Anthony Daniels outside a booth screening the 2010 fan-made film Solo Adventures, inspired by Star Wars
A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book, book, or video game created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in quality, as well as in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to full-length motion pictures. Fan films are also examples of fan labor and the remix culture. Closely related concepts are fandubs, fansubs and vidding which are reworks of fans on already released film material.
The earliest known fan film is Anderson 'Our Gang,[1] which was produced in 1926 by a pair of itinerant filmmakers. Shot in Anderson, South Carolina, the short is based on the Our Gang film series; the only known copy resides in the University of South Carolina's Newsfilm Library. Various amateur filmmakers created their own fan films throughout the ensuing decades, including a teenaged Hugh Hefner,[1] but the technology required to make fan films was a limiting factor until relatively recently. In the 1960s UCLA film student Don Glut filmed a series of short black and white "underground films", based on adventure and comic book characters from 1940s and 1950s motion picture serials. Around the same time, artist Andy Warhol produced a film called Batman Dracula which could be described as a fan film. But it wasn't until the 1970s that the popularization of science fiction conventions allowed fans to show their films to the wider fan community.
A notable fan film is also Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, made as a shot-for-shot remake of the 1981 Indiana Jones adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Using the original film's screenplay and score, it principally starred and was filmed, directed, and produced over a seven-year period by three Mississippi teenagers (Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb). In 2015, the documentary Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made was released. The film follows three childhood friends, Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos, and Jayson Lamb, from 1982 to 1989 as they set out to make their fan film of Raiders fan film.
In 2012, two Arizona-based teenagers, Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta, made a live action shot for shot remake of the 1995 animated film, Toy Story, with the toy characters animated through stop motion, puppetry, and live actors for the human characters, while using audio from the film. It received a positive response from critics, and the original filmmakers.[citation needed]
Some fan film productions achieve significant quantity and or quality. For instance, the series Star Trek: Hidden Frontier produced 50 episodes over seven seasons – compared to only 34 episodes for the 1970s sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica and Galactica 1980 combined.
Star Trek: New Voyages started as a fan production, but has since attracted support from several crew and cast members from the different Star Trek series, as well as a wide audience.
A similar fan production, Star Trek Continues, produced by Vic Mignogna, have been well received by critics, who praised the quality of the production and stated that the show set a new standard for Star Trek fan films, while highlighting the resemblance of the episodes with those of the original series. [citation needed]
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a Finnish feature-length spoof of both Star Trek and Babylon 5, attracted over 4 million downloads and has been released on DVD in several countries, making it possibly the most successful Finnish movie-production to date.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game features a small nod to the fan film Return of the Ghostbusters by way of a drawing posted on the wall[4] in the Ghostbusters firehouse headquarters. The child's drawing of a Ghostbuster is signed by a fictional character created in the fan film.
Iowa brothers Morgan and Mason McGrew spent eight years recreating the film in stop motion. Titled Toy Story 3 in Real Life,[7] the film was shot using iPhones and was uploaded to YouTube on January 25, 2020. The shot-for-shot remake uses the film's original audio. According to Screen Crush, Pixar's parent company Walt Disney Studios gave the McGrews permission to release the film online.[8]
The Bodo Production announced the development of Live Action Toy Story 2 in 2014. The release date of Live Action Toy Story 2 which is coming in 2024 will mark the 10th anniversary of the project.[9]
Legality
Due to copyright protection, trademark protection and limited fair use provisions, fan films made without official authorization might exist in a legal grey area.[10]
Still, fan films often operate under the radar or IP owners turning a blind eye as long they are non-commercial activities.[11]
"We got in touch with Tolkien Enterprises and reached an understanding with them that as long as we are completely non-profit then we're okay. [...] They are supportive of the way fans wish to express their enthusiasm."
Also, lawmakers strengthened fan activities in recent years by extending fair use cases; for instance, in 2012 Canada's Copyright Modernization Act explicitly added an exemption which allows non-commercial creation of fan film material.[12] A 2013 US court ruling Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. acknowledged that creative fan activities on copyrighted works might fall under fair use and requested that copyright holders check and respect fair use before doing DMCA take down notices.[13]
Authorized fan films
The popularity of fan productions brought about by affordable consumer equipment and animation programs (Prosumer equipment) with the digital revolution, along with the ease of distribution created by the Internet and Web 2.0, has prompted several studios to adapt their official policies and programs regarding fan films.[14]
The highest profile of these programs has been Lucasfilm's Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, launched in 2000.[15] The awards formerly permitted only documentary, mockumentary, and parody entries, while prohibiting serious fan fiction. However, this restriction was lifted for the 2007 awards. Lucasfilm's limited support and sanction of fan creations is a marked contrast to the attitudes of many other copyright holders.
