Fan Film, Fan Films

Spider-Man: Beyond The Dark Italian Fan Film Debuts

spider-man fan film beyond the darkSuddenly in the world of fan films, Spider-Man and European fan productions are all the rage. Combining both trends, then, is Stefano Morandini’s Spider-Man: Beyond The Dark, an Italian Spidey flick which just hit YouTube. I wrote about this one a while back when it was in production.

While it features equal amounts of action and arguing (subtitled, thankfully), the short also sports a fair amount of arty symbolism, from metaphorical caskets to a dreamstate Mary Jane. Share your opinion of it below.

Peter Parker has lost everything: his girlfriend, Mary Jane, and himself. He has no more reason to fight in this life, and in this case, he wears the black suit as symbol of mourning and despair. The Hero is dead but The Man? During a fight versus his nemesis, Goblin, Peter Parker rises again.


Like this story? Tell the world:

Fan Film Festival on Long Island TONIGHT!

Homemade Hollywood

Homemade Hollywood

Live on Long Island in New York? Love fan films? Got nothin’ to do tonight? Well, now you do!

Tonight (June 9) at the Port Washington Library, I’ll be doing an author talk/book signing, where I’ll show some of the all-time greatest fan films on the big screen, and give a multimedia presentation tracing fan movie history from 1926 to the present. Copies of Homemade Hollywood will be available, and I promise not to write anything obscene when I sign them (unless you ask nicely).

The event is at 7:30 PM, and the library’s address is:

The Port Washington Public Library
One Library Dr
Port Washington, New York 11050

You can get directions . See you there!

Like this story? Tell the world:

Watchmen : The High School Years Fan Film Series

Here’s a series of Watchmen fan films endorsed by Rorschach himself—Jackie Earle Haley. Dude liked ‘em so much that he posted the entire series to date on his blog. I gave ‘em a watch (so to speak), and yeah, they’re funny stuff. The first one starts off slow, but stick with it.





…and where’s the final episode? Still being worked on. The reports:

Chapter 5 will be released in two parts, however there won’t be too much of a gap between the releasement of the two. It’ll be the longest Chapter so far, probably between ten and fifteen minutes. We’ll be seeing all the characters, so for those of you who were having Veidt withdrawel symptoms, he’ll make his triumphant return.
.
Also, when you watch Chapter 5 (and the rest of our videos from now on) there will be a clue in it that’ll represent the topic of our next video to come. We thought it would be a cool easter egg to include, so… props to anyone who spots it!

Like this story? Tell the world:

Batman: Ashes To Ashes French Fan Film Is DOA

batman ashes to ashes fan filmLast week, the new French fan film, Batman: Ashes To Ashes, tore up the internet, as websites, bloggers and Twitterers raved about the 17-minute flick that mixed Sin City-style visuals with Batman’s Gotham City.

The fan film presents a tale of thugs who steal a ruby (sort of) because a priest put them up to it…or maybe it was the Joker, and…um…people die and there’s a lot of crying, and then Batman (who’s barely in it) sits in a cinema and…oh, I can’t tell you. I’m not avoiding spoilers here; I really can’t tell what the hell happens. In fact, the film’s popularity is just as incomprehensible as the movie itself, and believe me, this flick makes no sense at all.

True, I was offended watching a woman bash her baby daughter’s brains in while having sex on all fours with the Joker in front of her husband who’s bound and gagged with his eyes peeled open so that he has to watch, “forcing” him to blind himself with spikes that are attached to his hands in order to avoid witnessing the carnage before him. I kinda understood where he was coming from.

But that’s not why this movie sucks.

Being disturbing is fine if you actually have something to say—George Carlin’s infamous “words you can’t say on TV” routine was the height of impropriety back in the day; Jodie Foster’s The Accused messed me up for days after I saw it on the big screen; and even Eli Roth’s torture porn spectacle, Hostel, attempted something akin to commentary on the popular view of Americans as ugly users. In all these cases, the viewer gained insight as a result of examining (or enduring) offensive material.

Ashes To Ashes, on the other hand, has nothing to say; it’s merely a train wreck of cheap shock value, style-over-coherence editing and disjointed writing. I suppose one could argue that it’s always worked for David Lynch, but this is a fan film, these guys aren’t Lynch, and heck, even Lynch isn’t what he used to be anymore. The handful of gorgeous effects shots “inspired” by Sin City will make a lovely calling card for the visual effects houses involved, but otherwise, Ashes to Ashes should be buried and forgotten. Lest anyone miss my point, I think Roger Ebert said it best in his famous review of North:

I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

Unconvinced? See for yourself below, but remember, this is NSFW.

Like this story? Tell the world:

JUNE CONTEST: Win RiP: A Remix Manifesto On DVD!

