Podcasts ... ooooohhh, Transformers?

Sinead · Unread post by **Sinead** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:51 am

I just stumbled upon a wealth of amazingness. if you have iTunes, you can download free podcasts. And I was bored, so I typed in "Transformers."

There are 30 podcasts that came up, including one about fanfiction. Which gave me an idea. What about organizing a BWINT fanfiction/blog/overall lunacy blog? Doesn't have to be weekly or even monthly, but as inspiration comes up. Anyone interested? I'd be spearheading this mission ... quest ... thing ... and would be figuring out all the "how to" of recording, interviews (among BWINTers, I'm not that good to get interviews from VAs/celebs), and whatnot.

Just an idea ... one that I've noticed we haven't done before!

Blazemane · Unread post by **Blazemane** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:15 pm

Absolutely, I'm in!

Oh my goodness, yes.

I'd be spearheading this mission ... quest ... thing ... and would be figuring out all the "how to" of recording, interviews (among BWINTers, I'm not that good to get interviews from VAs/celebs), and whatnot.

Great. Where are we going?

Aesir · Unread post by **Aesir** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 2:41 pm

Blazemane wrote:Absolutely, I'm in!

Oh my goodness, yes.

I'd be spearheading this mission ... quest ... thing ... and would be figuring out all the "how to" of recording, interviews (among BWINTers, I'm not that good to get interviews from VAs/celebs), and whatnot.
Great. Where are we going?

you could have one at autoassembly in august, as some of us are going there

Blazemane · Unread post by **Blazemane** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 4:24 pm

Blazemane wrote:
Absolutely, I'm in!

Oh my goodness, yes.

Quote:
I'd be spearheading this mission ... quest ... thing ... and would be figuring out all the "how to" of recording, interviews (among BWINTers, I'm not that good to get interviews from VAs/celebs), and whatnot.

Great. Where are we going?

you could have one at autoassembly in august, as some of us are going there

I didn't mean a literal location. I was quoting Peregrin Took.

Sinead · Unread post by **Sinead** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 4:32 pm

Autoassembly ... not a bad idea! I'm downloading Audacity right now to do some of the recording, and to test recording. I'm going to test and see if it'll record an audio conversation between two people on AIM or MSN tonight, and will be looking at doing the same for Skype once I get that set up. That could be one way of doing interviews of different authors, or even multiple authors at one on Skype.

But that's only if it works. Otherwise, I have a backup plan. Yay for Plan B!

So the ideas that I have going are:

Interviews with authors/artists
Fanfic readings (probably just one chapter or two)
General ranting
Character highlights/anniversaries/specials

Any other ideas?

Aesir · Unread post by **Aesir** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 1:27 am

Sinead wrote:Autoassembly ... not a bad idea! I'm downloading Audacity right now to do some of the recording, and to test recording. I'm going to test and see if it'll record an audio conversation between two people on AIM or MSN tonight, and will be looking at doing the same for Skype once I get that set up. That could be one way of doing interviews of different authors, or even multiple authors at one on Skype.

But that's only if it works. Otherwise, I have a backup plan. Yay for Plan B!

So the ideas that I have going are:

Interviews with authors/artists
Fanfic readings (probably just one chapter or two)
General ranting
Character highlights/anniversaries/specials

Any other ideas?

reviews? like for toys, comics, and series'?

starshadow · Unread post by **starshadow** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:24 am

well im thinking to make the blog more interesting, we should have a chatbox in there...and afew fanarts to attract the readers. Ohoh almost forgot, put some music in it. We of course need a good blog template.
I ran out of ideas...i think i didn't help that much.

Joshin Yasha · Unread post by **Joshin Yasha** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:44 am

OMG SMORES!!

This is a fantastic idea!! And I think something we could do to get the ball rolling with fanfic readings would be to use excerpts or actual chapters from fanfics that have won awards on the site in the past (you know, attract more website attention that way)

Interviewing is a fantastic idea, though I think before someone were to be interviewed we could give them a planned out list of potential questions. That way, it's easier for some people to speak than to face the sometimes "uhhh ummm"s of interviews

Wicked Woman · Unread post by **Wicked Woman** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 6:43 am

Good call.

We can also have chapters from upcoming stories/series. I'd happily offer the first chapter of my Beast What series... as soon as it's finished.

