Entertainment and Resources for Christian Geeks!
SPIRIT BLADE PRODUCTIONS exists to equip, encourage and inspire Christian Geeks to live in the freedom and purpose Christ offers.
Sometimes computers are just very, very lame. This has been one of those weeks. Our files for "Dark Ritual" are backed up and safe, but this has been a "computer maintenance week" and so not a lot of creative advances toward the completion of "Dark Ritual" have taken place. Still, these parts of the puzzle are just as vital and so while it's not as fun, we're doing what's needed anyway.
Have a great three day weekend!
Busy, busy! This week I've had to put some of Spirit Blade Productions on the back burner. After my weekend out of town I raced to catch up with various things on Sunday night before starting a three day gig with the public schools.
Naturally I'm bummed to not be working on "Dark Ritual" much right now, especially since after a weekend of playing fantasy boardgames with my friend Mark, I feel more inspired than ever to create! Still, sometimes you've gotta go with the gig that pays better.
Tomorrow will hopefully be a productive day, although I've been running into some issues with my computer lately that I may need to look into before getting back into "Dark Ritual". Have no fear, I've backed up all of my work to an external hard drive and will continue to make that a habit.
So there's the skinny at the moment. Catcha later!
-Paeter Frandsen
This week Paeter was excited to have Michael Bryce Junior chat it up with him in the Monitor Room. Michael played the role of "David" in "Spirit Blade" but was unable to continue the role of the mysterious boy in "Dark Ritual" because...well, he started growing into a man.
Look for Paeter's interview with Michael during the main feature of this weekend's podcast. http://paeter.libsyn.com
This week proved to be another slow week with paying gigs taking up more of Paeter's time. Still, he's nearly finished working on another heavily layered action scene. We keep saying that the scene we're currently working on is "one of the most complex and exciting in Dark Ritual". We've been saying it more often than we thought we would because we keep finding more ways to make this project a nail-biter!
Lastly, a word on "Release Dates". You may have noticed that the release date for "Dark Ritual" has changed from December 2007 to Spring 2008 on our main website. Since this is only our second project, we're still trying to get a sense for pacing and how long it takes to finish projects of the size we create. While announcing official release dates can be exciting and help build anticipation, we don't want to see an ounce of quality lost because of a rush to meet a deadline. You've seen enough of that in both movies and video games that are rushed to meet a studios deadline and better serve the "almighty dollar".
We've decided, at least for the forseeable future, to give only rough estimates for our release dates so that when our projects are REALLY ready, and meet the quality standards we demand of ourselves, you'll be able to experience them the way they've been envisioned with zero compromise.
Rest assured, we're not using this new policy as an excuse to slack off or waste time. We'll continue to keep you informed on the latest developments and progress for each project we're working on. When we've got a new product ready, you'll see it coming and be the first to know. We're working hard to bring you the absolute BEST in Christian Sci-fi and Fantasy! We think you'll appreciate the results.
Have a great weekend!
After the monotony of cutting and pasting dialogue for two days, Paeter spent Thursday afternoon working on a sequence no longer than 18 seconds, but so layered with action and sound effects that it proved to be one of the most complex sequences yet!
Although we won't spill the beans on what exactly is happening, we'll say that alot of very nice people are being hurt very bad by someonevery good at what they do.
"Dark Ritual" is proving to be more brutal in its action sequences and this is one that may have you wincing a few times while your ears try to keep up with the action!
Have a great weekend and don't forget to join us at the podcast!
Not much to report on yet. Yesterday I took advantage of a subbing gig. And Monday I was completely drained of all creative energy.
For a few minutes at the beginning of the day I stared at my screen and couldn't think of a thing to do that didn't require creative energy. I could ALWAYS do marketing and work on X-tras for the blogs, podcast and website, but I'd already done a good amount of that the week before and I felt behind on my work for "Dark Ritual".