Rip DVD Cover 2Tarantino and Peckinpah aren’t “Outlaw Filmmakers;” the people who make fan films, now those are outlaws, riding hell-for-leather all over copyright and intellectual property law! You know Quentin never risked going to jail to make a movie, but fan filmmakers have no choice but to go rogue if they want to practice their art.

Of course, if you’re gonna break the rules, you gotta know what they are, but most fan filmmakers don’t know much about IP law—mainly because it’s boring as hell. Which is where this month’s contest comes in:

Fan Cinema Today is giving away THREE DVDs of the awesome documentary, RiP: A Remix Manifesto!

Coming to stores on June 30, the flick is about copyright law and IP, but it’s more than that: It’s about music, mashups, fan edits, DJ culture, your rights, the cure for cancer and the evil that corporations do. Most of all, it’s not boring!

To make their case, the filmmakers take you from the slums of Brazil to the rave tent at Coachella, to the taxicabs of China, to the crowds at Disneyland, to a photoshoot for Playgirl and more. How many movies do you know that feature appearances by both the head registrar at the US Copyright office and Paris Hilton? It’s a fun, fast-paced flick that entertains while explaining the problems of copyright in today’s world. I don’t agree with all the filmmakers’ ideas, but they make some good points—plus it has a good beat and you can dance to it (seriously).

HOW TO ENTER: It’s jaw-droppingly simple. Drop me a line via the “Contact” button up in the top right corner of this page. Send in your name, email, name your favorite fan film, and say something about why it’s your favorite. The contest ends at Midnight, Friday, June 26, and I’ll pick the winners at random. You must live in North America to enter (apologies to Andrew Smith of illegibleme.com).

In the meantime, the movie’s press release explains it far better than I ever could, so here’s more dirt on RiP:

OFFICIAL SELECTION – SXSW Film Festival
.
“About as edgy and fascinating a glimpse as you’ll get into one of the more pressing issues of our Internet Age.”- Montreal Gazette
.
“The sexiest film about copyright infringement I’ve ever seen.”- CBC
.
RiP! A REMIX MANIFESTO
.
Following Rave Reviews From North American Theatrical Runs, This Innovative, Mashed-Up Arthouse Favorite Shattering the Wall Between Media Users and Producers Will Debut June 30 on Loaded DVD for $24.95SRP. Jam Packed With Over 90 Minutes of Bonus Features, Including Favorite Mash-Up Videos From OpenSourceCinema.org, Deleted Theatrical Scenes and More!
.
NEW YORK, NY – A true movie for the digital age, RiP! A REMIX MANIFESTO is an innovative, surprisingly raucous and energetic documentary exploring the complexities of intellectual property in the era of peer-to-peer file sharing. An audience favorite at film festivals worldwide, this movie-as-mash-up shatters the wall between users and producers, as web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor invites audiences to remix his raw footage (at opensourcecinema.org), allowing them to become part of the film itself. An Official Selection at SXSW 2009 and the Audience Choice selection at Amsterdam’s International Doc Festival and the Whistler Film Fest, RiP! A REMIX MANIFESTO makes its DVD debut on June 30 for $24.95SRP.
.
The innovative DVD also offers over 90 minutes of exclusive bonus footage unavailable anywhere else. Included are deleted theatrical scenes featuring nearly an hour of Professor Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons and Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, author of “Remix”, “Code V2″ and “Free Culture” and one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, discussing free culture (55:16) and “Lawyer’s Reaction to Film” (1:22), among others; and, nearly 30 minutes of mash-up favorites from OpenSourceCinema.org and beyond, including “George Bush – Bushwacked (State of the Union Remix)”, “Olio – Remix Culture Video”, “Girl Talk – Ryan Edit”, “Girl Talk – Rotoscoped”, “Who Is Girl Talk”, “Girl Talk Photo Montage” and “Steamboat Mickey”.
.
Called “a true work of art that relies on the remix technique at the center of its discussion1″, RiP! A REMIX MANIFESTO embraces the debate on accessibility, copyright infringement and artistic freedom and truly challenges the thresholds of fair use. To explore the intricacies, filmmaker Gaylor interviews key figures in the ongoing debate including Lessig; Cory Doctorow, technology activist and co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing; world-renowned musician, web proselytizer and former Brazilian Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil; U.S. Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters; The Mouse Liberation Front and the film’s central protagonist, Gregg Gillis, the Pittsburgh biomedical engineer who moonlights as Girl Talk, a mash-up musician, rearranging the pop charts’ DNA with his incongruous, entirely sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy?
.
While the film offers an intelligent look back at the colorful history of copyright laws, it also illustrates the current simplicity with which digital tracks can be lifted from one source and placed in another. A participatory media experiment from its inception, “RiP!,” says Gaylor “is an attempt to move beyond the traditional relationship of producer and consumer – we want to recognize that this passive era is over…and that the film remains an evolving conversation about intellectual property in the digital age.”

