Passed through the storm ~ message from 11th Hour
POSTED BY: 11thHour
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 01:43
VIEWED: 33055
PAGE 9 of 9
Hi 11th-Sweetie 
Sorry to take so long to notice ...ANYone's reply, really, not just yours... although it does seem like you're a busy girl after all so, I figger you'll understand.
Thanks very much for your amazingly well-thought-out reply to my li'l ol' queries. I reached the conclusion - just before the part where you said you were in contact with some (unspecified) folks - that you OBVIOUSLY, even... SUPER-obviously(!)... were the right girl for this particular job.
Man... for the amount of effort you've made ...on behalf of the 'Verse, your fellow Browncoats, Joss Whedon himself... you seriously deserve to win the Big Picture in this fight. And, after reading how much thought, preparation and... not-to-mention the sheer deVOtion... you've put into your effort... I had reached the conclusion that "folk" you ought to be in contact with is Joss, himself, if only his most immediate "people"... his lawyer, manager, etc... It occured to me that your effort has been visionary enough (even if we are only talking about mugs and bumper-stickers) that a (fellow-)visionary (such as our BDJoss) might really resonate with... all your effort and dedication - and KNOWLEDGE(!)
Can you think of anyone who might be more influential with the Uni esquires than he, himself? ...I mean, presuming the whole "exclusivity clause" issue isn't really an issue.
Anyway... that's what I was going to suggest to you and then, I read on in your letter about how you were already in contact with the (unspecified) peeps... one can only imagine but, I'll tell ya - I'd SO love to hear that you had the audacity to get hold of Joss somehow... I mean, if you can actually engineer a coup over - or even, [u[with - the Uni esquires... 
...well, this would remind of the scene (in the BDM) where the crew is all lined-up and Cappy addresses them with the line, "I mean to confound these bastards"... at least I think that's how he said it. Anyway, 'confound 'em, Eleven,' you deserve the win 
After all, I want the license-plate holder ...
...and it'd just be very shiny for me if Joss actually got a nickel for it...
I'd like to figure out a cute little way to use my "stupid, inbred stack of meat" signature but, apparently, despite your sweet complement, I du, in fact, seem to be too much of a "stupid, inbred stack of meat" to figure one out so, to quote our Caligovernator, "Hasta la vista, baby"
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Tell your friends they have seriously underestimated the cognitive abilities and imagination of a stupid, inbred stack of meat.
Oh believe me - I DO! ...but do they listen(?), in the immortal word of John Belushi (on SNL), "NO-OO-Oo-oooooo...."
...and then I take the time to remind them of the staggeringly overpowering nature of my charisma and how, I can tell, they're far too much in thrall of it to have heard a single word I've said...
...and then I tell 'em, "Well, with friends like you who needs enemas? HAH! Can't answer that one can ya, HUH?!?"
Be overpowered by my charisma or all'y'all "friends will think you're a stupid, inbred stack of meat."
...whew... I knew I had one in me someplace...
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I am making some preliminary calls (not to the studios yet, to "others") to formulate a plan which would allow fans to create official merchandise for Serenity, and perhaps Firefly if 20th Century Fox is up for it. There are a lot of things to consider in this arrangement, so I'm gathering as much data as I can. You did bring up a point that was on my mind too... there are some official t-shirt licensees already in place so we don't know yet if there is even room to create an additional portal for fan created official merchandise. It will depend on whether there is an exclusivity clause in place, or if some of the existing licenses will be expiring in the near future.
I'll keep y'all informed as soon as I know more.
You know... I have a crazy idea. A probably VERY crazy idea, but I can't help having it.
I recently had a day of jury duty (don't worry, this story has a point that connects to this!). Now, in my area, they don't pay much for jury duty, but they DO pay you, if you fill out the lil' form thing, which I did since I was damned I was going to get up at 7 AM (I'm used to getting up at 9!), eat cold pasta for breakfast and then drive for 40 minutes to a place I've never been just to wait around for several hours ON A WORK DAY that happened to also be a Friday AND the first day of a weekend where I had a 3-5 page paper due the following Tuesday... without getting SOMETHING. (To be fair, they DO have decent orange pekoe tea in the waiting room where I had my JD, which was freely given, as well as hot cocoa packets, three computers with internet, and apparently, wireless internet if I had thought to bring my laptop. And they said they'd have let us out for lunch anyway. At least they treat jurors decently in my area! :P)
Luckily, I didn't have to go back again, but they did still pay me for that first day, even though I didn't end up on a jury and I got out in time for lunch. It was only $15, but hey...
