Star Wars fan film event near New York City
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

MAY THE FAN FILM BE WITH YOU
Wednesday, May 7, 7:30PM - 9:00PM
Croton Free Library
171 Cleveland Drive, Croton-on-Hudson, NY * 914-271-6612

"May The Fan Film Be With You" will show and discuss some of the best Star Wars fan films ever made. Most people have only seen these movies on the internet, but this program presents them the way they were meant to be seen--in full-quality on a big screen. Films to be shown include: Hardware Wars; Troops; George Lucas In Love; Duality; Pink Five; Beagle and many more.

Besides showing movies, the program will discuss the history of the growing fan film movement and explore what compels filmmakers to invest so much effort into their personal visions of the Star Wars mythology. All material screened will be appropriate for the whole family, but the discussion will be aimed primarily at adults and young adults. The program will run about 90 minutes.

Host: Clive Young is the author of the upcoming Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera (Continuum; September, 2008), the first book about the secret history and surprising future of the Fan Film movement. He also edits the fan film blog, fancinematoday.com.

For further program information, contact the Croton Free Library at 914-271-6612 or visit its website at www.crotonfreelibrary.org

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NYCC Fan Film Panel was a Hit

It was. Really. All the scoop--and links to other people's take on the event, here:

FanCinemaToday.Com

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Waiting...
Category: Writing and Poetry

I believe it was the noted philosopher Tom Petty who once opined, "The waiiiiiiiiting is the hardest part," and no truer words were ever spoken (other than "the check is in the mail." ’Cause it is. I swear it. Honest. April fools!). Where was I?

Oh yeah, the waiting. See, although I finished the writing part of Homemade Hollywood a few weeks ago, I actually didn’t hand it in until March 31, the drop-dead due date. Why? Well, I had a lot to do. The book was contractually required to be at least 75,000 words. No problem; flew by that. It was also required to not be more than 85,000. Flew by that as well. My patient editor at Continuum, David, asked that it not go over 90,000 or else. Yeah....well, I flew by that one, too. Damn book landed at 95,330 words--more than 20,000 words more than I had to write.

I had a lot of editing to do, but a funny thing happened when I sat down to slice and dice. The book lost weight like it had a tapeworm. Reading along, I discovered that A) most of it was pretty good, even the parts that I hated when I wrote them, and B) there was still some fat--stuff that didn’t go anywhere, places where I used 30 words where all I needed was five, and so on. And any time I got bored, I made like a chainsaw-wielding maniac--because if I’m bored, imagine how stupefied the reader would be.

In no time, the book was down to 87,000 words. I then added some stuff that should’ve gone in the first time, and now it rests comfortably at 89,100 or so. So now what? (Cue Tom Petty).

Yep, waiting.
Waiting for the last fan film photos to come in so I can send them to David.
Waiting to learn when the new publication date is.
Waiting to find out when we start copy editing.
Waiting for the second half of my advance.
Waiting to hold the book in my hands.
(sigh) Waiting. This is gonna be hard.

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The fan film panel at NY Comic Con

Yep, it’s the panel ’they’ didn’t want you to see--but the Comic Con did!
FAN FILMS: A HISTORY AND FUTURE
SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 3PM, ROOM 1E07

Fan films--outlaw, amateur movies starring famous comic book and Sci-Fi characters--are an internet phenomenon; find out their secret past, who makes them today and what they’ll mean to Big Media tomorrow. Panelists include:
Adam Bertocci (Run Leia Run),
Chris Notarile (Blinky Productions),
Dan Poole (The Green Goblin’s Last Stand);
Dan Galiardi, professor, Five Towns College (Iron Fist: The Dragon Unleashed)
Fanboy Will of FanFilmPodcast.com;
and
Me--Clive Young, author, Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera.

DON’T MISS IT!

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The Fan Film Book Is Done (Sort Of)

March is almost half over but here's the scoop, finally. The book is done, but it still has a long way to go. (Whaaaa..?) I have until the end of the month to scrape roughly 5,000-10,000 words out of the manuscript, as it landed just shy of 95,000 words. I both love and hate this part, 'cause editing is a breeze compared to writing, but it also means a lot of material is going to get 86'd--cool stories, people I spent hours interviewing, and entire movies are going to vanish from the text. Not only does this process wind up disappointing people on occasion, but frankly, when I worked hard researching, interviewing, transcribing, analyzing and so forth, I want the book to show off that I made the effort. That said, a flabby book won't get read by anyone, so if something's gotta go, it's gotta go.

Last week, I got to do the final interview for the book, talking with Henry Jenkins, who was a wellspring of ideas. One surprise was that the guy was a full-on speedtalker--you don't need to shotgun a six-pack of Red Bull to keep up with his deluge of thoughts and concepts, but it probably wouldn't hurt. He confirmed a lot of loose, woolly ideas I'd been mulling over, but articulated them so concisely, it was amazing. Well, that's why he's at MIT, right?

I also had the honor of getting to read a chapter from a book that's coming out right around the same time as mine. It's called Fear, Cultural Anxiety and Transformation: Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films Remade, and is a collection of essays on...well, the book title says it all, really. Daryl Frazetti's "Distinct Identities of Star Trek Fan Film Remakes" covers a lot of ground in a small space, covering history and motivations behind a slew of Trek fan productions. If you're (hopefully) looking forward to my book, you'll want to give his essay a read, to be sure. Folks who've seen the 1999 documentary, Trekkies, may remember Daryl; these days, he's a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Lake Tahoe Community College in Nevada, but back then, he was probably best known for appearing in the movie as "that guy who dresses his cats in Star Trek uniforms."

Hey, Newsday finally ran that story on fan films that I was interviewed for in December. Nice piece--check it out.

