What Happen to the Serious Fan Films???

Uh, let's see.

Spent a ton of money. Got a studio to shoot in. Shot many times. Got hours of footage. Costume Dept. went AWOL and took everything. No costumes. Half a cast. No money. Lots of tapes with footage that might make half a movie.

That's what happened to my movie.

 

sorry to hear that, sounds like a nightmare! It's especially difficult when you are trying to organize everything yourself as well as relying on people who arn't getting paid to turn up.

seriouse fanfilms would take alot of time and I think public interest helps motivate a project. Though when progress slows down so do updates and people start to lose interest in that project, hence the film maker is less motivated to work on it.

I guess it's important to have a supportive team that can inspire each other. everyone takes a turn in showing interesting updates that would motivate the rest of the team to do the same and so on. Though this would stem from the project leader who's initial job is to get the ball rolling and make sure it keeps rolling.

Website updates and forum updates are important if you want to keep a project alive and generate interest. otherwise a film could be in danger of dragging on to the point when it is released nobody really cares that much about it. Obviousely people have lives and or familys to commit to, so you'd have to be in a unique position to devote free time into a film.

I always wondered what are peoples different motivations for making a serious fanfilm?

 

It sounded like a good idea at the time.

 

Love of the craft, man.
We made a 'saber duel, then one day I just started writing. We tried shooting, I didn't like how it turned out, I re-wrote it. Three years from the start date, we're still only halfway done w/ filming. That was all done last summer though, so hopefully this summer we'll finish production.

I love my story though. The 'saber duels are pretty fun, too. I couldn't have done a bigger fanfilm w/ a budget, but something relatively simple like mine is challenging enough to keep me engaged so I don't get bored with the project, and I'll be proud of it in the end.

I just love making movies though. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing (except discussing it on TFn, of course).

-Vaportrail

 

For me - personally - the most immediate benefit is that you can compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. As a filmmaker who wants to know how his favourite films were made, nothing provides a good comparison than doing your absolute best and then looking at it - side by side - against your favourite film and seeing how well (or bad) you did.

Case in point, my fanfilm:

http://www.stage6.com/user/Nealnz/video/1898962/Trailer-for-THE-FANIMATRIX

http://www.stage6.com/user/Nealnz/video/1899066/The-Fanimatrix:-Run-Program

 

captain_nimoy posted:
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I always wondered what are peoples different motivations for making a serious fanfilm?
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For me, at least, it feels more like an exorcism. The idea for my film came to me when I thought "Well, you have the light side and the dark side of the Force. What if you had someone who walked the line between the two" Then AOTC came out and I latched onto the idea of a Jedi in exile.

After that the story began to take shape in my mind and has haunted me ever since. Any spare moment I think about shots, dialogue, props, costumes and how the hell im going to pay for it all.

Don't get me wrong. I want to make the best film possible. But there is a part of me that wants to finish this film just so I don't have to think about it anymore.

At least, thats the hope

 

dahm! That was my idea too! hehe

yeah I guess when you got characters and a story in yer head for so long it's only natural to get it out and show people your vision. I had the characters in my head for 7 years but didnt really do anything with them. It was only until I brainstormed the entire story in one night a few months back that I started putting things in gear.

The visuals are extremely important in telling the story and the quality bar I want is pretty high, so depending on how much I can do myself and what I can get others to do is what it all hangs on.

 

Multiple reasons in my case.

1) While parodies have their merits and can be fun, my fantasy has always been to live in a universe that is vaguely Star Warsian. Since doing that in reality would either require me to time travel, dimension shift, or freakin' hallucinate, my only real options are video games and/or making a fan film. I'm doing a little of both.
So, basically wish fulfillment.

2) I wanted to pay tribute to Star Wars. It has meant so much to me over the years--over the decades now, man--and I wanted to do something that spoke to my experiences with the series. I wanted to do something that said, essentially, this is what Star Wars was and can be, this is something that could have happened at some point during the Saga, that would not have seemed out of place if George Lucas had made it and it had been inserted into the original movies somewhere.

