EB Romani Intro: Second try

Hello fellow EB players!
Here is my second attempt to publish an intro for the EB Romani's.
The first one was over at TWC and we(me and hooahguy) got pretty bad feedback, especially about the audio.
So now we even have two variation(one recorded by me and then editied, meaning it's not my real voice) and a second one by hooahguy(edited as well).
So I really do hope you like this one better, because it was pretty complicated making it.
And by the way, someone at twc said the city I showed was a Greek one, well, I actually did that in the custom battle map "Rome", the thread over at twc was deleted by a database error, unfortunately.
So well, here we go, here are the links:
Me
hooahguy
Due to some confusion: Both videos are in English

And if the feedback about the audio is too bad, I'm just gonna try to make the main intro movie, which will have no voice :)

So have fun with the videos, and don't be shy to suggest what we could've done better, but be polite :D

And don't forget to tell us which one you liked better and why.

Please respond, we really need feedback ;)

i just had to say this, to everyone, before they post their criticism:

As most of you know, there has been a lot of criticism about the first video we (Name and I) made, on topics ranging from video quality to the voice. I want to address the voice. Name and I are a two-man group, obviously, and we can only do so much in terms of voice. We aren’t like CA, who has many people of different accents at their disposal. We do not have that luxury. We have at our disposal two teens, one with a German accent and another with an American accent (which would be me). We don’t have a fancy recording studio like CA does for its audio. All we have is a very good program, Audacity, and a computer microphone to record voice with. That’s it for our “equipment” to do the audio. To add, our budget is much smaller than CA’s. After being introduced to EB, I, along with Name, decided we should try to give something back to the EB team and this wonderful mod by attempting to do an intro video for the Romani, as a token of gratitude for all their hard work.
thanks again, EB team! :2thumbsup:

You do realise that the bit about Carthage is entirely artistic speculation, though? ~;)

Other than something with the Voice (I thinks the music you choosed doesn't really permit any real voice acting on top of it, try mixing various themes and using a quiet one for the bits with voice acting in it), I cannot complain. If you could, it would be cool to do something with close ups too.

Some people write EB AAR's, others participate in the sceenshot competition; some help confused fans, and others make movies. (And some do all of it.) But they all add to the EB mod, and the community on the Org, or TWC or wherever. :2thumbsup:

EDIT: You guys do realise you've chosen the quiet time of day on the ORG? It's like owning a shop which opens at 02:00 and closes at 04:00. Not many customers then, are there? (In Europe it's right now, somewhere 01:20-ish; 02:20-ish or 03:20-ish. Americans (from Texas or north / west of Texas) will get back here at about 06:00-ish in GMT+1. (Western Europe time))

Looks pretty darn good. I knew i should have learned german
oh you have english version too (i feel dumb now lol) It is pretty cool, i dig it

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

You do realise that the bit about Carthage is entirely artistic speculation, though? ~;)

Other than something with the Voice (I thinks the music you choosed doesn't really permit any real voice acting on top of it, try mixing various themes and using a quiet one for the bits with voice acting in it), I cannot complain. If you could, it would be cool to do something with close ups too.

Some people write EB AAR's, others participate in the sceenshot competition; some help confused fans, and others make movies. (And some do all of it.) But they all add to the EB mod, and the community on the Org, or TWC or wherever. :2thumbsup:

EDIT: You guys do realise you've chosen the quiet time of day on the ORG? It's like owning a shop which opens at 02:00 and closes at 04:00. Not many customers then, are there? (In Europe it's right now, somewhere 01:20-ish; 02:20-ish or 03:20-ish. Americans (from Texas or north / west of Texas) will get back here at about 06:00-ish in GMT+1. (Western Europe time))

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I am from Austria, and I'm kinda night active, and you forgot to say which one you liked better!

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Looks pretty darn good. I knew i should have learned german
oh you have english version too (i feel dumb now lol) It is pretty cool, i dig it

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Both are English, watch both and tell us which one was better.

