A Conversation with Aaron Giles, Clint Bajakian, Annie Fox, Ken Macklin, Michael Land, Steve Purcell, Mike Stemmle, Larry Ahern, Hal Barwood, Mark Ferrari, Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, Aric Wilmunder, Noah Falstein, Gary Winnick & more (Updated: March 3rd)

[danielalbu]

🎙️ Join me TODAY for the YouTube premiere of my conversation with Escape from Monkey Island project lead, Mike Stemmle!

 

📝 In this conversation, we discuss Sam & Max Hit The Road, Escape from Monkey Island and more!

 

⏰ Today @ Noon (PT)

 

 

[danielalbu]

🎉 It's Sam & Max Hit The Road's 30th anniversary this month!

 

🎙️ So join me TODAY for the YouTube premiere of my 4-hour conversation with Sam & Max creator, Steve Purcell!

 

📝 In this conversation, we discuss Sam & Max, the classic LucasArts covers and more!

⏰ Today @ Noon (PT)

 

 

[Laserschwert]

Great interview, as always!

 

Do I need to flee the country? He's coming for me!

[danielalbu]

1 hour ago, Laserschwert said:

Great interview, as always!

 

Do I need to flee the country? He's coming for me!

You can run, but you can't hide! 🤨

 

 

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow, I saw the run time... did you record 3 hours and 45 mins in one session, or do you break it up? 

[Thrik]

Are you kidding? Daniel cracks out his first interview before breakfast.

[danielalbu]

21 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Wow, I saw the run time... did you record 3 hours and 45 mins in one session, or do you break it up? 

3 hours and 45 minutes is not even my longest interview.

Aric Wilmunder and Larry Ahern are 4.5 hours each!

(Aric Wilmunder was so great and so into the conversation that we kept on talking for 1.5 hours off the record after we finished recording, which means that we both sat for a total of 6 hours and talked!)

 

All of my interviews are recorded in one session.

It's problematic to recorded a video interview in several sessions as you can clearly see on both people that it's not the same day (clothes / lighting / etc.).

 

I tell my guests that they can ask for a break whenever they need one and I just edit that out.

 

I usually finish recording these sessions at 3-4am in my timezone so I would have preferred to do it over several sessions, but again, it has to be in one session for authenticity.

 

 

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow. That's incredible. Do you give them a heads up that it might be so long? (Sorry, I'm just interested in the practicalities of interviewing people. It's very interesting.)

Edited November 22, 2023 by ThunderPeel2001

[danielalbu]

1 hour ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

Wow. That's incredible. Do you give them a heads up that it might be so long? (Sorry, I'm just interested in the practicalities of interviewing people. It's very interesting.)

My first long interview was with Bill Tiller.

I told him in advance that I have a lot of questions and he said that it's not a problem.

 

I ended up skipping tons of questions because his lengthy answers answered a lot of them (without me asking).

So that ended up being 4 hours.

 

From that point on, I started informing people that the length of the conversation is up to them.

They can give me shorter answers or very lengthy ones, either way I will not interrupt them and I will not edit their answers in any way in the final edit.

 

From that point on, my interviews started being 3-4 hours long each.

Usually, when people are interviewed, they want to answer the questions properly without taking over the conversation with 20-30 minute long answers.

I make sure that they are aware that I'm perfectly comfortable with longer answers.

 

Most guests are surprised by how long my previous conversations were, only to end up talking just as much or even longer.

 

 

[ThunderPeel2001]

8 hours ago, danielalbu said:

Most guests are surprised by how long my previous conversations were, only to end up talking just as much or even longer.

 

Amazing. That's really cool. Great job

[Lagomorph01]

Hi Daniel, really enjoying your Steve Purcell interview! I listen to it in small chunks because my life doesn't really give me four hours to sit through in one take, but it is excellently conducted and really detailed. My compliments!

 

Question: is there a way to listen to only the audio portions of your interviews, like a podcast? I like to listen to podcasts when I'm in the car and that way, I'd be able to enjoy a lot more of your interviews. I like that you show the artwork that you're talking about in the video's, but in my case, 9 out of 10 times I can already see the artwork in my mind, so that wouldn't be a difficulty.

[Thrik]

It’s a good point. I have struggled to find time to get through such robust videos but I do get a lot of time where I can listen only such as driving. I could in theory background play the YouTube videos I suppose.

[TimeGentleman]

Mods please delete if inappropriate, but I use youtube-dl for this kind of thing. It lets you download YT videos, but you can also use it just to download them as mp3s. (I then just copy the mp3 over to my phone via USB.)

 

youtube-dl isn't the most user-friendly thing in the world, I found it easiest to use via command prompt and any forum posts I can find for whatever I need to do.

[danielalbu]

10 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

Hi Daniel, really enjoying your Steve Purcell interview! I listen to it in small chunks because my life doesn't really give me four hours to sit through in one take, but it is excellently conducted and really detailed. My compliments!

 

Question: is there a way to listen to only the audio portions of your interviews, like a podcast? I like to listen to podcasts when I'm in the car and that way, I'd be able to enjoy a lot more of your interviews. I like that you show the artwork that you're talking about in the video's, but in my case, 9 out of 10 times I can already see the artwork in my mind, so that wouldn't be a difficulty.

Thank you for the kind words.

I plan to start releasing all of my interviews as podcasts on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / etc. at the beginning of 2024 and from that point on, I'll release every interview as a podcast about a month after its YouTube premiere (I don't want to lose any YouTube views as they are important to the growth of our channel)

6 hours ago, Thrik said:

It’s a good point. I have struggled to find time to get through such robust videos but I do get a lot of time where I can listen only such as driving. I could in theory background play the YouTube videos I suppose.

