Fan Cinema Today

Yesterday, one of this week’s big internet buzzes, the Star Wars Steampunk drawings, came up in the daily FCT posting. Today, it’s the other big buzz of the nanosecond: two bootleg outtakes of Lily Tomlin and director David O. Russell losing their respective shit on the set of I Heart Huckabees. If you were offended in any way by that previous sentence, don’t search out the two clips on YouTube; for the remaining four people who haven’t already seen ‘em, just go to YouTube and do a search for “Lily Tomlin;” you’ll find the outtakes in no time.

That they leaked out isn’t much of a surprise; the public has always enjoyed preserved examples of celebrities going nuts, whether it was legendary Jazz drummer Buddy Rich ranking out his band back in the day; The Troggs getting inarticulate in the studio; Casey Kasem going ballistic over a long-distance dedication; Orson Wells bitching about peas during a voice-over session; or Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis going at each other’s throats mid-interview. That last one’s my favorite, because the journalist, John Harris (author of The Dark Side of the Moon: The Making of the Pink Floyd Masterpiece, an excellent book about an album I don’t especially care for), sold the tape and the resulting CD, Wibbling Rivalry, actually climbed to #52 on the UK charts.

Those examples, though, are all audio files—souvenirs of a different age. There’s something humorous about hearing them, like eavesdropping on the other side of a door as events unfold badly. Video, on the other hand, makes it all more immediate—and more uncomfortable. Sure, there’s delicious irony when Russell bursts into the room, screaming that Tomlin should act like “a grown up,” but overall, the whole thing is pretty sad.

Most artists, whatever their form of art, tend to be, shall we say, rather emotional. There’s plenty of research to back this up, but all you really need to do is think back and recall the people who populated your high school’s drama club. Did they have an aneurysm when people called them “drammies” or “dramaramas?” Then you see my point. So add a few decades of experience, mix in millions of dollars and boatloads of pressure, and you wind up with tirades like these outtakes. The people involved are human; the people around them are grateful when the AD tells them to clear the set; and probably everyone involved is more than a little embarrassed that the clips got out.

All this underlines the fact yet again that in a media-saturated age, everything you’ve ever done now goes on your permanent record. With the immediacy of video, one bad afternoon three or four years ago, becomes a story that even The New York Times is covering—as if it happened today. And as if it even matters. The point is, it gives critics ammo and it makes folks (largely Russell more than Tomlin, in this case) look terrible. The grand irony is that the real person without class is the one who leaked the clips in the first place.

For better or worse, any creative space has to be a safety zone where actors can read a line the wrong way; singers can hit 20 bum notes in a row; writers can create the world’s worst first draft; and, yes, directors can blow their cool. Just how far can you push it before it becomes intolerable is besides the point; the creative process doesn’t have a roadmap and sometimes you have to go in the wrong direction before you figure out how to get from A to B. To really get those creative juices flowing, people need to know that they’re safe to make mistakes in pursuit of their best work and they won’t be held up to ridicule for it. As a result, the scumbag who leaked these clips violated the trust of every member of the cast or crew on that movie set.

If you’re involved in producing a fan film, there’s plenty to take away from these clips. If you’re acting, create that safe space while trying to keep communication open enough that train wrecks like these don’t happen. If you’re the director, don’t go bats on your actors. Are you the editor? Don’t make like the idiots who screwed over the Star Wars Kid or the person who leaked these clips by plastering your outtakes all over the web. And perhaps most of all, even if your production went smooth as silk and everyone had the time of their lives, if you made a terrible fan film that will make all involved wince in agony at the mere mention of it, for God’s sake, don’t put it online, because it will haunt you for the rest of your days. Remember: The self respect you save just may be your own.

AtomFilms and Lucasfilm have tweaked their annual
Star Wars fan film contest this year. They’ve changed the name (it’s now the Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge); the categories (”serious” fan films are allowed); and the prize money (Before: Up to $2,000; This year: Zilch). The contest challenge submission deadline is April 30.

We’ve always had some reservations about the contest challenge, and while this year’s alterations take a few positive steps forward, it’s still a mixed bag. While there’s no full-on legalese version of the rules available online to pore through, let’s take a look at the Info & Guidelines page at the challenge site, and see what there is to see:

- Spike TV will “showcasing” the movies. Great—the winners will appear on the Jar Jar Binks of basic cable. What does “showcasing” mean? Probably airing the flicks with a non-stop soundtrack of fart sounds dubbed under them, although that might be a little too sophisticated for the average Spike TV viewer.