With both of the voices it sounds you're putting the accent (klemtoon in dutch) in some lines wrong

i'm not meaning the german, american, russia, chinese accent or what ever it's very hard to explain that in words maybe it's better to call it the tone of some words

try to talk a little bit from you're throat like you have a deeper voices and slower with a tone that you really mean

like you said "the enemy's of rome"

should be "the enemy's of rome"

(how bigger the letters how harder you say it)

i hope this is helpful it's so hard to explain and i'm so bad in technical english

anyway i'm impressed by the video i did video edithing myself before there were digital camara's so i know that you guys have invested a lot time in it

maybe we will get a competition of video intro's in the future a few things more and EB can make game box and put in the computer stores

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Originally Posted by name

I am from Austria, and I'm kinda night active, and you forgot to say which one you liked better!

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:gah2: hooahguy14 gets my vote.

Loose comments: both accents are, well, clearly audbile. ~;) Kinda fun, actually. However, you should try and pronounce your syllables more distinctively - from time to time you lapse to 'inner-mouth talking', the articulation basically should be more distinct.

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Originally Posted by Sassem

With both of the voices it sounds you're putting the accent (klemtoon in dutch) in some lines wrong

i'm not meaning the german, american, russia, chinese accent or what ever it's very hard to explain that in words maybe it's better to call it the tone of some words

try to talk a little bit from you're throat like you have a deeper voices and slower with a tone that you really mean

like you said "the enemy's of rome"

should be "the enemy's of rome"

(how bigger the letters how harder you say it)

i hope this is helpful it's so hard to explain and i'm so bad in technical english

anyway i'm impressed by the video i did video edithing myself before there were digital camara's so i know that you guys have invested a lot time in it

maybe we will get a competition of video intro's in the future a few things more and EB can make game box and put in the computer stores

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I noticed that too, from time to time the stressed syllable is located a bit weird. But I suppose you did things like ROme for emphasis, not out of 'ignorance'. Especially after the style-break between pre-Carthage and post-Carthage.

Not too bad a feedback for 03:10-ish GMT, eh? :juggle:

everyone knows the ancent romans had british accent- clearlly what you are trying to do is not going to work.

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Originally Posted by Sassem

With both of the voices it sounds you're putting the accent (klemtoon in dutch) in some lines wrong

i'm not meaning the german, american, russia, chinese accent or what ever it's very hard to explain that in words maybe it's better to call it the tone of some words

try to talk a little bit from you're throat like you have a deeper voices and slower with a tone that you really mean

like you said "the enemy's of rome"

should be "the enemy's of rome"

(how bigger the letters how harder you say it)

i hope this is helpful it's so hard to explain and i'm so bad in technical english

anyway i'm impressed by the video i did video edithing myself before there were digital camara's so i know that you guys have invested a lot time in it

maybe we will get a competition of video intro's in the future a few things more and EB can make game box and put in the computer stores

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Originally Posted by Riothamus

This idea of a more involved oppia is intriguing to me. Is it something that appears on the campaign map also?

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agreed, the emphasis you are putting on certain words (including rome) didnt sound right.

i dont mean to be rude or mean but the german version voice sounds like some kind of obscure heavy metal! i dont think you accent is ever going to work with this.

i dont know much about video editing, and i certainly wouldnt be able to do what you guys have done, but maybe you should see if someone else will do the accents for you? do you know anyone who has any experience public speaking or acting??

I'd say second one is better, the voice...just..sounds...more Roman...more or less, so it gets my vote

I think the intros would be best without any audible narration, unless someone has enough balls to pronounce them in the faction's native language. It would be a little weird that the only English you'd hear in game were in the intros. The only English voices in EB at the moment are the campaign map ones, the pre-battle speeches and the Greek and eastern "Run to deh hillz!", which will most likely be phased out in the future. Just a simple text narration would be the best and easiest in my mind.

An out of topic question for all the modders out there:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

How do I disable the vanilla Greek and eastern fleeing voices, ie. "Run away!", "Run to deh hillz!"? I've become so fed up with them that I tried muting all voices, but they are apparently considered "sound effects", so I've muted all sounds and am listening to random music from foobar instead when I play RTW. I tried it on my own and it lead to nothing, so someone here probably knows better.

