A new fan-made Batman film went up a short while ago:
There are such obvious problems with it that it seems like shooting fish in a barrel to point them out, but the main one is the writing. The whole thing has been created by two brothers, Aaron and Sean Schoenke - they wrote, directed, produced and edited it. I think one of them even did the score. All to be commended, but film is a truly collaborative medium, and perhaps they'd do better to source people who can do a better job in the areas they're clearly deficient in - writing being the primary one. The voiceover especially is a bit of a sticking point - it shows a lack of understanding of how films work if you need a voiceover to explain what's going on onscreen - don't TELL me Batman has put a tracking device on the Joker - SHOW me.
As a showcase for their directing talents, this isn't a bad effort - they've thrown in as much action as one could expect for $27,000, and some of the production design is outstanding. So, next time guys, find someone who can write dialogue and hire them to do that bit. Oh, and some actors who don't come across as charismatic as an end-table would help too.
The other thing fan-films suffer from is a slavish desire to throw as much of the character's world in there. While I get that they're by fans, for fans, this gets in the way of telling a good story for anyone who doesn't give a shit who Harley Quinn or Black Canary are. And Batman: Dead End takes this silliness to a bizarre conclusion:
I mean, clearly what's happened there is that they just so happened to have a load of extra masks lying around, and decided to write them into the story.