Then it hit me. I had all these files of lines for peripheral roles and extras that I needed to sift through and decide who I would use for which lines. Cut, paste, evaluate, repeat. Oh, the beautiful monotony of it all! It was just what I needed to be mindlessly productive and keep things moving forward for "Dark Ritual". In fact, I might still be in the mood for some more. See ya!
-Paeter Frandsen
This week Paeter finished the rough mix on another song and from here will either be picking up scenes again, or tackling another song. (Wherever the creative winds take him!)
The song completed this week uses the working title of "He's Leading Me" and is based on the classic hymn of similar name.
Michael Tully, as Raan, lends his vocal talents to the haunting melody(now in a dark minor key), while the track settles into an Eastern flavored groove.
This song has been something of a stylistic experiment and will continue to evolve as we get closer to our target release date in the first half of this coming Spring.
If you haven't checked out the new free downloads on our media page, don't forget to jump over to http://www.spiritblade.net/site.cfm/sbp/media and enjoy something different in your i-pod this weekend!
First off, my apologies for not updating the website content more often. I'm still trying to find the right balance between working on current projects and supporting our currently available project.
I decided to spend my entire day yesterday working on the website, changing and adding a few things.
First, be sure and let all of your friends know that it's easier than ever to join the Spirit Blade experience! We've dropped the cost of the CD set from $15.00 to $11.99 (that includes taxes and shipping is still FREE!), and the digital download has gone from $10.00 to $7.99!
I've also rotated in some new material to the Media page that you can download for free! Part TWO of my "Spirit Blade Commentary" is now available, along with our first EVER interview with Randy Hesson, the voice of Vincent Craft!
If you missed the first part of my commentary, I've added it to the download section as well, along with the interview I had with Sean Anthony Roberts of "Dark Ritual". If you missed the podcast where we sat and talked about his character in "Dark Ritual", you'll want to check out this great interview.
And although it's been there for awhile, if you've never checked out my two-part interview with Michael Tully, the voice of Raan Galvaanik, you don't know what you're missing!
You can check out all these free downloads by going to the "Media" page at www.spiritblade.net, or just jump there right now at :http://www.spiritblade.net/site.cfm/sbp/media !
Catcha later!
-Paeter Frandsen
The week has been a good one. Scene 9 is finally complete and will be previewed on our podcast this weekend, so be sure that you don't miss it! It's one of the more complicated and intense sequences from "Dark Ritual" and we think everyone will really enjoy it.
After finishing scene 9, Paeter picked up work on one of the songs again, instead of moving immediately into work on the next scene.
Although we're not ready to give an accurate release date for "Dark Ritual", we expect to release it sometime in the second half of January or the first half of February. A digital release will come first and based on our funds and demand, a physical CD release will follow.
That's the latest! Have a great weekend!
Scene 9 is almost complete! We were really hoping to premiere it on this weekend's podcast, but Paeter had to take some paying gigs in the second half of this week that will likely force us to delay until the following weekend.
On the upside, while earning some extra change as a substitute teacher, Paeter has been able to take a little bit of work with him. Not for Dark Ritual unfortunately, but Paeter has been able to continue script adaptation for "Similitude Of A Dream", Spirit Blade Productions' next big project after "Dark Ritual"!
It's in the infant stages of development, but "Similitude" will likely have a flavor very different from the Spirit Blade saga. We're not sure yet if we'll say it's "based on" or just "inspired by" John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress", but at the very least, our story will aim to be faithful to the messages and life lessons found in the classic allegory. More as that project develops!
Have a great weekend and don't forget about our podcast! New episodes go up by end of day Saturday, every week!
Okay, so we don't have a "Fan Of The Week" award here, but if we did, then this week it would go to Colin Snow! Colin's a regular listener of the podcast, and one of the most enthusiastic fans of Spirit Blade I've had the pleasure to interact with.
A few days ago, out of either boredom, insanity or just for the fun of it, he made some video recordings of himself singing along to some of his favorite songs. I was thrilled and flattered to learn that he included three Spirit Blade songs in his impromptu YouTube concert.
