Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Otaku 5-0 Audio Commentary: Harry Potter & The Sorceror's Stone

Aloha everybody!

After months of expectation, I am proud to present to you our first attempt at a fan-made audio commentary!

Ever since they started being produced, the audio commentary (which contains various thoughts & impressions of the cast & crew for a particular film) has become my favorite DVD special feature (and for those who are interested, my favorite example of an audio commentary is by historian Robert Lacey on the DVD for The Queen.)

While producing the podcast, I kept the possibility of recording fan commentary tracks for our favorite movies & TV shows in the back of my mind, primarily because my main concern was getting the podcast to a consistent level of quality. As our 2nd season was winding down, I was once again able to give serious thought to producing fan commentary tracks.

And since she was unable to attend the 2nd season finale, I gave Jupiter (Executive Producer) the opportunity to select the first film we would comment on: Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone (2001).

And here we are...

Show Notes
Otaku 5-0 Audio Commentary: Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone

Date Recorded: June 8, 2009
Running Times: 69 minutes (Part 1), 77 minutes (Part 2)

Panelists
Totoro (Executive Producer)
Jupiter (Executive Producer)
Star (Film & Book Contributor)

Audience: Jenny, Jupiter's friend

MAJOR DISCLAIMER! Portions of these commentary tracks contain adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Additionally, the commentary tracks contain information from other sources in the Harry Potter franchise (including movies & books) that may be considered spoilers. Please consider yourself warned!

Because of uploading restrictions, we had to break up the commentary into two sections:

Commentary Part 1 (Scenes 1-17)
Commentary Part 2 (Scenes 18-36)

To sync up our commentary with your DVD version of the film, just follow the instructions below.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, download both parts of our audio commentary track to your computer or favorite mp3 player.


For Part 1:
1) Load up your DVD, and proceed to the main menu:


Then, move the cursor to, "Play Movie", but don't select it yet.

2) Start our audio commentary track, and select "Play Movie" when prompted to do so (right after I say, "1".)

OR

1) Load up your DVD, and select "Scene Selections" with your cursor at the DVD's main menu (pictured above.)

2) Scroll through the menu, and highlight Scene 1 with the cursor.

3. Play our audio commentary track, and select that scene when prompted to do so (right after I say, "1".)


For Part 2:
1) Load up your DVD, and select "Scene Selections" with your cursor at the DVD's main menu (pictured above.)

2) Scroll through the menu, and highlight Scene 18 with the cursor.

3. Play our audio commentary track, and select that scene when prompted to do so (on the count of "1" - Space Cowboys reference FTW!)

As this is our first attempt, any feedback/constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Either post it here as a comment or drop us an e-mail at Otaku50podcast@gmail.com

I hope you have as much fun listening to this as we had recording it.

Mahalo,
~Totoro (Executive Producer)

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Casting Couch: Take Seven

Aloha everybody!

Just because we're on hiatus doesn't mean that we're not still working to make Otaku 5-0 a more entertaining experience. To that end, I would like to continue the series of articles devoted to Casting Couch, my favorite Otaku 5-0 topic!

Let us do the time warp (Rocky Horror Picture Show reference FTW) back to last October, when myself, Mr. A & Cetic compiled a wish-list cast for a film treatment of The Legend of Zelda, one of the greatest video games of all time (in our humble opinion.)

For this installment, we only decided to cast the characters in the original game - Link, Princess Zelda & Ganon. Cetic and Mr. A settled on live-action performers, while I envisioned a total-CGI incarnation (a la Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and cast voice actors to reflect this. Although I should have expected it, Cetic once again steals the show with his "inspired" choices.


Link, the Hero
Our Suggestions: Orlando Bloom (Cetic), Freddie Highmore (Mr. A) & Spencer Breslin (Totoro)

Princess Zelda, the Distressing Damsel
Our Suggestions: Keira Knightley (Cetic), Dakota Fanning (Mr. A) & Grey DeLisle (Totoro)

Ganon, the Villain
Our Suggestions: Johnny Depp (Cetic), Ving Rhames (Mr. A) & Andy Serkis (Totoro)

And there you have it... An installment of Casting Couch that we will not soon forget. Please continue to stay tuned to this website for more feature articles and the audio commentary to Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone!

Mahalo,
~Totoro (Executive Producer)