All 2011 Projects now Posted!

[paraka]

Yesterday was our last day posting reveals for pod_together. We had 41 projects turned in by 73 talented people in 31 different fandoms.

You all are awesome!

We'd like to send thanks to everyone who took part in this challenge! To participants, especially pinch hitters and those who took on more than one project. To all who helped spread the word about this comm, or who helped out in other ways such as cheerleaders, betas and readers/listeners of the final projects. To Amelia at AO3 for helping us get set up over there, providing us with invites and making sure that streaming was available on time for reveals. And to lazigyrl who put in time when she was super busy to help with some things on the website (which none of you saw but we still appreciated).

It was so exciting for us to see all the finished projects, and to see how authors and podficcers alike experimented and pushed boundaries to take full advantage of this challenge. You can see all our works here. It's been amazing, and we hope to see you back next year for round 2!

And with that, we'd like to open the comments up to you. We'd love for people to talk about their experiences and share their observations, kind of like a mini DVD commentary for your project. What went well? What did you find challenging? What surprised you? Did you change up your usual creative process for your project? What are your thoughts on author/podficcer collaborations after this experience, and do you have plans/hopes/ideas for future collaborations?


Love,

Mods

Comments

[helens78]

I kind of want to save my in-depth comments for when luzula is back at her computer (she's gone for another few days!), but I have to say, this was one of the most fun projects I've ever participated in, and I can't thank you enough for organizing it and giving us the idea to collaborate like this. I am overjoyed at how our project came out, so so so thrilled, and it gave me the opportunity to get beta comments and give feedback (we did both through audio instead of text!) in a way I'd never done them before. It was all kinds of fun!

I would do it again in a heartbeat. :)

[paraka]

this was one of the most fun projects I've ever participated in
Yay! I’m so glad to hear that! It sounds like you and luzula had a really interesting process, I can’t wait for your in-depth comment. :D

[luzula]

Okay, now I'll get around to replying to this!

I had a lot of fun with this project, and I love how it turned out! As I told Helens, this is a genre of story that I couldn't have written myself (Old West), because I don't know enough about the setting, but I love to podfic this sort of story.

A while ago I started doing beta readings in audio form to spare my hands from computer work, and that felt very fitting for this project. This is how we did it:

- Helens sent rough draft of story to me
- I recorded a rough draft of the podfic, and also sent recorded feedback
- Helens revised story and sent recorded feedback on my rough draft
- I recorded the podfic and sent it to her for editing
- She sent the finished podfic to me to see if I wanted anything changed.

I'd never let anyone else edit my podfic before, and it seemed like an interesting thing to try. I felt kind of vulnerable sending someone a file of all my screw-ups while reading, and I don't think I could do that with just anyone. Anyway, in most places I don't think it made much difference (except to spare me the computer work), because if I screwed up a line and then did a retake, it'll probably turn out the same no matter who does the editing, except for possibly having a longer/shorter pause. But in some places there were multiple retakes of lines, and then she could choose which one she preferred.

Also, it was cool to be able to give feedback about phrases that were awkward to say, so that Helens could change them. There weren't many of these, though, and it's not something I often have trouble with while podficcing.

[klb]

I have so much to say and no time, for I am moving this weekend, but for now I at least want to say how emotionally invested I am in this whole project. It feels like *such* a big deal to me, like we are opening up the definition of how podfic and fic can interact. I really hope that some of the partnerships who enjoyed working together on this challenge will make more projects together, and that in the future when authors and podfic artists admire each others' work, there will be a greater likelihood that they will express that mutual admiration by deciding to work together on this sort of collaborative project. I know the idea for this type of collaboration had been floating around for a while before the challenge, so it's not like pod_together invented it. But I do think/hope that the challenge had an impact, because through it we've seen so many examples of partnerships/groups making this work (and finding such a variety of *different* ways to make it work) that hopefully it will gain some traction as a more commonplace fan activity.

That's my big dream right now—that by the time round 2 of pod_together comes around next year, it will feel slightly obsolete, because this has started to become the type of thing that authors and podficcers do together frequently outside the frame of a formal challenge. That's maybe an unrealistic dream for next year, but even if it doesn't happen that fast, I still hope that it does someday.

[miss_s_b]

I really enjoyed recording the work I was involved in, and I think the result was pretty good. I'd love to do something similar again, but since my laptop died while the challenge was ongoing, and now my recording equipment is buggered too, I don't think it's likely for a bit.

I think the main thing I learned, or rather, had confirmed to me, is that my Douglas Adams approach to deadlines, especially when my partner has the same approach, can be really frustrating for community mods :/

[mific]

Oh, I totally missed the notice and sign-ups time for this *cries*, but I've been pretty ground down by work and other deadlines, so maybe just as well. It all looks absolutely amazing and I'm working my way through the great treasure house of podfic, and stories, and art. I'll definitely be in when you organize it next year!