Like this story? Tell the world:

Star Wars, Animorphs, Wolverine and Green Lantern: Fan Cinema Today’s Tweets of the Last Three Weeks

twitter mugIf you follow the , you already know that you get extra stories that don’t appear on the blog; everyone else is missing out on that extra fan film awesomeness.

On the other hand, I hate to see a good thing go to waste, so here’s some Tweets of the last three weeks (it’s been a while since I did a round-up like this). In the meantime, if you want to be in the know before everyone else, follow Fan Cinema Today on .

• X-Men Fan Film–Wolverine In 30 Seconds: http://tinyurl.com/om5bg2

EZ-Chewie: A funny, gummy Star Wars Fan Film: http://tinyurl.com/ok7fcm

• Update on 77, feature film about the 1st Star Wars fan (a fan film maker!) http://bit.ly/hAm5b

• RT @fanboytheatre FanFilmPodcast features Fan Film pioneer, Dr. Robbins Barstow this week! http://www.fanfilmpodcast.com

Hunt For Gollum fan film got 1 million views in a week—WOW! http://tinyurl.com/rxdfuf

• Just saw Angels & Demons—it’s freakin’ Watchmen! Dan Brown owes Alan Moore a big paycheck

• Cool Star Wars CGI fan film, Lord Vader’s Trial, set in ROTJ: http://bit.ly/uHUkJ

• RT @ProSoundNews Jim Soundman’s new look is ugly—liked earlier one (still seen in title box) better: http://www.roadcrewcomic.com/

Green Lantern fan edit trailer with Nathan Fillion: http://tinyurl.com/rd7mmt

• If you play Kingdom Hearts, you might dig this fan film trailer: http://bit.ly/wXMfk

• Download Youtube HD videos in different formats:

• RT @deep_thought_ Laptop Hunters: Jennie (a NSFW spoof) http://bit.ly/CJiRD

Fanboys DVD Review (out today)–movie based on a 1999 fan film script: http://tinyurl.com/q9qrvh

• Need to extract a section of a long video to share? Try http://www.freevideocutter.com

Star Wars MMO steals from never-made sequel to the fan film Broken Allegiance? You decide: http://seancooke.com/blog/?p=309

• Fan of the 1990s Animorphs book series for kids? Check out this fan film, The Questioning: http://tinyurl.com/c9tmcb

• RT @NeilKellen BATMAN Fan Film Casting Call http://a2a.me/BPQ

• Aggressively unfunny Ghostbusters fan film–GhostCops: http://tinyurl.com/pnrzof

• I usually hate Microsoft, but I like Bing already: and I’m on page 3; do it on Bing and I’m 5th on page 1!

• Dr. Who DVD set to include fan film “Devious”–last appearance of Jon Pertwee as 3rd Dr. before he died. http://tinyurl.com/kloofc

• RT @thatkevinsmith TRANSFORMERS + TERMINATOR = TRANSFORMINATORS http://tinyurl.com/ocnshg

• RT @schmoozequeen Win a chance to screen your fan film in Canadian Cinemas this Aug! http://www.SpreadTheStrain.ca

• RT @twotone Someone just proposed via the fan film contest. #botcon

Like this story? Tell the world:

Spider-Man and Harley Quinn Under The Influence

Kansas City-based Influence Films is cranking out the fan films big time, having shot an unnamed Spider-Man fan film over Memorial Day weekend. Next up, a Carmen Sandiego (!) fan film is set to go before the cameras on June 6, and they’re thinking of making a GI Joe flick with no dialogue, just like Issue 21 of the comic book series.

Photos from the Spider-Man shoot have already turned up online—looks like fan-film journalist turned actor David Noble is playing Spidey in an action short featuring Kraven the Hunter and Mary Jane Watson. You can find more shots from the shoot here on the MySpace page of model/actress Victoria Cook.

And topping it all off, here’s one of those weird ideas that really make a solid argument for fan films—because this is the kind of thing you’d never see anywhere else! Influence Films’ next release will be Harley Quinn’s Big Blind Date, due out June 12th. The flick follows the Joker’s main squeeze on a night out with…well, watch the trailer and leave your thoughts in the comment section below.


Like this story? Tell the world:

5 Free Online Screenwriting Programs

I owe both my books (the illustrious Homemade Hollywood and Crank It Up) to the fact that I won Script Magazine‘s screenwriting contest a few years ago. After the winners were announced, I was contacted by a few Hollwyood agents who wanted to read the screenplay, and the unanimous reaction was “Looove it—when you moving out to LA? You’re not? Hey, good talkin’ to ya.” –CLICK–

“Some writer I am,” I groused. “I don’t live in LA where they make movies; I only live in New York where they make books.” Suddenly a lightbulb went on. “I live where they make the books!” DUH.

