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Thought Exercise: Avatar Fan Film
May. 25th, 2009 07:16 pmEdit- I think the version I just submitted to the racebending community is probably best, but we'll see if the moderators think it's appropriate. Meanwhile, I'll keep this version for posterity here, because it's my journal and I'm allowed to have in-need-of-editing personal rambles here. /end edit.
Just composing this here, hopefully to be more coherent and less tentative than that PM I just sent off...
So there's going to be a liveaction version of my current most beloved show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Among many other problems, the major failure to reflect the diversity and intended ethnicity of the Avatar characters in the casting both makes me cringe as a student of Ms. Harris's Race, Gender and the Media class, and irritates the merry hell out of me as a viewer and consumer of the media. I lurk around the Racebending community, and the thought occurred to me about what, aside from simply state our grievances and take our money home with us, could be done to both satisfy those angry over Paramount's decisions and make sure that they, and others, get the point.
I'm just now starting to watch The Hunt For Gollum, a fan-made film that stands as a prequel to the LotR trilogy. I also haunt the ElfQuest boards, which housed for a time the organization of fans with intent to make a fan-film of the comic (with creator support), which was only sidelined when the organizer had to deal with a family crisis and has since been replaced with the actual greenlighting of a film by Warner Bros. My point is- there is an opportunity here, and a precedent, to both get the desired movie to reflect and amplify Avatar's awesomeness, and to show up Paramount and their appalling failures.
Why not try to organize and make a fan film of it? Do it well, do it right, show that it can be done and has been.
Now- the problems with this right off the bat. Money, organization, fandom, avoiding lawsuits.
Organization- who takes charge? Who makes the decisions? Also- all the problems Paramount would have adapting an animated tv show into a movie, the fan-organizer inherits; decisions on casting, condensing the plot, what to keep and what to change all comes to whoever takes charge, which also means opportunity for some of the divisive drama I've heard of in the fandom to rear its head and make trouble.
Money- that's going to take a lot to get something like this going, and if it's a fan film, it absolutely can't be for profit. No investors, no tickets, no merchandising. It'll be a financial loss to all who get in on it, and pure fan devotion does not pay camera crews.
How do we find actors with talent and willing to work for sheer fan-love?
And above all- while fanwork is simply fanwork- that doesn't prevent a studio from at least attempting to squash a perceived threat if it comes up on the radar.
As I said- there are a lot of potential problems, pitfalls and implosions waiting. But purely as a thought and a wish- it would be cool to pull off a better film than the studio. The reason I'm putting this up now is that I can't believe nobody else has suggested it yet.
Just composing this here, hopefully to be more coherent and less tentative than that PM I just sent off...
So there's going to be a liveaction version of my current most beloved show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Among many other problems, the major failure to reflect the diversity and intended ethnicity of the Avatar characters in the casting both makes me cringe as a student of Ms. Harris's Race, Gender and the Media class, and irritates the merry hell out of me as a viewer and consumer of the media. I lurk around the Racebending community, and the thought occurred to me about what, aside from simply state our grievances and take our money home with us, could be done to both satisfy those angry over Paramount's decisions and make sure that they, and others, get the point.
I'm just now starting to watch The Hunt For Gollum, a fan-made film that stands as a prequel to the LotR trilogy. I also haunt the ElfQuest boards, which housed for a time the organization of fans with intent to make a fan-film of the comic (with creator support), which was only sidelined when the organizer had to deal with a family crisis and has since been replaced with the actual greenlighting of a film by Warner Bros. My point is- there is an opportunity here, and a precedent, to both get the desired movie to reflect and amplify Avatar's awesomeness, and to show up Paramount and their appalling failures.
Why not try to organize and make a fan film of it? Do it well, do it right, show that it can be done and has been.
Now- the problems with this right off the bat. Money, organization, fandom, avoiding lawsuits.
Organization- who takes charge? Who makes the decisions? Also- all the problems Paramount would have adapting an animated tv show into a movie, the fan-organizer inherits; decisions on casting, condensing the plot, what to keep and what to change all comes to whoever takes charge, which also means opportunity for some of the divisive drama I've heard of in the fandom to rear its head and make trouble.
Money- that's going to take a lot to get something like this going, and if it's a fan film, it absolutely can't be for profit. No investors, no tickets, no merchandising. It'll be a financial loss to all who get in on it, and pure fan devotion does not pay camera crews.
How do we find actors with talent and willing to work for sheer fan-love?
And above all- while fanwork is simply fanwork- that doesn't prevent a studio from at least attempting to squash a perceived threat if it comes up on the radar.
As I said- there are a lot of potential problems, pitfalls and implosions waiting. But purely as a thought and a wish- it would be cool to pull off a better film than the studio. The reason I'm putting this up now is that I can't believe nobody else has suggested it yet.
