People in a fandom
April 27th, 2005 05:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skerenImagine, I got a homework assignment that I could share with all you fans out there. Enjoy. And if there are a couple errors, I likely caught them after I posted this and before I turned it in... I hope, if not, too late to worry.
The People in a Fandom
A fandom is a community made up of many fans that all wish to pay tribute to one book series, anime, television show, movie, or anything else that could conceivably have a fan base. Many communities are multinational, with the fandom gracing wherever it is that the media could reach, be it in paper, over the Internet, or on television. Anime, for instance, gets one of the largest audiences, spanning from Japan to America and all the countries in between. This would not be possible if there was no method for fans to communicate, and in this modern era, the Internet has become key in developing this unique part of society. There are various roles that a person can take up online, and they gloss over many areas, spanning from those who just watch, lurkers, to the authors, artists, and graphic editors that make up the bulk of a fandom.
Authors make up more than half of the people in any fandom all by themselves. Not to say all authors write the same sorts of things, because that would be entirely wrong. There are those who write stories, the ones that focus on the abstract, and the ones that take a more concrete approach to the idea. Each style has its own parts that make it unique from the others.
Stories in the way it was used above, is talking about the most common form, unchecked fiction. There are many kinds of stories, and to go on the safe side, genres will not be gone into here. Instead, the different classifications of stories for a fandom will be defined, from biggest to smallest. This starts with epics. These stories take years to write, and have multiple books and novels in the same story line. A book, in turn, tends to be a story that runs on the long side, typically above twenty chapters, while a novel is the short version of this, falling beneath the twenty chapter mark, but never having less than three. On the other side of this are arcs, which can also be called a series, in which many single-chaptered works were strung together to form a larger story. These single-chaptered stories do not always have to go into an arc, and in fact are fairly common in most fandoms, and have an entire section of their own. These stories are called one shots and can range anywhere from novel length to about five hundred words. At that point it ceases being a one shot and turns into a vignette, which it remains until the two hundred word mark. One that small size is reached, it is then considered a drabble, and anything smaller would fall into this same category. Most people do not get these various definitions spelled out to them, so only careful observation will let you learn the language.
Those authors who focus on the abstract also have the more difficult parts of the fandom to write in a successful manner. One part of this is songfics, or stories that are written around the lyrics from a song, wherein an author tries to get across what it is that they saw in those lyrics in the story around them. When done well, this type of story cannot be read without the lyrics. Another version of songfics are those that take a song and use it as a framework where the author replaces the original lyrics with words that will be put into use for the same beat. Along these same lines are the poets, who use pure abstract to convey their stories and character interpretations in freeform stanzas.
And the last group of authors, those who balance the ones working in the abstract, are those that work in the technical. This group of people often take up writing challenges, which have clear guidelines that range from word limits, time limits, or general topics all the way over to specific pairings and lines that need to be used within their stories. The technical authors are also the main group that strays away from the story writing, instead focusing more on aspect essays, and picking apart facets of the character to reveal the inner workings of the characters and plot. Of course, if something is badly written, then this is also the group that you can rely on to heckle the idiot.
Moving on to the next set of people in a fandom, you get the artists. As most artists are not completely isolated from the rest of the community, then the written word is known to find its way into some of the works that artists do. On the other hand, the ranks of Artists are far more defined than those of authors, as most writers tend to let the lines blur between one style and another.
Sketch artists are the drifters of the fandom. This group moves in and out of the fandom, presenting random art pieces on whim before vanishing again after accepting some praise or recognition. These people also tend to be considered lurkers, those people who say or do little, but watch everything. Not to say that only artists lurk, because authors and graphic editors do as well, but artists seem to be more inclined to do so.
The commission artists are next down the line in a fandom, and tend to be among the better known. These people tend to draw pictures for others, whether because they are being paid or because someone requested that they do so. Of course, that does not mean that they only do art on request, to the contrary, often this group will have someone draw a picture, and that picture will in turn cause a story to be written based off of it that will cause more artwork. That is a healthy cycle for any fandom.
Those in the art community that do doujinshi are usually the ones that are least likely to go broke due to their hobbies. Namely, being part of the fandom in the first place. For those that do not know, doujinshi is a Japanese word for a “fan magazine.” The magazines in question are not the sort that would be found in the supermarket, instead being closer in style to a standard comic book, and are usually done in black and white. This group of people are lucky if they do not live in the United States for the simple reason of them being able to sell the doujinshi that they create.
This leads into the last, most detailed, segment of the creative part of a fandom, the graphic editors. This group of people has to be among the more talented ones in a fandom for the simple fact that they have to be more aware of their resources to be able to do what they do.
