The Official STAR WARS: SMUGGLER'S RUN Thread

Looks like I missed some things while I was gone for the week. We got our own Fan Audios board. Awesome! Anyway, here's my official thread for my audio drama, relocated from the Fan Films board.

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STAR WARS: SMUGGLER'S RUN is a continuity-violating story that shows how the Death Star plans made it into the hands of the Rebel Alliance. (I did not intend to violate established continuity, but it just came out that way and I liked what I had, so I didn't want to change it.)

Anyway, more information on the project can be found at the link below. There's a plot synopsis, credits, a trailer, trivia, pictures, etc.

Smuggler's Run

Of all the audio dramas currently in the making, our's is probably the most low-key. We have a very small story, one main location other than a couple starship cockpits, and a small number of characters. Two actors (myself included) voice two characters each.

SMUGGLER'S RUN will not be as elaborate as some of the others (RISE OF NOBILITY, SECOND STRIKE) due to these factors, but we still hope for it to be entertaining just the same. We originally set out to do this as a test to see if we could pull it off. If we're happy with the results, we'd like to make three more to form a trilogy, with this one being a prequel of sorts. The trilogy will be expanded to be more of a galaxy-hopping adventure, with visits to different worlds, a longer length per episode, and, hopefully, additional characters.

After months of delays (well, actually, I just kept putting it off, then the recent warm weather made me not feel like doing anything), I finally decided to buckle down and officially start post-production. I spent all this past week editing dialogue-only, and will then move onto adding in sound effects and music.

Hopefully, with a little luck, the finished product will be completed sometime in late-July. In the meantime, I may post some bloopers on the site, and I will be submitting the finished audio drama to Force.net when the time comes.

Any questions, comments, or whatever, I'll be here to answer.

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And I return from my vacation with good news. While visiting Joe over the past week, I played the rough, dialogue-only cut for him, and he was very pleased. So with a little more tweaking here and there, the next phase of adding sound effects should start pretty soon.

 

Michael: I've made sure to include the bloopers and teaser on your page at the new Fanworks site. I figure that as long as we don't end up in a space crunch, we might as well include those little supplemental things along with everything else. Kind of a nice touch, I think.

Any projections on your release date?

 

UPDATE:

The rough dialogue-only cut has been fine tuned and locked as the final cut. The next phase, the addition of sound effects, began on Monday and could be finished by the end of the week, if everything goes good.

There's a chance the whole project could be finished by the end of this month or early September. Not sure yet.

 

Sweet. I'll add that news to the Fanworks news page for when we open. It'll be there for this date.

 

Michael, just curious, are you not using music? or did you already add that?

Keith

 

Yeah, I'm using music. That's just one of the last things I'm adding. All the scenes are edited individually, but some of the music would overlap where the scenes fit together. So once I'm finished with everything else, I'm putting all the scenes together, then I'll go back and add all the music.

I've got ideas for cues I want to use, but I'll have to give my STAR WARS soundtracks a listen to find other tracks to use.

 

uhoh. Page isn't pulling up for smugglers run official site

 

D'oh! I made some changes to the site the other day, and some of the URLs changed. I'll fix that right now.

 

Michael, with the Fanworks hosting page up, are you going to keep the independent page going too? If so, let me know the new address and I'll be sure to put a link on the page.

Also, any news on the progress with the project will be posted in news, so keep me posted, no pun intended.

 

Yes, my original page for SMUGGLER'S RUN will remain up since the project is part of my website. I'll add a link to the Fanworks page next time I update my site.

As for news, the first cut of the sound effects stage was completed last night. Joe is coming down to visit next week, so I'm going to play the cut for him to see how he likes it before getting started on the final f/x cut.

 

Cool, cool. Will it be at that same Angelfire address then? If so, I'll go ahead and add it.

And, again, I'll put up some news within the next couple of days about your progress, so it's up to date for release. Rock on, no?

