The SiF Audio Adventures

This week sees the launch of the fifth SiF Audio Adventure - A Very SiF Crossover Adventure - so to mark the milestone, the SiF Blog is profiling the four previous SiF Audio Adventures, and explaining a bit more about them, and what went on behind the scenes and influenced the progression of things that happened.

About the SiF Audio Adventures
Since 2005 when SiF relaunched on Proboards, we've rolled out member-based adventures since December of that year. The idea is simple - members of the forum are represented as caricatures of themselves in the course of a audio play, which can either take the form of a serialised drama or a full block presentation. The first two audios were written as original pieces, often diverging into random gags rather than following a set plot line. The follow ups set in Victorian and Edwardian England have been adapted from classic fiction, but with original material and creative liscence placed upon them to boost the levels of interest.

The Quest For The Missing Christmas Presents
The Quest For The Missing Christmas Presents was Alaric's idea, who saw potential in writing a storyline for audio production featuring a concentration of popular and active members as the core character base. 2005 saw a great deal of Christmas related productions, and this one was one of the highlights of the year, which introduced Alaric and Jimbobdunnie as the main villains of the piece - stealing Christmas presents from the other members.

The original cast included Ryan, Christopher, The Old Bean, Eliot (Then Skarloey), Kate669, Chris, Alaric, Jimbobdunnie and Jim522, as well as a token appearance by Ciremi as a world renowned superhero with Chris The Xelent narrating. They ventured, they arrived, they were captured, they were rescued, they saved the day, they lived happily ever after and all the way there and back, they kept a sense of composure and class by cracking random gags and winding up in bizarre situations - and finding their co-stars in similarly odd occupations. The Old Bean drove an Ice Cream Van primarily in Winter, Kate669 was the Wise Woman of Wickington and Chris was the Mayor of Macksingsong - a town with a population of zero...

Needless to say - it was odd, it was random, but it was a success and it paved the way forward! :)

A Very SiF Summer Holiday
A Very SiF Summer Holiday was only intended to be an hour long, but subsequently over-ran time limits and ended up becoming a series of four 25 minute adventures, with a fifth 40 minute one. Following up Christmas Presents was something I wanted to do mainly because I felt the idea was good, and it would be a poor show to waste the potential. The creative process for Summer Holiday wasn't well thought out, nor was it entirely well structured. Originally, I had intended to write it alongside Alaric, but considering I had no solid idea of where we were going, he couldn't do much. The rest of the cast were encouraged to write material to bulk up the piece, most of which went in and got used, adding to the mish-mash that eventually became the final product. Added to the main cast were TheHalford, Gonzorelli, Jarrah White and Old Square Wheels, with Truro as the irate Mayor, trying to guide the town through the major crisis.

After three months in writing, Summer Holiday was released in June of 2006, charting the adventures of the SiF members from Christmas Presents as they moved to the sleepy seaside town of Beachingtown on Sea. Unknown to them, Jim522 has assumed control of the Evil Empire and wants to keep Ryan and Christopher in Beachingtown on Sea, while he and his cronies destroy it and turn it into an Australian themed holiday resort - Aussie World UK. He attempts to do this through keeping a Monster in the water near the town, and capturing Eliot and The Old Bean to conquer it completely by becoming The Bean Ranger...

How and ever, Ciremi, who now has Alaric in a giant tube as a floating head and Jimbobdunnie as a robot operative in his Command Base, makes a return and creates his own team, Power Rangers: Sodor Island Force, which take on The Old Bean and capture Old Square Wheels and Gonzorelli. This leads to a battle of wits when the team board the Submarine base to win their freedom in a gameshow called Who Doesn't Want To Get Blown 60,000 Feet Into The Air? hosted by SillyEvan, which Jim rigs to obliterate the opposing team by blowing up his own submarine. However, through devine intervention, they escape, take on the monster and win. Roll on a horrendous singalong to wind things up...