Finally, while I'm no fan of classic rock, it looks like Steve Miller's famed, nonsensical lyric, "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future," is actually true for once--because the time that my book is supposed to come out keeps getting pushed back. Ignore what you see on Amazon; I'm told now that it's "probably" August.

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So How’s That Fan Film Book Coming?

Y'know, whenever you watch a movie where there's an author character, the first thing everyone says to him/her is 'How's the new book coming?'--and invariably the writer responds with a sigh and a complaint about writer's block.

That never happens in real life, of course--not the writer's block part, but the people asking how the writing process is going, because they don't. Ever. And you can't blame 'em, 'cause every writer I know, including myself, manages to work whatever they're writing--be it a book, play, script or grocery list--into the first 20 seconds of every conversation. People don't ask how your writing is going because they're sick to death of hearing about it.

And since you didn't ask, why yes; I'd love to tell you how it's going.

I'm kickin' ass and typing names. In January, I interviewed Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn, who's written and sold many more books than me--most of them hit Star Wars novels--and Trey Stokes, the auteur behind the Pink Five movies. Looking ahead to chats in the near future, I also set up interviews with major 'gets' for the book--James Cawley, leader of Star Trek: New Voyages, and Henry Jenkins of MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium. It's extremely exciting to get such leaders in their respective fields as a part of this book. But wait--there's more! Chris Gore--founder of FilmThreat.com, movie expert on G4's Attack of the Show and general bon vivant, sent in his foreword for the book, and it's better than anything I could have hoped for (meaning it's great).

While the start of the month saw very little progress, the end of January was all pedal to the metal--or stubby digits to the keyboard if you prefer--as more than 8,000 words poured out of my fleet fingers. With the ol' word count sitting comfortably around 80K, I've passed my contractual minimum by 5,000; that means in theory I could stop mid-sentence now and just type "...and they all lived happily after," send it in, and Continuum Books would have to accept it. They'd hate me and the book, but I'd be done--and there's some kind of strange comfort that comes from that idea. It makes me feel like I'm taking the high road by, you know, finishing the book and all.

Lest it sound like I'm not taking the book seriously, I certainly am, and the folks at Continuum are taking it even more seriously--heck, they're even taking orders for it; just check out the listing for Homemade Hollywood in their Spring 2008 catalog. Now, sure, there's a few errors (Son of Rambow isn't a documentary, and the book isn't due in April, otherwise I'd be a deadman right now), but the catalog copy actually does a great job of capturing the book's tone and topics. Until I hold a finished paperback in my hand and sell a few gallons of blood in order to afford the hardcover edition, reading this PDF is about as real as it gets--and how unreal is that?

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<I>Homemade Hollywood</I> fan film book nears completion...finally!
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

The year closed out on a good note as the fan film book landed within striking distance of the end--I'm at 72,000 words, and while I still have two major fan films to cover in-depth and two chapters to write beyond that, the end is now definitely in sight. Once I'm done writing, I get to tear it all up and shove it all back together again in a massive loquaciousness-slashing frenzy. Hard to believe it's gonna be on store shelves in five months....

In the meantime, it looks as if Newsday may give the book a little push in February, as I recently did an interview with the paper as part of a feature they're doing on the upcoming Jack Black movie, Be Kind, Rewind. I hear mixed things about the flick, but the director, Michel Gondry, is usually pretty interesting--I actually talk about his early work extensively in my library program, Video Killed The Radio Star: The History of Music Videos.

In the meantime, I've firmed up what will turn out to be my third appearance at the I-Con SciFi convention at SUNY Stony Brook on April 5, once again talking about--and showing plenty of--fan films.

Speaking of travel---hey, going to the NAMM show in Anaheim, CA this month? Stop by the NewBay Media/Pro Sound News booth and say "Hi." I'll be there Jan. 17-20, talking to the pro audio pros, hearing the latest gear and stalking asking Elliot Easton for an autograph.

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The fan film book progresses...slowly

It's really only been two weeks since the news got updated, but things have been edging along. I'm not in the home stretch by any ... er ... stretch of the imagination, but it's in sight. It better be, however-- Amazon is now listing the book, even if they don't have that nifty cover in their database yet. Now I have to finish it (as if having signed a contract with the publisher doesn't count or something?). Still, it makes the end result at the end of this epic quest (i.e. a book) seem all the more 'real.'

Something a little unreal is the hardcover edition of the book. Don't get me wrong--it's definitely a paperback release, but a handful of hard-bound copies will be made; Amazon's got them going for $53.55, so even I may not splurge on one (yep, authors have to pay for their own books, too). The hardcover version isn't some exotic 'limited edition;' apparently it won't have a dustjacket, and perhaps not even the cover illustration. Rather, it's made for libraries (mostly academic ones) that can't be bothered to put that big, fat book tape on the spine to help the book last. Naturally, I suggest rather than spend $53.55 on a single hardcover, spend $53.55 on four copies of the final product; that way I might even see royalties from this puppy someday.

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The Fan Film Book Cover is here!

Finally! You may have noticed it if you visited the MySpace page recently, where it now graces the opening page. The guy on the bottom is Chris from Blinky Productions; can you name the movie that the behind-the-scenes shot on top is from?

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Homemade Hollywood Hits 60K and More.

I held back on the monthly update in hopes of unveiling the cover for Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera, but it's still under construction. Between the good (and patient) folks at Continuum Books and myself, we've gone back and forth on more than a dozen cover designs...and we're getting close. Hopefully December's update will bring the final cover to light. In the meantime, the book hit 60,000 words right around the turn of the month. New interviews gathered for it include feature director Joe Nussbaum (Sydney White; American Pie Presents The Naked Mile), NYU professor Dan Streible, Five Towns College professor Dan Galiardi, Iron Fist fan film actor Albert Lamont, and others. Things are humming right along....

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