The Art of Dialogue (Eurofurence 2011)
Guys, I’m so, so sorry for the quality of the audio in this one. The secondary recorder failed, and the camera itself was perched on top of the projector so there’s truly horrible noise throughout. Some parts are almost impossible to make out, even to me and even after careful filtering. I hesitated to put it up, but I figure something’s better than nothing…
The first of the panels I gave at Eurofurence was on the topic of Dialogue. In a dimly-lit room with a horse-shoe arrangement (as is typical for my panels: standing room only) I discussed the philosophy and purpose of dialogue in fiction.
It took a little while for the group to warm up, partly due to the less-than-comfortable circumstances, but once they opened up I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent questions being asked. I was likewise surprised by the fact that people seemed more interested in the slides about correct punctuation in dialogue than the sections about motivation — I underestimated how practically-minded the attendees were!
This year I decided that, rather than showing examples of *great* dialogue, I’d plumb the depths of terrible fiction to find really awful dialogue which we, as a group, could then dissect and critique. The choice was obvious: The Eye of Argon.
As always, thanks so much to everyone who attended.
- Alex
Source: youtube.com
Full-length video of my Voice Acting Workshop at #EF17
At EF 2011 in Magdeburg, the third of three panels I held was on the topic of Voice Acting.
We started off with a quick presentation on vocal technique, mic technique, posture and performance, then invited some volunteers to try their hand at performing a short script written for the occasion.
I had the pleasure of being accompanied by Shay, whom I’d invited as Special Guest. He was still reeling from the rather successful premiere of Bitter Lake the previous night, which I’m sure contributed to the fact that the panel was standing room only.
At the end of the panel, Shay and I took some rather excellent questions from the audience and to finish it off, did our own run-through of the script.
Thanks to all who came!
Third Eurofurence panel video: Anthropomorphic comics publishing with Yours F. Truly, Dark Natasha and Rukis
Apologies for the ghastly audio; I’ve cleaned it up as best I could. I’d mic’ed myself up really poorly so the only usable audio source was the camera. Sorry!
Nightfox from Black Paw Publications was originally going to join us, but was indisposed due to scheduling issues — but nonetheless, this turned out to be a very good panel.I was joined by Dark Natasha and Rukis, both furry artists, so there was a fairly heavy slant toward comics rather than fiction. Nonetheless we were impressed with some very good and well-targeted questions from our fabulous and intimate audience!
Second Eurofurence video: editing for publication in the small press
This workshop was a little dryer than the one about writers, artists, imagery and meaning, but more informative for writers and in much, much higher quality! Occasionally you’ll hear the camera guys whispering, and there was quite a bit of noise outside in the first few minutes, but I think it came out quite good anyway.It was a nicely intimate affair, where I put on my Editor hat to give the collected writers a glimpse into the world of story review, selection, editing from the other side of the glass.
Full video of the first writing panel I gave at Eurofurence 16 last week: writers vs artists
Presented by Yours F. Truly at Eurofurence 16 in Magdeburg, Germany in September 2010.
In this workshop we discuss the notion of conveying meaning through imagery. The theory of semiotics is briskly breezed through, after which we look at some examples of evocative imagery in art and writing.
Finally, we did a little mini Bullwer-Lytton contest, with some thoughtful and/or hilarious results!
Apologies for the darkness in the first half. The camera lost focus in the dark a few times, but really came into its element once the lights came back on.
This panel was a ton of fun to do, with a diverse and engaged audience, which included Elfasi, Watts Martin, Lupestripe and a fair few others I’m sure I forgot to name!
