Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind the Camera

(Hardback)

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Description

Fan Films: Fun, free and totally illegal! Who would swing off a six-story building for a homemade Spider-Man movie Why would newlyweds spend $20,000 on a Star Wars film from which they can never profit How did three nobodies blow Steven Spielberg's mind with an Indiana Jones flick they made as teens in the Eighties They're all part of the Fan Film revolution--an underground movement where backyard filmmakers are breaking the law to create unauthorized movies starring Batman, James Bond, Captain Kirk, Harry Potter and other classic characters. Regular people are making movies that the fans want to see--and which copyrights and common sense would never allow. Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera traces the fan film movement from the 1920s, when con men made fake Little Rascals movies, to the internet video sensations of today. Crossing the divides from a pop culture history of truly outlaw cinema, to an exploration of Hollywood's changing attitude towards its audience, Homemade Hollywood uncovers the innovations and controversies surrounding these secret films and reveals how they're changing today's media. Get insights from the fan filmmakers themselves as well as Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn, director Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever), punk rock icon Tommy Ramone, authors Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture), Don Glut (The Empire Strikes Back), Andrea Richards (Girl Director) and others. A foreword from Chris Gore, founder of Film Threat and movie expert on G4TV's Attack of the Show, sets the tone.

Reviews

Clive Youn manages to turn what could have been a lugubrious analysis into an interesting, chatty, and accessibly fun look at why fans do what we do. -- JM Frey * hardcorenerdity.com *
Overall, "Homemade Hollywood" is an excellent primer for academics new to the fireld of fanthopology, fan film makers who want to avoid their predecessor's pit falls and trace their successes, and copyright owning legal departments at a loss to decipher what to do about transformative works based on their properties. Young manages to convey not only the whys and wherefores of the hobby, but also the gleeful passion of the fans, the dedication, the heart, and the drive of the fan film maker out there with a camera not for fame, not for fortune, but as an act of utter love. -- JM Frey * hardcorenerdity.com *
Clive Young's book does a great job putting together the unknown history of fan films...I never got to make a fan film, but after reading Homemade Hollywood, I wish I had. * RetroThing.com *
HOMEMADE HOLLYWOOD: FANS BEHIND THE CAMERA traces an underground 'fan film' movement from the 1920s to YouTube modern times, covering everything from the indie filmmaking industry to how big media changes attitudes and content of movies themselves. Any movie fan interested on more than a general level will find this a lively fascinating coverage of alternative movie media. -- James A. Cox * California Bookwatch *
Young's riveting volume, illustrated with stills and behind-the-scenes photographs, also covers what these films have to say about our relationship to our favorite characters and Hollywood's gradual, wary acceptance of their existence. * SciFi Magazine *
Author Clive Young brings the rigors of a scholar and the inside-baseball of a fan to this well-researched and-written survey of how doing it yourself has both helped drive our enduring love of motion pictures and to articulate the populist roots of that obsession. -- Michael E. Ross * PopMatters.com *
Homemade Hollywood works because it properly historicizes the fan-movie experience, and deepens our historical understanding of the hold that cinema has on the popular imagination. -- Michael E. Ross * PopMatters.com *
Some have called the fan-film phenomenon a "movement," but that word suggests an immediacy not borne out of by historical facts. It's bigger, wider than a movement; it's a culture. Homemade Hollywood is a fascinating chrnocle of much of how that culture came to be. -- Michael E. Ross * PopMatters.com *
Terrific.... The cool, revealing tales...make Clive Young's book, Homemade Hollywood, an absolute pleasure to read. If you're interested in fan movies, or the subterranean world of Hollywood, it's a must-read. -- Annalee Newitz * io9.com *
He knocked this book out of the park...I had a hard time putting Homemade Hollywood down. * ComicBookBin.com *
It is an amazingly inspirational book for filmmakers. In fact, in my opinion, it ties for best inspirational read with Rebels on the Backlot. * MircoFilmmaker *

Author Bio

Clive Young is an author and lecturer covering the crossroads between high technology and popular culture. He has been interviewed by the London Times, Los Angeles Times and other outlets as an expert on the subject, and ran "Mos Eisley Multiplex," the first website devoted to fan films, from 1998-2000; during that time, USA Today named it a "Hot Site of the Day." He will appear in the upcoming documentary, Star Wars Fans, discussing the cultural consequences of fan productions, and has lectured on the topic at universities, libraries and conventions. As the author of Crank It Up [Backbeat Books, 2004], Young profiled 72 of the world's top rock concert roadies about their work. The book received strong reviews from mainstream magazines like Billboard and Hit Parader, as well as specialist press. Young covers the music industry as both the senior and web editors of Pro Sound News, and has also written for MTV, VH1, American Songwriter, Music Business International, Wine Enthusiast and numerous other outlets. More information on Young can be found at his website, www.cliveyoung.com.