I finished a meme!
1. When did you first start podficcing?
I discovered podfic in January 2009 and spent the next three months raiding the audiofic archive and scouring Live Journal and other sources for info about putting together my own set-up, finding a good/free sound editor, tips on recording, etc. Then I worried about doing it well/"right" and didn't do anything (see "I'm going to try vidding"). Fortunately I assembled it all just in time to participate in Amplificathon '09 and posted my first podfic that April.
2. What would you say was your inspiration or motivation to start doing it?
It seemed like an art form I could actually do fairly competently as a way to express my fannish creativity and participate more in on-line communities. I had spent a lot of my internet time being a lurker and consumer, and podfic was an achievable outlet for me that I was really excited about and would let me contribute something.
3. What fandoms have you podficced in?
SGA/SG1 stories make up the highest percentage of my podfics right now, with The Middleman a distant but beloved second. Others are Doctor Who, Hot Fuzz, Mathnet, NPR RPF, Leverage, Max Headroom, NCIS, Highlander, White Collar, Sherlock (BBC), Due South, AIRPS, and H50.
4. What was your favourite podfic to make or do?
Argh, it's like choosing your favorite child! Since I gripe about editing later in this meme, the easiest podfic to edit that I've done is From the Mangled Journal of Ritchie Ryan, done for last year's Multipodicity. It was a new experience for me to read a story written in first-person. I had fun with it, recorded it in one take with minimal repetition, and the editing was a breeze.
But I also love telling people about how I recorded part of Learning to Breathe in my bathtub. :)
5. Where do you draw your inspiration from for podfic?
I love the opportunity to sort of live in my favorite stories for a while and share them with others. It's like I'm literally adding my voice to the community, and it's great to hear others as well, to be reminded that there are voices and people behind the words I read on my screen when I don't get to interact with them in person. I also love the challenge of translating stories with unusual textual or visual components into audio -- I've said that they're like my podfic-nip. :)
6. What was your least favourite podfic to make or do?
It's not my least favorite, but my most intense round of podficcing was pinch-hitting during last year's Podbang in a fandom I wasn't familiar with. Luckily I had mandatory time off of work and the recipient (*waves to paraka*) has a Delicious account. I got to stretch my skills and learn about a new fandom, and I recorded and edited 20K words in a week. I took a nice break after that.
7. Which podfic are you most proud of?
Both technically and performance-wise, I'm still very pleased with My Name is John Sheppard: I'm a Mathematician. Everything came together well for that one. I worked hard to make it sound like an episode of "Mathnet", and I think it was pretty successful.
8. What's the best feedback or comment you've ever gotten?
If a listener says they liked my reading or some producing aspect of a recording or that I made them smile, that always makes me feel great. If they tell me that a podfic I've done has transformed the story into something new or has changed or augmented the way they experience the story, that makes me feel like magic.
9. What's your opinion on music in podfic?
Used for intro/outros, I'm cool with it, though I prefer the intro be closer to 30 seconds, maybe a minute, tops. I've been introduced to some great new music through them and I enjoy that aspect. I usually don't include them in my own recordings for the kind of weird reason that having the intro music makes them sound more like formal audiobooks I've listened to in the past. (Someday I'll write about my thoughts on "audiofic" (fanfic read aloud by fans) versus "podiobooks" (original fic read aloud and released serially, often as a podcast, to promote a story and/or author). As much as I want to improve my reading and production values and use some sophisticated audio techniques, in a way I don't want podfic to lose its intimate "amateur" status.
Okay, that went a little off-track.
As a background sound to the reading, sometimes it's a little distracting but used well, it's all good.
10. Favourite genre to podfic to (comedy, angst, romance, drama, AU)?
I think I'm more comfortable with comedy, but I'm trying to work on more dramatic and emotionally intense stories.
11. Favourite fandom(s) and/or pairing(s) to podfic?
I don't know that I have a favorite for either of these. My podfic choices reflect a good chunk of my fanfic interests, obviously, and when I find a story that I enjoy a lot, I think that's what makes it a favorite for me, more than what fandom's it's from.
Now, favorite character to speak for? Well, Rodney McKay's snarky id is always a treat, and Wendy Watson has an awesome hip coolness that I love to embody.
12. What just drives you up the wall when it comes to podfic?
The editing. Good Lord, the editing. I've read about people's methods of snapping, clapping, clicking, or making some such noise that's visible in the file's waveform that helps them single out mistakes more easily, but so help me, I have yet to master this, so I end up listening to almost every single minute of my raw recording. (Except for when I stop reading because I hear a plane overhead or a loud car engine passing by. At least those moments are easy to see and skip.) And then sometimes I forget that I've re-recorded a paragraph or page in the same audio file, and after I've spent all that time editing the first take, I listen to the second take and half the time I edit and use that version. So the occasional duplication of effort is annoying, and maybe I should learn to write notes to myself during the recording.
13. What’s your podfic recoding set up like?
I've set up the corner of a small-but-long storage closet with egg carton foam curved around one of the corners, a small table with my Logitech microphone sitting on top of a coffee can, and an old comforter hanging on the inside of the closet door. The laptop stays outside of the closet to avoid background fan noise, so every raw recording starts and ends with a loooong stretch and chair-tipping to hit the "record" button.
14. What is your latest project or idea for your next podfic (if your muse isn't dead)?
A multivoice Sherlock (BBC) story that I am DYING to get done before VividCon.
15. Finally, what kind of words of wisdom would you offer someone who wants to podfic/is a newbie?
Doooooo eeeeeeeeet! Don't be afraid to ask for help or betas, start small (e.g., drabbles and such), don't worry about your accent 'cause virtually nobody else will, and do as much as you reasonably can to eliminate background noise in your recording space.
Crossposted to http://lunate8.dreamwidth.org/12667.html.