian commentaries, but to give a new perspective to their films from the fans’ point of view and why we like the movies, interesting tidbits of information that haven’t been covered by the Pixarians in their commentaries, awards it has won (since the Pixar commentaries are usually recorded before the film is even released) and so on.

  • And most of all, have fun with it - if you have a fun, positive attitude towards the commentary, this will come through in the end result. =)

RESEARCH!

  • First of all, watch the movie/short film as much as you can beforehand. I must say, don’t watch it to the point where you are sick of it, or get bored by it, but it will be a good idea if you are very familiar with what you are commentating on.

  • Think about what you would want from a fan commentary if you were listening to one of your favourite movie or TV shows and try to bring that to the commentary.

  • Speaking of which, here’s a website called MMM Commentaries that has fan commentaries. They are all sci-fi movies, but I couldn’t find a list on the Internet that had a list of commentaries of any other genre. But even if sci-fi isn’t your thing, you can still listen to a few of them and figure out why you like (or don’t like them) and what you would want to take from those commentaries and bring over to ours.

  • Some more specific things you can do to research the film/short film are: research on the Internet (Wikipedia’s a good resource), watch the behind the scenes on the DVD, read the Art of… books, read To Infinity and Beyond! to get an idea for the production and/or what Pixar was going through at the time of production, listen to the audio commentary for the movie, find out how well the film was received…

  • What other ways can you think of to research?

#146

Those are some great tips, Rachel! I think we ought to have any newbies who may come along in the future (What am I saying, though? We’re all newbies at this xP) read it. I think they could end up being very helpful.

Hmmm, I’ll have to check out that commentary website sometime…it depends on if they have any movies I actually like, though. xP

#147

Thanks for the great tips, Rachel! That’s a neat website to reference; I noticed they also got Casino Royale, Batman and the Godfather, so it’s not just sci-fi they’re doing. I’ll download a couple to listen to when I have more bandwidth next month…

As for a target date, I’m good to go after this coming Wednesday (30/10/08), but the weekend would be better to give me time to prepare for the commentary. I can’t wait, just five more days and I’ll be free…

(Etta James style) Aaaaaaaattttt laaaasssttt…

#148

Very useful tips, Rachel! As LightningEclipse said, they’re especially good for people that haven’t done any commentaries so far. Perhaps you’d like to make a special thread on tips for commentaries, so it’d be easy for new introductions to get the hang of doing the commentaries.

#149

Thanks Lightning Eclipse, thedriveintheatre, and lizardgirl. =)

I’d really recommend listening to a few of those commentaries on that website. I’ve only listened to the Futurama one, which was recorded by a couple of Aussies coincidently, but it was a good example of what we could bring over to ours.

#150

I thought this would be relevant. Here is a fan commentary me and a couple friends of mine from another forum did for the first to WALL-E deleted scenes. It’s kind of a test run of the fan commentary we’re going to be doing for the whole movie later on. If you haven’t seen the deleted scenes yet, I suggest you watch those first.

[url]http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NXIAKFBO[/url]

#151

Well done Le_chocolat! I guess we’re not the only ones doing fan commentaries over the internet after all. I noticed there was a soft hiss in the background; Audacity has an effect called “noise removal” that can take that out. On which forum did you organize this?

#152

This was from the WALL-E Forum. It’s probably one of the lesser known ones. Someone came up with the idea, so we used Skype to talk to each other and Goldwave to record it and we did a couple practice runs on the spot with the BURN-E short and the deleted scenes using whoever was around at the time. I think the noise was because the person recording everyone had trouble recording his own voice so he had to use two different Goldwaves at once. So his voice was rather muffled while our voices were okay.

#153

Le_chocolat - There’s a free program called Call Graph that may be able to replace the two Goldwaves. I haven’t tested it though because there’s no release version for Macintosh yet.

Edit: Here’s one more: SoliCall.

#154

Le_chocolat - Ah, so our idea wasn’t so original after all. :stuck_out_tongue: Nah, it’s cool. I haven’t yet watched the WALL•E extras, so don’t want to watch your commentary yet, but will do so within the next couple of weeks. I can’t wait to listen to your commentary of the WALL•E movie, too.

#155

Would anyone be interested in commentating on the BnL shorts with me (all of them)?

I just love those shorts so much and if we commented on them one after the other we’d have about 10 minutes there to do it. I’m looking for one or two other people, max. Maybe it could be done next year some time, since people seem to be busy with Christmas and school right now. Preferably people who have already done a practice, but if not, there may be another practice coming up soon before we record, maybe. Anyway, respond if you are interested. =)

#156

I don’t think I want to be one of the commentators but I can record the commentary for the BnL shorts if you want. =)

#157

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about who would actually record it. I’d love to take up your offer of recording the BnL shorts session - thanks, Peter! =)

#158

I’d be pretty interested in that, Rachel. That’s a really good idea! It would have to be sometime after January for me, though, because of exams then, but if you find any other willing volunteers who’d rather record it earlier, go ahead without me.

#159

Glad to have you on board, lizardgirl. Yay! After January would be fine with me, I don’t mind waiting until your exams have finished. =)

#160

All right. Here’s the deal:

As it stands, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on – at least, not to the fullest extent. From the looks of things, a Toy Story fan commentary was produced and finalized, along with a couple of practice commentaries for Lifted (I believe), and that a WALL•E session is about to take place. Sounds great. I’m going to have to listen to those commentaries that I missed out on last/this month.

I also fully apologize to anyone who thought that I would be available to participate in any sessions last month. As some of you may know, life was an extremely busy one for me and I just couldn’t do anything at the time (plus, my family and I had to switch to a new cable company, and that took a few weeks).

At the moment, my schedule is open enough that I would be able to participate in a full-length feature film commentary on Monday through Friday evenings only, with the exception of Thursdays. Above all, I would prefer to do commentaries on Fridays. I may be working at a job during the evenings soon, starting sometime in February, so for now I’m available up until then; once February arrives, everything is up in the air until I provide a solid update.

If it’s not too much trouble, I would love to be a part of the upcoming WALL•E commentary. (I take it that I wouldn’t have to participate in any practice sessions, as I’ve already been in one.)

Here are the days and hours that I would be available to do a commentary:

Monday - !2:00 - 2:00 PM and/or 6:00 - 11:00 PM
Tuesday - !2:00 - 2:00 PM and/or 6:00 - 11:00 PM
Wednesday - !2:00 - 2:00 PM and/or 6:00 - 11:00 PM
Friday - !2:00 - 2:00 PM and/or 6:00 - 11:00 PM

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there are going to be two separate WALL•E commentaries, right? If so, then I wouldn’t mind joining in on one of them. I’ll leave it up to you guys. :wink:

Again, my apologies for the hiatus! I hope that I didn’t upset anyone’s schedules/commentaries by disrupting my own.

– Mitch