Quote Originally Posted by jubbajam View Post
I have listened to we're alive 10 times all the way through. I love it. However, lockdown has taken so long to come out I'm starting to lose interest. In the preview the old characters were awesome but the new characters were terrible actors almost like over acting the parts. Just release lockdown already... The editing in we're alive was great, why are you spending so much time and money with this editing. .. you should have spent that money on actors. .. no offense. . The prisoners that were holding this guy were played so bad it was disappointing. .. I loved we're alive so much and have been waiting like 2 years for lockdown so I'm still waiting. . Plus you have my $50 donation. ..lol
Hi JubbaJam
Few things I wanted to let you know, in response to your inquiry. Most of the characters you meet in the preview are not main characters, just supporting. The meat of the story, and the cast, you have yet to experience. To eat their own whether one doesn't like the performances or not, but this scene is also not the final version.

Why is it taking so long?
The editing in We're Alive "A story of Survival", while it may have appeared to many as great, it was not a sustainable production model that we could continue into another project. Every episode of We're Alive I was editing took place the week before it aired, nightly Monday to Thursday till very late, and after my 8 to 5 job. It was a labor of love, but took an incredible amount of my own personal time to see across the finish line every week. It didn't allow me to spend as much time as I'd like writing as I had to fit it all into a production schedule, or even have much of a social or family life outside the production. My ultimate goal has never been to be an editor, but a writer, editing was just something I'm fast and good at.

Still, why is it taking forever to make? Few reasons. First is, we never planned for it to take this long. We brought our first editor on during the recording session, had this person all on board, and then they bailed on the project right at launch. It was incredibly disheartening, but we moved on and found another editor about a month later. The idea was to have someone else focus on editing Lockdown, so that I could then put my attention on writing more stories. I also knew that I would have far less time to devote to the editing in post production as my wife got more and more pregnant. I set on the new editor's contract the deadlines that I wanted to have everything done by, and that was Jan 1st. Unfortunately, the 2nd editor was not able to keep up with that schedule, and ended up costing us even more time in post production. The amount and quality of work done, I was not expecting to fall so short. I had to let that editor go as there was no way the project would be done by April at the rate they were going.

Time became even more problematic as my son was born on the first of Jan, and that first month was completely taken over by everything that comes along with having a newborn child and being a first time father.

As of right now, our new plan is in action, and has been going very well. We're editing solid every day from morning till night; Grayson has now taken over as primary editor, and myself focusing in on voice cuts. Voice cuts in particular are much more difficult this go around as we recorded more dialogue choices, and also I'm spending a lot more time focusing on pacing and the overall flow of the scenes. Certain dialogue segments that weren't perfect, are being marked for pickups to be re-recorded, another thing time didn't allow us to do during the main series.

At the same time, while post production is going on for Lockdown, I'm prepping for my next audio drama after this one(due out this fall), working on establishing a working business model so we aren't doing this part time any more, and I'm also developing content, outlines and characters for my next major series #tmm. Kickstarter is great and we do appreciate the support, but I don't want to do a campaign for every new production coming online, or continue to try and manage doing this still from a part-time position.It may seem like it should be easy to make Lockdow with the amount of money we raised via kickstarter, but it's really not. The money is spent on actors (which are union), union dues, studio time, music composition, production assistants, lodging and transportation, insurance, editors, artwork creation and licensing, reward manufacturing.... etc. And I don't get paid at all from any Kickstarter funds.

Yes, there's delays, and I knew there might be, which is why I never set forth a deadline of when it would be done on kickstarter, only when we hope it to be completed by. If plan A would have worked, we might not be having this conversation right now, but that's how productions go sometimes. Instead of pushing for "fast" and injecting a bunch of money like big studios can do, we're pushing the release date back so that we can focus on the quality. Our new release date of April just happened to work out perfectly with a new opportunity for distribution as that's just about how soon we can get it done. Even then, when episode 1 comes out, we'll still be working on later parts. Hopefully we can stay ahead.

So there's the long skinny of it, and probably more than you were expecting. One thing I'm trying to be is very transparent about what we're doing and what's going on to keep people patient. I know two years may seem like a long time from the announcement of "Tales" after the finale, but really there's not a day that goes by that I'm not working my ass off on this stuff, I promise.

Hang in there and I hope you like Lockdown when it's done. I think it's going to be great, but like any other medium that adds onto an existing series, not everyone is gonna be happy. Most of you will like it, though.