The FBA Post Up Podcast

The FBA Post Up Podcast is a basketball-themed furry podcast produced by Buck Hopper. Episodes are produced in the style of a sports segment from a radio news broadcast, complete with interviews, sound bites, and clips recorded from games. The podcast reports the news from the Furry Basketball Association, a fantasy basketball league of anthropomorphic animals. Each episode is hosted by "your coyote on the court", T. Matt Latrans, who ends each recording with his signature signoff, "I'm T. Matt, and that's a swish."

Production
The FBA Post Up Podcast is a fully scripted and edited audio podcast produced by Buck Hopper. Recording and editing is done entirely in Pro Tools 9.

The podcast is unique in that it uses the voices of its listeners. Since the third episode, B-Hop has written the scripts to include "cutaways", or opportunities for fans of the podcast to have their own voices appear in the episode. These are usually in the form of brief interviews and sound bites. The listeners portray athletes, coaches, team managers, owners, and other characters in the FBA Universe. The "cutaways" are usually recorded live during the podcast recording, which is broadcast over LiveStream. Listeners who want to contribute call in either with Skype, iChat or cell phone to have their voices recorded. It is not uncommon for several actors to try playing the same role, leaving either B-Hop or the listeners to decide on the best performance. In this way, each episode features the voice talents of many members of the furry community, with new voice actors being featured in most every episode.

The live podcast recording sessions are held irregularly on the weekends, depending on when B-Hop can find time to write a script and host a recording session. The podcast is released after up to a month of post-production.

B-Hop uses an Audio-Technica 4040 microphone plugged into a dbx 386 digital preamp with a dbx 1066 compressor/limiter/expander as an insert. A Digidesign Mbox2 records the audio into Pro Tools 9 for editing and processing. Episodes are released on Fur Affinity and at the iTunes Store.

Miscellaneous
Every episode begins with T. Matt Latrans saying "Yo from RoPo!" The phrase is a call out to Rohnert Park, California, the city where J. Mateo Baker, the creator of Buck Hopper, resides.

Outtakes from the podcast recordings are released in the Scraps section of Buck Hopper's Fur Affinity page.

Episode #24 is currently in the middle of production. The episode is being split into thirds because of its exceptional length, and when completed will be released with staged commercial breaks. Segments A and B have been released and post-production has begun on Segment C.

Episode #25 was partially recorded during Buck Hopper's Voice Acting Workshop panel at FurFright 2010. This episode will cover post-draft news and Howlereen 2010. Additional roles will be recorded during an upcoming live recording to be scheduled.

The podcast has created two spin-off series. The first is called FBA Sound Stories. Instead of emulating a sports news program, this series is produced like radio theater, with voices portraying characters inside the FBA universe. Three episodes have been released with a fourth currently in production. The second is called Beneath the Hide and is a furry take-off on PRI's This American Life, covering in-depth personal stories of characters in the FBA Universe. Clips from the series have been produced and edited into episodes #23 and #24A of The FBA Post Up Podcast. The first full-length episode is currently in production and will feature the FBA character Shane Rufus voiced by Rax.

Buck Hopper played the voice of Buck Hopper in Episode #23 of the podcast.

Noteable voice/character combinations
Because the primary goal of the podcast is to have fun, Buck Hopper encourages everyone to play any character they want. This has meant some characters have been voiced by different people. A handful of characters, however, have been set aside exclusively for specific voice actors.


 * T. Matt Latrans, voiced by Buck Hopper
 * John Stoat, voiced by Alex F. Vance
 * Evan Ashton, Michael Morgan, and Bryn Mastiffson, voiced by Mr Initial Man
 * Ryan Thatcher, voiced by Jerry Husky
 * Jack Howell, voiced by Roby Panther
 * Alan Foster and Jackson Price, voiced by Mitch de la Guardia
 * Shane Rufus, voiced by Rax

T. Matt Latrans
T. Matt is a coyote in his mid-fourties who has been covering basketball for much of his life. Originally an announcer for the FBA, he was forced out after demanding that Julio Onca be forced out after the panther clawed and seriously injured Buck Hopper. He lives in Rohnet Park, California, and has a strong dislike for the state of Oregon. He holds the distinction of getting the last interview with Brock Horace Thiessen, the last living player of the Hamilton Mariner's inaugural season (1920-1921).

He has a large collection of jersies, including some true oddballs such as the 1980 Bryn Mastiffson Jersey (his is the only one known to be signed by Mastiffson himself), the jerseys of the defunct Small Furs Basketball Association and the jersey Brock Thiessen wore in 1925.

Jimmy
Jimmy the Intern (an otter) was first mentioned in the 8th episode, when he got chewed out by John Stoat. His name and voice first showed up in Sound Story 1.5: Meet Jimmy. He used to work for Leon and Mack, a pair of podcasters who cover Furrywood news.