WW

Joshin Yasha · Unread post by **Joshin Yasha** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 6:18 pm

I think one way to do the interviews would be to use the built in software on most Windows and Macs - the sound recorder. All you'd have to do that way is have the person being interviewed read what they're being asked, and then hit record to answer. Since they can save it as a simple .wav file, it would be easy to send in. That way, whomever would be conducting the interview could give tidbits of information about the author or fanartist before alluding to the next question.

Example:

Interviewer: "Today we have an interview with blah blah blah, currently working on/most famous for yadda yadda yadda posted to BWInternational. I have a few questions for blah blah blah, and I'll begin by asking about such and such character and why they wrote the character the way they did."

Interviewee: "Well, mainly I got the inspiration..."

I think this would be a simple way to start out, and then as we get more into it and find our footing, we could advance to a dual conversation interview where both people could be recorded while talking

Also, I would totally volunteer to be interviewed or read a chapter or exerpt from my fics

Sinead · Unread post by **Sinead** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 12:57 pm

I'm thinking about turning this into an overall Transformers podcast based off of the BWINT crew and our opinions, but I'll have to have Sapph's permission in that case to have the doors thrown open and still base it out of this page, since this is a BW-themed site overall. I don't want to be overstepping my boundaries. If anything, I'll be uploading these onto a website of my own even if just to host them. If she says "BW only," I'll be more than all right with that because that might possibly cut down on a lot of stuff that everyone would want to address, such as theories on the AllSpark, the Matrix, time-continuum issues, differences from G1, etc.

Joshin, I like your idea about the award-winning fanfic highlights. But what about if we did different podcasts going over each category. For example, doing one podcast solely on "From the BWINT Awards, Romances winners from the years 2003 to 2006," Then Action, Comedy, etc. Do reviews on them, reading an excerpt from each fanfic. We could even include runners-up. Runner-ups? Something. LOL. Okay. So. Moving on!

Technical stuff:
To be blunt and honest, .wav files are huge, bulky, and they're just plain annoying to email to people. I don't know how Macs are set up for sound, but I do know that Audacity is free, and there's a plug-in that can be used so that you can export the recording in a .mp3 file format. I've been messing around with it a little, and it seems to be working just fine. However, Audacity only records the input of the machine that it's working on. In order to have a "live chat," both users would have to be recording at the same time on their own machines, and one would be sending their file format to the other to patch together in the program. I'm going to check and see if that's possible to do in Audacity.

The list so far:
Interviews with authors/artists
Fanfic readings
Fanfic reviews
General ranting
Character highlights/anniversaries/specials
Toy reviews (I suggest TehCrab for this ... look on YouTube for his Grimlock toy review)
Comic reviews
Series reviews

(And as a disclaimer, I'm going to just tag this on here that since I'm going to be the one in charge of this, and I'll be doing it anyway no matter the outcome of what opinion you have on the following issue, I'm not going to be putting any slash stuff into the podcast. If you want your slash, I honestly am not going to be supplying it. I'm sorry if this offends you or if you find an issue with me about this, but I'm not going to give into that level of fanservice. I don't like it, it complicates matters, and that's that.)

Joshin Yasha · Unread post by **Joshin Yasha** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 2:22 pm

Hmmm, Sinead, just to play devil's advocate here in regards to your slash preferences, but perhaps once we get a podcast established, and we get enough people who know what they're doing, we could upload a secondary podcast (with someone else on "staff" managing it and label it something like "BWI Podcast Deux - PC14" [that's PodCast 14, like TV14, but only in this case for audio

]). This way we can reach out to all the preferences of the fans that frequent this website, and keep everyone happy that way

Sinead · Unread post by **Sinead** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:09 pm

Then to continue to play my side, be my guest, but that is a project I will not be affiliated with. I don't mean this in a harsh way, even though my words might seem as such. Tone isn't something that can translate over very well over text alone. I'm just putting that up there as something that I personally will not do because of my own personal dislike. So if you want to start something like that up later on, that's up to you. I'm just wanting to do something that doesn't have a rating on it, suitable for all ages.

Joshin Yasha · Unread post by **Joshin Yasha** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:27 pm

lol I wasn't saying necessarily me doing it, but I wanted to throw the idea of a companion pod cast out there that might potentially suite the other half of the crowd later on.

Sinead · Unread post by **Sinead** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:41 pm

Ah, okay. Gotcha! Yeah, maybe. If there's enough yelling for it from enough people, then go for it, I guess. I'm going to be working on that website of mine tonight ... hopefully it'll work. Geocities is dead, so that's out ... eewwww.