Some copyright holders opened up for the idea of fan films: DC Comics was known to actively discourage the creation of fan movies in the 1990s.[16] In 2008, however, DC Comics changed its tune when its president, Paul Levitz, gave provisional permission to fan filmmakers, stating definitively, "We’re against anything that monetizes our assets and our copyrights without our permission. We are not against things where people use our assets if they don't do anything monetarily with them."[17] Similarly, Paramount took a more welcoming stance towards fan filmmakers in the 2000s.[18]
Unlike many American TV shows, the British series Doctor Who allowed its writers to retain the rights to characters and plot elements that they created - most famously with Terry Nation's Daleks. While the BBC has never licensed the character of the Doctor for use in fan films, a number of the writers have consented to allow the monsters and supporting characters they created to be used in direct-to-video productions (see Doctor Who spin-offs).[citation needed]
The creators of Red Dwarf sponsored a fan film contest of their own in 2005, inspired by an earlier fan film production in 2001 called Red Dwarf - The Other Movie, with a fairly wide remit ranging from fictional stories set in the Red Dwarf universe to documentaries about the show and its fandom. The two winning shorts were featured in their entirety as bonus features on the Series VIII DVD release, along with a montage of clips from the runner-up entries and a short intro clip from Red Dwarf - The Other Movie. This made them among the first fan films to be commercially released by a property's original creators.[citation needed]
Non-authorized fan films
In 2008, a cease and desist letter was issued by Fox Studios to close production on a Max Payne fan short in development.[19]MGM has similarly shown hostility to an internet-distributed James Bond fan film.[20]
Paramount Pictures actively pursued legal action against Star Trek fan films in the 1980s,[21] such as the animated film series Star Trix, and a never completed fan episode spinoff tentatively titled Yorktown: A Time to Heal starring George Takei and James Shigeta.[1] During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Paramount had a more relaxed approach towards Star Trek fan films, with Star Trek actors frequently participating in various fan productions, such as Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. However, following the 2015 controversy surrounding the team behind Prelude to Axanar's attempts to profit from their unreleased feature film, Paramount tightened its stance on fan productions.[22]
From 2010 to 2015, animator Matthew Gafford developed Star Fox: The Animated Series, a webseries based on Nintendo's Star Fox video game franchise. However, after a cease-and-desist from Nintendo based on the usage of the Star Fox intellectual property, Gafford changed the name of the webseries to A Fox In Space. The first episode of A Fox In Space was released online in April 2016.[23]
In June 2014, Godzilla: Heritage, a fan film based on the Godzilla franchise, was announced on Kickstarter. The project, conceived by filmmakers Timothy Schiefer and Greg Graves, was unsuccessful in meeting its initial crowdfunding goal of $25,000, receiving only $16,025 from 186 backers.[24] On July 18, 2014, a second Kickstarter campaign for the film was created, this time reaching a set goal of $10,000, receiving $19,554 from 193 backers.[25][26] Following the release of a teaser trailer for the film in 2016, the filmmakers were contacted by Toho, the company which owns the rights to the Godzilla franchise. In order to protect Toho's intellectual property and to avoid confusion in the marketplace, the filmmakers agreed to a number of conditions, including that the film would not have the word "Godzilla" in the title, that the filmmakers would not receive profits from the film, and that no further crowdfunding campaigns could be created.[27]
Two fan films based on the Harry Potter "Wizarding World" received the attention of Warner Bros. after both films attempted to raise money through crowdfunding: the 2016 film "Severus Snape and the Marauders" and the 2018 Italian film "Voldemort: Origins of the Heir". After private discussions with Warner Bros., production on both films were allowed to continue with the agreement that they no longer use crowdfunding to raise money for the films and that they be non-profit.[28][29]
In August 2018, it was announced that a short fan film titled Georgie, based on the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's epic horror novel It, was being produced.[30][31] The short, featuring Tony Dakota (who reprises his role as Georgie Denbrough from the TV miniseries), centers on the idea of how the narrative of It may have continued that Georgie had not been killed by Pennywise the Clown.[32] The short also features Ben Heller (who portrayed young Stanley Uris in the TV miniseries).[32]Georgie premiered at the Boston Underground Film Festival on March 22, 2019, and had its online premiere on June 10, 2019, on the FangoriaFacebook page.[33][34]
As media scholar Henry Jenkins points out, fan films are shaped by the intersection between contemporary trends toward media convergence and participatory culture. These films are hybrid by nature—neither fully commercial nor fully alternative. Fan films represent a potentially important third space between the two.[35]
Similarly, Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig argued that for the first time in history, creativity by default is subject to regulation due to growing intellectual property rights like copyright and trademark. This trend results in artists (like the fans mentioned in this article) needing the permission of the copyright owner to engage in mashups or acts of remixing. In Lessig's view, this new phenomena limits creativity.[36] To help artists mitigate the chilling impact of copyright law, Lessig founded the Creative Commons and proposed the Creative Commons licenses.[37][38]
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew. It acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.
