Wow, it’s been a while. Real life gets pesky like that, don’t it?
I return with a topic for debate with all of you out there.
Podfic.
Do you listen to it? Do you like it? And most importantly… why?
See I get the concept. In theory. Lets you consume fan goodies while you’re not at the computer. Listen to porn while commuting. Whee! And having a story you like brought to ‘life’? Reading fanfic is good, so why not listening to someone else read it?
Thing is, to me that’s not actually appealing. I read fic and it plays out in my head with certain emphasis and intonation and rhythm. I don’t want to hear someone else’s version of all that. I want to hear my own.
If I think some character’s sex noise sounds like ng, I don’t want to hear that someone else thinks it sounds like unf.
And I certainly don’t want to hear a fannish voice coming out of the speakers at me.
No offense to all the talented fen out there who can pull off fabulous vocal acting, but it hits my embarrassment squick like woah to have my 4th wall breached with a live voice. It completely destroys the images I create in my head when some random voice reads dialogue and internal monologues from characters I’m invested in.
I don’t care if you’re a professional audiobook recorder and voiceover artist, if you’re a 30-something American woman, there is no way you’re going to sound like Buffy‘s Spike or Captain Jack Sparrow.
So please chime in here and tell me what it is about podfic that does do it for you. Or, you know, tell me I’m right and you agree with me. I have no problem with that, either.
But I really am interested in hearing from people who like this podfic stuff. What’s so great about it? Are there certain people or stories that you’d recommend to convince me to change my mind?
Bring it on.
I think I’m with you, but– I don’t know for sure, never having had the aural privacy to try listening!
But I do love books on tape, on the rare occasions I’ve had them available.
I’ve been known to check it out with headphones and my laptop. Sneaky.
Hi—here from the link at podficmeta. I like to listen to podfic, and to audio books, because
(a) I’m a very lazy reader. I let my eyes drift over the pages, and skip great swathes of text if I’m not disciplined about it. This can be handy (eg Thomas Hardy…) but I’ve discovered that listening to a story makes me experience every word, and I like that. It’s actually quite a different experience from reading.
(b) I can listen to stories where I can’t read them—eg if I’m painting, knitting, Photoshopping etc. I like to have different parts of my brain busy, so a story I can experience without having to read it is often just what I need.
I find, incidentally, that it’s quite rare for a reader to really impinge on my awareness of the story. I think there’s one audiobook I don’t much enjoy because of the reader’s particular style; I haven’t yet found an equivalent fan story on podfic where the reader intrudes in the same way, though no doubt I will.
Thanks, Pen.
(There is indeed a really good and informative discussion going on over at podficmeta if anyone else is interested.)
Your points are well taken. I definitely have that tendency to let myself skip chunks of text when I read, too. Me, I get something out of the attempt to discipline myself *not* to skip text when I read. But I see where you don’t have to worry about it with podfic.
It’s funny, I’m such a visual learner (part of why audio stuff doesn’t work as well for me), but at the same time there’s such a strong aural component for me in that I like to ‘hear’ character’s voices in my head (much the same way I create visual images of them in my head). That’s what makes it so hard for me to hear others reading fic in a way non-fannish audiobooks don’t bring up. I do love a good audiobook, but I think I’m looking for something very different when I read fanfic.
At any rate, thanks for your thoughts. I really appreciate them.
You know, If you ‘hear’ the character’s voices like that, maybe you’d enjoy actually recording podfic instead of listening to other people’s versions that might cause some conflict in your head.
It can be a lot of fun…
Laurie
here via a couple of links – I like podfic in the exact same way I’ve always enjoyed audiobooks. The problem of narration/voice acting carries over in, say, a passionate scene between Rochester and Jane Eyre – but plenty of people like listening to audio versions of Brontë novels!
Just fwiw.
Yeah, it’s funny that I have no problem with audiobooks, but get weird about podfic.
Laurie, the thought of recording podfic crossed my mind for a minute, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that I’m satisfied to hear the voices in my head (haha… that makes me sound crazy) and acting them out… I think I’d still lose something in the translation.
But thanks for the suggestion.