Then I realized, $15 is exactly how much it takes to register a domain name through my current webhost. Even under my current account with them, I have up to three websites I can host, and I had only two.
So last night, I figured, what the hell, right?
I registered the domain name fandomania.org (the .net and .com versions were taken, by a SF/fantasy/comics site and a fanfiction site, respectively).
Now, I had been thinking for a few days, after hearing (after-the-fact) about this whole mess (but not hearing about how it was resolved), and thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was a single site where the site itself was an official licensee, but accepted designs from fans, so that fans could design OFFICIAL merchandise? Win-win!" So I registered that domain with that in mind (you have NO idea how many names I had to try before I had a catchy domain name with the word "fan" in it that wasn't already registered, either).
Then I read this thread, and at first, I thought "crap, I'm gonna have to use that site for something else, I guess, it sounds like Universal's not as rabid about this as I thought."
But see, what you just said... it kind of jives with my idea! Especially since, me being the Browncoat I am, my idea was for the initial license being for Serenity stuff.
I'd be willing to work with you guys on this. Especially you, 11th Hour, since you've got some REALLY nifty designs and have clearly got a good head on your shoulders to boot. :) I figure, if they've got room for one more licensee, we could even make the licensing fees not so scary by pooling funds or something, or maybe selling stuff (that doesn't violate copyright/trademark or anything) before the licensing, to help offset the costs. I don't recall ever hearing about a business model (I suppose that's what you'd have to call it, eh?) like this before, so the novelty alone may even attract attention, even outside of the Browncoaty goodness that is our fandom. For one thing, I know Wired (and I think Slashdot?) and it's cadre of bloggers are always looking at weird or quirky or interesting sites that'v
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Ooh, cool idea.
Might try taking it to other fandoms as well; Firefly isn't the only property that is spectacularly lacking in official swag (check out all that Heroes merchandise that they're not making). They'd stand to gain by backing it as well (which is good, 'cause I'd guess that buying a product license is expensive).
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Ooh, cool idea.
Might try taking it to other fandoms as well; Firefly isn't the only property that is spectacularly lacking in official swag (check out all that Heroes merchandise that they're not making). They'd stand to gain by backing it as well (which is good, 'cause I'd guess that buying a product license is expensive).
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
Hey, good point. :D
The mention of Heroes piques my interest, because I know that, while it's in surely no need of guerrilla marketing (it's quite successful), the creator DOES have heavy interaction with the fandom. Plus, like you said... they haven't made any Heroes stuff. So maybe there's not a licensee yet, even. :) Considering how many paintings Isaac's done alone (goregous, bright, pop art works, at that that would probably even look good on a T-shirt), and the number of cast members, well, it could provide a huge amount of material to work from. Not to mention memorable moments/quotes such as "I had a sword!?" ;) and dorky (but funny) "Save the cheerleader, save the world".
I do still want to do Serenity, though, and/or Firefly, because... well, I know Heroes probably has a bigger audience but... Heroes is that fun gal I like to hang out with on weekends and sometimes have a good long chat with on occasion... but Firefly/Serenity is the love of my life in comparison.
Still, business-wise, it might be a good move to license Heroes as well, and possibly first, because the fandom is still young and really active and plus, it's TV/comics, not film, which I'd wager would be more than TV/comics to license on average, plus, I'd really probably want to license Firefly too (just to make sure ALL the basic materials were there for making designs out of), which... well, would be more than just licensing one property, from one(?) company.
Hmmm... I mean, with a name with "Fandomania.org", obviously I had thought I could do it with more than one fandom, not just Firefly/Serenity. But it didn't occur to me to do Heroes before that! It's definitely something to consider.
If I have time at work tomorrow (in between the time I have to go to the dentist and the time that I have to actually work and the time I have to go to class, of course), I'll design a page for it and try to get an interesting look.
What colors do you suppose we should go with?
