I liked the cartoon bit. that was my favourite part of the episode. I wait for episode 2b in anticipation.

Well, the animation in ep 2 has improved compared to first ep.

I try to keep away from small-built sets. I look forward to watching the rest.

No problem, I also have a small collection of LEGO.

Hi.  The transition music is actually an 80's-esque version of the "normal" transition music.  So episode 2 has 2 types of transition music: one regular, and the 80s-style music before every Radio station scene.  I composed that and the "Yosatuba" theme music.  The "Yosatuba" song is actually a song with lyrics called "V.P.L.", which I wrote and recorded on my band Tinnitis' 2008 album, "Friut Punch".

The "2009" caption isn't actually a joke, but just the setting for the story.  There are two reasons: #1) I realize that making brickfilms of this length take a long time, and we all are aging at a rate much faster than the cast, so I wanted to "freeze" the technology at 2009.  Throughout the scripts (I'm writing episode 5 right now), events are referred to within that time frame.  For instance, when we first meet Brent and Angela in episode 1 says she hopes her surprise from him wasn't "Another 100 shares of CIrcuit City stock."  Circuit City declared bankruptcy December 31, 2008.  Episode 4 sets Melissa's birthday at August 8, 1993.  In episode 2, when Johnny Strange was flipping the channels, all of the programs were on TV that year.  Included is an old "Vytorin" commercial, which was pulled from the market late in 2009.  I miss those commercials.  They showed people that looked like food.  When watching the episodes, look around for references to life in 2009.  I stick them in everywhere, but keep it subtle, unlike the "Wedding Singer" scene when a character is using a Rubik's cube as an obvious 80s reference.  I love that movie.

The second reason for using 2009 is that it's the year that, in my opinion, things started happening that don't make a lot of sense.  If I ever get a lot of episodes under my belt, the year will turn to 2010.

One more thing.  I forgot that my gracious wife, Angela Tourette, is the voice of a character in segment 4.  I will return to the original post and fix it.

Oh, someone get the "Yotsuba &" spoof!  Not intended to offend fans, even though she suffers much more than in the original manga.  The Anime bit seems to be the most popular part.  The series does a lot of spoofery at the entertainment culture.  You noticed that Yosatuba's talk cycles are much different than the style I've developed for the regular cast (she just jumps super-hyper).  I made her sound hyper as I could too, spoofing the hyper genre.  (That's me as Yosatuba and Kaiwoi both, very different from my Brent voice.)  The style I developed for normal talk cycles was based in part on watching minifigures talk in the Joe Brickmond series.  You'll notice a blue bird that moves occassionally on the wall in the Yosatuba segment.  That's the same bird (or a lookalike) of the blue bird that gets eaten by a cat in episode 1.

The laughter is a compilation of 300+ laughs that I painstakingly assembled and edited from seasons 1 and 2 of "Everybody Loves Raymond".  In between episodes, I try to add another 50 or so.  About 80% of laughs from the actual source audio are unusable, as the trail end of the laughing mixes with the dialogue of the next person speaking.  I actually tried to time the laughter in episode 2 in the same way that I noticed it in Raymond.  I also brought the laughter volume lower so the characters can speak more continuously over it.  If you watch Raymond, you'll see that the characters actually pause a lot during the laughs, which I tried in episode 1 but it didn't translate well, especially since I try to write the laugh lines in a rapid-fire style.  But I try to stick in a stray single person laughing and I want to add some coughing to put in subtly in future episodes, so it has the live audience, the show must go on no matter the reaction, sound from "All In The Family".  Thanks a lot for enjoying it, and segment 2 is coming up soon.

Last edited by HoldingOurOwn (March 27, 2013 (06:21am))

Ah, I see. 2009 was a great year...

All I remember about 2009, is, We got a new President, and I started animating on Youtube.

I really liked it bud. Love the story and the characters. Look forward to seeing more of this series.