The fan fiction that I will be speaking about: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11280990/1/Sleep-and-24-Hour-Supermarkets

This is a fan fiction about the Avengers and really what what happens during their free time. It is a “cute” fan fiction but it feels kind of useless. For one thing, the Avengers are not known to spend much time together outside of conflict. At the end of each film, most of them go their separate ways back home. Other than say, Captain America who lives and breathes the battle every day (through training or whatever else). But Iron Man and Thor, they go back to their homes and have their own adventures outside of the Avengers. The Avengers are supposed to exist to battle, something that Tony Stark very much so believes in. To believe that they would all get together to go grocery shopping instead of protecting is silly. Although, it could be during a time of peace. The story is very harmless but kinda of feels like it doesn’t need to exist. The author says that this could possibly be an alternate universe story or set in canon, but either way it is not very important. I feel as if these kind of “silly/harmless/unimportant” fan fictions fit in the same category of the sexual fan fictions. They are both not to be taken very seriously and are simply odd for any non fan fiction reader like myself. I feel as if these are an acquired taste, and for those that do enjoy them, they are tons of fun. Otherwise, the experience of reading one is lukewarm. Fantastic fan fictions do exist, and those tend to be the ones that take themselves seriously.

Avengers Fan Film “Uncanny Avengers”

The first thing that strikes me is as interesting is the exploration of the X-men in partnership with the Avengers. The fans don’t have to comply with the same licensing laws as major motion pictures so they’re able to follow the X-men/Avengers storyline in whatever way they like. The joining of these forces is obviously the motivation behind the creation of this film which I find interesting. I imagine the intended audience is other fans of the Marvel Universe that want to explore aspects of the comic world that haven’t/can’t make it into the motion pictures.

I appreciate the film’s intent to mimic Whedon’s style of humor while maintaining a serious attitude. The film takes itself as a whole pretty seriously but still tries to entertain the viewer. If the audience is laughing it should be in response to intentional humor (not because they’re making fun of it) My favorite line is at 4:30 when Storm states “I did not know we had to kill anyone” to which someone in the group says; “Seriously?!” which sparks the Avengers and X-men all start bickering, interrupted by Hydra’s attack. I could potentially see this situation unfolding in a Whedon script.

Further, I am impressed with the action sequences and special effects. I initially had a hard time taking this film seriously mainly because of the obvious low budget, costumes, and instances of over-acting but the conviction of the actors grew on me while the special effects and the background music really helped to legitimized the film. I can definitely see the appeal of creating fan fiction to create story lines that might never develop on the big screen. As one of my first encounters with fan fiction, I was very impressed with this film.

This unofficial Cabin in the Woods poster by graphic designer Maria Kaner has a classic appearance as a throwback to older horror movie posters.  The largest image on the poster is one of Fran Kranz as Marty holding the makeshift weapon he has made out of his mug/pipe.  Marty is the most comedic character in the film, being the stoner who is closest to seeing the manipulations of the underground workers.  The background of the poster is a blood red color which suggests the horror aspect of the film.  However, several ironic taglines are written at the top, suggesting the more comedic twists on the genre that Cabin has.  The tagline on top is “you think you know the story,” which implies that the familiarity of the situation will be made unfamiliar, and the taglines below it, such as “if an old man warns you not to go there… make fun of him,” indicate a self-awareness of the conventions of the horror genre.  Finally, at the bottom of the image, the characters Hadley and Sitterson are shown at their computer setup, watching the group of friends at the cabin.  This part of the image reveals the voyeuristic aspect of Cabin that is shown in the film through the many monitors of the underground complex that are used to watch the group above.  Compared to the official poster for the film, this poster gives a much more accurate impression of what the film is like.  The official poster simply shows a Rubik’s cube-esque cabin on a murky white woods background with the lone tagline, “you think you know the story.”  Kaner’s poster reveals more about mix of horror and comedy in the film and also gives some idea of the characters and situation of the story.

Kaner poster: http://www.repostered.com/posters/003925/The-Cabin-in-the-Woods

Official poster: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/CitwTeaserSmall.jpg

