(SoG2) Production Notes

[Spoilers for part 2 below]

Brian’s rendition of the Lord of Dark is not exactly the way I would have done it… he has a bit of arrogance in his voice, even at the very end, where I had originally had reassurance and sympathy. I think I like it his way better. Some measure of arrogance is probably a key component to a character like the Lord of Dark… but more importantly, it reinforces that he is not me. When I identify completely with the Lord of Dark it’s very easy to see this story as a triumph of good over evil, intelligence over tradition. When there’s a small note of The Other in his voice it reminds me that he is not me, and maybe he can’t be trusted completely and implicitly. It makes the story a bit more complex, a bit more uncertain. Am I still sure that casting the Spell of Ultimate Doom was the best idea? Yes, probably. But no longer completely.

When I went to grab the scream from Come To Daddy I was pleasantly surprised that someone had already looped it over 9 minutes, saving me a lot of time and work. I also listened to it a lot over the next week. This may sound odd, but I really like well-done screaming. A lot of my favorite lyrics are screamed (which is not to say that screaming is always good, much of it is crap). There is something emotionally raw about it which sends shivers up my spine, and obviously I’m not alone. Even songs shouted with a ragged edge work.  I’ve had the Sword’s Wail and Scream mapped in my brain to the two excerpts I used since the first time I read Sword of Good years ago.

Doing this episode made me appreciate well-done screams even more than before, because I just couldn’t get Hirou’s scream right. I did quite a few takes and nothing sounded right. Nothing sounded sincere enough. I almost went with the Greatest Scream In Cinematic History, but I decided to try one last time. I had forgotten that the superman scream had echo and processing. With that inspiration and some reverb and echo thrown in I think I finally got something that works.