Dani, the lead Audio Addict, over at the Society Of Audio Addicts blog has posted a very shiny story!
“Your friends at Sonic Society who bring you all the awesome audio cinema you’ve been listening to for a year now have their own production company too, Sonic Cinema. For the past 5 months they have been working very very very very very very hard on a fan production of the Firefly tv series.
And they’re finished! WooHOOOO!”
Episode one of this brand spankin’ new series is up and ready for download. Oh, and be sure to stay tuned after the credits for a special interview with the creators! Get it HERE or subscribe to either The Signal or The Sonic Society podcasts:
http://signal.serenityfirefly.com/podcast.xml
http://sonic.libsyn.com/rss
I just listened to this and, as a huge Firefly fan, I can say “not bad”!
I admit, though, that I don’t quite understand the whole fanfic phenomenon. Obviously, the folks who made this audio drama have some talent in both the writing department and the production department – why not funnel their inspiration into something original and legal?
I liked it too, some of the acting wasn’t flawless. I too am a big fan of the series.
BTW it is legal, just so long as they don’t use it for commerical purposes.
Fanfic is a pretty strange phenomenon,but itleads to some very cool things. The August Dereleth SOLAR PONS stories for example.
I disagree, Jesse. How can fanfic possibly NOT be copyright infringement? I’m certain that there’s nothing in copyright law that says I can use characters from my favorite TV show in any way I want as long as I am not making money. Of course, I’m no legal expert, but I don’t see why fanfic would be treated any differently than other fiction. I think fanfic is something that is tolerated by studios and publishing houses because, hey, these are fans of their work. Why alienate them?
Hi Folks!
Thanks so much for starting the discussion, and thanks for the comments.
I’m Jack Ward and I wrote the first episode you just heard. I also played Simon (as best I could) and directed the project.
Let me give you my thoughts.
1. Scott said “Why not funnel their inspiration into something original and legal?”
— Well Scott, as said in the Interview with Danielle Cutler on the podcast of the show, this IS a departure for us.
If you go to http://www.soniccinema.ca you’ll see all of our stuff with the exception of FFOW is original works.
We’re in the middle of actually producing a 15 week series that will be heard on XM Satellite Radio called “The Dead Line”. It’s a suspense series in the Hitchcockian (I think I’m seeing the genesis of a new word here) tradition.
We’re also doing a fantasy western that you’d be interested in for next June. Also original. In fact, we’ve got a schedule filled with no less than 25 original series we are planning currently. All our series will be 15 episodes in length and could be continuing or anthology based- and are everything from suspense, horror, mystery, comedy, drama, science fiction, fantasy and just plain adventure.
I’m thrilled to write stories of all shapes and sizes.
I’ve never written a full fan fiction before. This was a summer project that we thought might be fun and get people thinking about all the great stories that haven’t been done yet in Firefly.
It’s not done for a dime of profit. It’s done strictly to get people to think about getting FF back, and certainly to let people who may not have heard of us before know what we sound like.
Jesse… We are painfully aware that the acting isn’t flawless. It’s something we’re always struggling with… perhaps the biggest issue that’s always burning on Andrew Dorfman’s and my mind is how we can get the acting better and better.
Part of doing Old Wounds for us meant in letting some people who want to act with us but have never had the experience, learn some of their chops on this project.
We feel that for the most part we have done a pretty decent job.
You’ll find Andrew Dorfman’s amazing SFX abilities and the original sound track a staple in our Sonic Cinema stuff.
And if you like the style of writing, we’re planning to put up some of our old shows Andrew and I produced a couple years ago to give folks a taste of where we were and where we’re headed.
We play in Joss Whedon’s playground here with this series, and we’re very happy to have the opportunity.
But we also think that our main diet is going to be the stories, and the characters we create from our own imaginations.
Check us out… and give us feedback.. LOTS of feedback.
I follow the JMS example of wanting to get people involved in seeing the stories grow and mature.
If folks like a certain series…I’ll make more.
If a certain series doesn’t resonate, I’ll go to something else.
It’s all about telling good stories and find more folks out there who love this stuff. :)
Thanks again… and keep listening. There’s five more episodes to go. Just wait till you see who we discover Book is!
;)
Jack
Scott, you asked: “How can fanfic possibly NOT be copyright infringement?”
I’m not a lawyer, so of course my legal opinions should carry no weight unless my argument is used successfully to get some poor fanfic producer off the hook in a suit. As far as I am aware that test has not come. So here’s my answer: “When you aren’t sued it isn’t illegal.” Yes, Firefly is a copyrighted work, as are virtually all fanfic works. But the test of the legality of fanfic comes not from whether or not the law declares it as such in similar specific cases, but rather whether one is sued or not over particular cases. Copyright law is a big civil law stick that is there to be used to prevent the commerical theft of a copyholder’s property rights when the copyright holder wants to use it. If they don’t use it (or don’t want to use it) to speak of it being illegal is equivilent to saying that touching a stranger’s hand without specific permission is assault and so should never be done. I don’t want to live in that world – so if that is the world I’m in I’m outta here. If we were talking about criminal law I think we’d agree that fanfic was all but officially decriminalized. Lets looks at the facts: Fanfic is 100% legal to possess and it is about 99.9% legal (that is it is generally unprosecuted) to produce. You can also distribute it for non-commerical consumption unless you get a threatinging letter. More info on the illegality/legality of fanfic can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction
Jack, and the rest of the Sonic Cinema crew:
Up with Firefly: Old Wounds!
Up with The Dead Line and WAVEFRONT too!