I’ve talked with Sandy Collora—the director behind the legendary fan films Batman: Dead End and World’s Finest—on and off for a few years, and interviewed him extensively for Homemade Hollywood. However, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that we finally got to meet, when he and Trey Stokes (Pink Five; Ark) were Special Guests at an author talk I did at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Talking to Collora in person, it was suddenly easy to see why a cast and crew were willing to follow him into the Mexican desert to make his upcoming sci-fi feature, Hunter Prey: The guy’s charming and it’s obvious that he really loves what he’s doing. It just makes you want to root for him to succeed.

It sounds like that enthusiasm was part of why the guys at Hangar 18 Studios worked with Collora not only on World’s Finest—building Lex Luthor’s cool costume—but on Hunter Prey as well, creating armor, weapons, and props for the retro-futuristic flick. As they note on their website,

“We couldn’t wait to receive his designs for the film. When the artwork arrived we were totally blown away! We worked with Sandy on a daily basis on two different coasts, us East, him West. Through constant communication, we implemented Sandy’s suggestions until his designs were realized, and we were also given a lot of freedom to input our own creative license into certain artifacts. Sandy possesses a great design-sense that we really enjoy; it was a great experience collaborating with him and contributing to the vision of his feature film.”

Some of that vision is on display at their site—go to “Services,” scroll down to the Hunter Prey section, and click on “Samples” for more than a dozen cool shots of the great gear that Scott Paige and his crew created.

The always-fascinating Indie Mogul, which, coincidentally, is usually all about prop building, has a new interview with Collora up on its site, but instead, they focus on how he built his career one step at a time, moving from creature shop work to his famous fan films, to his new flick. Given the range of experience Collora’s amassed over 20 years in Hollywood, one of the most interesting moments comes when they ask his advice for young filmmakers—because the answer isn’t what you might expect:

In some ways, it’s much easier now to physically go and make something, but I think it’s actually harder to “break in” though, as a result of it. Everyone’s got a digital camera now. Everyone’s got editing software and Pro Tools on their laptop. We’re in the midst of a technological revolution of sorts, but what people have a tendency to forget, is that no matter how advanced or affordable the technology becomes, you still need to be talented to make a good movie with all that stuff.
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The bottom line here is, I don’t really feel I’m in a position to give advice to anyone. Each person and each situation is different. I can’t predict what a studio, independent investor or production company is going to do, or how they’ll react to a filmmaker’s work or lack thereof. No one can. All you can do is make the best film you can, with the money and resources available to you, and work with good people. Talented people who can help bring your vision to life and make your movie the best it can be. Just remember two things: You’ll never be able to please everybody, and if you try to please everybody, you’ll fail.

That’s humble knowledge learned the hard way, applicable for people helming billion-dollar franchise pictures or a fan film in the backyard. Kinda makes you want to root for him, huh?

The big fan film program at Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum was a big hit, showing not only some classic flicks and previews of upcoming works, but also attracting a veritable Who’s Who of the Southern California fan film scene.

For those coming in late, here’s the story: The Hammer asked me to come out to L.A., host an evening of fan films and do a book signing for my book, Homemade Hollywood. Oh, and could I get some notable fan filmmakers to show their work too? A few quick emails to Sandy Collora (Batman: Dead End; World’s Finest) and Trey Stokes (the Pink Five trilogy) later, and it was all set up.

Despite a couple of near mishaps—chief among ‘em being that we thought Sandy was a no-show when it turned out he was just sitting in the audience—it all came off without a hitch. I opened it up with 10 minutes of PowerPoint (not as deadly as you might think) on the history and future of fan films, before handing it over to Trey.

Trey, in turn, premiered a trailer for the entire Pink Five trilogy (!) and let slip that with the exclusivity contract with AtomFilms now expired, we might wind up seeing P5 in a different venue or format sometime in the future. That was followed by a trailer for his upcoming web series, Ark.

From there, Sandy came up, intro’d the trailer to his upcoming feature film, Hunter Prey, detailing what motivated him to go out and make it himself without major studio backing, and took a trip back in time by showing his fan film World’s Finest. We moved into a great Q & A from the audience, filled with questions about whether they tried to avoid using CGI, were fan films’ successes due to built-in audiences or their own talent, and are there any non-Sci Fi or fantasy fan films out there (No).