If you use YouTube Premium, then you can listen to YouTube videos in the background.

 

Or, you can wait for me to release them as podcasts at the beginning of 2024.

3 hours ago, TimeGentleman said:

Mods please delete if inappropriate, but I use youtube-dl for this kind of thing. It lets you download YT videos, but you can also use it just to download them as mp3s. (I then just copy the mp3 over to my phone via USB.)

 

youtube-dl isn't the most user-friendly thing in the world, I found it easiest to use via command prompt and any forum posts I can find for whatever I need to do.

You know, each interview takes up roughly 100 hours of my time, especially the lengthier ones.

 

Typically, I dedicate about 40 hours to research, delving into previous interviews by watching or reading them.

The actual recording process takes around 3-4 hours, while the bulk of the work, about 50-60 hours, involves editing, adjusting volume levels, and fixing audio issues.

 

Considering the effort invested, the least I hope to get out of every viewer is one view on YouTube.

Sadly, these niche interviews don't attract thousands of views, so every single view matters to me.

 

Using YouTube-dl doesn't even guarantee that one view.

 

But you do you.

[TimeGentleman]

Wow.

 

Perhaps you should make your podcast release schedules clearer on your video descriptions and forum threads so that people don't have to ask these questions or assume they need to resort to stuff like youtube-dl. (Incidentally, I watched the 4 hour video through and didn't use a downloader, so you got your precious view off me.)

 

I'd also suggest that taking a snippy tone with people and bumping multiple threads for a single video isn't the best way to endear yourself while trying to promote your product. But you do you.

[Lagomorph01]

18 hours ago, danielalbu said:

Thank you for the kind words.

I plan to start releasing all of my interviews as podcasts on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / etc. at the beginning of 2024 and from that point on, I'll release every interview as a podcast about a month after its YouTube premiere (I don't want to lose any YouTube views as they are important to the growth of our channel)

If you use YouTube Premium, then you can listen to YouTube videos in the background.

Thanks for your reply! I look forward to the podcast versions, and I'll make sure to watch some parts of them on Youtube, so you'll get your views! It's the least you deserve for your fantastic, hard work!

[danielalbu]

4 hours ago, TimeGentleman said:

Wow.

 

Perhaps you should make your podcast release schedules clearer on your video descriptions and forum threads so that people don't have to ask these questions or assume they need to resort to stuff like youtube-dl. (Incidentally, I watched the 4 hour video through and didn't use a downloader, so you got your precious view off me.)

 

I'd also suggest that taking a snippy tone with people and bumping multiple threads for a single video isn't the best way to endear yourself while trying to promote your product. But you do you.

 

The idea to release these as podcasts doesn't have a clear schedule yet and that's why it hasn't been made public yet.

 

If me asking people not to pirate my content after describing how hard I work on it is snippy, then sure, call me snippy.

 

Regarding the thread bumps, I've typically responded to requests for specific interviews with links to my content. However, I'll ensure my replies remain limited to this thread if that's more preferable for you.

 

You seem to be the one adopting a confrontational tone here.

You were well aware of how your response might be interpreted, given that you suggested the mods delete it if it was deemed inappropriate.

 

When you were trying to promote your game Lair Of The Clockwork God, I don't think you would have appreciated it if people would have replied with "Hey mods, delete if inappropriate, but you can download the game for free from this link...."

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by danielalbu

[TimeGentleman]

You didn't ask me not to pirate your content (which I didn't), you lectured me about how much work you do on the interviews and then gave it a little sarcastic sign off. You were being snippy.

 

I asked the mods to delete if inappropriate because I don't know the legalities of youtube-dl or the mod policies on stuff like that. I have no idea how that could be construed as confrontational.

 

And no, I wouldn't have liked it if someone had linked to a torrent of LOTCG. But if someone was asking for audio-only versions of my YouTube videos and I hadn't provided them and someone mentioned the existence of youtube-dl, I wouldn't have cared. And if I had cared, I would have politely asked people not to promote or use that option, not jumped on my moral high-horse to take potshots at them.

[danielalbu]

🎄🌟 Join me TODAY for the YouTube premiere of my conversation with the incredibly talented Double Fine producer, Malena Annable!

 

📝 In this conversation, they discuss Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Grim Fandango Remastered, Escape from Monkey Island & more!

 

🎁 Today @ Noon (PT)

 

[danielalbu]

🎵 Discover the story behind the iconic Monkey Island theme!

 

🎙️ Join me TODAY for the YouTube premiere of my conversation with legendary LucasArts composer Michael Land!

 

📝 In this conversation we delve into the magic behind The Dig, Monkey Island & iMuse!

 

⏰ Today @ Noon (PT)

[AndywinXp]

One of the best ones so far, thanks Dan 🙂

[danielalbu]

5 hours ago, AndywinXp said:

One of the best ones so far, thanks Dan 🙂

Wow!

Thank you so so much for the very kind words ❤️

[dognut]

just started watching the Al Lowe interview. great stuff! thank you for doing these.

[danielalbu]

12 minutes ago, dognut said:

just started watching the Al Lowe interview. great stuff! thank you for doing these.

It's my pleasure! ❤️

Thanks for watching!

[danielalbu]

🎨 Hear the story behind the iconic Maniac Mansion cover art!

 

🎙️ Join me TODAY for the YouTube premiere of my conversation with legendary LucasArts illustrator Ken Macklin!

 

📝 In this conversation we discuss his work on the Maniac Mansion cover art as well as his work on Loom, The Dig and many other Lucasfilm Games classics!

 

⏰ Today @ Noon (PT)