Kaiju is a Japanese term that is commonly associated with media involving giant monsters. A subgenre of science fiction, it was created by Eiji Tsuburaya and Ishirō Honda. The term can also refer to the giant monsters themselves, which are usually depicted attacking major cities and battling either the military or other monsters.
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live-action programming for television from 1963 until 1989. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1962. Filmation's founders and principal producers were Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland and Norm Prescott.
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American supernatural comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It stars Bill Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis as Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler, three eccentric parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City. It also stars Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, and features Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson, and William Atherton in supporting roles.
An anime music video (AMV) is a fan-made music video consisting of clips from one or more Japanese animated shows or movies set to an audio track, often songs or promotional trailer audio. The term is generally specific to Japanese anime, however, it can occasionally include footage from other mediums, such as American animation, live action, or video games. AMVs are not official music videos released by the musicians, they are fan compositions which synchronize edited video clips with an audio track. AMVs are most commonly posted and distributed over the Internet through AnimeMusicVideos.org, video downloads and YouTube. Anime conventions frequently run AMV contests who usually show the finalists/winner's AMVs.
A crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, common corporate ownership or unofficial efforts by fans.
Tokusatsu is a Japanese term for live-action films or television programs that make heavy use of practical special effects. Credited to special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, tokusatsu mainly refers to science fiction, war, fantasy, or horror media featuring such technology but is also occasionally dubbed a genre itself. Its contemporary use originated in the Japanese mass media around 1958 to explain special effects in an easy-to-understand manner and was popularized during the "first monster boom" (1966-1968). Prior to the monster boom, it was known in Japan as Tokushu gijutsu or shortened Tokugi.
U.S. television science fiction is a popular genre of television in the United States that has produced many of the best-known and most popular science fiction shows in the world. Most famous of all, and one of the most influential science-fiction series in history, is the iconic Star Trek and its various spin-off shows, which comprise the Star Trek franchise. Other hugely influential programs have included the 1960s anthology series The Twilight Zone, the internationally successful The X-Files, and a wide variety of television movies and continuing series for more than half a century.
Godzilla is a 1998 American monster film directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich. Produced by Centropolis Entertainment, Fried Films, and Independent Pictures, and distributed by TriStar Pictures, it is a reboot of Toho Co., Ltd.'s Godzilla franchise. It is also the 23rd film in the franchise and the first Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, and Harry Shearer. The film is dedicated to Tomoyuki Tanaka, the co-creator and producer of various Godzilla films, who died in April 1997. In the film, authorities investigate and battle a giant monster who migrates to New York City to nest its young.
Zilla is a fictional monster, or kaiju, in Toho Co., Ltd.'s Godzilla media franchise. The character first appeared in Godzilla (1998), released by TriStar Pictures. It was initially created as a reimagining of Godzilla but was later re-branded as a separate character appearing alongside Toho's Godzilla. Patrick Tatopoulos designed it after iguanas with a slim theropod appearance rather than the thick, bipedal designs of Toho's Godzilla. TriStar's Godzilla, both the film and character, were negatively received by fans and critics. In 2004, it was featured in Toho's Godzilla: Final Wars as "Zilla". Afterwards, Toho trademarked new incarnations as Zilla, with only the iterations from the 1998 film and animated series retaining the Godzilla copyright and trademark.
Godzilla has appeared in a range of comic books that have been published in Japan and the United States.
Remix culture, also known as read-write culture, is a term describing a culture that allows and encourages the creation of derivative works by combining or editing existing materials. Remix cultures are permissive of efforts to improve upon, change, integrate, or otherwise remix the work of other creators. While combining elements has always been a common practice of artists of all domains throughout human history, the growth of exclusive copyright restrictions in the last several decades limits this practice more and more by the legal chilling effect. In reaction, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, who considers remixing a desirable concept for human creativity, has worked since the early 2000s on a transfer of the remixing concept into the digital age. Lessig founded the Creative Commons in 2001, which released a variety of licenses as tools to promote remix culture, as remixing is legally hindered by the default exclusive copyright regime applied currently on intellectual property. The remix culture for cultural works is related to and inspired by the earlier Free and open-source software for software movement, which encourages the reuse and remixing of software works.
