Much thanks, Peter! I’ll give a full review soon. =)
Thanks for taking the time to edit it, Peter! I’ll also give a review time permitting. I’m much more interested in hearing what other forum members (especially those who didn’t take part in this one) have to say.
TheDriveinTheater, you sound great. It is me who really has a weird accent 
Actine, I love your accent. Don’t you know that European accents make girls swoon? 
My review for the two commentaries are still coming up! =)
Well, if we go by Rachel, yours sounds more attractive than my “Jamaican” flavour.
I’ll probably post the reviews much later, as I’m kinda juggling many video projects and a sig request at the same time. I’m waiting to hear what others think of it first. 
Listen Barnaby - this time with pitch-preserving PAL-speedup:
group 1 (part 1)
group 1 (part 2)
group 2 (part 1)
group 2 (part 2)
Enjoy!
Thanks for speeding up the commentaries totoro. =)
Thanks for doing that totoro. That was really nice of you. =)
Here’s my feedback for Group 2. I’ll post about Group 1 at a later date.
qxgnxamy - A big improvement from the other commentary - you had more things to say and points to make. Everything you say is always so thoughtful, which makes for well thought-out comments. If I was going to predict a company that would be our BnL, I never would have picked Microsoft. That’s fascinating. The editing on this is great. Oh, and I like VAN-GO’s bright colours, too. Thanks for participating, Peter - I hope you had fun. =)
Actine - I love your accent and how you say certain words and the letter ‘V’. It’s really cool. Still, to me, 95% of what you said was understandable. Your vocabulary is really impressive, since English is your second language. You made some good points, too, like how the reject robots don’t travel along their paths on the Axiom which represents them breaking the rules, and how Disney is comparable to BnL (how ironic!). I disagree with you, however, that we shouldn’t discuss the intricate details of the movie - I think we should because that’s what fans do! Maybe we could agree to disagree on that point. My favourite quote of yours is when you impersonated MO and you said “woahwoahwoahwoahwoah”. Glad to have you as part of the commentary, Paul. I hope you choose to participate in more Pixar fan commentaries. =)
thedriveintheatre - Hey, I never said I didn’t like your “Jamaican” accent. I like your reasons for why WALL•E and AUTO appeal to you - like WALL•E as an everyman character and AUTO was a conflicted villian. Also you pointing out little tidbits of information like the binary keyboard, the Captain having personal initiative (unlike the other characters), Sigourney Weaver’s appearance as the ship in Futurama and so on. Don’t worry about your technical difficulties, it happens to the best of us. Thank you for being such a good commentator, Andre! =)
Excellent work, boys! 
I never realised until I listened to myself that I do the Aussie thing were I give the end of my sentences un upward inflection (as if everything is a question). Kathy Najimy isn’t an Australian actress after all… I think I was getting confused with another actress. My bad. 
Ideally in the future I’ll be in a commentary during the afternoon or evening (my time), I think I’ll sound less tired that way. (I only got 6.5 hours sleep the night before this one. D’oh!)
It’s fascinating how we can have two groups and come up with two totally different commentaries. If anyone has any feedback they want to give or constructive criticism, please do so. I want to become a better commentator and figure out what makes a listenable commentary. And if you participated in the commentaries, make sure to give feedback too, ya bums!
Thanks totoro! Much appreciated! If you’ve the time, why don’t you join the commentaries?
Thanks for the review, Rachel!
Everyman heroes appeal to me, cos’ they’re more relatable as a character to the audience. No one’s gonna be as buff as Arnie or Stallone, so while we admire them, we never really think we can pull off the things they do. But if we see an Average Joe face a situation, and how he responds to it, there’s that level of “empathy” we have with them, and we question whether we would do the same thing if we were in their place. So whether he’s working up the courage to propose to his sweetheart or climb up a rubbish chute, we side with Wall-E, because we see a bit of ourselves in him (not so much the climbing trash chutes part).
AUTO of course, is a questionable villain, and not unlike Rorscharch from Watchmen in never compromising, even at the expense of others.
Yeah, I got the trivia from various sites and repeated viewings. And thanks for being understanding about my botch-ups. I’ll try to avoid them in the future.
Yeah, I notice Aussies do that a lot. I realised about halfway through the commentary though, that I kept adding “or something” to the end of my statements too often. 
And you thought 6.5 hours was too little? I slept only 4 hours cos’ I was reading up on Wall-E while trying to download Skype for Mac (my Windows crashed a few weeks ago and I lost all my applications) on a severely shaped bandwidth. But I’m also preferring an evening session.
I object to being referred to as a bum. Anyway, I’ll do a review once I get my fanvids out of the way.
Unfortunately a friend of mine has borrowed my WALL-E DVD and keeps forgetting to return it.
And it’s obviously a PAL DVD, so that would of work if everyone else were to use a PAL DVD as well.
I promise to review both commentaries as soon as possible. I’ve listened to the first half of the Group 1 commentary, and should be able to listen to the second half sometime this weekend, and then I’ll listen to the Group 2 commentary. Will get there eventually!
lizardgirl - Heheh. Thanks lizardgirl. You always give such thoughtful feedback, so I’m looking forward to what you have to say. =)
totoro - Unfortunately because you haven’t participated in a practice before, the cut-off date for people interested in commentating on Ratatouille (who hadn’t ever done a practice commentary) has passed. But if you’re interested in participating in other commentaries in the future you can let me know when the call out is posted in the Fan Commentaries sub-forum. Right now we’re in the process of deciding which movie it’s going to be. But if you’re still interested, here’s a bit more info…
What we usually do (for people living in PAL countries) is transfer the NTSC movie file over Skype beforehand to participants who don’t have access to that particular format. It’s so we’re all watching the same movie. So that’s not a problem if you don’t have the movie. You’d also need to have access to a pair of headphones with a microphone and download Skype, and about 3 straight hours of spare time for a feature film (+ 1 hour when you do a practice at a previous date). So if you still want to participate, let me know.
thedriveintheatre - That’s a really good point about the ‘everyman’ character - people can relate to them moreso, as if it could be them in that same situation. Well, AUTO could either be seen as ‘good’ because of his uncompromising dedication to his directive, or ‘bad’ because of the same reason.