Miz um, fandomfan–I started making my own about three years ago, and yes, porn + commuting–god, have you seen how utterly straight some of the (most of the) highways are in TX and in sTX, even though I’m a birder and I can id most things at 70 mph, well, there’s only so many hawks on poles or wading birds at the odd ponds. I listened to someone’s Spuffy once and tweren’t the same. But, it’s like this–I really like reading aloud–in my family growing up, we’d pile up in mother and daddy’s bed on Sunday mornings and my daddy would read the comics for us and mother would read articles about family/hostess stuff whatever! and so it means a whole lot of comfort –like having someone scratch your back for you–even if it’s me for me. I’m with you, don’t need someone else reading naughties outloud–yucko. Sorry, probably tmi, I’m a chatty cathy.
That’s interesting… making your own podfic for your own use without tapping into the larger fannish community to find other people to read the stories to you.
This somehow strikes me as quite practical and right-headed in a way that kind of tickles me pink. And, actually, this seems like something I myself would be more inclined to do if I ever decided I really did want to *listen* to fic instead of read it (still an unlikely thing, but you never know).
Do you share your recordings with fannish communities or just use them for yourself?
This is the post I made two years ago, when I first discovered Podfic, and it pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:
http://pandarus.livejournal.com/tag/audiofic
Beyond that, though – I love acting, and the physical act of storytelling, and recording accent-appropriate stories was something I jumped at immediately. It took quite a lot longer for me to reconcile myself to having a stab at recording USian fandoms, since I am quite painfully British, but after I’d listened to several podfics for American fandoms recorded by nonAmericans and found myself enjoying them, I decided that if anyone was going to record my own stories it really should be me*, accent notwithstanding. So…yeah. It’s very self-indulgent, on my part – I like being able to listen to stories that I’ve loved, and I know how I think they should sound; granted I can’t DO that properly for the US characters, but I can have a crack at it. (And the UK fandoms are a delight.)
I found the experience of listening to a story (not podfic, initially – a friend gave me a disk with several lectures and novels in mp3 form which I loaded onto my iPod and wandered around listening to) was a total paradigm shift for me. It doesn’t replace text, because there’s something very sensual about the written word, but…eh, I love having he whole world around me full of words, when I’m shopping or walking to work or in the gym or wherever. I love getting to have story wrapped around me while I’m riding on the skytrain, or paying my bills. It’s a delight. (And it’s funny, you know – I hated the sound of my own voice until I was twenty or so, and was one massive wince any time I heard it recorded. Now? Now I quite cheerfully wander around listening to my own podfics at the drop of a hat.)
*not saying it should be exclusively me, you understand – if an American wanted to record them (well, or anyone else) then that would be awesome, and I quite understand that some people will find the accent thing distracting.
See, that sneaky thrill of listening to something naughty while outwardly appearing all attentive and well-behaved is something I can completely understand.
I’m intrigued by what you said in your original post (thanks for the link, btw) about being touched to have your fic personalized by hearing fan voices reading it aloud. That’s actually part of what sends me running for the hills. I like the simultaneous sense of familiarity and mystery I get from fannish communities. I like knowing what tone someone may bring to fic or comments, what kind of attitude or outlook to expect from hir and what kind of ‘personality’ zhe likes to put forward.
But I like just as much the anonymity of the idea that a given fan could be *anyone*. I like not always knowing people’s genders or ages or where they live. I like the thought that the little old lady on the bus next to me just might be the person who writes all that filthy kinky fic I adore. I like the mystery of knowing that there are people out there all around the world writing this stuff and sharing it internationally and creating these communities without walls. And to have a voice put to a fic shatters that for me.
All of a sudden, that intriguingly mysterioso anonymity disappears and it’s, ‘Oh, so *that’s* what suchandsuchusername sounds like’, and my head starts filling with ideas about where zhe’s from and how old zhe is and speculating about whether zhe is, in fact, he or she.
Funnily enough, after saying all that, I’ve given a couple of your recordings a listen (both of your own stories and of others’), and after the initial weirding-out at hearing someone else’s voice reading about these characters I know and love, I ended up enjoying them quite a bit. I still don’t see podfic taking a significant role in my own fannish consumption habits in future, but for what it’s worth, I think you do a lovely job.
[...] is the really interesting and very multifaceted one at podficmeta that came out of my last post about podfic. I linked to it in the comments to that entry, but it went on from there, and I found it very [...]