A fan edit is a production in which (what would have been considered) an ordinary viewer makes changes to an original film (or films) to create "a new interpretation of the source material" (Wikipedia; link above).

Edits of films ("cuts") have been around for decades, and director's cuts have long been an additional supplement to many film releases (or releases unto themselves). But as digital production technology became more widespread, cheaper, and easier to use, ordinary consumers began to take commercially-distributed films (which also became cheaper and of higher quality for consumer purchase) and edit them in their own homes: essentially creating "director's critic's edits."

One of the most popular early fan edits (and still to this day one of the most popular) is The Phantom Edit, which took George Lucas's fourth Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace, and reorganized the footage to create a different, "better" film (the story of which is chronicled in this Salon.com article).

There are vibrant politics around fan edits, from issues of fair use to questions of aesthetics and vision. More on these issues follow after the jump. The ultimate matter at stake here is one of authorship. Lucas, for example, has already released reissues of the first three Star Wars films, updating much of the film aesthetics with digitally-produced backgrounds and supporting characters (a full list of the changes can be viewed here).

Today, I want to discuss an intriguing new blog that focuses on one fan's efforts to create a fan edit... that is actually not so much like a typical "edit" as discussed above. The fan edit is the Dune Special Edition Project.

Watch to see some of the edits already completed.

There have been a handful of fan edits already created in response to David Lynch's filmic adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune (four so far, according to FanEdit.org).

However, David Lynch's film is an exception to a lot of the original source material used for fan edits, because Dune (although expensive for a film in its era) suffered from issues of Lynch's entitlement to final cut:

Upon completion, the rough cut of Dune without post-production effects ran over four hours long, but Lynch's intended cut of the film (as reflected in the 7th and final draft of the script) was three hours long.

However, Universal Pictures and the film's financiers expected a standard, two-hour cut of the film. To reduce the run time, producers Dino De Laurentiis, Raffaella De Laurentiis, and director David Lynch excised numerous scenes, filmed new scenes that simplified or concentrated plot elements, and added voice-over narrations, plus a new introduction by Virginia Madsen.

Wikipedia

Looking at those four fan edits, it seems apparent that the fan producers deemed Lynch's vision (particularly as embodied in his scripts) worthy of restructuring:

1) "... scenes have been reedited to try and faithfully reconstruct David Lynch's original vision of the film using the December 9, 1982 shooting script as a guide."

2) "... attempting to preserve Lynch's vision."

3) "I left David Lynch's name in the credits, hoping this would not seem arrogant, but instead a genuine tribute by a fan, in hopes that this more closely matches the Extended Edition he would have created, if he'd only been given the chance back when he cared about the film."

FanEdit.org

Sasha Burrow, the fan and producer behind Dune: Special Edition, seems to be taking an interesting approach to the "fan edit" (if we could even call it that, as will be explained). Perhaps it is merely his phrasing of the project, but it appears that his efforts are not so much a reflection of his deference for Lynch's "vision" as much Burrow's attempt to outperform the technological shortcomings of the film's period:

This is a project I have been slowly working on over the last few years with the goal of ultimately replacing many of the "outdated" special effects shots in David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune.

The project initially began as an endeavor to build a "proper" ornithopter - one with flapping wings, that neither the movie or the mini-series managed to achieve. However, with the advent of the "fan-edit" the scope of the project has expanded with the goal of updating the effects in all those places in the movie where I feel things could be significantly "improved." (emphasis mine)

The framing of this project -- although he mentions fan edits -- seems to be beyond the form of the fan edit, instead becoming more of a reproduction of the original film. While the fans who produce fan edits might be seen as operating in the role of director, Burrow here instead becomes a special effects editor: he avoids changing the film but changes our visual perception of the film. For example, look at his updated rendition of one scene below:

Original.

Special edition.

Burrow's new production is especially interesting as well, because while previous fan edits have faced multiple issues with fair use, Burrow is not creating a product that would necessarily fit under fair use: he is directly appropriating the original material and (as he says) "improving" the quality of a number of the film's visual elements.

Of course, the worth of Burrow's efforts is tremendous, especially because Lynch seems to have snubbed the film (perhaps due to its poor reception and the industry politics of its production). I am particularly interested too in Burrow's skills as a designer: he clearly has training in this area of special effects expertise. But as more and more fans gain digital skills to rival actual production studios, I hope that will we see similar projects like this in the near future.