Hi!
I am Grant The Hierophant.
Some may have seen my YouTube channel where I make shorts, video essays, and disparate ideas that come to me in the middle of the night. Others will know me on Newgrounds, (formerly a0puncfan), and also maybe because of my 2013 demo reel where I ramble for six minutes about the three voices I could do (for those curious, yes I got better, and yes, it now serves as a great example of what not to do).
But more recently some of you may know me as the guy who did Wizardo The Wonderful.
Wizardo The Wonderful started as a small challenge to myself.
I wanted to make content for Newgrounds but didn't have any skill in animation or drawing. What I did have, though, was a working microphone. I wanted to make something from nothing, so I decided to make an audio dramedy about a wizard who uses his magic to teach lessons to strangers. The twist would come in the latter half of the series where Wizardo started killing people, both out of "self defense" and because he had gotten a taste for blood.
Over the course of 12 episodes, we follow Wizardo's descent. Despite not having any jokes, I still labeled episodes 8-12 comedies... Which is the joke.
The reason I'm posting these here, in the forum specifically, is to show you that you can do quite a lot on a limited budget. Wizardo is the type of show that can be done with any microphone you can find lying around. How do I know this? Because, episode 3 involved such a case!
The special guest star for the episode was using a budget microphone that they mainly used for Discord calls. All I had to do was add a little bit of compression and reverb to make it sound nicer.
Wizardo, at its heart, is just two people talking to each other; Sometimes in funny voices, sometimes straight-faced. The bare minimum needed to make this show was a microphone and a program that let me master the audio. Obviously Audacity would be the first choice, but I used Pro Tools First (which is sadly discontinued) to record the episodes. I could have easily edited them in either of the listed programs, but since I'm stubborn I ended up taking them into Sony Vegas, a video editing program that I was familiar with. It was there where I stitched the episodes together.
A good idea for anyone making a project (of any kind) is to list what you want in your project. More than that, keep the scope of the project small. The fewer the people who work on it, the smaller it should be (with exceptions, obviously). That's why I decided to keep Wizardo episodes short, most having just a single page of script attached to them. I wanted to make something simple, episodes that I could easily put together in a few hours. I had some ambitious ideas, but decided to keep things streamlined for my first attempt at a series.
For Wizardo, I came across an obvious problem: Not everyone wants to hear me talk to myself for a minute every week for three months. The solution? Ask people if they wanted to help! This played into the serial nature of Wizardo well, as every episode could have a new person in need of help.
I'm grateful to everyone who has helped with the series up until this point. They went along with my silly idea for a show and helped bring life to the project. There were a few times where I was rather nervous to approach people, but I'm glad I reached out to them because they all seemed happy to help! Newgrounds offers a great platform for creatives, and most creators seem eager to help other creators! Don't be shy or nervous approaching anyone on the site and sending them a message. The worse they could say is no!
Here's a link to the full playlist if anyone's curious about Wizardo The Wonderful.
Creating Wizardo wasn't too hard, either. The process was simple once I broke it down.
First comes pre-production.
The show itself was spawned out of nothing. To start, I listed the things I would need. For one, I would need a script; It was at that point that I decided to make 12 episodes in total.
After the script came revisions. I waited a day after writing any given script to make sure I didn't come up with any more ideas that fit better with it.
Pre-production is the time you spend planning a project. It pays to spend a bit of time in this stage of any given project. You want to make sure you have everything in order so you don't waste time or resources in the future. For me, I didn't want to waste too much time writing and re-writing everything, so once I had things planned out and made sure I was happy with them, I ended pre-production.
Then came production.
Production is the time spent actually putting work towards making the project itself. For Wizardo, this would be the time where I recorded my lines and treated the audio. This is also the time where I found guest stars and other people willing to help me out with my series. Given the time-crunch of my self-imposed deadline, I tried to give actors as much notice in advance as I could. Some actors were not given much time to prepare, so I appreciate the two that worked with me in that regard.
Once I had the guest's lines for the episode, I would then move on.
Then it became post-production.
Post-production, in terms of filmmaking, is when you're done recording and move onto mastering and editing. For me, I mastered my audio while waiting for other people's submissions. Once I had what I needed, I would then move onto stitching together different takes and forming a cohesive story. This was also when I added sound effects like reverb (given the cave setting) and various sound effects.
I tried my best to make episodes in advance, but I was only ever two or three weeks ahead of schedule. The last episode, that is, episode 12, was recorded in mid-January, and finally released on February 22nd, and was the only one I was able to finish far in advance.
I learned from making this project that you should always put a lot of effort into planning. I rarely had to touch up scripts and, because I kept my scope rather small, I didn't run into any problems. It was worth it to make the script in advance, because it meant I wasn't going to be scrambling to write more if my life got busy. Having that buffer allowed me to keep on a schedule, which was also a nice outcome. It meant people could always depend on Wizardo coming out every other Monday, and every other Tuesday. It also meant that my mini-animations would reliably come out on Fridays, as I had a three-to-four day buffer to make these if I needed it.
Wizardo The Wonderful was a series that came out of nowhere, and I had done it solely to challenge myself creatively. If you feel like you're in a rut, I recommend making a silly audio show as well. Ideas came to me faster and faster the further into the series I got, and I was glad to have been able to post these and have people listen to them. If you're currently struggling creatively or you want to practice your voice acting, I suggest writing down some ideas! Be silly, have fun with it, and don't feel embarrassed if they don't turn out like you hoped. Every project is an opportunity to learn, improve, and hone your skills!
Thanks for giving this a read! I'm grateful to anyone who gave my little Wizard show a listen.