Good morning,

Thank you guys @Tellos Athenaios, @KARTLOS you can explain it much better what i mean:2thumbsup:

Guys, well done for making an effort etc. etc., but I don't see this as coming close to making it into EB itself. Of course, I'm not on the team, but IMO its amateurish quality would jar horribly with the polished look of the rest of the mod. Especially when you consider that this would be one of the first things that people new to EB would see, it might immediately put them off. If you listen to the voice commands, they sound very realistic and don't have any background noise from a studio (I could still hear some "air", if you will, in the background); and the voices are crisp and don't sound like they're lines being read by a self-conscious teenager with the wrong accent.

name, your accent in this video wasn't as noticeable as hooahguy14's in the original, but I could still hear it, and either the distortion you applied to your voice or the fact that you mumbled (or didn't project well, if you like) made the actual words hard to understand, and there were some sections I didn't catch at all.

hooahguy14, it wasn't as bad as the original (I think) but I could still hear your accent and it really gets in the way. You also sound like you have a blocked nose, but that might just be your voice, I don't know. Next, your whole speech had an odd restrained quality to it, as if you were afraid to fully commit yourself to the recording - and, needless to say, it didn't help. Also, as other people have pointed out, the "ROme!" thing doesn't work.

I realise that you're a German and an American teenager respectively, and fair enough that you can't help having German and American accents, but that doesn't make the video any better. I am an appalling singer, and if I were to release a single, it would do terribly. However, complaining that it's "not fair" that I don't have a good voice would be an odd thing for me to then do. People shouldn't try to do something they're bad at - hence, I won't be launching a singing career any time soon, and you shouldn't do the voices for the EB Romani intro movie.

As for the rest of the video, the music was in places too loud and overbearing and your voices were drowned out; try something calmer and with a less obvious rhythm: something that would work nicely in the background, in other words, as the rhythm should be provided by your voices. Also, have larger armies in the shots and have them, perhaps, first marching through the streets of Rome (have them pass through an arch or go past an easily recognisable building), and then have them march across a large, open plain. Or something similar - make the "awe factor" build and make the end scenes look epic. Just make sure to get rid of the scene where the soldiers are marching round the corner of that big, random building. The viewer can't make out what it is and to me it looked Egyptian.

Perhaps it would be easiest just to get the people who recorded the voice commands to record a speech for the various factions (i.e. the Latin voicemod person/people could do the Romani intro speech; the Greek voicemod person/people could record speeches for Greek-speaking factions etc.), and then you guys could make the actual videos. The videos could have English subtitles, of course.

Alright, nice work here.

I liked Hooahguy's better, and I'll tell you why: he has the more mature voice of you two. It's deeper and more convincing. Name, your voice in the first movie sounds like you're trying too much to sound 'big', if you get what I mean.

Now I do want to add that I admire your efforts and guts. I would be embarrassed beyond control if I had to do a voice over like this. I have difficulty with people reading my school papers (History major), because I think they will think they suck. I have it even more so with voices. So, guys: awesome job and please keep improving it!

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Adventurer

Alright, nice work here.

I liked Hooahguy's better, and I'll tell you why: he has the more mature voice of you two. It's deeper and more convincing. Name, your voice in the first movie sounds like you're trying too much to sound 'big', if you get what I mean.

Now I do want to add that I admire your efforts and guts. I would be embarrassed beyond control if I had to do a voice over like this. I have difficulty with people reading my school papers (History major), because I think they will think they suck. I have it even more so with voices. So, guys: awesome job and please keep improving it!

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I just talked and most likely over applied flters with audacity.
I have it too, and so it's good noone will notice me because of the filters ~:rolleyes:

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As for the rest of the video, the music was in places too loud and overbearing and your voices were drowned out; try something calmer and with a less obvious rhythm: something that would work nicely in the background, in other words, as the rhythm should be provided by your voices. Also, have larger armies in the shots and have them, perhaps, first marching through the streets of Rome (have them pass through an arch or go past an easily recognisable building), and then have them march across a large, open plain. Or something similar - make the "awe factor" build and make the end scenes look epic. Just make sure to get rid of the scene where the soldiers are marching round the corner of that big, random building. The viewer can't make out what it is and to me it looked Egyptian.

