Recent changes Random page
GAMING
Entertainment
 
Star Trek
Transformers
Harry Potter
 Twilight Saga
Terminator
Ghostbusters
See more...

Joe Harrison

From Star Wars Fanworks

Jump to: navigation, search
Joe Harrison

Birthdate November 23, 1987
Location New Jersey
Production Occupation Producer / Actor
Since 2005
Production Company Lion's Mouth Entertainment

Joe Harrison is a Star Wars Fanworks audio producer and has been since 2005. He is best known for his award-winning 5-part saga, Conquest of the Empire. He is also best known for frequently changing his production company names. Currently, however, he has settled with Lion's Mouth Entertainment and hopes that it will be the last name-change.

Harrison currently lives in New Jersey.

Contents

[edit] Early Influences

[edit] Older Siblings

Harrison's earliest influences and introductions to the realm of audio dramas actually came from his older brother (Timothy Harrison) and older sister, both of whom, when they were younger, used to record "radio dramas" onto an audio cassette. Albeit, they were never serious dramas, but rather parodies; but they were an influence all the same.

[edit] Following in Their Footsteps

Harrison and his sister (Silas Carder) mimicked their older siblings by also recording radio dramas onto audio cassettes. And this went on for quite a while until Harrison's early teens.

[edit] Real Audio Dramas

By this time, he had discovered real audio dramas. And it all began with High Bridge Audio's Star Wars: Dark Forces, based on the graphic novels by William C. Deitz that bridge the events of the LucasArts' PC games, Dark Forces and Jedi Knight. This audio trilogy would make a profound impact on Harrison's life, inspiring him to write stories in the Star Wars setting. Soon after, Harrison became aware of other official audio dramas, such as: Tales of the Jedi, Dark Lords of the Sith, Dark Empire, Crimson Empire, and finally Brian Daley's National Public Radio productions of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. By now, Harrison has also heard Nightlily: The Lover's Tale, Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell, and Empire's End, leaving only We Don't Do Weddings: The Band's Tale and Dark Empire II before Harrison has officially heard all the official audio dramas.

[edit] Star Wars Fanworks

[edit] Introductions

Harrison's introduction to Star Wars Fanworks, like many other listeners, was Rayzur's Edge Audio's Second Strike. However it was not during the fan audio drama's initial release, but some time in 2003-04. At this time, Harrison also listened to Ted Alderman's audio adaptation of Resurrection and Michael Sheridan's The Logan Chronicles: The Lost Patrol. He also caught up on episodes of Nathan P. Butler's ChronoRadio and the beloved Digital Llama Radio.

While he continued to listen to the radio shows, Harrison drifted away from Star Wars Fanworks until 2005.

[edit] Conquest of the Empire

Harrison saw Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on opening day in the theaters, May 2005, and was absolutely stunned by it. This final installment in the Prequel Trilogy would play another profound part in his life, as it prompted him to get back into writing novels. Upon returning home from the theater, Harrison immediately turned on his computer and began writing a novel entitled Conquest of the Empire. But little did he know that, while the story would continue, the format would change drastically.

In the early days of June 2005, Harrison contacted Star Wars Fanworks creator Nathan P. Butler with a number of questions on how an audio drama is made. Butler helpfully pointed him to the freeware sound editing program Audacity (which Harrison still uses as his primary mixer to this day). Harrison also went out and bought a PC microphone (he still uses the same one today). Now he was all set.

Within a day, Harrison had a 10-12 page script written for the first chapter of his new and first audio drama series, Conquest of the Empire. And within about a week's time, Harrison had finished the audio drama (with himself performing all the male roles, and his sister, Silas, performing all the female roles). He contacted Butler again to ask about file-hosting, which Harrison did not have. Another problem at the time was that Harrison did not have an MP3 encoder on his computer. So the audio file was in .WAV format, with a size of about 99MB.

Butler offered the assistance of Star Wars Fanworks in hosting the file. But next there was the problem of getting the file to him. Harrison and Butler met on AOL® Instant Messenger and began what was going to be (or would have been) a long file transfer (Harrison, at this time, was still working from a Windows® 98 and had a 56k Dial-Up Modem. A couple hours after the transfer began, Harrison had to break the connection due to his computer overheating.

But, once again, Butler came to the rescue with another freeware program called Switch that could convert .WAVs to .MP3s. The program worked, the file was down to 9MB, and after a couple more trials and errors, Conquest of the Empire: Chapter I was officially released on June 15, 2005. Little did everyone know (including Harrison himself) that this was the beginning of a long haul.

Over the next couple of months, Harrison decided that he wanted to cast new actors into the production, rather than having just himself and his sister do all the voices. And so, Chapter II: Fortitude & Redemption was released, with an additional cast of Nathan P. Butler, Bryan Patrick Stoyle, Eric Olp, Mike Lane, and Rod Barnes. It was also in this sequel that Harrison's mixing capabilities began to improve, however slighty.

By the third installment, Chapter III: Perseverance & Purpose, many stated that Harrison had reached the height of his mixing capabilities. This would continue into Chapter IV: Hope Rises & Darkness Falls and finally in Chapter V: Triumph & Tragedy. Upon witinessing how well his mixing was accepted by listeners, this would inspire Harrison to return to the series a just a few months.

