Statement of Purpose

[zvi]

This community is for podfic meta -- what's an effective way to use music, are certain stories more podficcable than others, what tagging data is good and where should it go, for instance -- and podfic reviews. The goal is not to come to a single consensus about what makes a good podfic, but to articulate and debate aesthetic theories about podfic, in the same way that we articulate and debate aesthetic theories about television shows, music, movies, and, to a sadly lesser extent, fanfiction and other fanactivity.

This community is not for concrit or recommendations; those are valuable, but they also lead the discussion to a really producer-centered place. This comm is for those who like meta discussion and podfic, without regard to whether they read, edit, or listen.

If music be the food of love, play on

[zvi]

What should music do for a podfic?

I have to admit, most of the time when a podfic has music, I find it really annoying. However, there have been some cases when it was more effective than annoying, and I have tried to tease out what the differences were.

1) The music was used to structure the podfic listening experience. In Written by the Victors, for instance, music helps mark the transition between the Earth-based documentary sections and the third person narrative Atlantis sections.

2) The music was related to the fanfic. In pandarus' reading of Old Country, which is a Harry Potter/Supernatur crossover from Dean's POV, she uses wrock snippets to break up the sections. (Wrock or wizard rock is electric Harry Potter filk. Dean is a classic rock afficionado.) And, the wrock songs relate to the story sections. House of Awesome prefaces the section where Sam and Dean get sorted, and also relates to the fic's overall theme that Sam and Dean don't exactly fit into the normal wizard world's structures.

3) The music is brief. I always forget, but the musical interlude which opens Old Country makes me unhappy, because it's 1:57 seconds, which is at least 1 minute too long. The interlude which opens section two is 35 seconds, and it is perfect, just enough time to set up the story, not so long that I start feeling like maybe I should switch to my favorite radio station, instead of this one that I have landed on randomly. (And in this particular instance, I actually like In Your Shadow, which is what the too long snippet comes from. I don't have an example of a too long music section with music I dislike, because I've deleted any such podfics.)

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How do you like music in podfic? When does it work for you and when does it make you want to put in your own mixtape instead? Are there any readers who are getting the balance right, or anyone who gets it really, really wrong? Can someone who likes having entire songs included in podfic, either as a reader or listener, talk about what they like about it?