November 26, 2006
Why is This Woman Smiling?
Team NoEvil
Kat Caverly is finally happy to announce that she has won her battle against the street noises
of Hell's Kitchen by installing a WhisperRoom in NoEvil's studio. Yes she has won the sound
isolation battle but the war for the cleanest sound quality has not yet been won.
Acoustics is all about blocking, isolating, and absorbing sound; getting things just the way
you want them to sound and in our case it is called a DRY sound. A make shift sound booth
created by grip stands and sound blankets created a really dry (dead) sound which was great,
but that offered little sound isolation and no sound blocking.
The WhisperRoom offers a great solution for sound isolation and a good bit of sound blocking,
but it isn't sound-proofing. And the surfaces are not very good at sound absorption, so you must
add acoustical foam. How much depends on how much you want to deaden the "reflection" of
sound and inthe case of voiceovers we wanted as much control as possible and a dry, dry
sound. So we are covering the walls, ceiling and even the windows with Auralex Studiofoam.
And we added a sound blanket to the floor.
To isolate the vocal artist and the microphone, we are using an Auralex GRAMMA as a platform,
and a SE Reflexion filter. It is all about the sound and achieving the sound the producer, director,
and sound designer are trying to create.
We added additional sound blankets around the studio; in front of the doors, behind the
engineer's workstation, covering windows, and rack of computers with their noisy hard drives.
All combined gives us an affordable control over our sound.
And that is why this woman is smiling!
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:56 PM
November 21, 2006
Subpoena Power, the game wins the Jury Prize!
By TEAM NoEvil
We are so very proud to announce that Subpoena Power, the game was chosen for the October Jury Prize by Huffingtonpost.com's Contagious Festival.
As the Judge says,
"We the people may have been taking this great democratic republic too much for granted. Perhaps we’ve been too trusting, or cynical, or too lazy, or busy. Perhaps we’ve been behaving like consumers and not citizens. Perhaps we’ve been misled and it is not our fault.
But it is time to realize that democracy is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition, time to recognize that we can’t claim to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people just because it’s on T.V.
We need to vote. We need to know what is done in our name, and we have to remind the politicians that they work for us. We have to stand up and tell them that we will toss them out on their ear if they forsake their oath.
In that oath the one and only thing they swear to defend is the Constitution. That’s not the musty old parchment in the cellar, nor is it a fairytale essay of utopian abstractions. It is the actual design and constitution of a fair and righteous government. It’s a brilliant, enlightened design, and those famous framers thought it through very carefully. It still makes sense, because wisdom like that weathers well.
Yet some of the current crop of leaders presume they know better. Treading upon the Constitution, they defend themselves and their money, their friends, and their power, all the while proclaiming they do so for us.
Just to be clear, ours is a non-partisan position. A Democrat can believe in the republic, and a Republican can believe in democracy, but we believe that neither a conservative nor a liberal can claim to be happy with the 109th congress, unless that person is ill informed, or insincere. This is about the principles and provisions of the U.S. Constitution, not the political parties per se. It is the scoundrel of any stripe that we must turn out of office.
The public political discourse is such a disgraceful mix of misinformation and poisoned rhetoric that we prefer to ignore it entirely and return to first principles. Parties, after all, come and go, but common sense, common decency, the golden rule, All men being created equal - such ideas, the ones we hold to be self evident - cut through the muck of politics. You don’t need a politician to explain them, and you don’t have to be a scholar to understand them, because they are already written on your soul. That is what “self evident” means."
Insist on the Truth!
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:36 PM
November 13, 2006
Love Your President
By THOMAS HUDSON REEVE
In “Love Your President” the NoEvil team has made fun of the President of the United States. While most viewers have enjoyed or even cheered our effort, a few felt it was somehow unfair, and it is to their opinion I want to respond to here.
Satirizing, criticizing, and even being quite rude towards the powerful is an honorable tradition in the United States. In the words of Finley Peter Dunne, “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” Otherwise known as sticking up for the little guy, but there is really more to it than that.
When a monarch proclaims that his rule over the people is legitimate because God has anointed him to run earthly affairs, to speak against the King is blasphemy.
In a democracy the people elect the Chief Executive, and his/her authority is derived from the consent of the people governed. Therefore we balance between the respect we feel for the Office of President, and the calling to task of the person we have entrusted with the job. He works for us, but we are supposed to follow him. He leads us, but only if it is where we want to go.
Lord Acton’s axiom that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” has become the most succinct expression of the underlying principle that justifies making fun of the powerful.
The equality of each citizen before the law means that the powerful do not have special rights, even if their job as special powers.
So when they become puffed up, we poke them with pins. When they get high and mighty, we knock them down a notch. When they get too comfortable, we take away the pillows. When they begin to believe they are better than everyone else, we beg to differ.
If they are smart enough to try to be a little humble by listening to the people, we are grateful and we honor them, but if they persist in arrogance then we will answer with our contempt – Not for the Office of the President, but for the individual’s misunderstanding of that Office and it’s power, and their obligation to us, the citizens, from whom their authority flows.
Posted by photocartoonist at 2:21 AM