A white background screams "pro", but may be too stark. Black may be a bit dark (and I know from reading on this site that if your eyesight ain't perfect, it can be a bit of a pain after a while!). Perhaps a light blue, with dark blue accents (black text on the light blue, white or pale blue text on the dark blue)? Blue doesn't "scream" at all; it suggests calm, tranquilty, and coolness in the right shades. Might strike that nice balance between "We're doing something that could be reaaaally um, unusual, here" and "We're serious about this" and "Hey cool! They have shirts that don't suck!" Er, don't suggest parchment color with black, though. I've already got a parchment-peach-black site, and I don't like repeating a design like that, however basic it may be. :P
One nice thing about doing it on the account I am; I think I may have used up my free PHP databases, but I HAVEN'T used up my free shopping cart/store function thing that's supposed to come with it. So, we'd have a couple of basic, free options right there for the cart system (I think they give you two different systems to choose from, because I have a cool host like that :P), even if our message board options may or may not be a tad limited at the moment.
-Jamie
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Hey Jamie, I'm actually working with a couple of legal types right now and am going to be announcing a fandom "participatory action research group" (as we call grassroots organizing in Anthropology) site, which will be looking for representatives from not only the Browncoat fandom, but from Harry Potter, BSG, Farscape, etc. etc. -- anyone who feels they're not getting what they want from their studios and the licensed merchandise available.
I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a conference on "participatory fandom" at MIT recently (and will be going back for another one in April), where the brand manager for Harry Potter/Warner Bros. and the brand manager for Nickleodeon spoke on user-generated content. Basically they recognize the wonderful talent of the fans, but there are legal issues, most of which are copyright related, that they just can't see an option to. They boiled it down to "either take everything they're given from the fans, but give them nothing back - no payments, no rights - OR you absolutely forbid any fan made product and prosecute it all."
I think that's very narrow minded, but that's what happens when you get legal language dictating relationships. I totally understand their need to protect their properties, but I think there are ways, modeled after Multiverse's and Second Life's agreements for user-generated content, as well as time-honored techniques of providing "usage guides" for logos, etc. in the PR/marketing field, that in consort, could open up some new avenues of allowing fans to work with studios in a win-win situation.
I'm working on the scholarly research end right now, and have an entertainment lawyer locally as well as one Susan put me in touch with in CA, and I'll have them look at some of the proposals.
One concept is very much like Jamie proposed, where you would have a master license owned by a company (this is incredibly expensive, BTW -- not something one individual usually wants to do unless you've got a corporation and funding to back this up), and then a "stable of designers", who would make products for that company under their license. Actually, at FX yesterday, we sat next to Qmx (the people making the Mal's gun replica and the big Serenity model), and someone like that might be good for us to speak with.
The other concept is, I think, a bit more practical for most fan merchandise, but would likely require some dedicated staff on the studio's end to manage: The studio would provide a usage guide to their properties (how to use the movie/show logos, they would provide high quality art work, also guidelines on what is/is not acceptable), and as long as the products did not violate the basic usage guidelines, anything goes, and fans would be free to create their own stores, etc., but payment would be made to the studio on each sale -- a "microlicensing/micropayment" arrangement. This is much like what Multiverse and other game companies do -- you make money, the studio makes money. If you don't sell anything, you don't pay anything in royalties.(also like the Cafepress model)
That concept can be more tedious for the studios to manage, because they would likely have the right to examine merchandise sold for quality control, there would be more accurate accounting of product sales required, etc., but there IS precedent for this model, and I think it's a very valid one for fan-made products.
Jamie, if you're interested in working with this, please watch for posts from me about the topic shortly. I will be organizing the PAR group structure online at my research website, thegeekchorus.com and will be eventually doing some blogs, etc. on the topic.
I know it can be done. The technology is there, the talent is there. We just have to - as a unified fandom front - convince the studios that there ARE options, and that we, their "co-petitors" (great term I got at that MIT conference!) are here to stay, so they need to learn how to work with us, and not against us.
Sue Regonini
Ph.D. Student, Applied Anthropology
University of South Florida
"We go
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it might be a good move to license Heroes as well, and possibly first, because the fandom is still young and really active
Right there is a good reason to continue this project(s): As popular as "Heroes" is and, as you pointed out, as young as its audience (ignoring my own... ummm... Hey! Jack Benny said I was "29"), it seems that a fair percentage of that young audience has no knowledge of all the "dire doin's" in the 'Verse... of just how bad'n'all all'us out here on the Edge need their help ("
"). And, a "fair percentage" of "popular" translates to a whole lot of new eyes for things of a "Serenitish" nature, if y'ask me.The value of having access to exposure to "Firefly" for a bunch of "Hero"-worshippers could be highly valuable
...so my "friends" won't "think I'm a stupid, inbred stack of meat.
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Hell yeah.
Any show that includes Hiro Nakamura is the perfect place to find future Joss-addicts.
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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
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