Awesome Phantom stuff!
So yesterday I signed on to PhantomoftheOpera.com, and found in one of the threads there a link to a really awesome project! Only the introduction and Chapter 1 are done yet, but a group of Phans have gotten together and decided to produce an audio-book of the complete original LeRoux novel! Dramatized too, with different people reading the roles of the different characters and even some sound effects! I cannot wait till they get more chapters up. I've heard several audio-book versions of the novel, Three abridgements, two complete, and exerpts from another complete. And this is shaping up to be far and away the best of the lot. Significantly, it is shaping up to be by far the best of the unabridged audio-book versions out there. As for whether it tops Anton Rogers's abridged reading , which is my favourite reading so far, that will depend on the voices cast for Erik and Christine. But if they're as good as the narrator, who by the way has imo a very sexy voice, then it should equal or top it easily! The chapters presently up do not yet have either Erik or Christine in them though, so I'll have to wait and see.
I love it that a bunch of Phans, using just their time and home computers that they've volunteered for the project, have been able to out-do major audio-book companies, like Audio Books Incorporated, Blackstone Audio and Naxos, who have huge budgets to produce their books with. And it's so cool to put voices to some of the screen-names that I know from various message boards, and to know that this, the original novel, is being read and dramatized all by people who love Phantom as much as I do. Woohoo! I like to think that I can even hear their love of Phantom in the way they read.
There's music with it too! Each chapter opens with a piece which is apparently from Faust, done on midi but still very high quality. Then at the end, each chapter closes with a piece which is apparently original, composed specifically for the project, and which is played live on a real cello, though the accompaniment is still midi. It's really well done!
In other exciting Phantom news, I finally figured out how to get Windows Media Player to play my Gerik DVD, and even how to get the French track! Yay! Now I know that that probably doesn't sound like much to sighted users. But trust me, when you can't use the mouse and so have to execute every action through the keyboard, and also can't see what's happening on the screen to know whether or not the thing is responding, it is quite an achievement! Normally, my screen-reader speaks all menues, buttons, prompts, etc. But it can't read the DVD menues that show up in the video window, so it's really a lot of guesswork. So I basically watched my Gerik in French all through Friday night and Saturday.
Anyway, off to go do some school shit, and organize Mom's Christmas present. I had hoped that money would interveen so that I could buy her one, and was about to give in to my laziness and not organize the one I was going to organize for her. For which I'm very mad at myself and feeling very guilty! But thankfully, God isn't going to let me get away with that one. At this point, I'll be happy if there's enough money left over after I buy the presents for my Dad, Step-Mom, half-brother, Step Grandmother and Aunt, for Christmas dinner. So I'd better organize my real Mom's gift if I want her to have one! And I do.
I love it that a bunch of Phans, using just their time and home computers that they've volunteered for the project, have been able to out-do major audio-book companies, like Audio Books Incorporated, Blackstone Audio and Naxos, who have huge budgets to produce their books with. And it's so cool to put voices to some of the screen-names that I know from various message boards, and to know that this, the original novel, is being read and dramatized all by people who love Phantom as much as I do. Woohoo! I like to think that I can even hear their love of Phantom in the way they read.
There's music with it too! Each chapter opens with a piece which is apparently from Faust, done on midi but still very high quality. Then at the end, each chapter closes with a piece which is apparently original, composed specifically for the project, and which is played live on a real cello, though the accompaniment is still midi. It's really well done!
In other exciting Phantom news, I finally figured out how to get Windows Media Player to play my Gerik DVD, and even how to get the French track! Yay! Now I know that that probably doesn't sound like much to sighted users. But trust me, when you can't use the mouse and so have to execute every action through the keyboard, and also can't see what's happening on the screen to know whether or not the thing is responding, it is quite an achievement! Normally, my screen-reader speaks all menues, buttons, prompts, etc. But it can't read the DVD menues that show up in the video window, so it's really a lot of guesswork. So I basically watched my Gerik in French all through Friday night and Saturday.
Anyway, off to go do some school shit, and organize Mom's Christmas present. I had hoped that money would interveen so that I could buy her one, and was about to give in to my laziness and not organize the one I was going to organize for her. For which I'm very mad at myself and feeling very guilty! But thankfully, God isn't going to let me get away with that one. At this point, I'll be happy if there's enough money left over after I buy the presents for my Dad, Step-Mom, half-brother, Step Grandmother and Aunt, for Christmas dinner. So I'd better organize my real Mom's gift if I want her to have one! And I do.