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It's the wall of the city for god's sake, and it's a Roman city, why does noone notice that ^^

By the way, there must be somebody here that can do the voices better, so please if you think yours would sound better just record yourself saying this and contact me, thanks!

I think the others have covered the faults of the videos themselves. I admire you for putting this out there, that takes guts.

However, as Romani FC I have to say that I simply don't like it. "finding new enemies" and to expand into just sounds, well, silly.

There was no mention of Aeneas, or The People of Rome, the Res Publica, Father Romulus and Mars only gets one mention. Also calling the city "Rome" doesn't gell. In-game it's always "Roma" and Italy is "Italia."

I'm sorry but the whole tone of the speech and content are at varrience with the way we have depicted the Romans.

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Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla

I think the others have covered the faults of the videos themselves. I admire you for putting this out there, that takes guts.

However, as Romani FC I have to say that I simply don't like it. "finding new enemies" and to expand into just sounds, well, silly.

There was no mention of Aeneas, or The People of Rome, the Res Publica, Father Romulus and Mars only gets one mention. Also calling the city "Rome" doesn't gell. In-game it's always "Roma" and Italy is "Italia."

I'm sorry but the whole tone of the speech and content are at varrience with the way we have depicted the Romans.

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• Calling the city Roma breaks the style, it sounds stupid mixed into English.
• Where does one say "finding new enemies"?
• And yes I know, the script is not the best, but try mentioning all of the things you said in a short video.
• And well, it was just a try, I trained my video editing skills a bit and if it's not liked then, whatever.
• Ah btw, Mars is mentioned twice, Jupiter once

Anyway I think I'm gonna drop the thing as I don't see it leading anywhere...

Good day.

the most important of all is that you enjoy it to make such into's

have in mind that you asked it in a forum (EB) with über perfectionist all over the place

So you did throw yourself in front of (hungry) lions with a potato knife as defence

Well, if you tried a movie without Voice Over and focussed on the GFX & background/ theme building music first?

EDIT: And as Sassem just pointed out ^^

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Originally Posted by I Am Herenow

hooahguy14, it wasn't as bad as the original (I think) but I could still hear your accent and it really gets in the way. You also sound like you have a blocked nose, but that might just be your voice, I don't know. Next, your whole speech had an odd restrained quality to it, as if you were afraid to fully commit yourself to the recording - and, needless to say, it didn't help. Also, as other people have pointed out, the "ROme!" thing doesn't work.

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im so sorry "I Am Herenow," but i stutter, so i have to restrain my voice a bit.
as for the "Rome" part, i cant really help that- its an american thing. :tongue3:

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

You do realise that the bit about Carthage is entirely artistic speculation, though? ~;)

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we based the diplomatic stances on the game, since its presumably very accurate, which im sure it is, and at the start, Carthage is the romanis allies.

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Originally Posted by Sassem

have in mind that you asked it in a forum (EB) with über perfectionist all over the place

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we would have posted it in the TWC forums, but its kinda "dead" (as in not many people are posting there) so we posted here for the most feedback :2thumbsup:


overall, thanks for the feedback so far, we would do a third version of the video, but its really quite stressful and i start school in (looks at watch) 4 days...... ~:mecry: so it would be really hard to do another one. sorry. :shame:

ok, what do people think about doing text narration, as Thaatu suggested?

By all means. Remember that the more you do these, the more practise you get, the better you get at this and finally you'll get drafted into the team as the official intro duo. :beam:

but then of course, i lose my job, because Name did the video- i did the audio.

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Originally Posted by hooahguy14

but then of course, i lose my job, because Name did the video- i did the audio.

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*nelson* nah-ha
Seriously, don't you think a video without voice'd be boring?

Hi guys, I decided to take a look at your videos. My opinion is that an into video for the Romans in 272 bc should not mention Carthage as an enemy of Rome, in that time we where at peace. The video will be best with a screen shot of the eternal city, and its legions marching for battle. A battle scene of the legions defeating Epirus, crashing his army , RTR into movie had a battle scene of the Romans against the Selucid, something like that will be great. Also the voice on the second movie was far better.