- Serious or dramatic fan films (the challenge considers them “fan fiction”) are allowed for the first time. This is a great step forward for the contest and Lucasfilm in general. Traditionally, the company has always taken great pains to convince fan filmmakers to make only parodies or documentaries—two genres that are protected by the First Amendment, and which therefore could be made without Lucasfilm’s approval. By creating the original contest and only allowing those categories, it was a not-so-subtle move to dissuade filmmakers from expanding the Star Wars universe. There may well be an agenda behind this change, but let’s take it at face value and give it a big thumbs up.

- Lucasfilm will be showcasing fan movies on the StarWars.com site. Seems like a no-brainer, and yet this is one of the most significant aspects of the challenge. If a serious fan film won and was featured on the site, it would be tantamount to being endorsed as a cannon addition to the Star Wars universe—a very big deal indeed.

- The “Timeline” section merely gives the dates for submissions, rating, awards ceremony and such. The “Award Categories” lists a few of the groupings, and intriguingly lists “more” as a category. Whether this is to save space or to leave some leeway for new categories hinging on what they get submitted remains to be seen.

- The “Selection Process” portion includes a key line—not the part where it says you’ll be giving all rights to Lucas, because that’s been there for years. Rather, it’s the new rule that winning films will “receive awards and recognition of little to no cash value.” When you consider the advertising money that Spike TV, AtomFilms and StarWars.Com are each going to make from this content they’re acquiring for free, it’s downright shameful to leave the filmmakers out of the loop like that. The previous award amounts, which ranged from $1,000 to $2,000 for the “George Lucas Selects” Award, were token gestures at best, but dropping them altogether is pathetic. In 2006, Spike TV charged $3,500 for a 30-second ad during its UFC programming, which means that one minute of ads during one airing of whatever TV special they come up with would cover all the prize money for the contest across all the outlets (Spike, StarWars.Com and AtomFilms) combined. When you consider how many people will access these movies online, and how often Spike will likely rerun the special (they need something to put between the infomercials), that’s a discrace.

- Next, it’s the “Fan Movie Guidelines” area, which notes that it’s merely a batch of suggestions, the first one being that folks should keep their flicks under 5 minutes (an idea we agree with). It goes on to suggest parodies and documentaries before getting to serious flicks, just so everyone can tell what side their bread is still buttered on, and suggests using all kinds of products, with an oh-so-helpful link to the Star Wars Galaxies MUG.

This is followed by a list of “don’t’s,” all of which are designed (and quite reasonably so) to keep the companies from getting sued. In other words, nothing copyrighted that other people own; no union people that will get SAG, WGA or other related unions picketing Lucasfilm at the Presidio complex; and nothing that would appear in an R or even PG-13 movie, like swearing, sex, nudity and other things that make life worth living. This is plain hypocritical when you consider that Chewbacca walked around naked in four out of the six movies–and in the most amateur Star Wars production ever, The Star Wars Holiday Special. So there.

So like I said, the contest challenge is a mixed bag this year. What will be most interesting to see is whether the lack of prize money translates into lower quality productions or, though there’s no way to find out, fewer entries altogether. We’ll find out the cold hard truth on May 15, when the entries go online and voting opens for the Audience Choice Award.

Way back in the old days—OK, back in January during this site’s first week of existence—FCT reviewed the excellent Green Hornet fan film from France. Now, after various failed attempts to get the character on the screen—including a stint where Kevin Smith was going to write (hmm, OK) and direct (NopeNopeNope)—the movie is back on again…maybe. Below is the press release sent out Tuesday, verbatim. Any superlatives do not reflect the opinions of FCT, so set your B.S. Detector to “Stun.”

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CULVER CITY, Calif., March 20 /PRNewswire/ — Columbia Pictures has optioned the rights to the Green Hornet, the classic crime-fighting hero whose adventures were chronicled over the generations on radio, television, and in comic books. The studio will adapt The Green Hornet into a feature film produced by Neal H. Moritz and Original Film, it was announced today by Matt Tolmach and Doug Belgrad, presidents of production for Columbia Pictures.

Columbia optioned the rights to The Green Hornet from Moritz who acquired the rights from Green Hornet Inc. Commenting on the announcement, Moritz said, “I couldn’t be more thrilled to be developing this world renowned property with the people who brought Spider-Man to the screen. I can’t imagine a studio better equipped or more prepared to handle this kind of material than Sony. With the radio show, television program, comic books, and novels, there is ample source material to bring this classic crime-fighter to life.”

Tolmach said, “We have an enormous amount of passion and commitment to this character and are looking forward to developing The Green Hornet into what we hope will be an amazing new franchise for the studio.”