The first group that is going to be explained are the capture artists. These people have a thorough knowledge of the series, if only visual, and have to if they want to be able to get the perfect shots. These people have patience, at least that is the outward observation, because often if the first chance at a shot is missed, then the artist will have to watch, and rewatch, the same place over and over again. Usually these people have slightly different viewing programs to be able to do this, allowing them to be able to get the picture they desire as the common movie playing programs that come with a computer will give a blank screen when this is attempted. The other key thing to being a capture artist is that the person doing the capture has to be fast, because otherwise the shot will be missed.
The second group, the icon and banner makers, are more in demand in the journal-based fandoms, since this is the area that the art they produce would be best used. The icon half of this group can have their projects split into four chunks, the moving icons, the moving icons with words, the still icons, and the still icons with words. Moving icons tend to be small, no larger than 100x100 pixels in size, but with a length constraint as well that usually lets whatever sequence of events they show last no more than a few moments. The moving icons with words tend to show pictures that have words that might or might not have anything to do with what the picture was originally meant to be, but that is fine as usually a well done saying icon is very attention getting. Thus moving on to still icons. These are icons that have a lone picture, and this can be as detailed or as simple as creativity would allow. Just like the moving icons, if done well, text can be added to the picture to get an interesting affect or reaction. Now, in league with the icon artists are the banner artists. Usually if a person does one, then that same person would have a good chance knowing how to do the other. The most common type of banner that can be seen floating around is the color bar. These banners usually go through something approximating the rainbow in some fashion, and vary wildly in style from separate color tinted pictures in a row to pictures that blur into the colors and lines of the others as it is followed across the screen. Not to say that color bars are the only style used by banner makers, because it is not. These people also create privacy, theme, and award banners for other projects, depending. It usually does not matter what fandom you catch these people in, their work will still be interesting to look at.
And the last, most awe inspiring sect of the fandom, the animators. These people take the concept used by moving icon makers and take it a few steps further, sometimes creating silent pictures that go beyond the constraints offered by icons. Others though, do not limit themselves and create music videos, adding sound to the tableau. These works at times use hand drawn graphics put to music, but more often use video clips from some series of another that were stitched together to get the affect desired to accompany the music. These projects are not short, running anywhere from several hours to several weeks with the difficulty of the affect being reached for.
That was not the full rundown on all the people that are part of a fandom. In fact, that was little more than a snapshot of the creative sector, completely ignoring the organizers, salespeople, archivists, and any variety of others that help a fandom run smoothly. Hopefully that was enough to give a decent idea of the society that will crop up and form around a fandom however. Now the differences between authors, artists, and graphic editors is clear, and that is all that this paper was meant to accomplish.
The People in a Fandom
A fandom is a community made up of many fans that all wish to pay tribute to one book series, anime, television show, movie, or anything else that could conceivably have a fan base. Many communities are multinational, with the fandom gracing wherever it is that the media could reach, be it in paper, over the Internet, or on television. Anime, for instance, gets one of the largest audiences, spanning from Japan to America and all the countries in between. This would not be possible if there was no method for fans to communicate, and in this modern era, the Internet has become key in developing this unique part of society. There are various roles that a person can take up online, and they gloss over many areas, spanning from those who just watch, lurkers, to the authors, artists, and graphic editors that make up the bulk of a fandom.
Authors make up more than half of the people in any fandom all by themselves. Not to say all authors write the same sorts of things, because that would be entirely wrong. There are those who write stories, the ones that focus on the abstract, and the ones that take a more concrete approach to the idea. Each style has its own parts that make it unique from the others.
Stories in the way it was used above, is talking about the most common form, unchecked fiction. There are many kinds of stories, and to go on the safe side, genres will not be gone into here. Instead, the different classifications of stories for a fandom will be defined, from biggest to smallest. This starts with epics. These stories take years to write, and have multiple books and novels in the same story line. A book, in turn, tends to be a story that runs on the long side, typically above twenty chapters, while a novel is the short version of this, falling beneath the twenty chapter mark, but never having less than three. On the other side of this are arcs, which can also be called a series, in which many single-chaptered works were strung together to form a larger story. These single-chaptered stories do not always have to go into an arc, and in fact are fairly common in most fandoms, and have an entire section of their own. These stories are called one shots and can range anywhere from novel length to about five hundred words. At that point it ceases being a one shot and turns into a vignette, which it remains until the two hundred word mark. One that small size is reached, it is then considered a drabble, and anything smaller would fall into this same category. Most people do not get these various definitions spelled out to them, so only careful observation will let you learn the language.
Those authors who focus on the abstract also have the more difficult parts of the fandom to write in a successful manner. One part of this is songfics, or stories that are written around the lyrics from a song, wherein an author tries to get across what it is that they saw in those lyrics in the story around them. When done well, this type of story cannot be read without the lyrics. Another version of songfics are those that take a song and use it as a framework where the author replaces the original lyrics with words that will be put into use for the same beat. Along these same lines are the poets, who use pure abstract to convey their stories and character interpretations in freeform stanzas.
