It’s July 4th Weekend here in the US—time to hang out and take it easy. Whether you’re going to the beach or tying up the bathroom after a dozen BBQ chili dogs, you’re gonna need something to read. Naturally, I recommend the only book on fan films, Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera, by me. And just in case you don’t actually own it, here’s my patriotic present to you:

THE HARDWARE WARS CHAPTER FROM HOMEMADE HOLLYWOOD!

Download it right now and discover:
• Why George Lucas calls it his favorite Star Wars parody of all-time!
• Why one of the filmmakers says Lucas is lying!
• How Oingo Boingo and Sesame Street influenced it!
• What happened when 20th Century Fox lawyers cornered the producer!
• How Francis Ford Coppola took the follow-up, Porklips Now! (Hint: Badly)
• And lots, lots more!

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you won’t kiss any bucks goodbye, ’cause it’s FREE!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD .PDF FILE

If you like it, pick up Homemade Hollywood at your local bookstore, Amazon, or other highly esteemed outlets. All those rave reviews on the right side of the screen can’t be wrong; give it a shot and see for yourself. Think of it as my way of saying thanks for reading the blog.

Speaking of which…

THE IMPORTANT NEWS:

FAN CINEMA TODAY is taking the summer off through the end of August.

I’m not abandoning the blog; I have some major projects that are going to require all my free time for a few weeks. People who have sent me interviews, DVDs, etc. recently: Your stuff will get covered when FCT returns.

In the meantime, you can get your fan film fix by using the Search box here on the site—there’s nearly 500 different posts on FCT, so there’s bound to be something cool you never saw before. Also, I’ll still be on Twitter (@FanCinemaToday and @CliveDYoung), will be available at my own website (cliveyoung.com), and will host a fan film festival at the Island Trees Public Library on Long Island on July 17 at 6PM—come out, mention FCT, and you’ll get a complimentary DVD of Dan Poole’s legendary The Green Goblin’s Last Stand Spider-Man fan film!

So have a good summer, enjoy the free chapter, read the book, don’t forget about FAN CINEMA TODAY, and I’ll see you in September.

For fan film enthusiasts, however, there’s an additional perk to the game—a veiled reference to two popular Ghostbusters fan films: Freddy Vs. Ghostbusters (2003) and Return Of The Ghostbusters (2007), both produced by Hank Braxtan.

SEE THE REFERENCE, PLUS TRAILERS FOR RETURN OF THE GHOSTBUSTERS AND THE VIDEO GAME, AFTER THE JUMP!

In the firehouse, upstairs near the computer in Egon’s lab, there’s a child’s crayon drawing of a Ghostbuster firing his proton pack. The drawing is signed, “To Uncle Egon, from Ed;” that’s a reference to Egon’s nephew, Ed Spengler, from the two fan films. While the flicks are set in the current day, the video game takes place around 1991, so Ed would have been just a little kid back then; now that’s attention to detail! So, does this make the fan films official GB canon? Give your thoughts below in the comments section! [Big thanks to Broccoli for the first pics!]

SEE THE AD AND THE HALLOWEEN HOMECOMING TRAILER AFTER THE JUMP!

The ad reads:

It’s the largest production I’ve ever done. The following positions are available. They are paid positions.
Director of Photography
Assistant Director
Script Supervisor
1st AC
2nd AC
Gaffer
1st Grip
2nd Grip
Boom
Costume and Props
Location Scout and Manager
Still Photographer
If you are interested please, send resume and info to jones7alm@hotmail.com. The Crew will begin pre-production in mid-September and filming will begin the following February or March here in Kentucky. The film is a sequel to my first film, HALLOWEEN HOMECOMING, and I want to finish up my vision for the film which is why I’m seeking the very best to help me.

For those who want to get a taste of Jones’ filmmaking first, here’s the trailer for Halloween Homecoming, due out in August:

When mild-mannered David Britman comes home to find his wife not only sleeping with another man, but packed and ready to leave him, it sends him on a downward spiral into delusion and madness. In the style of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Adjusted can be considered a modern-day noir thriller about love, lust and murder.

SEE ADJUSTED AFTER THE JUMP!