 

Yeah, it'll be at the new URL that's in my signature.

Is the Fanworks site open yet? Everytime I go to it, I just get the introduction.

Man, after working on the scene involving all of the blaster fire, I have great respect for the girl responsible for the blaster sounds in the FILMS ARE NOT RELEASED, THEY ESCAPE documentary. I must have spent at least three-and-a-half hours just on those effects alone. Whew!

 

Alright, Michael, I've made sure that the site's address is now on the Smuggler's Run page for Fanworks.

 

"SMUGGLER'S RUN" materials can now be downloaded from its area of the new Star Wars Fanworks site:

http://www.starwarsfanworks.com/smugglersrun.html

 

First off, the new site looks awesome, Nathan. Excellent job. Also, I was wondering if the site has a definition guide somewhere for what the different "Story Areas" are.

Onto SMUGGLER'S RUN . . .

Things are going good. The sound effects are "locked," though the first and last scenes need to be reedited due to some problems, but that shouldn't take too long. Hopefully by Monday, the project will enter the scoring phase as I began adding music.

 

Thanks, and I'll put up a news byte when I get the chance.

As for the eras, I'm using the official Lucasfilm/LucasBooks era names that are on all official SW products.

 

News byte added. You're back on the first news page.

 

Site Update:

I just uploaded a new version of the trailer for SMUGGLER'S RUN. The previous one had low sound, so I redid it over the weekend from scratch, and now it sounds better (I think.) So Nathan, you can replace the one at Fanworks with the new one if you want.

 

Aye, will do. It'll either be done Wednesday/Thursday night if I don't hear back from the JT/SB guys by then, or before then if I do. Big updates ready to send up, but it's got some things that need to be confirmed in the update...

 

Went ahead and did the update without the new pages, so it's up.

 

UPDATE:

SMUGGLER'S RUN is still in (the final stages of) post-production. I should have had it finished by now, but some other things came up and it sort of got pushed aside for awhile in favor of doing new stuff. I probably won't be able to get back to it until sometime after the holidays, so we're most-likely looking at having it completely and finally finished by late-January/early-February at the earliest, March at the latest.

 

UPDATE:

SMUGGLER'S RUN is set to resume post-production in early February, for a release in late-March. It's possible that release may change, depending on what happens with an upcoming live-action shoot, but for now, late-March is the targeted release.

 

UPDATE:

Everything's going good since post-production has resumed. I found a few things here and there that I thought could be better (usually happens when you've let your mind clear of the protect for awhile), so I've gone back to fix them as well. Late-March is now an affirmative, and will also give me time to complete the audio "making of" that will go along with it.

 

UPDATE:

Finally! After more than a year(!) since the voice recording sessions, SMUGGLER'S RUN is finally complete. Woo-hoo!! I'm so happy and relieved. It never should have taken that long, and I have only myself to blame for that, but at long last, it's finally completed.

The late-March release still stands, though, because the "Making Of" and two other bonus features for the CD need to be made so that I can release everything at the same time. But that won't take more than a few days to put together.

 

THE WAIT IS (FINALLY) OVER:

After nearly a year of post-production and a number of delays, SMUGGLER'S RUN is finally finished and will "open" today at StarWarsFanWorks.com. It's been a long and sometimes time-consuming and frustrating experience, but I think it was all worth it. I've learned how to do things better and how not to do things next time, should there be a next time.

It may not seem like it, but it's actually been a big part of my life for the past year, from developing the original idea all the way to finishing the final product. In some ways, it's been more of an experience than any of my live-action movies. I spent more time with directing and post-production than any of them. I would spend hours (even days) on just a small portion of one scene, striving to make sure a few lines of dialogue and a handful of sound effects were perfect.

It's been a long journey. I feel a little saddened that it's all over and done with, but also feel relieved that it's all over and done with. I look forward to your thoughts on the project (and even the bonus features), both the good and the bad. I hope you enjoy it.