We wrapped up with a book-signing at the Hammer Museum bookstore—where I got to see a real, live hardcover copy of my book for the first time ever. At $85 list price, even I don’t own one, but now that I’ve held a copy in my hands, to quote Gollum, “Me wants it.” I saw more than a few copies getting signed by Trey and Sandy, too, since they’re prominently featured in it.

The evening closed out with an unofficial meeting of the so-called minds at a high-end pizza place across the street, where stories got swapped about everything from behind-the-scenes on Weezer’s “Pork and Beans” video to what the library at Skywalker Ranch is like (sounds cool) to the wild contents of Guillermo del Toro’s mancave. Sandy had to split before we could get a group photo, but here’s the rest of the braintrust we had on hand:

Clockwise from left: Clive Young (Homemade Hollywood book); Trey Stokes (Pink Five trilogy); Matt (posts on TheForce.Net fan film forum as Lank, is a grip); Chad (Sex, Drugs, and Natalie Portman, just finished his feature, Apocalypse, CA, coming soon); Seth (visual FX artist, fan films enthusiast); Ryan Wieber (Ryan vs. Dorkman); Brian (HamillianActor on TFN, The Injured Stormtrooper); Aaron (posts as Neszis, has done a handful of festival baby short films); and Teague Chrystie (Pink Five films, Trey’s Ark project, works as a visual fx artist, and most importantly, provided me with this caption).

Thanks to Darrin Klein at the Hammer for setting up the event; thanks to Trey and Sandy for participating and sharing some of the genius with the rest of us; and thanks to everyone for coming out and having a good time!

UPDATE: The fan film program was a big success—more in a few days (and a veritable Who’s Who group photo of the L.A. fan film crowd).

That’s right–tonight (Wednesday, April 22) is the big fan film talk at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles!

Starting at 7PM, I’ll be hosting a night of fan film goodness, discussing their history, showing some of the classic fan films from throughout the years and introducing two guys who don’t need any introduction to fan film fans everywhere: Sandy Collora, director of the Batman/Predator/Alien flick Batman: Dead End, and Trey Stokes, the creator behind one of George Lucas’ favorite Star Wars parodies, the Pink Five Trilogy.

Both Sandy and Trey will be showing their fan films and previews of their upcoming professional productions, Hunter Prey and Ark, respectively. There’ll also be a Q&A and a signing for my fan film book, Homemade Hollywood, which prominently features both filmmakers. Heck, if you ask nicely, I’m sure they’d sign your copy, too.

Click for more info and directions—see you there!

When it comes to the Women of Star Wars, well, you can keep ‘em. Slave-bikini Leia? Whatever. Wimpering Amidala? Yawn. Or how about…um…there really aren’t any other women in Star Wars, unless you count Aunt Beru. Me, I’d want to hang out with Stacey, the Valley Girl heroine of Pink Five—and I’m not alone on that one.

Pink Five, the now-legendary fan film series by Trey Stokes and Amy Earhart, has millions of fans—and not the just the kind that send a link to pals saying “check out this fan film.” Nooooo. More like the kind of fans that make their own tribute art. The kind of fans that make their own incredibly cool Pink Five action figures. The kind of fans that put Stacey in real Star Wars novels. The kind of fans that make their own Pink Five fan film.

That’s right: A fan film of a fan film. It’s so meta, my head just imploded. As Trey himself noted on his blog,

Made in Mexico (but performed in English), behold the awesomeness of Pink Five CELE, aka The Pink Five Menace. The opening crawl alone snapped my head clean off… and then it got even better. If Pink Five ever gets turned into a telenovela, I suspect it would turn out exactly like this.

SEE THE FLICK AND MORE AFTER THE JUMP!

Of course, what P5 fans really want is for the series to end. You see, Trey and Amy made the original Pink Five flick back in 2002; the sequel, Pink Five Strikes Back in 2004, and a three-part finale, Return of Pink Five, in 2006. The catch is, the final segment of the finale isn’t done yet, bogged down thanks to production issues like “real life.” Stokes is neck-deep in a new, professional (i.e. bill-paying) project called Ark, so it will still be a while before we see the end of ROP5.

