Sillyevan
From Sodor Island Forums
Sillyevan was among the small handful of founding members who created Sodor Island Forum in 2003, and is today one of only two active founding members remaining. He and the other original founding members met first on the forums of Uktrainsim [1] where they talked about the then recent Television Series 6 and upcoming Series 7, the Railway Series books, and Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS) 'Thomas' add-ons (which they helped create for UKtrainsim [2]).
Having moved from UKtrainsim to the newly established Thomas Fan Forums, sillyevan was an hyper-active, enthusiastic, albeit unrulely, member of the small but growing community. Between the forum's founding in December of 2002 and August of 2003, Sillyevan had co-started what would become the Extended Railway Series with fellow (ex-)member PeterSam. At that time he was a moderator of the Thomas Fan Forums, and pioneered the idea (for SiF at any rate) of having forum members retell TV Series episodes with the establishment of Sodor Studios and the problem-riddled first episode "Dunkin' Duncan" (in PowerPoint!).
Problems arose over the summer of 2003 between Sillyevan and the other members of the forum. Due to constant "flame wars" with another founding member, aggrivation over the failure of Sodor Studios, a personal life-changing experience, and tension between other staff over his controversial views of how to fix an ever growing and degrading Extended Railway Series section, Sillyevan was banned from Thomas Fan Forums for a period of almost six months. After tensions calmed and problems were solved, the hatchet was officially buried in early 2004 when Sillyevan was welcomed back to the community with open arms from all. From 2004 till the early 2007, Sillyevan had been struggling to become an proper active member with the community once again, and finally succeeded in dedicating his time to the community upon graduating High School in 2006.
Contents |
Staff Tenure
Over his roughly 5 year stay with Sodor Island Forums Sillyevan has held a staff position three times:
- Moderator (Early 2003 - August 2003)
- ERS Evaluator (Summer 2004 - Winter 2004)
- Moderator (March 2007 - Present)
Contributions to Multimedia
Sodor Studios and Redubs
Although the original Sodor Studios had only one episode in a very difficult format and in very low quality, Sodor Studios lived on after the introduction of the first proper video multimedia redub to SiF: Something in the Air. Sillyevan joined the bandwagon of redubbers with his contribution of Pop Goes the Diesel, which would then start his work on The Diesel Trilogy. After the release of his second redub, Diesel's Devious Deed, and work on Sir Topham Hatt Wants Vengence, the New and Improved Sodor Studios were formed with a team of specifically talented members provided key roles in the production of arguably the highest quality redubs on the forum (and YouTube). Sillyevan has been creating and mixing the music track for each Sodor Studios redub until their sixth redub (Be Careful What You Wish For!) when school work prevented him from being a part of each redub. Henceforth, The Old Bean has composed original music for redubs during Sillyevan's absences. Although much a part of Sodor Studios, Sillyevan also offers his voice to many other redubbers. His two most popular voices have become those of Duck and Edward. Sillyevan has an impressive range of voices and uses his skills from stage and theater to bring across endearing performances... despite his lack of being cast in more recent redubs. Coincidentally he is persuing the career of a voice-actor in real life as a result of support from family, friends, and theater colleagues.
Independent/Original Audio Dramas
BoTWoT
The Sodor Island Forum multimedia world was thrown for a loop when in Summer of 2007 Sillyevan proposed a brand new audio series. This series, titled the Best of Times Worst of Times Series (BoTWoT), was created with the aim of making a Thomas-like train related series which was edgier, darker, and more mature than the sugar-coated TV Series Thomas and Friends. Sillyevan produced a demo reel of a small fictional scenario which was presented to the forum as a taste of what was to come [3].
Scripting of the first episode began in late August and final production finished on December 15th 2007. Episode 1: Operation Pied-Piper (see the real event: [4]) was released on Sodor Island Forums with critical acclaim from initial listeners. The positive reaction encouraged Sillyevan to begin work on another episode which is currently in the planning stages with no official date of release announced.
Audio Epic
Information Coming Soon...
Amature Author
Extended Railway Series
Sillyevan first wrote ERS Volume 41 – Evan The Private Engine back in 2003 which, along with fellow (ex-)member Peter Sam's ERS Volume 49 – Coco The Circus Engine, started off what became the Extended Railway Series. Evan the Private Engine was written as an attempt to emulate (rather poorly) the style of the Awdry's Railway Series books, which at that time Sillyevan was just being introduced to. The volume is riddled with inconsistency, factual errors, TV Series references, and from a present day Point-of-View is nowhere near the quality of most ERS books. The volume remains in the ERS Section as a testiment to the roots of fanfiction on Sodor Island Forums and is still considered ERS canon. Sillyevan plans to one day rewrite the book to bring it up to standards, although a copy of the original will stay in the ERS archives.
Writing ERS books never came easy, and despite the many ideas he had for volumes Sillyevan only wrote one more book for the collection: ERS Volume 70 - Toby's Old Tramway. The volume was poorly planned but quality non-the-less, as a result Ryan was asked to help finish the final two stories. After Toby's Old Tramway, Sillyevan removed himself from the ERS scene nearly completely.
Anniversary ERS Volumes
- Sillyevan was asked to supply a story for anniversary volume ERS Volume 75 – The Five Sudrian Engines which he devoted to the underused character Bear. When time came for the 3rd Anniversary ERS competition, Sillyevan proposed a volume idea he always had which eventually became ERS Volume 101 – The Thin Clergyman's Railway, an entire book which revolved around the Thin Clergyman and his exploits on Sodor. After a year without any Anniversary ERS Volume, Sillyevan spearheaded the creation of the special 5th Anniversary book ERS Volume 127 - Sodor and the Special Visitors which he created to commemorate August 2007's great SiF meeting in Wales. Each story of the book featured an event from that week, and was written by a SiF Member who had been there and experienced it.
The Realm of SiFiction
Inspired by Alaric's Rogue and Renegade stories as well as JimBobDunnie's never-persued Caméra d'Or, Sillyevan began work on a temporal, futuristic, dark, Anime-esque SiFiction entitled Reality Shift in January 2008. The story is set 45 years in the future in a mysterious world called "nick:SiF" on what is believed to the be the Internet (see: Series of Tubes). The characters are fictional portrayals of members on SiF (45 yrs older) who have lived on the Internet for the longest time without much hardship. The arrival of the mysterious John Doe sets events into motion that pose to threaten the peaceful digital world of nick:SiF. The SiFiction is currently on-going with chapters added randomly whenever Sillyevan feels like it.
Trivia
- Name: Evan
- Nationality: American
- Current Age: 20
- Member Status on SiF: Moderator and Co-Founding Member
- Favorite Thomas Characters: Edward and Henry
- Prefered Thomas TV Series: Series 1 - 7
- Favorite Music Genre: movie soundtracks
- Musical Instrument: Trumpet
- Personality: Intellectual, positively cynical, with a dash of Lewis Black comedian.
