podweek day 1! aka "why?"
Podfic: it's an audio recording of a fanfic, like an audiobook, how awesome is that? Fans from all over put their voices out there so you can enjoy fanfic on the go or just in a different way. To find out more about podfic, why we do it and how to get started, check out pod_aware on LJ or DW.
i've seen a few podcasts of people talking about why they podfic, which seems like a really appropriate response, and god knows i like to babble, but i just baked a pork chop and would like to eat it, and it's kind of rude to eat and talk at the same time. besides, do you really want to hear me chew?
so. the answer to "why do i podfic" is really simple - i like to read out loud. and when i started podficcing, for the late lamented spnfic-podcast, i was reading A LOT. so i had a lot of choices, but more importantly, i suddenly had a excuse for reading out loud to myself.
(as a side note, spnfic-podcast is the reason my podfic tag is "evp" and not something more intuitive and less spn-y, like, you know, "podfic".)
i didn't have a great microphone and didn't know enough about recording myself to know what to look for in a good one, so for a while i skipped the (cheap) mic i bought and instead used the one inside my laptop. i probably looked really, really stupid speaking into it, and i don't think the quality was that good, but i didn't really care.
i now have a better microphone. (a blue snowball. i love it.) but aside from that, i am the most amateur of amateur podficcers - i'm not an actor, i can't do voices, i edit by listening to the podfic once all the way thru and cutting out the weird bits, i've never used music or sound effects, i have no idea how to record in sections and splice them together to make a single long podfic, i can really only record, cut, and amplify in audacity. i don't even know how to paste. and i am not remotely prolific.
(i recorded a gone with the wind commentfic for the awesome ladies podfic anthology at halfamoon, and i think i did it ten times because i finally realized my attempt at a genteel georgia accent was, uh, not that good. vivien leigh i am not.)
but y'know, podfic is forgiving. in a way it's no different from writing fic - once it's edited and released into the wild, no one has to know what the original looked like or how you got to the finished product. you can keep recording until you get something you like, the same as you can rewrite a scene or even a whole story twenty times until you're satisfied with it.
but podfic has a remove that fic doesn't. i mean, say fic is a response to canon. podfic is like a response to fic. usually the fic comes first, and the podficcer - ie, me :D - reads it and thinks "i love this and want to record it". it's a way to be involved in a fandom and have something tangible to offer your fellow fans if you're not otherwise fannishly productive (you don't write fic, you don't make art, you don't write meta, whatever). which i fairly recently discovered was another reason why i like doing it. i mean, back in the day when i read every gen spn fic that crossed my path, i felt like i had something to actively offer as a fan. and ok, so the something i had to offer was feedback, but still. i could be involved.
(i was never a prolific enough fic writer to consider that my fannish contribution. i've done two bigbangs and spn_cinema and i still don't quite feel that way. but the number of fandoms i can write in more than once is vanishingly small (two), and theoretically at least, the number of fandoms i can podfic in is infinite. more so if you add original fics into the mix, which i do.)
part of me is really only podficcing for the person who wrote the fic, as a show of how much i liked it. a variation on "this sounds amazing read out loud" is one of my favorite bits of feedback to leave. (possibly this is because one of my favorite bits of writing advice is "read your work out loud", and because the stuff of mine that i really like is the stuff that sounds good out loud.)
so that's why i do it. i can offer something tangible to fellow fans, but mostly i get to read out loud.
because i mentioned spnfic-podcast as my door into podficcing, i offer what i'm pretty sure is my first podfic, because it's the oldest one of mine in the podfic archive.
the boy who fell, written by flipmontigirl. spn, pre-series, sam/dean. 5.2mb, 05:44.
(the fic seems to be locked, which is a shame because it's a good one. and i admit i haven't listened to the podfic in so long i don't remember how explicit the story is.)
if you're interested in podficcing yourself, let me just say that if i can do it, anyone can. all you need is a mic and recording software. paraka explains it better than i can.
i've seen a few podcasts of people talking about why they podfic, which seems like a really appropriate response, and god knows i like to babble, but i just baked a pork chop and would like to eat it, and it's kind of rude to eat and talk at the same time. besides, do you really want to hear me chew?
so. the answer to "why do i podfic" is really simple - i like to read out loud. and when i started podficcing, for the late lamented spnfic-podcast, i was reading A LOT. so i had a lot of choices, but more importantly, i suddenly had a excuse for reading out loud to myself.
(as a side note, spnfic-podcast is the reason my podfic tag is "evp" and not something more intuitive and less spn-y, like, you know, "podfic".)
i didn't have a great microphone and didn't know enough about recording myself to know what to look for in a good one, so for a while i skipped the (cheap) mic i bought and instead used the one inside my laptop. i probably looked really, really stupid speaking into it, and i don't think the quality was that good, but i didn't really care.
i now have a better microphone. (a blue snowball. i love it.) but aside from that, i am the most amateur of amateur podficcers - i'm not an actor, i can't do voices, i edit by listening to the podfic once all the way thru and cutting out the weird bits, i've never used music or sound effects, i have no idea how to record in sections and splice them together to make a single long podfic, i can really only record, cut, and amplify in audacity. i don't even know how to paste. and i am not remotely prolific.
(i recorded a gone with the wind commentfic for the awesome ladies podfic anthology at halfamoon, and i think i did it ten times because i finally realized my attempt at a genteel georgia accent was, uh, not that good. vivien leigh i am not.)
but y'know, podfic is forgiving. in a way it's no different from writing fic - once it's edited and released into the wild, no one has to know what the original looked like or how you got to the finished product. you can keep recording until you get something you like, the same as you can rewrite a scene or even a whole story twenty times until you're satisfied with it.
but podfic has a remove that fic doesn't. i mean, say fic is a response to canon. podfic is like a response to fic. usually the fic comes first, and the podficcer - ie, me :D - reads it and thinks "i love this and want to record it". it's a way to be involved in a fandom and have something tangible to offer your fellow fans if you're not otherwise fannishly productive (you don't write fic, you don't make art, you don't write meta, whatever). which i fairly recently discovered was another reason why i like doing it. i mean, back in the day when i read every gen spn fic that crossed my path, i felt like i had something to actively offer as a fan. and ok, so the something i had to offer was feedback, but still. i could be involved.
(i was never a prolific enough fic writer to consider that my fannish contribution. i've done two bigbangs and spn_cinema and i still don't quite feel that way. but the number of fandoms i can write in more than once is vanishingly small (two), and theoretically at least, the number of fandoms i can podfic in is infinite. more so if you add original fics into the mix, which i do.)
part of me is really only podficcing for the person who wrote the fic, as a show of how much i liked it. a variation on "this sounds amazing read out loud" is one of my favorite bits of feedback to leave. (possibly this is because one of my favorite bits of writing advice is "read your work out loud", and because the stuff of mine that i really like is the stuff that sounds good out loud.)
so that's why i do it. i can offer something tangible to fellow fans, but mostly i get to read out loud.
because i mentioned spnfic-podcast as my door into podficcing, i offer what i'm pretty sure is my first podfic, because it's the oldest one of mine in the podfic archive.
the boy who fell, written by flipmontigirl. spn, pre-series, sam/dean. 5.2mb, 05:44.
(the fic seems to be locked, which is a shame because it's a good one. and i admit i haven't listened to the podfic in so long i don't remember how explicit the story is.)
if you're interested in podficcing yourself, let me just say that if i can do it, anyone can. all you need is a mic and recording software. paraka explains it better than i can.