When will that be? Well, if you live in Los Angeles, you can ask Trey yourself (don’t tell him I said that). On April 22, I’ll be hosting a night of fan films at the Hammer Museum, with special guests Trey Stokes and Sandy Collora (Batman: Dead End; World’s Finest). Get all the latest dirt on their new projects (Trey has Ark, and Sandy’s got his first feature film in post right now, Hunter Prey). Can’t make it to L.A.? Get both directors’ stories in my book, Homemade Hollywood—and if you can make it to the Hammer, hey, there’ll be a few copies for sale, so you can get Trey and Sandy to sign it before they become so important that fanboys no longer love ‘em.

It’s been a busy time for Sandy Collora, the emerging director who first made a name for himself in the mid-00′s with the back-to-back, big-budget fan films Batman: Dead End and World’s Finest. Last November, news of his impending feature film directing debut, Hunter Prey, broke across the internet (after Fan Cinema Today actually broke the story almost a year ago). February saw the director introduce his new blog/MySpace page, and Monday found the first trailer land online at io9.com. Of course, it didn’t take long for the website’s exclusive to get bootlegged on to YouTube (wasn’t me, honest); hence, the video above.

With the film’s post-production and scoring nearly done, the flick should be complete by June, which means Collora’s next project is to get the movie out into the world. He noted this week in an interview on Sci-Fi Scoop, “As for when it will be released, I can’t answer that yet. We have a great international sales group called Moviehouse, involved now in London, and they’re planning a presentation at Cannes in May. We’ll see how things go from there.”

If you’re dying to find out more, you’re in luck, as Collora has a number of personal appearances lined up, the first being a night of fan films I’m hosting at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 22. While I’ll be talking about my book, Homemade Hollywood and showing some primo sample fan films, both Collora and Trey Stokes (creator of Pink Five, one of George Lucas’ favorite Star Wars parodies) will be on-hand, explaining how their fan productions led to new professional endeavors—Collora’s Hunter Prey and Stokes’ Ark. [Fun fact: Collora and Stokes worked together nearly 20 years ago on James Cameron's The Abyss.]

SEE BATMAN: DEAD END AND WORLD’S FINEST, PLUS MORE INFO, AFTER THE JUMP!

Can’t make it to the museum? Collora will also be appearing at Monsterpalooaza, a convention dedicated to the art and effects of monsters, in the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel, May 29-31. Collora mentioned in the interview,

“There will be a Q&A with myself, the actors, and the producers and crew, afterwards as well. There will also be a Hunter Prey table with costume displays and artwork from the film, promotional materials, T-shirts, and free swag, where people can meet and interact with all of us, get a sketch, a photo, or whatever. I’m looking forward to it. There will be a lot of friends and colleagues speaking and presenting there as well. It should be fun! We’re also planning on doing something VERY special for Comic Con this year, so stay tuned!”

I’ve hosted fan film programs before, but this is the highest profile event yet—a night of fan films at the world-famous ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES in New York City, presented as part of the NEW FILMMAKERS FESTIVAL. I’ve got five words for you:

FAN FILMS ON THE SILVER SCREEN!

The show is THIS FRIDAY, April 3 at 9PM, and it’s only SIX FREAKIN’ BUCKS*, so you have time to get out of work/school, go home, eat, hit the bars and still show up in time for 2 hours of classic and world-premiere fan productions (plus me doing the PowerPoint thing on the history of fan productions, enough to make you laugh, cry and buy my fan film book, Homemade Hollywood, which not-so-coincidentally will be available for purchase somewhere in the joint).

Also presenting fan films that night:
–TheForce.Net’s own ADAM BERTOCCI with the highly buzzed Brooklyn Force!
–Blinky Productions’ CHRIS NOTARILE with (world premiere to be named, probably Ultimate Daredevil)!
–Five Towns College’s DAN GALIARDI with the lip-bustin’ brawling of Iron Fist!

Sounds awesome, huh? Cursing the fact that you don’t live in New York right now? Well, if you live in Los Angeles instead, here’s a few consoling words for you: Hammer Museum, April 22, with SANDY COLLORA (Batman: Dead End) and TREY STOKES (Pink Five)!

So mark your calendar, put aside $6 from the weekly keg fund, and come on out!