Anyway, the reason I tell you this story is that in order to win in the first place, I had to shell out big bucks to buy some screenwriting software to write the script. My amazing prize for winning? More screenwriting software, which I promtly sold on eBay for about half the cost of the software I bought. That’s economics for you.

Today, however, you don’t have to spend a fortune on script applications if you don’t want to; they’re available for free on the web—and I don’t mean pirated copies of Final Draft either.

The latest thing going is free, web-based screenwriting applications, where you write the Great American Script in your web browser; there are no less than FIVE sites offering variations on this concept.

On the upside, many of the five offer features like real-time online collaboration and social networking, and because they’re accessed in a web browser, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Windows, Mac or Linux user.

On the downside, you have to be online to write. If you’re like me in that you like to work on a commuter train or other places where you can’t get internet access (how are you reading this anyway?), then this concept is not for you.

When you’re making a fan film—or any kind of movie—anything free is worth looking into, so let’s take a gander at the sites.

SEE THE LIST AFTER THE JUMP!

Read More »

Like this story? Tell the world:

Casting Call for Twilight Music Video Fan Films

twilight fan film - bella cullen projectFan films are unauthorized tribute flicks that usually tell a short, fictional story. Song Vids are unauthorized tribute music videos that match footage from a movie or TV show to a tune. Here’s a cool project, then, that combines both concepts: Twilight tribute band The Bella Cullen Project is shooting two music videos for its songs “Safety First” and “Let It Go”—and it needs extras to be in ‘em. If you’re going to be in Washington state in early June, this might be something cool to do.

EXTRAS NEEDED!
.
SAFETY FIRST MUSIC VIDEO (New Moon Inspired video)- 6/7/09 Saint Marcus Festival goers. Any age is acceptable. Must be able to travel to North Seattle, WA area. Must be able to wear as much red clothing as possible. Also acceptable is black clothing, cloaks, and fangs. We will also have a supply of plastic fangs for those who don’t already own them. We need everyone to look like they are celebrating the festival with their friends and family. This is the celebration of when Saint Marcus drove all of the vampires out of Volterra, Italy.
.
LET IT GO MUSIC VIDEO (Eclipse Inspired video) 6/6/09 Forks High School attender. Must be able to pass as a high school student. Must be able to travel to Federal Way, WA. Must be dressed for school with either a backpack or binder and books.
.
Each extra must sign a model release form. All roles are non-paying. If you would like to RSVP as an extra, please visit http://www.mockturtleproductions.com/castingcall.html and email your contact information to be put on the list. Please list which video you are available for in the subject line. Model release form, call times, and location information will be forwarded via email.

Hailing from Arlington, TX, The Bella Cullen Project is a trio—Chandler, Ally, and Tori–who have been playing Twilight-based music since their first performance at a midnight release party of the third book in the Twilight saga, Eclipse, on August 6th, 2007. Since then, they’ve written 15 original songs and released their debut album in July, 2008. Here’s a YouTube clip of an embryonic “Let It Go”–a cute song with a chorus melody that reminds me slightly of Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.”


Like this story? Tell the world:

Top 10 Fan Cinema Today Fan Film Stories: May, 2009

star trek vs batman fan film

May was a busy month around here! Here’s Fan Cinema Today’s 10 most popular stories of last month, presented in chronological order.

May 3: THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM Fan Film Released Online!
The long-awaited fan film based on J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is now online. The flick is based on appendices to the classic trilogy, following Aragorn/Strider as he tracks down, well, Gollum.

May 4: 6 Lord of the Rings Fan Films Besides Hunt For Gollum
Despite the worldwide popularity of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, there aren’t tons of related fan films out there. It’s not all a barren wasteland, however—here’s some LOTR fan films that the fans swear by (or at, and occasionally even in).

May 5: The First Star Trek Fan Film Ever!
After reading about the “lost” first Trek fan flick in my book, Homemade Hollywood, The Nostalgic Gangsta became determined to find Jr. Star Trek. Not only did he find it, but he interviewed filmmaker Peter “Stoney” Emshwiller, too!

May 6: Star Trek 2009 Feature Film Review
“Why bother going back to Kirk and his crew and making new movies about them if we already know exactly how their lives are going to play out over time? What I DO have a quibble about is the way in which Abrams and his team get to where they want to go.”

MORE COOL STORIES AFTER THE JUMP! Read More »

Like this story? Tell the world:
RSS for Posts RSS for Comments