The Green Hornet made his debut on January 31, 1936 on WXYZ Detroit, the creation of the station’s George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, who also created the Lone Ranger. The series, which ran until 1952 on the Mutual and NBC Blue networks, followed the adventures of Britt Reid, a bored playboy whose life is changed when he inherits his father’s crusading newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. He saves the life of Kato, a Japanese man with incredible technical and martial-arts skills, who becomes Britt’s closest ally — and transforms Britt’s car into the supercharged Black Beauty, which gives them an edge as they search for evidence to expose the city’s underworld in the newspaper. When Britt and Kato witness a brutal mob hit, Britt invents his secret identity — taking his name from his powerful car’s defective horn. A skilled fighter and expert marksman, the Green Hornet uses two special, non-lethal guns to subdue criminals: one fires a potent knock-out gas while the other produces the “Hornet’s Sting” — an electric shock.

Following its successful run on radio, the Green Hornet ran in several comic books. In 1966, the character made the jump to the small screen for one season on the ABC television network, starring Van Williams as the Green Hornet and catapulting Bruce Lee, who played Kato, to stardom.

Original Film’s Ori Marmur will oversee development of the project on behalf of Moritz’s production company. David Grace or Loeb and Loeb negotiated on behalf of Green Hornet, Inc. Howard Abramson of Behr Abramson & Kaller represented Moritz.

Neal H. Moritz is the owner of Original Film, an established feature film and television company. Moritz has a degree in economics from UCLA and a graduate degree from the Peter Stark Motion Picture Producing Program at the University of Southern California.

Moritz recently produced Gridiron Gang, which starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and opened to #1; Universal Pictures’ Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift; and the Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios hit comedy Click, starring Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale.

Moritz’s upcoming films include Columbia Pictures’ thriller Vantage Point; the comedy Evan Almighty, starring Steve Carell; I Am Legend, starring Will Smith; Columbia’s romantic comedy Maid of Honor, starring Patrick Dempsey; and Screen Gems’ Prom Night.

Yep, I know that two other major fan film contests have been announced recently, but in the interest of timeliness for this story, we’ll talk about those other two next week. Pittsburgh Comicon will be hosting a fan film contest this year as part of The 3rd Annual NorthEast FanForce Awards Ceremony on Saturday, April 28th, 2007. The deadline to submit a fan film for consideration is March 31, 2007.

Sounds like it should be pretty easy to win–last year, they only got one (1) entry for the fan film competition. Of course, that may be because you have to be a member of a FanForce chapter in order to enter. So what are you waiting for? Join already. Not only will you get to be in the contest, but it’s also a great chance to meet your fellow SW fans (find your local chapter here). Who knows? Maybe you can talk ‘em into being in your next epic.

In the meantime, you can get more details here. The funniest part of the post? “Exact time and if there will be a dinner again are still TBD.”

Speaking of conventions, as a reminder, I’ll be hosting an hour of fan films at this weekend’s I-Con 26 convention, held on the campus of SUNY Stony Brook on Long Island, NY. The program, Homemade Hollywood, will be from 1-2PM on Saturday, March 24 in Lecture Hall 102 of the Javits Lecture Hall Building.

If you ‘ve been reading this site at all, you know I like to run on at the mouth (or at the fingers, as the case may be). Well, if you ever wanted to experience that mind-numbing sensation in person, here’s your big chance. I’ll be hosting an hour of fan films at the upcoming I-Con 26 convention, held March 23-25 on the campus of SUNY Stony Brook on Long Island, NY. The program, Homemade Hollywood, will be from 1-2PM on Saturday, March 24 in Lecture Hall 102 of the Javits Lecture Hall Building.

I’ll be talking a bit about the history of fan films, from the 1920s to today and what they mean in the larger picture about society and technology. However, I know folks will be there to see flicks, not me yappin’, so I’ll have shorter fan movies and clips from longer fan productions to show. I haven’t settled on a final rundown, but you’ll probably see 07 (which I’ll be reviewing here on Fan Cinema Today tomorrow), The Fanimatrix, Grayson, World’s Finest, Harry Potter 5, and a few others. It’ll be a chance to not only see good flicks, but some variety among them as well.

There will be indie movies all weekend at I-Con, however, as well as panels on how to make your own movie for basically nothing and so forth. There’ll be marathons of TV series like Red Dwarf and Blake’s 7 (I’ve never seen either, so I guess I should stick my head in and watch a few minutes), plenty of major motion pictures and more. Then there’s the rest of the con, full of panels, author talks, wandering minstrels (really), folks dressed in costumes and plenty of other distractions. Plus, if you’d like to shoot Jar Jar Binks in the face (and let’s face it, even all these years later, who doesn’t want to blow his head off?), stop by the booth of Docking Bay 516, the Long Island chapter of Fan Force, which will be giving away prizes for the best shots. Start your target practice today!