Only 4 hours sleep? You did pretty well seeing as that was the case. If that were me I would have been like a talking zombie (well, even more so). Ok, I’ll see if I can organise an evening session for you then.
I’m looking forward to your feedback, too. And you’re welcome. =)
Oops. I’m sorry. I was only joking around (I have a silly sense of humour sometimes). I sincerely hope you weren’t offended by it.
totoro - Maybe a little ‘gentle persuasion’ with your friend is in order? I’ll lend you a baseball bat, heheh.
lizardgirl - Take your time, it’s good to have a proper listen. I’m also kinda putting off the review until more people are aware of it.
rachel -
I know. I was ribbing ya too.
Rachel- The whole lifting your voice at the end of each sentence as if it’s a question is one of the things I love about the Australian accent! It reminds me of summer, for some reason.
Okay, here’s my review of the first WALL-E commentary. I’ve just finished listening to it and, as a whole, I think it turned out pretty well! Mitch, it was great fun doing the commentary with you. Not only did you have a great variety of interesting facts and things to say, but you also made it sound like a real fan commentary by giving your own opinions and generally having a laugh, giving this commentary a nice light-hearted feel. You’ve got a lovely, clear voice and you’re concise and clear when you’re speaking, so you’re perfectly suited to these commentaries! You really did well, especially since it was your first feature-length commentary. Peter, you were awesome as usual, pointing out the things that Mitch and I had missed like the blobby forms of the humans being the same as the blobby alien from Lifted. I would’ve liked to have heard you say even more, but by the sounds of things you’ve spoken more in the second commentary which I’ll listen to later on this week. Also, I know it’s only a small thing, but I love the way you do the countdown and the syncing bit for each commentary. You say it very calmly, and if anyone else were listening to these commentaries it’s just the sort of professional type thing that would give them the impression that the commentary they’re going to listen to.
There weren’t too many interruptions or clashes either, so that was an improvement, though personally I think for a feature-length commentary, four or five people would be a good number of participants to really vary the different viewpoints and opinions included. In an hour and a half film, with four or five participants there should still be enough time for everyone to say most of the stuff they’d like to. I felt that although there weren’t too many lengthy pauses in this commentary, I’d prefer it if there was less ‘blank’ time that could be filled up by other participants.
So, I’ll give the next commentary a listen sometime and see if the above issues are addressed! It sounds as if the second commentary was very different, which is really cool.
Really nice review, lizardgirl. I’ve been thinking about how many participants would be best for a commentary. However if we go over 5 people per commentary it may get a bit crowded which is why I split up the groups. I suppose it depends on the personalities and how talkative the participants are. You could have 3 talkative people in one commentary, or in another commentary you’d have 5 not-so-talkative people. But at least we got 2 commentaries for the price of one, so to speak. I wouldn’t worry too much about having silences during the audio because if people are listening to the commentary along with the movie (as is recommended), then the movie’s audio fills in the gaps.
Oh, thanks. I saw on a recent documentary about the Aussie accent that the reason why we do this is because it’s an extension of our friendly nature, and turning a statement into a question is a subtle way of making the listener feel more involved. But the downside is it can make the Australian talker seem like they’re insecure about their statements, even when they’re not.
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Dang. I just got punk’d! D=
Thanks, Rachel. You’re right, it depends on how talkative the commentators are. I think that as the commentaries go on, we’ll learn more about how each of us likes to deal with being in a commentary, so to speak, and so we’ll keep improving.
That’s really interesting! That makes sense, as it does go with the Australian personality of being open and friendly. Over here, Scousers do the exact same thing and they’re known for being friendly too. It can only be a good thing!
What are the fan commentaries?
woody - A fan commentary is where fans “get together” via the Skype program, or another program that enables voice conferences, and we all watch the same movie at the same time and record our comments on it then upload our conversation as an MP3. If you want to listen to an example of our past commentaries, click here. If you’re interested in joining in, go to this thread and we’ll talk about it there.
The PAL versions have been updated (same links, new files).
By popular demand, WALL•E is again going to be commentated upon, in the month of July (if enough people sign up). Don’t miss your chance! Even if you’ve commentated on WALL•E earlier in the year, you can still participate the second time around, but if there ends up being not enough room, preference will go to the new commentators.
In order to participate in the WALL•E feature commentary, members need to participate in at least one practice commentary this year. So if you need to participate in a practice in order to commentate on WALL•E, please send me your schedules, or post them here within the next 10 days.
I’m also aware that the practice for Monsters, Inc. was only just done, but I’m trying to get the commentaries back on schedule again, so hopefully they will be back running on time by next month.
Take a look at this thread if you haven’t already: Fan Commentaries - Rules and Information and make sure to post your rankings here for all feature films (except Up). Even if you have already participated in a practice, but would like to be in another one to brush up on your skills, you are more than welcome to.
Any questions, post here, PM or Skype me.