All Quiet on the Western Front

I've been remarkably remiss in my social networking of late, including commenting on posts, for which I apologise.

As for my silence, mostly that's due to the fact that my creativity is at an all-time low, and this is generally my journal for fannish endeavours. I'm still consuming fannishly, but I'm finding it hard to be productive.

I do, however, have an idea for a Leverage vid wobbling around my brain, but I'm kind of going /o\ at the amount of footage I'd have to clip up - my last Leverage vid was all srsfaces and angst and drama, so that's what I clipped; this idea is all capery and there's very little overlap.

However, the idea will not be banished, so I expect I'll stop resisting and start work soon... but (like damned_colonial), I'm contemplating a swap from iMovie to Final Cut (or perhaps Adobe Premiere), and this would be a good opportunity to make the transition, but in the meantime it's another obstacle.

Also, I still have a Star Trek vid on the boil, but the source footage royally sucks and it makes vidding nigh-impossible. But every time I hear the song I'm using, I see scenes from the vid in my head, and I just want it done with. Augh.

The Lost Heir Job

Boo for hiatuses; I hate the American TV system and its bizarre "woo, a TV show's just gotten really rolling? let's pull it off air for four months!" ways.

( Thoughts, spoilery. )

And now, something else I like: John Rogers (the Leverage showrunner) is pretty benevolent about fanworks.

From this post, in response to a pretty hostile question about fanfic:

1.) I think fanfic is the sign of a healthy show. Here's what it boils down to: you're telling me that in today's crowded media space, our show made someone love it so much they take time out of their own life to talk about it? Holy. Crap.

To be fair, I have a somewhat different attitude toward media/fans than most people. I think what TV/corporate media had wrong for a long time was how they understood the idea of a "water cooler show." They saw it as making the audience talk about their show, on their terms. So any fan-created media is them losing control of their material. I see this more as the natural evolution of culture in a shared digital age. I will be blunt -- other than the satisfaction of our own creative urges (and all that entails: the quest for perfection, artistry, craft, etc), our job in media is to give you stuff to talk about in your conversations, to integrate into your social circle in whatever way you see fit. I doubt that's TNT's official stance, btw, but they are much cooler about this stuff than most companies.

2.) As far as "borrowing" our characters -- to paraphrase Alan Moore, they didn't go anywhere. There they are, sitting right up on the shelf. Waiting for us to let them loose again. Besides, how many people read a fanfic story? A couple hundred, tops? We have, on average 3.5 million viewers, well into the 4 million range when you get the DVR numbers in. I just don't see someone taking control of our Ideaspace through sheer force of Slashfic.

Sure, a lot of fanfic is crap. Of course it's crap. It's written by people who are not professional writers. If I paint, what I paint is crap. Does that mean I should give up painting and displaying stuff in my neighborhood art show?

3.) Is fanfic flattery? Again, depends on how you define flattery. If someone's writing fanfic with intention of currying favor for some ... er, frankly unguessable benefit, then they're really engaged in an exercise in futility. If you mean flattery as in: it's flattering to think someone is so entertained by our work that it inspires them to talk about it and create around it, then aces.

4.) Most writers and actors don't feel this way. Some, including writers I both like personally and greatly admire, hate the idea of fanfic.

Look, end of day, you should always be trying to create your own material. But fanfic, etc, is a different process than original creation -- which I think is the source of a lot of the controversy.

People who do original creations assume the fan is taking some sort of unearned ownership, somehow implying their act is the same/as difficult as the original act of creation. Which, of course, tees them off (doesn't tee me off, but I'm a very relaxed and often drunk guy).

And some fanfic humans are under the impression that creating fanfic is the same creative process as creating original material -- and are sometimes frustrated that they're not accorded the same respect as the original creators. That's also wrong. Fanfic to me is spiritually much closer to the fan-created music videos.

The basic rule I follow here is one I learned in stand-up comedy: Always punch UP. I am a relatively successful typing human whose words are physically produced using millions of dollars and is distributed nationally by a massive billion dollar corporation to millions of people. Exactly how is a free web page with a 1000 word story about Eliot and Hardison fighting a trans-dimensional incursion of Elves hurting my brand, exactly?

Tell you what -- if some fanfic writer is so good they manage to amass a million-person audience with their web-distributed free stories using my characters, I am going to consider that evolution in action and hire that bastard. Or, at the very least, urge them to go create their own show. But odds are it ain't gonna happen. And that's okay. We write for different reasons.

Also, now I want to read about Eliot and Hardison fighting a trans-dimensional incursion of elves.