PS: I’m always on the lookout for great (and SHORT) fan films to feature in these programs. If you have a killer fan film under 10 minutes that you know can stand toe-to-toe with some of the classics, drop me a line via the “Contact Me” page here on the site (It’s in the upper right corner on the menu bar).

*They’re a non-profit, so apparently they’re allowed to charge admission, which is why they hosted Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation there a few years ago. If you really have an issue with it, take it up with them; ain’t my theater.

Michael O’Hearn, the actor who portrayed Superman in Sandy Collora‘s classic fan film, World’s Finest (which I wrote about in Homemade Hollywood), hit the big time in 2008 when he was cast in NBC’s remake of American Gladiators. According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, the show has been dropped:

Gladiators ready? No, gladiators are not ready. This competition-series revival enjoyed terrific ratings for its initial run during the WGA strike. A second season launched in May and saw a sharp drop in viewers, with ratings fading throughout its summer run. Most consider reality shows cheap to produce, but this stunt-heavy arena competition is not. NBC has not mentioned Gladiators on the record, but it’s considered canceled.

While the show might be over, O’Hearn is keeping busy—in September, he appeared in the web series, Infamous, November found him on the set of the late, not-so-great Knight Rider remake, and between all that, he has been working on a new movie, Alter Ego, playing a new, original superhero.

Over the summer, O’Hearn was heard speculating that he might be landing the title roles in the big-screen remakes of Captain America or Conan. Chris Moiser over at FanFilmPodcast thinks O’Hearn would be perfect for the upcoming Thor movie, and while I can definitely picture it better than Cap, I think he’d have a better shot at Conan. What do you think? Give your thoughts below in the comments section.

[THR, via Ain't It Cool News]

Ah, the last post of 2008—and what a year it was for fan films. Fan Cinema Today has been bringing you all the news since it sputtered back to life in April, and there’s been plenty to write about.

It was a year where fan films made tremendous strides forward in the public eye, with Sandy Collora jumping from Batman: Dead End to writing and directing his upcoming, heavily-buzzed feature film debut, Hunter Prey. But it was also  a year where the biggest fan film story in the mainstream media was Canadian filmmaker Mark Twitchell, who police accused of murdering an innocent man in a bizarre remake of his own amateur horror movie.

(And in an effort to be consistent, I’ll be wildly immodest and say that perhaps my book on the history and future of fan films, Homemade Hollywood, was kind of important, too. It JUST hit bookstore shelves, so go to Barnes & Noble, Borders, Target, Amazon or wherever and buy one to help feed a poor, starving blogger. PS: Thanks to Stuart Basinger for the wacky illustration above!).

Here, without further adieu, are the top fan film news stories of 2008:

New York Comic Con 2008 Fan Film Panel Wrap-Up

DC Comics Officially OKs Fan Films

Max Payne Fan Film Shot Down By Fox

Smart Take on Star Trek: Phase II Controversy

From Superman Fan Film To TV Personality

Batman: Dead End Director’s New Feature Film

Indiana Jones Templars Fan Film Teaser Hits

Son of Rambow

Ireland To Get Fan Film Show: Sweded TV

MGM Kills Historic James Bond Fan Film

More On Studios Stopping Fan Films

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men Finale

Shhh! Max Payne Fan Film Revived…sort of

Raiders: The Adaptation Team Heads Up River

Everything Old Is New Again

Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge Winners

How To Not Violate Copyrights With Your Fan Films

Get Your Fan Film On YouTube’s Front Page

Jaw-Dropping Star Wars Fan Film Software

The Gremlins Are Back and Taking Over Fan Films

Troops Fan Film Action Figures at Toys-R-Us?

Homemade Hollywood’s First Review

Born of Hope: A LOTR Fan Film Reborn

Tomb Raider: Ascension Fan Film is a Hit

Who Killed Star Wars: The Dark Redemption?

