It’s one of the most anticipated fan films of recent memory and it’s debuting in less than a week: Ryan Vs. Dorkman II will hit the big time Saturday, with simultaneous public screenings in Los Angeles and New York.
The L.A. showing will be held at the Wilshire Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills, and as Weezer would add, “That’s where I wanna be.” With an hour-long mix of the two RVD fan films and a Q&A session with the filmmakers, it’s proving to be the cooler (free) ticket, particularly since it will be preceeded by an hour of lightsaber-centric fan films, including Duality, Art of the Sabre, Eclipse, Three In The Afternoon and Contract of Evil, among others, starting at 4PM.
The NY screening, meanwhile, is tentatively set for the New York Comic Con, and that’s where the details start to peter out. Supposedly it will take place around 8-ish or 9-ish in the Special Events Hall, perhaps with the hour of of other fan films beforehand…however, there’s no mention of it on the NYCC website yet. But nevermind all that–we’ll have a full rundown of Fan Film-centric events at the NYCC on Gray Areas day (Thursday), and hopefully things will have firmed up by then (I hope so, since I’ll be at NYCC and I wanna see it).
For those who can’t make either event, RVD2 will be relased online on March 1, four years to the day after the original short debuted. A creation of Ryan Wieber and Michael “Dorkman” Scott, the original movie was produced for a lightsaber duel choreography contest on TheForce.Net Fan Film Forum. Popular within certain circles, the short even helped Wieber land a gig for a while at Lucasarts, the Big Guy’s videogame company.
However, once a year ago, the short’s popularity exploded; to date, it’s been seen by more than 1 million people at the popular site–it’s also available many other places on the web–and has also inspired plenty of as well.
Can R and D top their original? Effects-wise, probably so, as they have years of professional experience now, and likely better software with which to work. Music-wise, they definitely can, as they’ll have a brand-new, 55-piece orchestral score written by professional film composers Gordy Haab and Kyle Newmaster. Recorded at Capitol Studios, the soundtrack will feature percussionist M.B. Gordy, who has provided similar services for the popular Battlestar Galactica revival series.
When viral videos like the original RVD are a hit online, assessing their popularity can be difficult; that’s not a problem, however, with this flick. Over 21,000 people have watched an on YouTube and the RVD2 thread at TheForce.Net Fan Film Forum sports more than 2,630 posts across 106 pages at press time. Will it be worth all the anticipation? We’ll find out Saturday.
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