The Town of Odyssey

Discuss your thoughts of all the pop upisodes here.

They're pretty interesting, actually, and it's yet another rather creative way to lead up to the premiere of the 2010 season.

Yay for PopUpisodes! ...particularly since I made this week's.

Behind the Scenes of PopUpisode #2:

My fellow intern this summer designed the graphics and made the first (last week's) PopUpisode. I was assigned to do one for "Suspicious Finds." The first phase of the project was a lot of fun: coming up with fun facts that only the most dedicated fan would know. Of course, that wasn't enough to fill an entire 25-minute PopUpisode, so Nathan graciously supplied me with more episode-specific trivia. I also poured through the script to find differences between script and final episode (and there were quite a few for this episode!).

Here are some of my Pop-Upisode thoughts from my intern journal this summer:

Lizzie's Intern Journal: 7/9/09:
This week has been somewhat of a break from more writing-oriented tasks. Somewhat, but it’s more of a redirection than a clean break. I’m working on a video project now, using Photoshop and iMovie to make an enhanced slideshow of sorts. Having not used the first program in over a year, and having never used the second one, I’ve had to ask a lot of questions, and I’m not working as fast as I would like, but it’s coming along. It’s amazing, though, how fast the days zoom by, and to set aside my projects at 5 every day instead of sticking with them until late into the night.

Lizzie's Intern Journal: 7/15/09:
Work continues (actually, remains fixated) on my “glorified slideshow” project… otherwise known as an Enhanced Episode/PopUpisode. Basically, it’s a visual accompaniment to an audio episode. Odyssey episodes are 25 minutes long; and what these PopUpisodes are supposed to do is provide an episode’s worth of fun facts and trivia bits for fans to watch as they simultaneously listen to the episode.

It’s amazing how much my perception of this project has changed from when I first heard about it to now. My fellow intern was assigned to do one of these PopUpisodes before I was, and so I eagerly began collecting facts to help him out, all the while longing for the day when I would be assigned one as well. Well, that day arrived last week, and now that the actual slide-making has begun, it has become rather tedious and never-ending. I love collecting the trivia bits, and this is a good idea in theory, but turning the idea into reality is a different story. I’m working on the second PopUpisode, and there are supposed to be twelve in all. Yikes! And none of the eager fans who watch these PopUpisodes will know just how many hours of dedicated work went into just thirty minutes.

Indeed, it took about two weeks to make this PopUpisode! ...though it isn't true anymore that none of the fans know how much time it took.


Extremely nice picture of Will Ryan, no? See that tiny bit of pink and brown striped-ness in the lower right side of the picture? Well, that's my shirt, and that picture was (cropped from) my very favorite picture taken at the live show in August 2008! I requested - and was allowed - to use one of my own pictures for this PopUpisode. Here is the original photo (props to my dad, the excellent photographer! ):




Some white space at the bottom of that "Did You Know" segment, isn't there? Almost looks like there should've been another line there? As a matter of fact, there initially was five lines of text instead of four. This fun fact was one of several that was originally in quotes and credited to Nathan Hoobler (behind-the-scenes anecdotes that referenced "we" were the ones originally formatted in that way).


You know those Quick Quiz slides that counted down from 15 to 0? Well, a different slide had to be made for each of those numbers and then saved in JPEG format. Then, if it was discovered that something needed to be changed on that slide, you would have to go back and change it on all seventeen slides!

Suffice it to say, I was very glad when I had finished this PopUpisode. Having to fit all of the slides together (including white slides in between the fact-laden ones) so that they would "pop up" at the exact right time, and for the right amount of time, was almost a skill in itself! Not to mention that this project required listening to "Suspicious Finds" many, many times! Even though putting together the PopUpisode was a lot of work, it was fun learning new trivia (and coming up with my own!).

Way cool, Lizzie! Thank you for sharing excerpts from your intern journal. I love how you cropped yourself out of your own picture!

That's cool, Liz! I really liked that picture!

Now I really want to watch the PopUpisodes, especially this one! Maybe I'll see if I can make it work with my slow internet. Thanks for sharing all that behind-the-scenes information and the picture! I love how Paul McCusker's head is poking out just perfectly from the side.

The PopUpisodes were amazing... they are pretty much exactly the way I have pictured a near-ideal implementation of Odyssey Guide-like trivia pieces. Nice work!

I love them! They have so many interesting facts!

The PopUpisodes are great! I love seeing the lines that were cut from the show.

I like the second one better than the first.
I love seeing all the stuff that was cut!
Even though I see old pics and trivia,it's still fun to see it in this fashion.

Thanks for sharing, Lizzie! It's really easy to forget how much work went into the making of these PopUpisodes. Great job!

For once it isn't up early.