OK, filmmaker Adam Bertocci isn’t starving, although I don’t know that for sure (after all, he might’ve skipped a meal). Nonetheless, he’s always working on a new flick—sometimes it’s a fan film like Run Leia Run or Brooklyn Force; other times, it’s original work.

Raising cash to make those movies, he’s started MovieMakerMerch, a New Line of t-shirts that are of Universal, Paramount importance, for Fox sake (see what I did there?). They’re aimed at filmmakers, both pro and am, as well as fans, and they’re pretty cool.

The graphic above is from my favorite of the batch, but there’s plenty of others to choose from, so take a look (don’t forget to look for the special fan film design). And for the record, no, I don’t get a cut or a referal fee. Heck, I don’t even get a “I referred millions of readers to Bertocci and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” t-shirt (maybe just as well—little too meta there). Go look at his site before this post gets out of control.

Now, sure, there’s a lot that comment on his (ahem) troubled private life, but none of them can hold a candle to this shot-for-shot, stop-motion animated remake of the famous “Thriller” video, done entirely in Lego. Much like the original, the showstopper is the group zombie dance segment, but I gotta say, damn if a bunch of plastic bricks don’t make for a better actress than Ola Ray, too.

First up, a nifty poster for GI Joe: Battle for the Serpent Stone—a fan film that is coming out as part of the GI Joe cartoon show DVD box set in July. It’s a major improvement over what they had before, and it gives the flick a graphic to match the production quality of the short itself.

Following that up is a poster for the feature-length Spider-Man flick, Peter’s Web, a fan film that’s the first in a series of nine movies that have been shot over the last two years.

A one-night-only public screening of the South Mississippi–shot fan-film phenomenon, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation, will be [shown] 7 p.m. June 27 at the Mary C. O’Keefe Cultural Center of Arts & Education in Ocean Springs.
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In 1982, three local boys, Eric Zala, Chris Strompolos and Jayson Lamb, were 12 years old when they set out to make their own shot-by-shot re-creation of Raiders of the Lost Ark. They finished in 1989. The director of the adaptation, Eric Zala, now the executive director of the Mary C., said the screening will be special because a few cast members who are still on the Coast will be there. Right after the film’s screening, Zala will hold a question-and-answer session and he has many funny stories, In August, Zala and Strompolos are being flown to Australia to screen their film in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
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Advance tickets to the Coast screening are $12 each at themaryc.org or 228-818-2878.

Of course, to get the entire, heartwarming, mind-boggling story behind the making of this cult classic, you should pick up my book on the history of fan films, Homemade Hollywood, which has an entire chapter devoted to the film!

Has there ever been a comic book character as patently ridiculous as Stan Lee’s She-Hulk? Her very invention pays tribute to the folly of spin-offs, because there’s just no reason for her to exist except to make money. Luckily, somewhere along the line, the people writing her stories decided they couldn’t take her seriously either, and she became an amusing, all-too-self-aware character.

Now fan filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist is making Shamelessly She-Hulk, an ambitious, feature-length fan film that sports not only Jennifer Walters (AKA She-Hulk), but also Spider-Man, The Punisher, Blade, Captain America, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Black Widow and even an animated Howard The Duck—plus a shrink who’s THIS CLOSE to being Emma Thompson.

SEE THE EXTENDED SHE-HULK TRAILER AND MORE AFTER THE JUMP!

Gilchrist has made plenty of amateur flicks before, but he’s primarily known in underground circles for creating the greatest Star Wars documentary ever, Deleted Magic. This new flick is a work-in-progress, but interestingly, Gilchrist has been sharing the process, placing early scenes, edits, animation, effect tests and more on YouTube. He explained to Fan Cinema Today:

These new clips are all rotoscope heavy; our heroine is green, and when she interacts with other actors, that means rotoscoping her skin, frame by frame, so that she can be turned green in post. This is akin to animation.

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I often used to have to rotoscope every single frame, but with the help of Twixtor, a program that estimates motion, I now usually “only” have to draw every four frames, every two frames, or sometimes (rarely) every eight frames.

Can something this complicated, Quixotic and quirky work? Decide for yourself with the extended trailer below—and don’t forget to leave your opinions in the comment section!