3) Because, dammit, nobody else was making what I wanted to see. Much as I'd prefer to see something where I don't know how it is going to end, I'd also like to see something that focuses on the elements of Star Wars that mean the most to me. And hopefully inspire someone else to go, "Yeah...yeah...! Whatever happened to that part of Star Wars, huh? Why don't we see more fan films about that?"
Probably just a dream, but if you can't dream, what can you do?

4) Because I CAN. Or possibly to show off. Maybe a mix of the two. I feel I'm talented and dedicated enough to make this happen--haven't quit yet and I'm making tons of progress every day; really hit my stride now!--and what a waste it would be if I didn't make use of that. I'm sure apathy has killed off many a fan film.
Granted, as an animator, my fan film has taken a long damn time to make--I wrote the script six years ago, man!--but when it's done, I think it'll have been worth it, and could lead me to bigger and better things.

5) Because I'm a big, honkin' NERD.
...and this is what we do.

 

Amen, sister.

 

My personal opinion has always been that there is only one person/entity who should be doing "serious" Star Wars films, and that's George or Lucasfilm Ltd.

 

That settles it, then.

 

Where's the fun in that?
People (other than me) seem to think they weren't doing too great a job of it either.

I really don't think it matters what kinda fanfilm you make. If you had fun and like your results, then that should be good enough.

-Vaportrail

 

If the last three films are any indication, George Lucas is the last person in the world that should be making serious Star Wars films.

 

Agreed. Half the fun of a sci-fi universe is getting to play around in it. And as much fun as video games or RPGs can be, they're not the only way some of us would like to muck about in our favorite franchise.

Here's where I disagree. I think that's good enough only if you have absolutely no intention whatsoever of actually, you know, showing it it to other people. If you actually want other people to see the thing, you kinna might want to, oh, I don't know, have a well-told story that's worth telling, one you could show to an audience without boring or disgusting them.

Just sayin'.

 

Not only that, but those who do CAN find themselves getting their a** chewed.

 

And if you look in the right part of town, I'm sure you can find people who are into that.

 

Yeah, I think you and I are gonna remain torn on this subject. If I made it, even if it was just for me, I'd still share it since it's so easy nowadays.

I mean, why not? People who aren't interested either won't watch it, or they'll watch the first 20 seconds, claim to have seen the whole thing and then throw some random vulgarity at me.
[shrug]

What's worth telling is highly debatable.

Fixed.
If I could do anything I could think of, I'd be in a whole other ball game right now. You just can't let yourself stop learning. Some people seem not to know what to do other than find inspiration in the trends.

-Vaportrail

 

Just because you would doesn't mean you should.

I started my fan film with the intention of showing it. Therefore, I spent a fair amount of time deciding what would be worth showing and why. Yeah, I made what I wanted to see right from the start, but I also considered my potential audience, too. As far as I'm concerned, that's either an inherent part of the process or you're just engaging in a kind of symbolic masturbation. Making your film "just for you"...and then showing it to people smacks to me of hypocrisy and/or self-delusion.

 

Bad film doesn't = death, y'know. It's not that terrible a thing to have happened. Maybe if they spend a hundred million dollars first... that's kind of a waste.

And odds are, if you like it, someone else probably will too. Anyone remotely creative (and generally non-arrogant) doesn't have a worse critic of their work than themselves. We all know this all too well.

-Vaportrail

 

That's beside the point; we're on a filmmaking board, here, and I'm not about to advocate sloppy filmmaking or storytelling.

Well, maybe that's the problem. I don't want to sound too terribly insulting, but it seems to me that many of the people who claim they're going to make a fan film--even many of those who succeed in finishing one--don't appear to be creative filmmaker types, but rather people who saw someone else's fan film and went, "Ooh, that was cool! And I want to be cool in exactly the same way!" without ever really considering what went into building a fan film...or whether or not to make an original story.

 

Yeah, but there's something to be said for supporting the learning process.
How bad were your first films? Honestly, now. And some people take longer to get better at this, and maybe some never do.