Star Trek fan productions are productions made by fans using elements of the Star Trek franchise. Paramount Pictures, CBS, and their licensees are the only organizations legally allowed to create commercial products with the Star Trek name and trademark. The fan film community has received some coverage from the mainstream media.
As an enduring and iconic symbol of post-World War II cinematic history, the fictional giant monster Godzilla has been referenced and parodied numerous times in popular culture. Godzilla and other atomic monsters have appeared in a variety of mediums, including cartoons, film, literature, television, and video games.
The Ghostbusters franchise consists of American supernatural comedies, based on an original concept created by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis in 1984. The plot ostensibly centers around a group of eccentric New York City parapsychologists who investigate, encounter, and capture ghosts, paranormal manifestations, demigods and demons. The franchise expanded with licensed action figures, books, comic books, video games, television series, theme park attractions, and other original Ghostbusters-themed products.
Star Trek is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. Since its creation, the franchise has expanded into various films, television series, video games, novels, and comic books, and it has become one of the most recognizable and highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
The Ghostbusters franchise spawned various comic books published by various comic book companies through the years starting in 1988 and continuing to the present day. These comics have ranged from being based on The Real Ghostbusters animated series, to the 1984 film.
Prelude to Axanar is a 2014 fan-made short film, directed by Christian Gossett and written by Gossett and Alec Peters. Funded through Kickstarter, production sought $10,000 in funding, but raised $101,000. It had its public debut July 26, 2014, at the San Diego Comic-Con International.
It is a 1990 ABC two-part psychological horror drama miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and adapted by Lawrence D. Cohen from Stephen King's 1986 novel of the same name. The story revolves around a predatory monster that can transform itself into its prey's worst fears to devour them, allowing it to exploit the phobias of its victims. It mostly takes the humanoid form of Pennywise, a demonic clown. The protagonists are The Lucky Seven, or The Losers Club, a group of outcast kids who discover Pennywise and vow to kill him by any means necessary. The series takes place over two different time periods, the first when the Losers first confront Pennywise as children in 1960, and the second when they return as adults in 1990 to defeat him a second time after he resurfaces.
George "Georgie" Elmer Denbrough is a fictional character created by Stephen King from his 1986 epic horror novel It. Georgie is the younger brother of Bill Denbrough, and falls prey to Pennywise the Clown. He is used by Pennywise to taunt Bill throughout the novel. Georgie is portrayed by Tony Dakota in the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation and by Jackson Robert Scott in the theatrical film series. Dakota also reprised his role for a 2019 short fan film based on the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation of the novel, titled Georgie, which shows a "What If" scenario if Georgie had survived his encounter with Pennywise. He returns in the 2022 TV series, where he is portrayed by Prashant Rane.
References
1 2 3 Young, Clive (2008) Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera, Continuum Books, New York / London
↑ Rostama, Guilda (June 1, 2015). "Remix Culture and Amateur Creativity: A Copyright Dilemma". WIPO. Retrieved 2016-03-14. Canada is one of a few countries, if not the only one, to have introduced into its copyright law a new exception for non-commercial user-generated content. Article 29 of Canada's Copyright Modernization Act (2012) states that there is no infringement if: (i) the use is done solely for non-commercial purpose; (ii) the original source is mentioned; (iii) the individual has reasonable ground to believe that he or she is not infringing copyright; and (iv) the remix does not have a "substantial adverse effect" on the exploitation of the existing work.
↑ Rostama, Guilda (June 1, 2015). "Remix Culture and Amateur Creativity: A Copyright Dilemma". WIPO. Retrieved 2016-03-14. in 2013 a district court ruled that copyright owners do not have the right to simply take down content before undertaking a legal analysis to determine whether the remixed work could fall under fair use, a concept in US copyright law which permits limited use of copyrighted material without the need to obtain the right holder's permission (US District Court, Stephanie Lenz v. Universal Music Corp., Universal Music Publishing Inc., and Universal Music Publishing Group, Case No. 5:07-cv-03783-JF, January 24, 2013).[...] Given the emergence of today's "remix" culture, and the legal uncertainty surrounding remixes and mash-ups, the time would appear to be ripe for policy makers to take a new look at copyright law.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