So be sure to check out Colin's energized performance and give him a big hand for being brave enough to turn on the camera, throw caution to the wind and just have some fun!
Deadly Game- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt52P7QQ31M
Soldiers- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS7ksr95Y0k
Destiny- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVHmXlxgvvA
The Reason (Studio Version)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYsl1puHol8
And for ALL of Colin's singing videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ColinSnow
Enjoy!
-Paeter Frandsen
This week has proven to be a great opportunity to catch up on scene mixing. A few delays in sound design and a couple paying gigs kept Paeter from staying on schedule last week, but this week was mostly free of distraction.
There are 37 scenes in total for "Dark Ritual" and today we begin work on scene 9. It's still too difficult to give an estimate on the project's completion date, as some scenes require very little effort and others require multiple days of work. These are usually action sequences, although this time around we're layering more foley into standard dialogue scenes as well.
Scene 9 is one of our larger action sequences for "Dark Ritual", but once completed, we plan to preview it on the podcast.
Speaking of which, if you're a podcast listener, or you've been following our weekly journey through The Gospel Of John, you may have noticed that in a few more weeks we will finish the 21st and final chapter of our current book and will be ready to pick up another book of the Bible and begin a new journey.
We'd like you to have some input on which book we look at next. Although we're interested in doing an Old Testament book at some point in the future, we'd like to stay in the New Testament for now.
At this point we're considering:
Galatians, the Apostle Paul's first letter, which focuses on teaching that salvation is not accomplished by being a "good enough person". (6 chapters long)
Acts, a history of how the first Christians started meeting together for worship and organized themselves into local churches. It also serves as an "origin story" for the Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament. Should we look at Acts, we would go through the first 14 chapters and then take a break to look at another book, possibily Galatians, since chronologically it falls right after the events in Acts chapter 14. If readers and listeners enjoy this pattern, we may consider continuing in this way through Acts, taking breaks when appropriate to read other books of the Bible chronologically. (28 chapters long)
Romans, a letter from Paul considered to be among the most complex material in the entire Bible. Incredibly packed with information, this book summarizes a great deal of Christian beliefs. We'll never be able to give each chapter the time and detailed study they deserve in our "chapter a week" format, but this letter is an incredibly valuable book for anyone to read that wants to look more deeply at the Christian faith. And don't worry, it's not near as intimidating as it sounds! (16 chapters long)
Matthew, an account of Jesus' life that is out of chronological order, instead placing emphasis on what he taught and his fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. (28 chapters long)
I've started mixing scenes for the character "David" this week. As some of you may know, Michael Bryce Jr. couldn't be used again for this character since in the story, only six months have passed since the epilogue of "Spirit Blade", and Michael is now a Junior in high school with a very baritone sounding voice.
I re-cast the role with a boy who is actually a year younger then Michael was when he recorded for David in "Spirit Blade". Although I believe our new David will be wonderful, I had some concern over the slightly higher pitch of his voice, until yesterday when I experimented with pitch manipulation.
Too much, and his voice would sound funny, but I discovered that if I lower the pitch of all of David's lines in "Dark Ritual" by one half step, it slightly thickens up his sound, simulating a boy's voice that is changing, but doing so slowly, as mine did, without all the cracking and breaking in tone. So that was a very fun discovery.
Raan is also more cybernetic than ever. I've dug up more servo sounds and even created my own using various household appliances. I also blended some pre-recorded sounds and my own original servo effects to create "walking" sounds for Raan. I drew some inspiration from the sounds of Robocop as he would walk around in the first film.
Today, after creating a few more original foley effects, I'll be settling in to work on a high octane action sequence that I think will be very memorable, but will take a good amount of work.
When I'm finished, it will be a scene that I will definately preview on the podcast.
Hope you're all having a great week!
-Paeter Frandsen
Today we mark the first week of post-production editing on "Spirit Blade: Dark Ritual" and we're making good progress! The scene currently being worked on is a "training" sequence that pits Merikk Scythe against Vincent Craft in wild "Spirit World" combat!