This doesn't mean I'm gonna sit here and tell people to stop doing it 'cuz I didn't like their execution. I'm not even going to tell them how to do it. Advice, guidance, but your work is your own, based off someone else's ideas or not.
I haven't had a day during production where I didn't think "This just isn't going to be good", but I refuse to spend my days telling other people that's what I think of their work.

There are worse things. You shouldn't take it so personally.

-Vaportrail

 

Absolutely...but I'm not sure how many people here want to learn; I think most just wanna look like a badass, lightsaber-wielding, Force-user. And I'm not convinced that many of them are really all that passionate about Star Wars in general, either, given their choice of subject matter and general lack of storytelling versus action...

My first few weren't great, I admit...but as far as this thread is concerned, I'm more concerned with the motivation to make a film in the first place rather than the quality. I don't think most people are coming into this with the idea of improving their ability at filmcraft so much as wanting to look cool with a lightsaber.

I don't tkae it personally, I just find it really, really disappointing. I find it disappointing because it doesn't pay Star Wars much of a tribute to focus on what is, after all, only one aspect of the Saga, and ignoring completely what was more than half of the Original Trilogy. I think that's a really, really sad commentary on fan films and fandom in general, that such a vital part of Star Wars is just cast aside like it's nothing.
And I find it disappointing because it'd be great to have fan films to watch that I'll find entertaining.

But I don't take it personally. I just feel it's my responsibility to fight for what I believe in, and that just happens to be the Galactic Civil War. When someone's fan film doesn't focus on that, I don't take it as a personal affront, but I DO feel the need to speak out to see if maybe, just maybe, we could see some variety around here.

 

I think you've just hit the nail on the head there, RocketGirl. The truth is that there are VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY few people on this board who are actually concerned with being actual filmmakers in a broader, aesthetic sense of the term.

And I don't think that's really going to change.

The best we can hope for in here is to appeal to the small, select few who are using this as a platform to make the kind of fanfilms you are talking about or moving onto bigger, better things. At the end of the day, if the board's majority are perfectly happy with watching, critiquing and revelling in "Backyard Nephew vs Cousin Lightsaber Duel XI Part 2"...then there's little to be done to change it.

All I'm afraid that can be done is feel disappointed and yet happy that the field of competition is smaller than we thought.

As someone who started out filmmaking with my friends and LEARNT the lessons of why filmmaking with your friends is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE idea...I've also come to learn that the fanfilm boards IS just that: The Fan Film Boards. Not the filmmaking boards with a strong fanfilm bias, no matter what some people believe. It's not gonna change.

 

Ahh. Well, you can't be blamed for aspiring towards cool-ness.
I'm hoping [image=http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3782/hd1vo7.jpg] + the 160 page script I spent 2-3 years writing will be something worthwhile, but I'll guess we'll see. Honestly, I'm half-tempted to send the rough cut to you along with the few others, cuz I know if there's something I can fix (in post), you'll be sure to point it out.

Spoken like a true Rebel.

Heh, a repetitious campaign calling out for variety. That tickles me.
I just don't see why everyone out there who isn't doing this is a new opportunity for you to plead again. I mean, we could get the GCW equivalent of Ian Hubert's Spacemen Belong in the Future, Probably (w/o the wackiness, I'm talking production values), but even w/ how that was done, it couldn't have been easy. Actually, you might like that one. Not sure.
Plain clothes + a stick is about as easy as it gets. If you try hard enough, and someone finally gives in and starts making your ideas instead of their original one, the story behind their blaster fight probably will have about the same gusto as the 'saber fight they'd make instead.
Instead of Jedi we have Rebels. Armorless Stormtroopers. Mandalorians who can't decide which side to be on.

So basically, everything Dark Horse put out before the prequels.


EDIT:
Tho y'know what... when I finish FKaD, if I have time for a quick little project, I will make a blaster fight. Just for you. Seriously. Nothing extravagant, I'm sure, but I'll step up to that right now.
When I finish FKaD is the question here.

-Vaportrail