Star Trek: Excelsior
| Star Trek: Excelsior | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Science Fiction/Fan Series |
| Created by | James Heaney |
| Directed by | James Smagata |
| Voices of | Larry Phelan, Sam Gillis, Ben Randall, Caitlin Heaney, Michael Liebmann, Kennedy, Emily Potter, Gareth Bowley, Eleiece Krawiec |
| Narrated by | Mike Hennessy |
| Theme music composer | Samuel Gillis |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 22 regular 13 special |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | James Heaney |
| Producer(s) | Mike Hennessy |
| Release | |
| Audio format | MP3 |
| Original release | September 28, 2007 – Present |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows |
Star Trek: The Continuing Mission Star Trek Audio Dramas |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Star Trek: Excelsior is an independently produced science fiction audio drama set in the Star Trek universe that has twice been nominated for the Parsec Awards for speculative fiction podcasting. The show was created by James Heaney in September 2007.
The series concerns the 24th century adventures of the crew of the U.S.S. Excelsior (NCC-2000-C - the "fourth starship to bear the name") in the Delta Quadrant.
The pilot episode, ...There You Are, was released on September 28, 2007, and since then 22 regular and 13 special episodes have been released, most recently At Death's Door (December 26, 2014). By August 2009 all episodes available at the time had been downloaded more than 20,000 times in total.
Executive Producer James Heaney started the audio drama in 2007 as a means of recruiting players to a Star Trek play-by-forum role-playing game (RPG) set on the USS Excelsior-C. Heaney had joined the RPG in 2006. Characters in Star Trek: Excelsior episodes have similarities and differences in name and background to characters in the Excelsior RPG as well as the Bravo Fleet RPG. Heaney continues as Executive Producer to the present while Mike Hennesey acts as co-producer/narrator and James Smagata leads the post-production team.
According to the show's website, "episodes are recorded in more than two dozen places on three continents", and edited on Adobe Audition and Cool Edit Pro before being released in 128k mp3 sound files. By July 2010 voice actors in the US lived in nine different states while one resided in Australia and another in New Zealand. Actors record their lines via Skype by themselves or sometimes with others. Recordings are uploaded to a server for post-production, using a custom-built browser-based production management program that Heaney developed with others.
After the actors' lines are conjoined in Adobe Audition, sound effects and music are added. Original theme music was composed by Sam Gillis and introduced in Episode #103. The resulting audio mix is peer reviewed and adjusted where necessary, before final episodes are released. Like the actors, the post-production team also collaborates online without physically meeting each other. As a result of these challenging logistics, added to the length of its story, the third season took three years to produce.
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Wikipedia