The scene will be the first of several crazy and imaginative action sequences in the project. We're making every effort to bring you an even more action packed and intense experience than we did with "Spirit Blade", and although we've got our work cut out for us, we're enjoying the opportunity for a challenge!
If you missed last week's podcast, be sure to go back and check it out! We previewed the very first scene for "Dark Ritual" on the show! Of course we can't give EVERYTHING away on our podcast, but stay tuned in the weeks to come for more scene previews and other goodies!
Have a great weekend!
It's been an exciting and productive few days here at Spirit Blade Productions!
I'll be the first to tell you that I'm constantly learning when it comes to the computer/software side of what I'm doing. Just yesterday I finally figured out how to properly use my editing software to record audio. Until now, I've been using a rinky-dink $20 program from 2001 to record all of my audio, but yesterday I finally figured out what I needed to do so that I can record from inside "Sonar", the program I use to edit and mix my sound files. I also purchased an mp3 encoder for "Sonar" so that I can work with high quality mp3 instead of wav, which will allow me to save up to two-thirds of my hard drive space without sacrificing any sound quality.
I've also (nearly) finished work on the introductory scene for "Dark Ritual" and am picking up speed. My goal is to complete three scenes per week, on average. I may be setting the bar too high, but I'm going to give it my all and see how things are looking at the end of this month. At that time, I should be able to project a pretty accurate release date and re-post the countdown ticker for "Dark Ritual".
It's exciting to be getting better at this and learning from my mistakes. This project will have its fair share of challenges, but my desire is to make each Spirit Blade Productions project better than the one before it. I'll let all of you be the final judge, but I'll tell you right now that I'm predicitng some exciting improvements!
Once I've got a few more scenes completed, I will preview some of them on the podcast. So if you haven't subscribed yet, now's the time to get on board! New epsiodes are posted weekly on Saturdays.
Have a great weekend!
-Paeter Frandsen
This week I'm trying to organize my work schedule a little more. Now that the main cast is finished recording(and it will only be a few weeks before I have dialogue from supporting roles as well), mixing has become my primary concern. But at the same time, I see the ever increasing need to network online, establishing a presence for Spirit Blade Productions on sites like MySpace, ThyWorks and other networking systems.
I was telling my wife yesterday that it's very difficult for me to leave something undone. Particularily if it's a creative effort. The most recent example is the work I'm putting into the Spirit Blade Productions MySpace page. It's coming along slowly. And it was very difficult to stop working on it on Monday. But I know that if I keep working on it until it's done, I'll slow production on "Dark Ritual", which I refuse to do.
So this week I'm trying to plan my work days a little more so that I can put a project(like the MySpace page) down, knowing exactly when I'll be picking it up again. This kind of planning and organization is not my strength, but I'll probably sleep a little better at night after mapping a few things out.
You'll notice the countdown ticker to "Dark Ritual" has been removed. I'm also hoping to have a better handle on knowing when "Dark Ritual" will be available, and streamlining my work schedule will help me to do that. The countdown will return, and hopefully without a dramatic change in time-table. But I wanted to remove it until I have a strong idea of the release date.
I'd love to have your prayers as I work through optimizing my efficiency. I want to give my time to the people and tasks on God's agenda, not just the checklist on my agenda. And determining the difference between the two is a constant challenge.
Thanks for all of your support! I hope you're doing well and living life on purpose!
-Paeter Frandsen
It's been an exciting week for Holly and Paeter, although you may have noticed that things slowed down here at the Spirit Blade Underground. You can still count on the podcast to be up this weekend and starting this Monday we'll be back on track with our weekly look at the Gospel Of John.
Last weekend marked the end of submissions for supporting role auditions. We're looking forward to going over them at the beginning of next week. If you are cast in a role, you will be contacted by or before September 7th. And if you don't hear from us, don't be discouraged! After Dark Ritual we will launch into a new project, nearly finished being written, and your voice may be perfect for what we need!
Have a great Labor Day weekend!