One of the many fan films that really started the fan-made products taking off was Horrible Turn, a 2009 fan-made musical prequel to Joss’ 2007 independent venture Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Concieved by a couple of college students in Houston, the whole 30-minute film was written, cast and shot in five months with young adults who had no experience in filmmaking whatsoever, though many were musically talented or had done previous musical theater work. Horrible Turn tells the story of Billy Buddy, a young Dr. Horrible and again desperately, painfully in love; and Kenny Hammerstein, a ridiculously conceited high school jock who will grow up to be the equally ridiculously concieted Captain Hammer. When a group calling themselves the Evil League of Evil threatens to destroy their school, Billy, Kenny, and Billy’s crush Katie must reluctantly work together and save their school. The film is full of original musical numbers, all of which help to set the stage for the rivalry between Horrible and Hammer to come later in their lives, in addition to multiple references to the events that will soon take place (one of the other main characters is Johnny Snow, and we learn why Horrible later wanted to give Penny a “shiny new Australia”). This fan film was made, like Dr. Horrible itself, on an extremely low budget, but despite that, it managed to begin influence the prevalence of other fan-made productions and even got the attention of the Whedon camp. Joss viewed the film and described it as “itsy kitschy glitzy”, which could very well be a compliment. Maybe.

First of all, I’m in love with this thing. I can’t stop watching it. But that’s rather, well, besides the point. If we look at the content and the world, it fits with Dr. Horrible (you’ll be able to accurately compare this on Thursday, but this is a fantastic interpretation of the world created by Whedon. If we look at the content, basically everything you need from Act 1 is there: the freeze ray, the Laundromat, the letter from Bad Horse, the saving of Penny, etc. The story is told through a medium usually reserved for video games: tid bits of action and story through dialogue. What this lacks tho is the lyrics to the songs (which in 8-bit are just as amazing!) for the most part, which is the core portion of Dr. Horrible. I mentioned it in class about how musicals explore the depths of characters as you cannot lie in song. Well, Dr. Horrible is what I call the anti-musical (more discussion to happen in my presentation) so you miss a lot of the sub-text and plot lines Whedon builds into the lyrics. Freeze Ray sets up a lot of the struggling love life of Dr. Horrible, but you get an awkward 3-step “I love you hair” comment from your character, but what you don’t get is the back story of why this happens in the text. Overall, this type of interpretation is more creative than it is explorative in the world of Whedon. At it’s core, it seems to want to bring two fandoms together (retro gaming and Whedon/Dr. Horrible) in a fun and cheery way. And let me tell you, I’ll be watching the entirety of this 8-bit rendition as soon as I possibly can.

For Joss Whedon, the pilot episode in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series was important for numerous reasons. Not only was it his opportunity to make up for the poor excuse that became of his 1992 movie of the same name, but it also was his chance to really establish himself as both a screenwriter and director. The dark alley scene in the pilot episode is a perfect example of how Whedon succeeded in establishing his style. As Buffy walks to the high school party, she realizes she is being followed. She begins to walk down a dark alley in an attempt to set up her stalker. Theres a closeup of the stalker with dark shadows on his face so the audience is unaware of his identity. As he walks down the alley the camera zooms out a little to show that Buffy is doing a handstand on the pole and swings down and tackles the stalker at just the right moment. As this happens the music doesn’t really build up in the way you’d think it would. It picks up as Buffy swings down but it’s more action-like than horror. This is important because it helps to portray Buffy as “badass” instead of the typical “blonde femme fatale.” As the scene continues Buffy confronts her stalker (who’s face is finally shown and although we still don’t know he name it is revealed later in the series to be Angel) by assertively saying “why are you following me?” The dialogue continues for awhile and then Angel says he wants the same thing Buffy wants. When she asks him what that is and he guesses wrong, she responds both assertively and sarcastically by saying, “Sorry, that’s incorrect, but you do get this lovely watch and a year supply of turtle wax, what I want is to be left alone.” The use of humor in intense scenes becomes a staple of Whedon’s along with the strong female characters he uses in his work. Not once does Buffy seem afraid that she could be in serious danger and she stands up for herself without questioning it. This scene not only establishes Buffy’s character as a true badass, but also lets viewers know that Whedon is the master of drama and sarcasm.

The scene I’ll be discussing is the mountain top battle from the Avengers. The scene technically starts when Thor makes his grand entrance in the film, and takes Loki out of the jet and has a friendly chat with him. The sequence with Thor and Loki chatting it up is really instance and engaging at least for me. There seems to be real tension there and it is on display. Cut Iron Man tackling Thor to the ground where the scene really begins. After some bickering between the two the fighting begins. The cuts vary during this sequence some fairly quickly and others drag just a little longer but not by much. It’s a fast pace sequence with the two Hero’s battling it out, and you get a sense of their powers. The camera angles very a lot from some being a low/high angels, there’s shot reverse shots, and also several shots of varying shots some being extreme close ups others and others with range from medium to long shots. Then when Captain America comes in and telling him to put the Hammer down you get that witty humor from Iron Man saying Thor loves his hammer. Then Thor hits Iron Man with and looks at Cap and says you want me to put the Hammer down then he jumps and we get an extreme close-up of Thor’s hammer hitting Caps shield with a seismic blast the just levels the area around them. Then there’s this long shot of all three Hero’s in frame at once for the first time as the camera slowly pans backwards and Cap says are we done here. The first time I say this scene was the moment for me when I couldn’t believe I was actually watching this happen. The inner nerd inside me loses it every time that scene happens. It’s definitely my favorite sequence throughout the film, and quite possibly the most cinematic part of the film other than the 360 pan of all the Avengers and the long take of the Avengers fighting in Manhattan.

