Shadows and gigabytes

: a taxonomy of fan edits of Hollywood films

Abstract

The democratisation of filmmaking via digital media has been changing the nature of film adaptation, through the recent rise of fan edits of major Hollywood films. With free access video sites like YouTube and Vimeo making anyone's professional level edits of studio film releases freely accessible by millions, the line defining the original director's intent becomes muddled. With a coming age of these fan edits being many people's introduction to classic film characters and series, there is a new level of discourse about the fidelity of the films as they had been originally released in theatres. Though many directors have released their own differing cuts of their same films, notably Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and George Lucas, it is new territory to have critics' cuts, or as many different cuts of a film as fan communities desire to propagate. The film experience is now more malleable to suit the unique tastes of the audience participants as the fan edit grows steadily as its own genre.

Whilst forging a method of approach to establishing an overview of this new fan cultural practice, I have developed a taxonomy by which these varied films can be aggregated, examining what is gained or lost for traditional film presentation. The traditional concept of the auteur theory is rendered obsolete in such context, and many iconic movie elements are being transformed for entirely new audiences; how does this rapidly growing trend affect the future of film spectatorship, and what does it reveal about the nature of adaptation, particularly when the original source stemmed from another medium, and how are the aspects of copyright affected? This Practice as Research thesis defines an organised taxonomy to contribute to an understanding of fan creativity, in light of how movie fan edits are shared and disseminated across fandom.

Thesis embargoed until 31 July 2028

Date of Award	Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Cahal McLaughlin (Supervisor) & David Johnston (Supervisor)