New York Comic Con 2008 Fan Film Panel Wrap-Up

This was my third visit to the New York Comic Con, which, gee, is in its third year. As always, it was a blast. All of New York City decided to fly its proverbial freak flag and jam into the Javits Center. I read that they were expecting 60,000 people this weekend, and I think it’s safe to say they hit their numbers. It’s a far cry from two years ago when they were swamped by 20,000 people unexpectedly and had to bring the show to a near standstill due to fire marshal issues. As a result, I miss the smaller vibe, but damn, I had a lotta fun.

(l-r) Dan Poole, Adam Bertocci, Fanboy Will, Chris Notarile, Dan Galiardi, Clive Young

And there was fan film news! Poke around the web, and everyone’s talking Hellboy and Hulk previews, but off in the corner of the world called 1E07, we had a phenomenal panel on fan films, featuring all-star panelists…and me, too.

Clive Young, stylin’ in a Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera T-shirt.

I kicked it off with a PowerPoint talk about the history of fan films and their legality. People couldn’t believe it when they learned that Andy Warhol and Hugh Hefner used to make fan films. I also used the moment to push the upcoming Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera book; Chris busted my chops for “shamelessly promoting” myself, but from him, that can only be taken as a compliment.

(l-r) Adam Bertocci; Fanboy Will in his cool ‘Fan Films Are Not A Crime’ T-Shirt; Chris Notarile; Dan Galiardi

Next, Dan Galiardi showed the trailer for his Iron Fist movie and gave some insight into the “Comics To Film” class he teaches at Five Towns College—where they make fan films for class assignments.

Chris did shtick before moving into great advice about keeping at it until you gain momentum and the attention of others. Fanboy Will talked about FanboyTheatre.com and his podcast, The Fan Film Podcast.

Adam talked a bit about his upcoming short, Brooklyn Force, and then proceeded to steal the show—he started reciting the actors’ lines, in essence inventing Fan Film Karaoke, and brought down the house with the ovation of the day.

Dan Poole followed with a clip from his early 1990s fan film, the legendary The Green Goblin’s Last Stand—best known for his jaw-dropping swing around a building six-stories up just so he could ‘get the shot.’ That was followed by the trailer to his next opus—his first original feature film, The Photon Effect, which looked pretty damn good.

Then we opened it up to the floor for questions, and got some pretty good ones from the audience—and yes, we had an audience. Here’s a photo I took from the stage about 10 minutes into the show:

During the panel, however, other events let out and people just kept filtering in. By the end of it, we had well over 200 people and it was a true standing room only crowd (there’s about 90 in this photo alone—yes, I counted)

All in all, it was a great turn out, everyone on the panel had cool stuff to tell the crowd, and it was a really nice moment for the often-ignored fan film world, if I say so myself. Hopefully we can talk NYCC into doing another one next year.

Oh, and I got some great fan film news while I was there which I’ll post in a few days. Very good news, especially if you make fan films about DC Comics.

More photos of the panel.

Blinky Productions’ blog post on it.

Adam Bertocci’s forum post on it (near bottom of the page).