Joss Whedon is all about parallels in plenty of his work, especially his television series. In this scene, where Xander enters his class late and is called out by the teacher is a thematic parallel to the final battle that will take place in Pt. 2. Xander’s representative of multiple players within the battle. The first, being that of the vampires (or even Angel): the late comers to the party are still expected to help and attain the final goal. The class’s goal is to determine the word chosen by the teacher in hangman, similar to the events leading up to the final battle… The scooby gang must determine what the Mayor is planning and how to fight against it. Xander’s choice of the letter e is a bit more abstract but can be seen as representing those who flee (or exit the ceremony) when the battle begins. They’re attacked and potentially are killed. The teacher laughs at Xander’s choice with one of those cartoonesque evil laughs mumbling “they always go for the e,” similar to how the Mayor knows they’ll be some that attempt to exit the ceremony immediately during his ascension. As a trait of Whedon, he is a master of foreshadowing in unexpected ways (Dawn is coming… dream sequences, etc.), but if you look back at his work after knowing what is going to happen, it is nearly impossible to deny the facts of what is seen before hand that leads up to an eventual event.

I will be looking at the scene from the Avengers where Captain Americas and Tony Stark are arguing about the hulk

This scene is one of the most tense and honest scenes of the entire movie. Here Tony Stark has been attempting to provoke the Hulk and Captain America steps up and calls him out for being a selfish, careless individual. Typical of both Tony Stark and Joss Whedon, all of Tony’s responses are witty and sarcastic. For example when Captain America asks “Take that off what are you, what are you?” and Tony responds “A genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist.” Even in the most serious of moments, Whedon adds these little quips which help add to the depth of the movie and its entertainment. Captain America’s character is really highlighted here too as he calls out Tony on multiple occasions. He shows he’s nature towards heroism and honor. He’s always striving to make the world the best and is an extremely fearless character. Tony always has a comeback though, like his philanthropist line, his cut the wire comment and then calling Captain America a laboratory experiment. This scene also shows how brutally honest Tony can be, especially in situations where he probably shouldn’t be. My favorite part about this scene; however, is the ending. Captain America tells Tony to go put on the suit and they will go a few rounds, but a few seconds later after the attack on the ship, he delivers the same line, “Put on the suit” indicating the severity of the situation. It’s a very entertaining and well placed repetition which show how well Joss Whedon can connect to his viewers in witty humorous ways.

This scene is a prime example of Whedon’s talent of creating ensemble casts and weaving comedy into otherwise serious scenes. Whedon opens with a brief shot of the group in the library with Buffy sitting in a chair across the room while the others conjugate around the table. This second long shot immediately places Buffy in a position of authority, the central figure that the group will rally around. Buffy opens the dialogue, “That’s the basic plan. So…am I crazy?” This question invites each member of the team to express their opinion on Buffy’s plan to overtake the Mayor at the Ascension. Whedon displays his talent for balancing many different personalities in an ensemble as each character’s response showcases their individuality and works to situate their roles in the larger group unit that is essential to Buffy’s success. Willow responds immediately as she attempts to remain optimistic, evidently she is the hopeful one of the group and is sensitive to the feelings of others. Giles provides the first inadvertent support for Buffy’s plan in the sense that he doesn’t rule out to plan completely. His body language, constantly turned away from the group with his head down, suggests he doesn’t like to commit to a plan before he is sure it will be successful. In typical Whedon fashion, Oz’s line “we attack the mayor with hummus” line speaks to his comedic character but also works to break up the severity of or tension in the scene. Cordelia is very opinionated and isn’t afraid to say anything, even if it make might disrupt or complicate the group dynamic. She states “Buffy is slay gal. Little Miss-Likes-To-Fight…” which hints she might have some unresolved issues with Buffy. Xander keeps things light and redirects Cordelia’s rant with “I think there was a yay vote buried in there somewhere.” He is overly excited to be a key role in Buffy’s plan which insinuates that it doesn’t happen often.As evident in this one minute segment from Buffy, Whedon is able to create dynamic, diverse and intriguing ensembles which keeping the audience engaged with unexpected humor.