Summer Holiday was relatively well received, but The Old Bean wasn't as keen to follow up the epic writing scale - considering the randomness of the script, which I admit now was more or less pieced together "on the fly" over a period of months with no proper structure to go by. I'll admit myself, listening back to it, the lack of structure really lets the piece down. Chris The Xelent also felt type-cast in the narrative role, so the decision was taken for the next one to make major changes to carry on the legacy and make sure Summer Holiday and Missing Christmas Presents weren't simply the remnants of a failed enterprise.

A Very SiF Christmas Carol
Before Christmas, Alaric and I both had seperate ideas on how to follow Summer Holiday up - but found we both had one that could work together - an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We both agreed to abandon the characters of the modern day SiFiverse and to adapt the Dickens characters to suit - thus, memorable entities like Ebeanezer Scrooge and Jimbob Cratchit were born. To subsidise the storyline also, Alaric and I felt there was a need to include original characters, giving Scrooge added irritation in his life such as a Business rival across the road - Ryan Acrosstherode - and an irritating neighbour who thought he was wonderful - Chris Mastree, which took Chris The Xelent out of the narrative role and into a more active and animated one, which he excelled at. It also allowed for The Old Bean's original character from The Twin Engines audio series, Deirdre, to make a comeback and to be subsequently adopted for the SiF Audios!

Other elements of the story were changed to have people prominent in Scrooge's life portray the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future - taking the form of his former employer, his nephew and his irritating next door neighbour in sequence. The storyline followed the original much to the letter, with a few odd changes and original scenes here and there to add humour by myself and Alaric. It was a success and even impressed Bean enough to agree to do more, but most importantly, ensured the future of the SiF Audios in at least ONE capacity.

Crisis On Infinite Sodors
This was due to be followed up in the Summer of 2007 with Sodor Island Power Rangers: Crisis on Infinite Sodors, which never finished writing in time for script dispatch, owing to Loey Machan - the writer and originator - having an extensive University workload. It would have seen the Christmas Presents / Summer Holiday characters return again in 2007, but it was agreed on the basis of this delay that this be put back further to accomodate a further adventure to be written for Summer 2008.

In spite of it's delay - Infinite Sodors has played a major role in shaping the future audios, partiuclarly A Very SiF Crossover Adventure, which will be used to fill in a number of gaps and plotholes that Loey Machan's production had, which will be more thoroughly explained prior to Infinite Sodors going into production in Summer 2009. Thanks to the work Loey Machan had planned - future SiF Audios will be more storyline driven and withdraw from the random, gag-driven plots from the 2005/06 productions.

The SiF In The Willows
The SiF in the Willows was another adaptation, this time of Kenneth Graeme's The Wind in the Willows, which a number of the members had a real affection for. The original plan was to create new characters and seperate the universes again. But throughout the course of the writing in the early stages, it was clear that the Christmas Carol characters could thrive in a new setting and help to boost the standard of the audio play. So Scrooge and Acrosstherode were brought back with the Cratchit clan in tow, pursued by Jacob Malaric and Chris Mastree. The only one failing to make a comeback was Eliot, who had other commitments at the time of the audio - his disappearance is not explained in the course of the production. Scrooge and Acrosstherode were reinvented as car salesmen, selling the outlandish Mr Toad the Xelent a range of new motor vehicles, which ultimately led to his downfall, while Malaric popped up every now and again looking for Mr Ryan to get his pay cheque for his appearance in the audio!

The SiF in the Willows also righted something from the SiF Christmas Carol - in the fact that it wasn't created as one big audio, but split into three forty-five to fifty minute pieces, serialising the play over a three week release pattern.

In Retrospect
The progression of the audio series owes a lot to the input the cast give, influencing the way the audios go and the way in which they develop and grow accordingly. Without the reservations and requests of The Old Bean and Chris The Xelent particularly, the audios would never have gone the way they have and brought in some interesting and worthwhile new angles.

We move forward this week with the progression into the merging of the two SiFiverses, bringing them together for the most dramatic and storyline driven plot so far, as well as reintroducing some old favourites and bringing forth some new characters to join the fold. We look forward to sharing it with you!