Keep up the good work.:2thumbsup:

Cheers.

we never mention that we are at war with carthage in the movie. idk wat ur talking about.

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Originally Posted by Reno Melitensis

Hi guys, I decided to take a look at your videos. My opinion is that an into video for the Romans in 272 bc should not mention Carthage as an enemy of Rome, in that time we where at peace. The video will be best with a screen shot of the eternal city, and its legions marching for battle. A battle scene of the legions defeating Epirus, crashing his army , RTR into movie had a battle scene of the Romans against the Selucid, something like that will be great. Also the voice on the second movie was far better.

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It's says "pretends to be our ally, but denies us to expand into Sicily".

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Originally Posted by Reno Melitensis

Keep up the good work.:2thumbsup:

Cheers.

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At least someone saying that :D

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Originally Posted by hooahguy14

we based the diplomatic stances on the game, since its presumably very accurate, which im sure it is, and at the start, Carthage is the romanis allies.

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What I meant is that parts such as "our allies, but denies us to expand into Sicily" and "will we let THEM decide OUR expansion?!" very strongly hint at the Punic Wars. And it so happens, that neither Rome nor Carthage had an inkling of these wars to come, by 272 BC. ~;)

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

What I meant is that parts such as "our allies, but denies us to expand into Sicily" and "will we let THEM decide OUR expansion?!" very strongly hint at the Punic Wars. And it so happens, that neither Rome nor Carthage had an inkling of these wars to come, by 272 BC. ~;)

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It's a hint for the player so he knows that going into sicily means war ;)

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Originally Posted by name

• Calling the city Roma breaks the style, it sounds stupid mixed into English.
• Where does one say "finding new enemies"?
• And yes I know, the script is not the best, but try mentioning all of the things you said in a short video.
• And well, it was just a try, I trained my video editing skills a bit and if it's not liked then, whatever.
• Ah btw, Mars is mentioned twice, Jupiter once

Anyway I think I'm gonna drop the thing as I don't see it leading anywhere...

Good day.

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You've missed my point. You focused on the strategic situation but you haven't said very much about the Romani, who they are, what drives them.

I actually thought name's voice acting was usually better, except that you turned into mumbling sometimes, and when the loud battle tune came on, I couldn't hear a word you were saying.

I would affirm the suggestions that you work on a movie without voiceover for the moment. I mean, feel free to keep trying the voice over, but some good quality shots using the movie-cam would help a lot. Units marching along a road, armor glinting, the sweeping view of Roman coming down to see a legion marching down the main road and out the gates, a few close-in and wide-angle shots of a large battle with Hellenes, Samnites, and/or Celts. Stick to zoomed out or zoomed in shots, the mid-range shots, like what we see in battles during the game, just aren't as impressive.

I'm glad to see someone doing this, you have far more skill with video editing than I do.

[QUOTE=name]It's says "pretends to be our ally, but denies us to expand into Sicily".

Sorry my mistake, yes they where allies because they needed Rome support against Epirus. Cheers.

Good evening!
I´d like to give you some suggestions to your video(s).

Due the fact that both are nearly the same (cutting and stuff), the only real difference is the narrated text.

I´ll start with the movie itself:

Cutting:
Well, for an intro, you have to "prepare" the player for the choosed faction.
And of course you must tell something about your faction.

You can get this at the end if you use more "epic" effects, like:

- _SLOW_ and _SOFT_ fade in/fade out effects, your cutting was almost too "hard"

- "Epic" music which fits the choosen faction, e.g. if you take some celt faction you must use some celt music of course. And then you have to watch out that the music fits the shown scenes. It definitive kills all emotions if you use fancy battle music at a battle line-up scene.

A tip: try to make the intro´s to the music. Dont record some scenes first and then search music with barely fits to it. Its a horrible no-go!

