Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology II

[sophinisba]

halfamoon is running their annual celebration of female characters from now through February 14th. klb, cantarina, bessyboo, and I would like to put together a podfic contribution to that celebration, a reprise of last year's Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology, to be posted on the 14th. Like klb did last year, we'll collect a bunch of short lady-centric podfics by different readers in different fandoms and make them available both as individual files and as a podfic/podbook collection.

Podficcers: Interested in participating? We'd love to have you. Even though we're working with a relatively short time-frame, it should be a low-stress project, even for people who are new to podficcing, since we are only looking for short podficlets: based on stories of less than 1500 words (with many being as short as 1-2 minutes). If you'd like to record something for this anthology, please comment here or at the corresponding post on amplificathon with your preferred method of contact (email or PM), and we'll send you the link to the spreadsheet where we'll be keeping track of all the podfics.

Here are some good places for finding short fics about female characters:
-Awesome Ladies Ficathon (LJ)
-Awesome Ladies Ficathon (DW)
-Real Women Fest
-Female Character Trope Fest
-The Bechdell Test Comment Ficathon
-The Bechdell Test Comment Ficathon II
-I am the Plot, Babe: A Villainess Ficathon
-The Women Being Awesome, Female Characters, and Female Relationships tags at the AO3, sorted by wordcount.

Everyone: Feel free to comment with links to other fests or specific works that you think would be a good fit for this anthology. Even if you're not able to make a podfic right now, maybe you can help someone else find a story they want to record.

Authors: It would be totally awesome if some authors wanted to get involved, in pod_together style, to create short female-centric pieces for the anthology in collaboration with podficcers. If you’re an author who’s interested, please comment below. Podficcers who would like this sort of collaboration, please reply directly to the authors.

Below the cut is a little more information on what we're looking for with these podfics and how they should be submitted.



For the sake of consistency within the anthology, we'd like to ask that everyone follow these guidelines for eligible fics and the metadata you include in the podfic:

-Each reader can make as many podfics as they want, but up to 10 podfics, and each story should be less than 1500 words.
-All stories should focus on characters who identify as women in canon.
-All fandoms, including rpf fandoms, are eligible.
-All recordings should begin and end with two seconds of silence.
-Each reading should begin, "[Title], by [author], read by [reader]. Fandom: [Fandom]." We also suggest including appropriate warnings or content notes for common triggers such as sexual assault and underage sex.
-Each reading should end with "The End".
-To match last year’s anthology, the metadata should follow this format (link to image):

Name: [Fandom] Title
Artist: readername (reader)
Album Artist: authorname (author)
Year: 2012
Album: Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology II
Comments: Text at: http://link
Genre: Podfic
(Note that usernames should be all-lowercase, with fandom and title given title capitalization.)

-All podfics should be submitted in mp3 format by February 12th at midnight Central Standard Time (GMT-6).

Comments

[jelazakazone]

Heh. Ok. I will get the pieces submitted by Sunday night.

I did a trial run with garageband and like the sound of it much better than soundcloud. I just need to figure out how to record my friend and we'll be set. Do you know anyone who has dealt with the issue of recording two voices that were not together?

Thanks again!! ♥

[cantarina]

I've done multi-voice podfic when the readers weren't in the same room. The first method I used was for both parties to record and edit separately, before splicing everything together (you can use separate tracks or long silences to mark each part). Alternatively, you can get on Skype or a similar program and record any reading you do there. I'm not sure which programs to point you to to do that, but there are a number of free ones for Windows users. (You're out of luck if you're using a Mac, unless you're willing to pay. Although there is the trial period?)

They both have their advantages and neither entirely fixes the problem of different quality mics and recording set-ups, but they get the job done!

[sophinisba]

I'm not sure which programs to point you to to do that, but there are a number of free ones for Windows users. (You're out of luck if you're using a Mac, unless you're willing to pay.

What kind of programs do you mean? I use Skype and GarageBand (and have used Audacity) on a Mac and I haven't had to pay for any of them. I haven't done that kind of recording though.

[cantarina]

Sorry, my language wasn't clear. There are programs that will specifically record a conversation had over Skype. It's what we used to record our three-voice audio play, "Time and Relative Perspectives in Space". weimar27 did the tech work on that end of it, so I'm not a lot of help saying exactly what resources she used!

[sophinisba]

Aw yeah a program to record Skype conversations would be nice. :/

[jelazakazone]

I use Skype for free on my Mac! I did gchat with my friend and that was fine, except that the speakers on my Mac are AWFUL, so that was bad. I think I need to record on a different computer and that will hopefully fix the problem. Otherwise, we are going to have to record separately and then splice. What we got today wasn't even acceptable as some of her words were so broken up (like an old cell phone:P).

Thanks for the input!

[cantarina]

Sorry, I garbled that explanation. There's actually software that will record a Skype conversation from within your computer; I'm not sure that the speakers have anything to do with it. weimar27 will know more; she took care of that side of it.

Skype connections can definitely be problematic :/ We had to keep an ear out for blips and garbles in each other's voices, so that we could re-record lines. The other advantage to splicing is that it allows for a really easy way of assigning editing!

[jelazakazone]

Ok. Got it.

My friend won't be doing any editing. She claims that technology hates her, so I was thrilled that we were able to record on gchat! Gchat was fine, it was my speakers that were a problem (laptop).

[jelazakazone]

Oh, I've not said, but I'm planning to do two for Merlin. Thanks:D

[sophinisba]

Let me PM you the link so you can add your information to the spreadsheet. :)

[jelazakazone]

Thanks for all the handholding. My attempt at podficcing would not be happening without you, you know. ♥