OTW Debuts Fanlore & New Academic Journal

Star Trek: Hidden Frontier / Intrepid Crossover

James Bond Returns…in Moonraker ‘78

Indiana Jones Parody Fan Film Hits DVD

Star Wars: Dark Resurrection Nabs Fan Film Prize

Homemade Hollywood Gets io9 Rave Review

Star Wars Fan Film Director Arrested for Murder

Fan Film Murder Suspect Hits Court Wednesday

More On Mark Twitchell Fan Film Murder Case

Batman: Dead End Director’s Hunter Prey Peek

Homemade Hollywood Birth Announcement

Star Trek: Of Gods And Men Hits DVD

Fan Film Murder Suspect Mark Twitchell’s House of Cards Footage Released

FanEdit.Org Slammed By MPAA, Soldiers On

Upcoming Symposium on Fan Productions

Fan Film Pioneer Forrest Ackerman Passes

Classic Star Wars Fan Films on DVD For Free

Superman and Star Wars Lead To Star Ranger 7

Star Trek: Phase II’s ‘Blood & Fire’ To Debut

Homemade Bollywood Brings Relief In India

Fan films were big this year, but clearly the big movie story was The Dark Knight. The feature film flew off with most of the summer box office, and now it may well do the same with upcoming awards season trinkets.

Unsurprisingly, the movie lead to a lot of fan-created Batman tributes, ranging from an effort shot on the same streets as the feature film, to a serial starring a six-year-old driving a mini-Batmobile, to my favorite, Batman’s Bad Day, where insults fly left and right in the Justice League break room between Bats, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern.

No one seems to know if another sequel will be made, but with all the cash they raked in, how could they not make another one? So, while we wait for Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale to sit down with their calendars (“I want to buy a 200-ft. yacht in the summer of 2011—does that release date work for you?”), here are the many Batman fan film stories that FCT ran this year (after the jump):

Batman: Dead End Director’s New Feature Film

New Batman Fan Films, Part 1: Batman Madman

New Batman Fan Films, Part 2

New Batman Fan Films, Part 3: Little Batman

Batman Off The Clock (and maybe his rocker)

Dark Knight Fan Film aims for Feature Reality

Book Excerpt: Building Batman: Dead End

The Dark Knight’s Batmobile Needs A Fan Film!

Dark Knight Project Gets Update, ‘Making Of’

Dark Knight Fan Edit Remixes Silent Film History

Non-U.S. Fan Film News

Fan Film Trailers: Batman, Potter, Cloverfield!

Dark Knight Returns to Fan Films

Lost Fan Films: Batman Reborn

Batman: Reborn is Reborn!

Batman Fan Film Stuntman Blows Out Knee

Batman: Dead End Director’s Hunter Prey Peek!

I know, I know—I said it was gonna be “all Marvel, all the time” this week, but that was before io9, the biggest Sci-Fi blog on the planet, dropped a bombshell on fan film lovers: the first major interview with Sandy Collora about his upcoming feature film debut, Hunter Prey.

Collora, you may recall, was the director of the classic DC Comics fan flicks Batman: Dead End and World’s Finest, and now he’s hard at work on this otherworldly adventure. It looks cool, it looks mean, it looks…well, really freaking hot on the set.

I’ve written about Hunter Prey before, but the new interview is your plentiful opportunity to learn more—a lot more—about it: The interview runs nearly 3,400 words (plus a few gorgeous pics that qualify for that old cliche that a picture is worth a thousand…ah, you get the idea). Early on, Collora is upfront about what fan films did for his career, and why he chose to make them, explaining:

I’ve written several scripts based on original ideas over the years… However for my last two short films to work the way I wanted them to, and generate the amount of buzz and publicity that they did, they needed to involve known characters that already had a huge fanbase. In my opinion, I feel that if instead of doing Batman Dead End and World’s Finest, I did more short films that were original, that no matter how good or well done they were, they simply would not have gained as much attention or praise from the fans. Case in point; Solomon Bernstein’s Bathroom and Archangel. Two short films I wrote and directed before I did my superhero fan films, and although both were professionally produced and shot on 35mm, even with Archangel winning some awards at festivals, not too many people are even aware they exist. Sometimes you need to look very pragmatically at the results of what you’re doing and what your work and career is yielding or not yielding, and make decisions based on those assessments.

I’ll unabashedly say that I’ve always dug io9.com. The first week it was up and running on the net, I emailed the editors a ‘hello’ and tipped them off to David Guivant’s unusual Iron Man fan film—and they ran it. More recently, they gave a rave review to my book, Homemade Hollywood (in which Collora’s flicks are featured, incidentally), and now there’s this. Give the interview a read for more insights into Collora’s step up to the big time.