I've never been a fan of babies. I'm still not. Even the "cutest", most "adorable" or "funny" baby pictures sent to me by family members provoke little more than, "Yep. That sure looks like a baby."
However, you may notice the strange, upside-down baby picture that I posted. This particular baby is our son, Asher. He is our first child and we brought him home from the hospital on Monday night. And, of course, I absolutely love him. Although I still have zero interest in other babies. (I suppose I've got a soft spot for my older sister's kid, but that's blood. You can't do much about that.)
It's no surprise to me that I love my son and still have little tolerance for other people's "crap factories". But I think the reason why is interesting.
Last night, my dad told me that he asked my older sister once why she loved her little boy, but not some other little boy across the room. Her answer was fairly predictable. "Because he's mine."
Dad reminded me of the simple truth this common familial love demonstrates. God loves us not because of anything we've done. He loves us because we are his.
In fact most of the time, a little like my son(although he hasn't fussed much), we cry and complain and demand, thinking only about our own needs, while producing large amounts of crap for other people to deal with. But God still loves us, because he made us, and we're his.
So although I'll maintain a comfy distance from other people's noisy little rats, when I look at mine I'll hopefully be reminded of a powerful truth.
And now... I'm off to bed!
-Paeter Frandsen
With the main cast finished recording, we turn our attention to mixing this week. Specifically, mixing scenes. The opening sequence for Dark Ritual has a temporary mix completed that includes an introductory monologue from Merikk, like the first Spirit Blade, and some music and a brief credit sequence that gives the project a dynamic start.
The deadline for supporting role auditions is tomorrow. Hopefully soon thereafter we'll be receiving audio files from those cast in supporting roles, although most scenes can be mixed immediately.
We're always looking for new ways to network and get our name out to the public. To that end, we are FINALLY working on a MySpace page for Spirit Blade Productions. If you're clever, you can probably find it right now, although we're still working on customizing it. We've registered with MySpace as a "Band", which will allow us to put our own music and audio clips on the page. However, band MySpace pages are more difficult to customize than normal pages.
If anyone would like to volunteer some time to help us, we'd like to try and customize the background of our MySpace page using the image from the Spirit Blade CD cover, or something along those lines. We'll keep plugging away and let you know when we've got something worth looking at, but if you've got some know-how and are interested in helping us out, send an e-mail to paeter
As always, thanks for your continued support of what we're doing!
Randy Hesson stayed late the last two nights of recording so we could finish a little early. (In case the baby comes before our due date.) So as of 10pm last night, principle recording is FINISHED for "Spirit Blade: Dark Ritual"!
I still have to record about half of my lines, but that doesn't really count in my mind.
I also still need to cast about a dozen supporting roles and receive recordings for them. Just a reminder that if you're interested, the audition deadline is this Saturday the 25th.
In news that isn't near as exciting, I'm probably going to need to bump the release date to "Early Spring" instead of the previously aimed for "Christmas Season". But don't let that get you too down. I'm planning to have a significant price drop for "Spirit Blade" that will take effect sometime in November and make it easier than ever for you to bring your friends along for the ride! We'll also have a lot's of cool free downloads to add between now and Christmas.
Once I've spent a few weeks mixing scenes, I'll have a better idea of the new release date for "Dark Ritual", but I don't anticipate you all having to wait much longer than you were already planning on.
As always, thanks for your support and prayers for this endeavor. We're very excited about "Dark Ritual" and the effect we hope it will have on people's lives.
See ya!
-Paeter Frandsen
Another exciting week as Randy Hesson completed his first recording session. After 2 or 3 more sessions early next week, the character of Vincent Craft will be prepared to re-enter the world of Spirit Blade.
After just a few minutes re-aquainting himself with the character, Randy began producing a sound that gives an even darker edge to Vincent's voice than he had in the first project! We know you'll love it!
Paeter also made great progress on mixing a song for "Raan". A mystical sounding ballad using middle-eastern flavors blended with electronic sounds. It's still in the infant stages, but we're excited about trying out some new sounds and styles!
Have a great weekend!