Pickle Tales Round 4, Vote for your favorite story! Options

[Christiana]

Hey everybody! Round 4 is now on the feed, or you can download it direct right here: Pickle Tales Round 4



Our four stories this round are:

"Bobby Anderson's Book Report, 'The Trojan Bore'" by Will Ross

"Untitled" by Tony Mast

"Ulysses of Graceland" by Laurence Simon

"Daylight Come" (Penelope's Song) by Phil Rossi

Plus, we have a new promo!

And don't forget to add Pickle Tales as a favorite, or donate via PayPal to the Pickle Tales Prize fund! You can do both right here!

[The Keeme]

This is the hardest round for me (and my vote) due to the outstanding stories. Each one had me saying "This is the one" until I heard the next one. I am going to save my vote until I hear them again (and again.. and see what bribes this way come).

I do want to say one of these entires took some (whats the politically correct way to say balls?)... It took some guts and I may be leaning toward that one because 1) it was AWESOME and 2) the ball/gut thing.


Ok... sleep is here and is hitting me with a Louisville Slugger *BAM*

[Smart Bomb Radio]

Wow. I gotta say that Phil's song was majorly unexpected. #($*ing brilliant.

Well played sir.

[comedy4cast]

My hat is off to everyone this round. This was a MAJOR challenge.

[Christiana]

Agreed! Great job everyone!

[Laurence Simon]

Happy seventy-second birthday, Elvis.

[Shelly]

I agree with Clinton and Christiana. I was half prepared for the contestants to revolt and tell us that this challenge was too hard. But all of these guys stepped up and did great work.

[Laurence Simon]

I agree with Clinton and Christiana. I was half prepared for the contestants to revolt and tell us that this challenge was too hard. But all of these guys stepped up and did great work.

Actually, I did.

Want to be immersed?

Fine. Stick your head in a toilet and hit flush.

I've been going gangbusters on the sound, effects, and music for three rounds.

This time, my vocal track goes out stark naked.

BOOYAH!

[Andrew Ian Dodge]

That was a hell of a lot of fun to imagine...podcasting in the bog.

[comedy4cast]

Actually, I did.

Not quite true. Since you did a great job putting The Odyssey in an unusual setting, I guess you'd have to say it was a half revolution.

[Laurence Simon]

That was a hell of a lot of fun to imagine...podcasting in the bog.

Would that make your podroll a bogroll?

[comedy4cast]

And I think I can follow up a bit on my comments in the podcast about Phil's song. To me, it was a perfect compliment to the actual story. If felt very natural. I guess that's why I said I was "on the fence" about it. Upon the first few listens I didn't find it so much unusual or unexpected as I found it a great addition to the story.

[Tony - FanboySma...]

Great show again!

It is always interesting to see the decisions that people are going to make given an assignment.

[Tony - FanboySma...]

Wow. I gotta say that Phil's song was majorly unexpected. #($*ing brilliant.

Well played sir.

I second that. Doing something different gets you noticed... and as different as all of our stories were, your song was different than anything presented in the competition to date.

Damn you!

[wanker]

ok It seem to me no one really nailed the create a world with sound. And think this was because of the monster amount of nar. that is the oddessy. So In the mind of the writers there was no room for adding a sound as charactor.

In Will's story kids in the classroom. A teach braking my a fight. The intecom annoucing the lunch meno. Metal desk legs and title floor. sound of doors open, book dropping on desk. Pencils on paper. A school band and the class bell.

In Tony's story in a night club you have table and chairs moving. sound of people at different distance to the central table. glasses on tables, we should hear someone drinking. Cocktail waitress taking orders. Hearing the song that would drive a man on the rocks. Oh yessJapanese businessmen.

In Laurence's story A call room. many voice in the background on phones very very low. I would have liked to have the main charactor on a headset. He could be fielding customer question on the fly. It would have been a hoot having India weather reports in the background. A missed oppertunity turning the bow into the mic. The King slays the suiters with a song.

In Phil's story I zoned out half into it. The music put me to sleep. Not to say the performence wasn't great. the production was amazing. It seems this is a guy singing a song in a coffee house. An EC intro would have helped. Once again tables chairs feet glassess. And on the end of the song a round of clapping and thank yous from the singer.

No one won on sound bed so everything has to be weighed on content
1 Will
2 Laurence
3 Phil
4 Tony

Will missed an oppertunity to name make his charactor a blind kid named Homer
Laurence Elvis as lotus eater would have been nice
Phil sorry I have to silence to it again. All I remember is: 4 more years 4 more years
Tony if you load up a lap dance one should deliever a lap dance

[Smart Bomb Radio]

In Will's story kids in the classroom. A teach braking my a fight. The intecom annoucing the lunch meno. Metal desk legs and title floor. sound of doors open, book dropping on desk. Pencils on paper. A school band and the class bell.

With this and with Clinton's suggestions I have to say that I agree there was some missed opportunities for comedy and immersion in my story. The way I worked on this one was in layers, which is why the accompanying sound effects are more sparse in the beginning than in the end.

After writing the main vocal track I laid it down and then cleaned it up. Then I layered in music tracks to fit the narration (Trippy music for the lotus eaters @*(#*, good idea) Then in the third run I lowered my mic by half and added the layer of sound effects. So I had a better idea of what I was doing near the end with the "Immersion" layer.

[philrossimusic]

In Phil's story I zoned out half into it. The music put me to sleep. Not to say the performence wasn't great. the production was amazing. It seems this is a guy singing a song in a coffee house. An EC intro would have helped. Once again tables chairs feet glassess. And on the end of the song a round of clapping and thank yous from the singer.

Ouch!

I haven't had a chance to listen to this round yet. Work has been a fiasco thus far today. I'm really looking forward to it. This round was definitely a challenge on a lot of different levels. More later

[Smart Bomb Radio]

When voting on immersion I guess that you could say that Phil didn't put people into the place where the song was being performed,, but considering the contest has been sketch and prose exclusively, personally I'd let that slide because this was such a unique entry.

Pickle tales should be open to poets, songwriters, fiction and nonfiction writers, essayists, and more. Next contest I'd like to see more variety in the types of contestants and more entries from women. Phil's piece demonstrated that other sorts of challengers could hold their own quite well.

[Laurence Simon]

Laurence Elvis as lotus eater would have been nice

I did a version with a soundtrack... very simple, not as rich as Bagman was. Bar sounds with a kathump of Telemarketer thumping the trophy on the bar, a standard rockabilly line during Elvis telling his tale... some ambient outdoor noise during the garden/graceland, some crowd cheering and dying out as i tall the person he has the rest of the story in his hands, viva las vegas in elevator musik towards the end.

Decided to toss all that... naked bootleg option.

I barely referenced the lotus eaters as the drug dealers.

The Trojan Horse was going to be Elvis and his band needing to sneak past fans, so they hide in the trunk of a Cadillac.

Just didn't have the time budget... used too much setting up and wrapping up. Final draft came out to 10:45, had to cut like a madman, pick up the tempo. But didn't want it as breakneck as manata's first rounder was.

What I found amusing was Will calling Telemachus "Telemarketer" once.

Elvis called the Telemarketer narrator "Son" near the end, although I was tempted to refer to Lisa Marie as his son.

Why else would Michael Jackson marry him... I mean her?

------------------

Will hit all the major stopping-points on the tale with quick gags that didn't linger or lose me.

[Smart Bomb Radio]

can we get this topic stickied?