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Whenever Jon returns to Maryland from his current home near Sydney, there's always something up his sleeve. One year it was the "Vampire Science" read-through. Another year it was filming "Timeless". This time, it was to record the MST3K-style commentary track for the upcoming "Time Rift" Director's Apology Cut. How little even he was aware of another's machinations, though, when Neil Marsh sprung a surprise on everyone: he wanted to record a 7th Doctor and Ace audio short. Silly boy.
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A few weeks before leaving Boston for the Washington DC area, Neil contacted his friend Joe Medina -- popular DW fan writer and fanvid producer ("The Prisoner and the Time Lord") -- about writing up a short DW audio, about 6 minutes in length or so. Within a few days, Joe sent him a script for "Eternity Calling". The story was short, simple and looked perfect for an afternoon's recording. Scripts in hand and audio recording equipment in trunk, Neil and his wife, Beckie Hunter, set off for the wilds of Maryland.
On the last day of their visit, after a fun-filled evening of Chinese food and recording the commentary track for the new "Time Rift" DVD the night before, Neil, Jon, AC and Jim Vowles gathered in the basement of Jon's parents' home in Rockville to begin recording. As Neil set up the stands, cables, mikes, etc., Jon and AC went over the script, tweaking some of their characters' lines and adding a few more details to make the story a little clearer. Jim helped with cables and plugs, while Neil set up his Roland VS-880 EX hard disk recorder and placed the two AKG C100S condenser mikes. Recording began.
It actually didn't take too long to record the dialog. After all, it wasn't as though they were Big Finish, right? Everyone managed their parts really well, even Neil. But then, his character was mostly deranged anyway, so who would have noticed? :) Recording was finished and Neil and Beckie headed back to Boston. Most of the trip back, on Neil's part anyway, was spent thinking about sound effects.
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However, as so often happens with the best laid plans, etc., disaster struck. After cutting together a nice, shortened version of the McCoy DW theme, Neil prepared to start editing on the "Eternity Calling" dialog. As he began to dump down the digital audio to his computer, he discovered that, somehow, the recorder had reset during the recording session in DC and the first two minutes of the dialog were wiped clean from the drive. D'oh!
As one-third of the material was destroyed, there was no way to assemble something from what existed, so "Eternity Calling" went on hold for a year.
Flash-forward to February 2003, when Jon next returned to the US. The cast and crew were planning on gathering in Washington again, where they would re-record the opening bit (among other things). Unfortunately, AC Chapin was scheduled for gallbladder surgery the weekend of the Lemmings meet (don't worry -- she's fine now), so she wouldn't be able to make it. Undaunted, Jon drafted a new opening sequence -- instead of beginning with the Doctor and Ace approaching the stranded expedition featured in the story, it begins among the expedition members, and the two time travellers slip in un-noticed. This required creating a new expedition character for a few lines of dialogue, and Jon asked Sean Corcoran (seen in "Timeless", and director of the "The Pub With No Doors", shot at Gallifrey 2003, featuring a whole bunch of fanvid Doctors) to step into the role.
Everything seemed set for the recording... and then Washington DC got hit with its third major bout of snow within a couple of weeks. It was impossible for Neil to make it down for the recording.
Refusing to take the hint, a few days later Jon, Jim Vowles, and Sean got together and recorded the two new scenes on their own, using Jon's DV camera and a boom microphone. To get the appropriate spacious outdoors sound, Jon recorded the first scene outside the Blums' house... at night, on the sidewalk, surrounded by two feet of snow. The scene proved to be brief and energetic. The second scene was recorded in the loungeroom, with Kate handling the microphone.
Finally complete, the new recording has just been sent up to Neil, so post-production can begin at last!
