Star Wars: Through Flame and Shadow (complete)

[Jo']

Guest posts are enabled!

July 2014: Due to lack of feedback from listeners and the voice actress of Cerena gone "missing", we decided to discontinue this nevertheless nice project. Thank you to those who found the time to write comments on face book or the videos.

Episode 1 - 'Recognition' - Downloads | Youtube

Episode 2 - 'New Directions' - Downloads | Youtube

Episode 3 - Trial by Fire - Downloads | youtube

Star Wars: Through Flame and Shadow is an audio drama set several years before the events of Star Wars Episode IV. It follows the exploits of a group of individuals who join together in an attempt to stand against the oppression of the Galactic Empire.

The characters and storyline are created by the multi-national 'triplet': Darkling (AU), Jan-Willem Cazant (NL) and Jo' (DE).

If you enjoy the audio drama, please leave us some feedback, either here (guest posts are enabled) or on Facebook! We love hearing back from our listeners about what you enjoyed and what we can improve on. Thank you!

Technical specifications
High quality 48kHz / 24bit production. OGG Vorbis Surround 160kBit/s and L.a.m.e. MP3 170 kBit/s VBR

To enjoy every detail of the soundscape, we recommend listening to the stereo release with decent-quality headphones.
For even more acoustical depth, listen to the Vorbis 5.1 surround mix!

[Guest]

Hello, I run the the Star Wars Fanbase on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. First off, the first episode was excellent and as well produced as anything I have heard. Story was engaging and I care about the characters. I want to know what happens next!

I am also interested in publishing your audio drama on different mediums including with our own podcast. All in its entirety and with full credit to yourself or course because I just want to share it with our fans.

Please let me know what you think,
Dwayne
admin@starwarsfanbase.com

[HarrierPotter]

This is very promising. Please keep it up!

[Guest]

Love it! Make some more!!!

[Guest]

Fantastic, please do another one!!!

[Jo']

Episode 1 - 'Recognition' (27:43 min - released 1.May.2013)
Location: Planet Rudrig -> Tion Hegemony -> Outer Rim

While leading an uneventful life as a starship mechanic, Josh Kenaran finds himself wondering about his future direction after a chance meeting with an enigmatic stranger, who not only stirs up uncomfortable old memories within Josh, but also presents him with a potentially life-changing opportunity.


33MB High-quality stereo MP3 file

75MB High-quality 5.1 surround OGG file

To download, right-click a link and "Save Link As..."

Or listen to the episode on Youtube.


Cast

Josh Kenaran - John Lavapie
Cerena Delaissen (Saylen) - Annalyn Hostert
Erdric Farcell - Bryan Reid
Carr'Dyth (Andeen) - Jo'ogn

Josh's Father - Bob Welkin
Josh's Mother - Kay Challis
Middle-aged woman - C.C. Petersen
Alien citizen, alien janitor, waiter - Martin Perks

Narrator - C.C. Petersen
End credits - Jo'ogn


Music: (mostly) John Williams' SW soundtrack

Scripted by Matt Lim (Darkling).

Audio production by Jürgen Oppermann (Jo'ogn).

[Jo']

Episode 2 - 'New Directions' (16:00 min - released 23.Dec.2013)
Location: Planet Rudrig -> Tion Hegemony -> Outer Rim

Finding himself unable to make a decision about the opportunity he's just been offered, Josh seeks advice from the one person who might be able to give him some idea of what lies in store for him.


19MB High-quality stereo MP3 file

40MB High-quality 5.1 surround OGG file

To download, right-click a link and "Save Link As..."

Or listen to the episode on YouTube.

Please note that this episode is intentionally shorter than the first episode. All future episodes will be roughly the same length as this one.


Cast

Cerena Delaissen (Saylen) - Annalyn Hostert
Josh Kenaran - Ryan Lawhon
Carr'Dyth (Andeen) - Jo'ogn
Erdric Farcell - Bryan Reid

Narrator - C.C. Petersen
End credits - Jan-Willem Cazant


Music: John Williams' SW soundtrack

Scripted by Matt Lim (Darkling).

Audio production by Jürgen Oppermann (Jo'ogn).

[Guest]

I'm interested to see where this goes. Can she handle to apprentices?

[Bclay]

Love what I hear so far! Please post some technical/behind the scenes specs for us audiophiles - that would be awesome! What mics are you using, what are you recording with, stuff like that. Thanks!

[Jo']

Love what I hear so far! Please post some technical/behind the scenes specs for us audiophiles - that would be awesome! What mics are you using, what are you recording with, stuff like that. Thanks!

Thank you for your praise and interest.

The voice talents (we are happy to work with) are all volunteers, who record at their homes with USB microphones. I believe many amateur and hobby VAs use "Audacity" as a recording software. On a sidenote for any reader going *Yay!* now: Audacity appears to have a very bad mp3 encoder.

In all honesty, as a sound engineer, I am hesitant to 'disclose' the microphones used, since I would not recommend those to an aspiring voice actor. A considerable amount of post processing goes into the voice lines until they are up to our desired standards. The "Samson" mics all have high static noise and the "Blue" have a weak frequency response.

Personally, I (playing Carr'Dyth) am using a "Neumann TLM-103" with a "RME Fireface UC" as mic-preamp and "Wavelab 6" as recording software. But I have owned this mic for 15 years by now (a time where USB 1.1 just saw the light of day). There are a lot of good mics for a much much lower price these days and the software as such has no influence on the recording quality - if you record to a lossless format that is.


In a 15 minutes episode I am using about 250 to 300 sound effects. Some of course more than once. A number of SFX I recorded myself. Like some of the metal sounds while Erdric works on the hyperdrive. Or the fridge and the bottles cans, when Cerena drinks. Cerena's flat door is for the most part my DVD player's tray.


Darkling's script writing skills and directions are also a great part of the quality that make this audio drama what it is.


One thing in particular I would like listeners to know is that "Sony Music Entertainment" obviously sent their 'content-id' data to Youtube during 2013 for the Star Wars sound track, since our episode 2 upload was flagged, while episode 1 is not flagged. In Germany the video is blocked altogether, since GEMA doesn't want the advertisment alternative. Darkling stated that in Australia there is an advertisement for the Star Wars Episode 2 soundtrack (which we used for the closing credits).

As a fan-fiction audio play producer this makes me slightly angry. Star Wars fan-fiction has always been tolerated, if not encouraged, by Lucasfilm - as long as no profits were made - which we, abiding by those rules, do not have any intention to. I would like to know, what SME believes they will achieve with this content-id thingy on YT?