[edit] Special/Remastered Editions

While producing the final two chapters of the series, Harrison began to toy with the idea of redoing Chapter I: Defense & Trepidation as a Special Edition, and so he began work on a new script. Shortly after the series' conclusion in July 2006, Harrison had completed a new 20-30 page script for Chapter I. To promote the upcoming Special Edition, Harrison had Star Wars Fanworks veteran Steve Fluharty record a narration for an audio promo. But while this promo announced the coming of Chapter I, it also announced the coming of a Remastered Edition of Chapter II.

In December 2006, the original Chapter I was "erased from memory" and replaced by the Special Edition version, which featured a full cast. Soon after, Harrison also began work on Remastered Editions, not only for Chapter II but for Chapter III as well. And with the release of the latter, Conquest of the Empire at last officially came to an end.

But Harrison was no where near finished with audio dramas. It was during this time that he was working on scripts for two other audio dramas; one Star Wars, the other an original.

[edit] High Stakes

High Stakes was written in inspiration of Michael May's Smuggler's Run audio drama. In fact, both stories share similar plots involving two smugglers seeking to obtain crucial "information," all the while being chased down by enemies. Harrison started writing the first draft of High Stakes in between chapters of Conquest of the Empire. Initially, Harrison wrote the story as a trilogy, but decided later on that he wanted to do it in the style of Brian Daley's NPR Star Wars Trilogy. So the trilogy became an eight episode story arc.

With High Stakes, Harrison took advantage of an "incomplete" entry in the Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology guidebook. Almost 1,500 years prior to the events of Episode IV: A New Hope, the Chronology mentions a Battle of Mizra, which was a war on the planet Mizra betwen the Sith Empire and the Jedi Order. Other than this, virtually nothing is known of this event. This planet of Mizra and its location became the premise for High Stakes in that it houses a secret Sith strike base that the Jedi Order is planning to raid. However they do not have it's whereabouts. The story revolves around two starpilots seeking the location, all the while been pursued by the Sith Empire. Because nothing is known about this part of the timeline, Harrison was given the freedom to decide who would be the leader of the Jedi Order and who would be the Dark Lord of the Sith.

However it is very possible that this entry in the Chronology could be a setup for a future Star Wars Expanded Universe novel, much like the Battle of Mindor, which will be chronicled in an upcoming novel by Matthew Stover.

[edit] Crusade of the Rebellion

After wrapping up Chapter V: Triumph & Tragedy of the Conquest of the Empire series, Harrison always knew that some day he would "return home." In fact, Harrison already had several ideas sketched out for this sequel series even before Conquest came to its conclusion. Several early drafts of the script for the new series' first chapter were written, but Harrison was unhappy with most of them. Finally, in May 2008, he came up with a story that he liked.

Crusade of the Rebellion is currently in Pre-Production. Initially it was planned to be another five-chapter series as a tip-of-the-hat to Conquest, however Harrison stated recently that "the story has grown too big" to be restricted to five chapters. Harrison suspects that this new series will be somewhere between eight and ten episodes long, with an average running time of 30 minutes for each installment.

Of the eight to ten chapters, scripts for the first three have been completed as yet.

[edit] Fanworks Partner

As of 2008, Harrison became a partner to Nathan P. Butler and Star Wars Fanworks. And going hand-in-hand with this, Harrison's website for his production company (Lion's Mouth Entertainment) was moved from a free server to the Star Wars Fanworks server.

As a partner, Harrison contributes to the site by keeping some new information, such as tutorials or Non-Star Wars productions, up-to-date. He has also aided by releasing a video promo for Fanworks. And he is at work on a second that will delve deeper into information about the website and its productions.

[edit] Original Productions

[edit] The Age of the Swords

Harrison initially began work on what would later become The Age of the Swords in late 2005/early 2006. However, the story would undergo countless changes until December 2006.

Harrison wrote the final draft of the storyline for the trilogy as a tribute to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. However, many, including Harrison himself, have commented that the storyline of the first installment, Part I: The Descent of Shadows, falls too closely next to The Lord of the Rings. Harrison, already aware of the problem, is attempting to correct it with the last two parts of the trilogy. And according to Andrew Gilbertson, who portrays the character of Erelor Ildain in the story, Harrison has exceeded expectations with the storyline for Part II: The Spider Queen.

The Spider Queen is currently In-Production. And it is expected that this second installment will have a running time of approximately 4 hours. And it will be Harrison's longest production to date.

For The Age of the Swords, Harrison decided to promote the production in a way that would appeal to people who depend on visual entertainment. A few months before Descent's release, Harrison release a video trailer with visible words and graphics, plus a narration from R. Douglas Barbieri, who also lends his voice for the narrations in the story. By uploading the video onto the internet, many "outsiders" to the audio genre were attracted. And the production has caused many of these people to begin audio dramas of their own.

Harrison recently also released a video trailer for The Spider Queen, which is available on the Lion's Mouth Entertainment website.


[edit] Appearances


[edit] External Links

Retrieved from "http://starwarsfanworks.wikia.com/wiki/Joe_Harrison"
Rate this article:
Share this article: