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 YouTube 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; punk rock icon Tommy Ramone; directors Eli Roth (Hostel; star of Inglourious Basterds) and Joe Nussbaum (American Pie 5, Snowy White); 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, kicks it off!
Homemade Hollywood is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other fine, fine retailers. A newly updated edition is available in Portuguese from Marsupial Editora.
RAVE REVIEWS!
“A loving, exhaustive history of the fan-film…this book’s a real treasure, an inspiration to amateur filmmakers everywhere.”—Cory Doctorow, author, Little Brother; Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
“Part celebration, part scholarly history, Clive Young’s homage to fan-made flicks is a passionate, persuasive exercise in balance.” [4-Star Review]—Total Film
“Young’s account is intelligent.”—Times Literary Supplement (London)
“Riveting!…Grade: A”—Adam-Troy Castro, SciFi Channel
“For an excellent primer on Hollywood fan-made films, check out Clive Young’s excellent Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera. It’s an in-depth look at this growing fandom phenomenon.”—WizardWorld
“The writing is lively; the storytelling engaging…As someone who has been researching fan culture off and on for more than 20 years, I learned something on almost every page.”—Dr. Henry Jenkins, Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies Program
“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
“Young brings the rigors of a scholar and the Inside Baseball of a fan to this well-researched and -written survey…. A fascinating chronicle of how [fan film] culture came to be.”—PopMatters.Com
“This book belongs on the serious filmmaker’s shelf beside Sidney Lumet’s Making Movies, beside the Hollywood memoirs of William Goldman, beside the screenwriting books of Syd Field and Robert McKee, and indeed all those other standards that filmmakers tend to own.”—Adam Bertocci, author, Two Gentlemen of Lebowski.
“I just loved the hell out of this book…It’s a fun, jaunty, well-organized retrospective [with] a breezy-yet-very knowledgeable style which is entertaining without being showy.”—Republibot.Com
“A thoroughly entertaining read that should be required reading for teenagers who claim there’s absolutely nothing cool to do in their town.”—FilmFetish.Com
“It’s a pretty fascinating read, one that balances scholarship – the man knows his stuff and backs up his sources extensively – with entertainment value.”—Twitch.Com
“Clive Young has researched the heck out of this topic and written an entertaining, fact-filled book to boot. From Hugh Hefner’s attempts at a homemade monster movie in the early 1940s to the explosion of fan films on YouTube, Homemade Hollywood covers it all. A must for the geek in all of us.”—Raymond Benson, James Bond and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell novelist.
“Completely recommended reading! Young speaks to three levels of audience at once—diehard fans reading for behind the scenes gossip; ‘fanthropologists’ reading the text as research material, and casual consumers, reading for information and interest.”—HardcoreNerdity.Com
“Author Clive Young has put together a really nice history of fan film in his book Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera.”—Kevin Kelly, spout.com
“He knocked this book out of the park…I had a hard time putting Homemade Hollywood down.”—ComicBookBin.Com
“Homemade Hollywood appeals not just to the fanboy, but also to those who enjoy good books about filmmaking.”—Comic Related
“It is an amazingly inspirational book for filmmakers. In fact, in my opinion, it ties for best inspirational read with Rebels on the Backlot.” [9/10 stars]—MicroFilmmaker
“Wonderful…Homemade Hollywood is a great read, and one that is so loaded with fun facts and behind-the-scenes stories that you cannot put it down! “—TheRaider.Net
“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
“The tales of these films are captivating and Young relates them via perfectly structured chapters. I thought I knew the stories behind some of the more recent films discussed in Homemade Hollywood but Young provides a wealth of new information that put everything in proper context. Great stuff.”—Mike White, Editor in Chief, Cashiers du Cinemart
“I bought a copy and read it in two days, then bought a second copy to send to a family member. For anyone who is interested in fan films or just loves filmmaking, this is a must read.”–Phase II eMagazine