Okay so it's small scale at the moment but was still a proud moment to hear my story recorded at the weekend. At the moment this will just be a subscriber only thing, but it may get a wider release down the line. No idea when it'll drop (the suggestion seemed to be it might be a year or so!) but any subscribers on here please keep your ear out and let me know what you think (always assuming you remember in a year's time! )
That's wonderful! Congratulations, dude!! Looking forward to it. I'll also be looking out for it, but maybe also post a link or so when it is out, so we can all know? Thanks!
Congrats! That's really awesome. I'm always very impressed (and a little envious) when 'one of us nerds' gets to work in the field, so to speak.
Thanks everyone! Oh I'm sure I will do! Of course. Basically I submitted an idea for the Paul Spragg Short Trips contest. Didn't hear anything for a while so assumed I hadn't won, then got an email to say that, whilst indeed I hadn't won, my idea had reached the very final stages and the commissioning editor asked if I would be willing to write it for their subscriber only market. The pay was slightly less but obviously I still jumped at the chance. I then had around a month or so to write a first draft which I needed to send in to him. He came back with some notes/suggestions which encouragingly didn't amount to me needing to make wholesale changes, and some were down to inexperience (for example I had the Doctor refer to some alien critters as buggers and he advised we wouldn't get that past the BBC so I think I changed it to devils). Anyhoo sent my second version in and he was happy with that. All had to be signed off by the BBC but that didn't take long, then last weekend I was invited to attend the recording. It was a fair distance but it's potentially such a once in a lifetime opportunity that I had to take it. Went to a small recording studio near Croydon. They were recording five short trips. Only myself and one other author was there. Then the editor, Ian, the guy who runs the studio and the actor Stephen Critchlow (who I shamefully didn't realise was a proper ac-tor until afterwards). Mine was the last recorded, it was an amazing experience because Stephen put so much emotion into my words, emphasising some parts I hadn't even realised needed emphasising and he put so much heart into the characters. If I had one disappointment I guess it was because mine was last and it'd been a long day and Stephen was clearly quite tired by this point, but that's a minor quibble and he was still great reading mine. It was interesting to see the process, how it tends to flow but then they'll pull him back and make him redo a line if there's been an error or if they wanted more emotion in a particular line or more/less humour. It was really facinating. A tiny bit of BF gossip as well, first off you get the impression that it's still not a huge money making machine (which I guess we all knew) and even getting Tennant on board hasn't been as succesful as they hoped. On the subject of Tennant he loves doing it but his agent has a tendency not to pass things along (because I guess it doesn't pay that well) and they seem to have the same issue with Matt. Matt says BF haven't approached him but apparently they've contacted his agent lots, the agent just isn't passing it along! As for the future, the impression I was given is that there may be the possibly of more BF work in the future but that it may take a while, they do seem to have a looong lead time.
Fantastic! I can't imagine the joy of having one's writing brought to life, even if just by one actor in a recording booth. Certainly makes me want to get back to writing myself. Kudos to Big Finish for inviting you to the recording session, even if it was far away, but here's the critical question: Did you get to experience the famous Big Finish lunches? Ugh, that's obnoxious. I think Tennant even mentioned that during the extras of the first set, which was part of the reason for the long wait (that and his busy schedule). Both he and Matt Smith need to knock some sense in their agents! Best of luck on future commissions!
I didn´t know that at all. I expected they were making more then enough money. This sounds as if they are struggling? Please...not another.."AudioGo".... Btw..The Tennant audios have been licensed by german audio publisher "BasteiLuebbe Audio" and will be published translated into german with the german TV dubbing cast (Tennant´s Voice Actor had to be replaced though..seems he passed away...)
I didn't remotely want to imply that they're in any kind of money troubles so sorry if I gave that impression. The impression I got is that they're ticking along just fine, they're just not making oodles of cash out of Who etc.
I know that most print publishing firms operate on very thin margins. The typical print author doesn't make much money at all and needs a day job. I'd imagine that the same would apply to Big Finish, which seems to match your description. They're probably doing fine in the context of publishing companies, but I'm sure they're not making oodles of profit.