And the last group of authors, those who balance the ones working in the abstract, are those that work in the technical. This group of people often take up writing challenges, which have clear guidelines that range from word limits, time limits, or general topics all the way over to specific pairings and lines that need to be used within their stories. The technical authors are also the main group that strays away from the story writing, instead focusing more on aspect essays, and picking apart facets of the character to reveal the inner workings of the characters and plot. Of course, if something is badly written, then this is also the group that you can rely on to heckle the idiot.
Moving on to the next set of people in a fandom, you get the artists. As most artists are not completely isolated from the rest of the community, then the written word is known to find its way into some of the works that artists do. On the other hand, the ranks of Artists are far more defined than those of authors, as most writers tend to let the lines blur between one style and another.
Sketch artists are the drifters of the fandom. This group moves in and out of the fandom, presenting random art pieces on whim before vanishing again after accepting some praise or recognition. These people also tend to be considered lurkers, those people who say or do little, but watch everything. Not to say that only artists lurk, because authors and graphic editors do as well, but artists seem to be more inclined to do so.
The commission artists are next down the line in a fandom, and tend to be among the better known. These people tend to draw pictures for others, whether because they are being paid or because someone requested that they do so. Of course, that does not mean that they only do art on request, to the contrary, often this group will have someone draw a picture, and that picture will in turn cause a story to be written based off of it that will cause more artwork. That is a healthy cycle for any fandom.
Those in the art community that do doujinshi are usually the ones that are least likely to go broke due to their hobbies. Namely, being part of the fandom in the first place. For those that do not know, doujinshi is a Japanese word for a “fan magazine.” The magazines in question are not the sort that would be found in the supermarket, instead being closer in style to a standard comic book, and are usually done in black and white. This group of people are lucky if they do not live in the United States for the simple reason of them being able to sell the doujinshi that they create.
This leads into the last, most detailed, segment of the creative part of a fandom, the graphic editors. This group of people has to be among the more talented ones in a fandom for the simple fact that they have to be more aware of their resources to be able to do what they do.
The first group that is going to be explained are the capture artists. These people have a thorough knowledge of the series, if only visual, and have to if they want to be able to get the perfect shots. These people have patience, at least that is the outward observation, because often if the first chance at a shot is missed, then the artist will have to watch, and rewatch, the same place over and over again. Usually these people have slightly different viewing programs to be able to do this, allowing them to be able to get the picture they desire as the common movie playing programs that come with a computer will give a blank screen when this is attempted. The other key thing to being a capture artist is that the person doing the capture has to be fast, because otherwise the shot will be missed.
The second group, the icon and banner makers, are more in demand in the journal-based fandoms, since this is the area that the art they produce would be best used. The icon half of this group can have their projects split into four chunks, the moving icons, the moving icons with words, the still icons, and the still icons with words. Moving icons tend to be small, no larger than 100x100 pixels in size, but with a length constraint as well that usually lets whatever sequence of events they show last no more than a few moments. The moving icons with words tend to show pictures that have words that might or might not have anything to do with what the picture was originally meant to be, but that is fine as usually a well done saying icon is very attention getting. Thus moving on to still icons. These are icons that have a lone picture, and this can be as detailed or as simple as creativity would allow. Just like the moving icons, if done well, text can be added to the picture to get an interesting affect or reaction. Now, in league with the icon artists are the banner artists. Usually if a person does one, then that same person would have a good chance knowing how to do the other. The most common type of banner that can be seen floating around is the color bar. These banners usually go through something approximating the rainbow in some fashion, and vary wildly in style from separate color tinted pictures in a row to pictures that blur into the colors and lines of the others as it is followed across the screen. Not to say that color bars are the only style used by banner makers, because it is not. These people also create privacy, theme, and award banners for other projects, depending. It usually does not matter what fandom you catch these people in, their work will still be interesting to look at.
And the last, most awe inspiring sect of the fandom, the animators. These people take the concept used by moving icon makers and take it a few steps further, sometimes creating silent pictures that go beyond the constraints offered by icons. Others though, do not limit themselves and create music videos, adding sound to the tableau. These works at times use hand drawn graphics put to music, but more often use video clips from some series of another that were stitched together to get the affect desired to accompany the music. These projects are not short, running anywhere from several hours to several weeks with the difficulty of the affect being reached for.
That was not the full rundown on all the people that are part of a fandom. In fact, that was little more than a snapshot of the creative sector, completely ignoring the organizers, salespeople, archivists, and any variety of others that help a fandom run smoothly. Hopefully that was enough to give a decent idea of the society that will crop up and form around a fandom however. Now the differences between authors, artists, and graphic editors is clear, and that is all that this paper was meant to accomplish.