Video and Multimedia Fanwork Types Are Coming

As we prepare to add our final two fanwork types to the SWG archive, we are looking for feedback from creators interested in using these types of fanwork!

Video is pretty self-explanatory. Video would have to be hosted elsewhere (YouTube or Vimeo) because the files are so large I'd worry about performance on our server. The usual fields would be available (character, relataionship, etc); I'm thinking we'd use the same genre list as for the Writing fanwork type, and if you select Nonfiction/Meta, it will open up the second field to select the topic.

Multimedia is the final fanwork type. This is for fanworks that combine multiple of the other types into a single fanwork. Examples would include:

- a story with an accompanying work of art
- a playlist that accompanies a story
- a podcast with a written transcript
- a work of meta with a matching link collection

This one has been a bit trickier because I thought I had it figured out and then discovered that the two modules I was using do not actually work together. Boooo.

The solution I've come up with is to post the pieces as separate fanworks. The creator would have a choice if they show up as individual fanworks as well or just in the multimedia piece (or a mix of both). For example, I have a story on the archive. I make a podfic of it and want to post them together, so I add the podfic and mark it so that it won't show up as a separate fanwork. I then add a Multimedia fanwork, add the story and the podfic to it, and the two display together as a single fanwork.

Multimedia fanworks can have unlimited individual fanworks as a part of them, and you can include more than two types. So you could go really wild: write a story, make a short film of the story, include just the audio, add a soundtrack as a playlist and an accompanying work of art, and add a link collection of the resources you used to research the piece.

Obviously, this one will be complex to build. At this point, if you're someone who would create Video or Multimedia fanworks, I'd love to hear what would work (or not) from my plan so far and what options you'd like to see that I haven't mentioned. Feel free to comment here, join the conversation on the #town-hall channel on our Discord, comment on our Dreamwidth, or email us!

Posted on 18 June 2022 (updated 18 June 2022) by Dawn Felagund