Watch Me Entertain Myself!

Sacha Guitry once said, "You can pretend to be serious, but you can't pretend to be witty." Oh yes, I'm the great pretender.
(pilot episode: 20 January 2004)

Friday, August 10, 2007

The Making Of The TD&RS OBB

When Rye asked if I could do an OBB (a.k.a. “opening billboard”) for The Dan & Rye Show, I didn’t bother to ask if he was serious or just joking. I wanted to do an OBB for the funniest-duo-in-Philippine-podcasting-history-as-far-as-I-know.

Unfortunately I had already used the opening sequence of the dance remix of Fashionista for an OBB of my podcast; the shout-out “Everybody line up! The show is about to start!” would have been the perfect call-to-arms for TD&RS. So finding the music was of utmost importance. I wanted it energetic, to match the energy of the two hosts. I wanted it to be somewhat familiar too, so that the listeners have an immediate connection.

When I stumbled upon my old CD of dance hits of the 90s, I hit upon the infectious opening groove of Groove Is In The Heart by Deee-Lite. “We’re going to dance and have some fun!” was a perfect opening for Dan and Rye, who are both dancers. In the same CD was 2 Unlimited’s Get Ready For This; the title alone was perfect to connote an “Are you ready for Dan and Rye?” vibe.

Choosing the soundbites from 25 episodes of TD&RS season one was actually easier. I compiled almost 3 minutes worth of interesting snippets from several episodes—hindi ko na kinarir pakinggan lahat ng 25 episodes, noh!—before I started editing.

I never begin editing a project until I have a definite idea of how it will start; sometimes I also know how I it will end. But the middle is one big lemme-just-wing-it experiment. It’s this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants attitude that makes producing an OBB or a whole podcast exciting; there’s the joy and thrill of making things work that is so fulfilling for me.

When I finished the OBB, I thought it was already short with a running time of 1 minute 18 seconds. But when I let a couple of my friends hear it, one said it was too long for an OBB. And to think that I had already tossed out so many other great soundbites just to keep the running time short! So I bit the bullet and chopped it off by almost half.

And so here McVie’s OBB for The Dan & Rye Show, Season Two:


But of course I kept the longer original mix. So now I call it my “Ode To The Dan & Rye Show”. I especially had a problem with deciding which to edit out: the “Ibulong mo!/”Hindi ko narinig” upsound; or the “Aaaachooo!” upsound. It was a Solomonic dilemma—it felt like I had to cut a baby in half. In the end I kept both in.

So now here’s 1 minute and 18 seconds of McVie’s “Ode To TD&RS”:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely fabulous! :)

Nelson said...

You're right on instinct: the 41 sec is just perfect. I initially thought it would be better if it was cut further in half (ending it with them shouting "The Dan and Rye Shoooooow!"), but after listening to it again and again, it made sense to me to extend it a bit more he he.

May career ka na as a sound engineer! he he he!

cant_u_read said...

hindi ako magco-comment para hindi ako magmkukhang self-indulgent. pero magpapasalamat ulit ako nang taos-puso, in behalf of dan.

:-)