If you decide to synchronize your movie, then make sure that you have some native language speaker at hand. Rome is somewhat easy, cause latin is still taught at (like mine, german) schools. But if you want to synchronize something like Carthage, then you´ll might get a problem. So i suggest not to synchronize it (first).

And spam your movie with effects!!
Go and buy some composing(sp?) software like adobe after effects, and work with it for a month. After you feel comfortable with it, try to improve your videos with some filters (you can make some really cool stuff with software like this, but i´ll keep it as my secret ;) ).


But the king of the kings are rendered movies.
Well you might think "omgz0r liek warcraft??ß", but...uhm..no.
It´s way nearly impossible to create a rendered intro alone in a timescale with dont owns your real life, so the only real way to use this technique is only to use some rendered scenes.

E.g: The prince speaks to his father (rendered), then cut into RTW engine.
Sounds easy, but its really hard to create.


Well, i hope i could help you a bit for your next projects, cant wait to see it!

Best regards,
Julian


(Concurrently part of the eastern workgroup for (Intro´s) EB (even if my sig dont works here))

hey peeps (first post woooo) as soon as I saw something involving a narrated intro I was interested, since I reckon EB definitely NEEDS a voiced intro for each faction, and I gotta say (despite everything that people here have pointed out) you did a pretty good job of it. Admittedly if I had done the voice acting I would have put on an accent (Italian or Greek, since they're the closest to Roman accents...what WAS a Roman accent?!) and I agree with...whoever it was that said Rome should be called Roma and Italy Italia, but that aside, awesome job for a coupla lads who weren't getting paid for this.

PS-I actually wanna try and put up my own attempt, but I'm not a computer genius, can someone tell me how to get this done? Cheers!

Good effort fellas! Keep doing it and enjoying the process.
Anywho I got a couple of tips that WILL help you out.

1-) For the script try to use more of the stuff in the Romani's page.
here:
https://www.europabarbarorum.com/factions_romani.html

2-) To help the voice sound more "manly" do the following.
-Speak from you CHEST not your throat. You should feel the vibrations on your chest.
---To do this, stand up straight. Don't slouch!! If u want u may sit, but standing is easier and better.
---Also, breath into your diaphragm, that is breath into your stomach, not ur chest.
-Open your mouth when you talk.

3-) Before you speak, warm up your vocal cords by singing someting like "La, La, La, Laaaa" (its cheese but it works). You do a few warm ups going from medium to high voice, and then from medium to low voice.

4-) Finally another thing you could do, is to find some of your friends who are in theater and tell them to teach you how to project your voice.

Good luck fellas!

1) try to fit all of that into 1:28 of video. we couldnt. :2thumbsup:
2) please refer:

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Originally Posted by hooahguy14

Name and I are a two-man group, obviously, and we can only do so much in terms of voice. We aren’t like CA, who has many people of different accents at their disposal. We do not have that luxury. We have at our disposal two teens, one with a German accent and another with an American accent (which would be me). We don’t have a fancy recording studio like CA does for its audio. All we have is a very good program, Audacity, and a computer microphone to record voice with. That’s it for our “equipment” to do the audio.

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3)..... dont really have a response to that.
4) the only friend i have who is in theater is a girl, sorry. :tongue3:

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Originally Posted by hooahguy14

4) the only friend i have who is in theater is a girl, sorry. :tongue3:

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if you don't try you will never know

that girl is my 8 year old cousin.... not suitible, to say the least.

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Originally Posted by hooahguy14

that girl is my 8 year old cousin.... not suitible, to say the least.

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:oops: :beam:

lol! all is forgiven! :tongue3: :rtwyes:

I see... but I would recommend u give a try to breathing and speaking from your chest. Try it out you will see a difference.

the 3rd point is just a "warm up" for you vocal cords, it also helps to practice the breathing and speaking (or singing).

NeoSpartan's right, I think. Got to be louder, more assertive.

Also, according to GamingSteve in his podcast, he uses his bathroom because he can't afford a studio or something to that nature. Does him fairly well.

I think the script was ok. If you stick to the speech format, though, and I think you should, it should be even more rhetorical, to make it feel Roman, and more relevent to what's going on.