Brian Flemming

Brian Flemming is an American film director, playwright and activist. His films include Hang Your Dog in the Wind, Nothing So Strange, and The God Who Wasn't There. His musicals include Bat Boy: The Musical, which won the LA Weekly Theater Award, Lucille Lortel Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award. He advocates for the Free culture movement and is an outspoken atheist.

Brian Flemming
Born1966/1967 (age 53–54)[1]
NationalityAmerican
Occupationfilm director, playwright, activist
Known forBat Boy: The Musical, Nothing So Strange, Blasphemy Challenge

Early career

Flemming's first feature film was the low-budget Hang Your Dog in the Wind. Partly to promote his film, Flemming co-founded a punk film festival in Park City, Utah, called the Slumdance Film Festival, a pun on the name of the Slamdance Film Festival (which in turn referred to the Sundance Film Festival).[2]

Slumdance brought Flemming to the attention of John Pierson, who later hired Flemming to work as a director and segment producer for Pierson's Independent Film Channel magazine-style show called Split Screen.[3]

Bat Boy

After Slumdance, Flemming turned his attention from indie film to theater with Bat Boy: The Musical. The stage musical is based on a story about a half-bat half-boy from the tabloid Weekly World News. Flemming co-wrote Bat Boy with Keythe Farley and Laurence O'Keefe.[4] The musical grew from a Los Angeles theater to winning the LA Weekly Theater Award for Musical of the Year Award for 1999,[5] plus four Ovation Award nominations and six Drama-Logue Awards.[6]

Bat Boy: The Musical made its way to a New York production in March 2001, for which the play won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical,[7] the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Off-Broadway,[8] and six Drama Desk nominations.[8] The New Yorker described Bat Boy as a "giggling cult hit".[9] The New York Times wrote, "It is astonishing what intelligent wit can accomplish".[10] The musical ran in New York through December 2001.

Nothing So Strange

Flemming released a faux documentary about the assassination of Bill Gates called Nothing So Strange. Bill Gates said through a spokesman that it was "very disappointing that a movie maker would do something like this".[11] Nothing So Strange debuted at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Variety called it, "a crackling good movie... [that] may be the ideal prototype film for the digital age".[12] The film won the Claiborne Pell New York Times Award for Original Vision at the 2002 Newport Film Festival.[13]

On 24 October 2003 the film had a simultaneous debut in theaters and as an Internet download.[14] It was released on DVD in December 2004.[15]

The God Who Wasn't There

In 2005, Flemming released his third feature-length film, the documentary The God Who Wasn't There. Through interviews with biblical and folklore scholars, Flemming investigates the evidence for the existence of Jesus, concluding that it is highly improbable that the Christian savior ever actually lived. He then discusses the beliefs of conservative Christian fundamentalists, Christian moderates (who, he states, simply enable the fundamentalists), and returns to confront the principal of the fundamentalist Christian school he attended as a child. Flemming launched three media campaigns to support his documentary: War on Christmas, War on Easter, and Blasphemy Challenge. The Blasphemy Challenge was the most successful of the three publicity stunts, gaining coverage by Newsweek, NBC News, Fox News and many other media outlets, and participation by Penn Jillette.[16]

Activism

In addition to working in film and theater, Flemming is an activist on copyright issues. He has released Nothing So Strange as an open source project, which means all of the raw footage that makes up the film is released without copyright restrictions for anyone to use. The final cut of the film, however, remains protected by copyright.[17]

Flemming founded the organization Free Cinema, which encourages feature filmmakers to create films under two rules:[11]

  1. No money may be spent on the production, and
  2. The film must be released under a copyleft license.

Flemming claims that filmmaking can now be "as inexpensive as writing novels" and that the copylefting practice is a way for new artists to gain notice and distribution in a marketplace dominated by large corporations. Free Cinema was inspired by the Free Software Movement, which is guided by similar principles of freedom. Flemming is also the owner and operator of Fair Use Press, which distributes e-books critical of public figures such as Bill O'Reilly and Arnold Schwarzenegger for their stance on intellectual property law.[18]

During the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival, Flemming, who had been invited to sit on the festival's documentary jury, saw a demo of the video game Super Columbine Massacre RPG! and hearing about it having its nomination pulled by the festival's founder, convinced fellow jurors to award it a "Special Jury Prize" for Best Documentary (an unofficial award not endorsed by the festival). The festival's founder, Peter Baxter, later told Flemming that legal considerations prevented SCMRPG from receiving the award.[19]

References
  1. Mosteller, Rachel (17 February 2007). "Taking the Debate About God Online, and Battling It Out With Videos". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  2. Caro, Mark (2 February 1997). "New Kids On The Block". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  3. Caro, Mark (7 November 1999). "Reel Drama". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  4. Miller, Scott (2011). Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musicals. UPNE. pp. 175–203. ISBN 9781555537616.
  5. Morris, Steven Leigh (15 April 1998). "Monsters Galore". LA Weekly. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  6. Pike, Laurie (21 April 2001). "Hit Musical 'Bat Boy,' a Strange Beast, Seemed Unlikely to Fly". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  7. Lefkowitz, David (23 April 2001). "Bat Boy, Proof, Mnemonic Among Winners of 2001 OB Lortel Awards; Ceremony May 7". Playbill. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  8. Inverne, James (2 July 2004). "Bat Boy to Fly Into London's West End". Playbill. Archived from the original on 25 March 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  9. Lahr, John (9 April 2001). "Bloodsucker's Ball: Camp, cult, and Complicite". The New Yorker. Vol. 77 no. 7. p. 128. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
  10. Weber, Bruce (22 March 2001). "THEATER REVIEW; Who's the Guy Who Ordered the Bloody Mary on the Rocks?". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  11. Campos, Eric (5 August 2003). "BRIAN FLEMMING: THE CINEMATIC VAGRANT WHO WOULD BE GOVERNOR". Film Threat. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  12. Foundas, Scott (24 February 2002). "Review: Nothing So Strange". Variety. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  13. "NOTHING SO STRANGE IN SAN FRANCISCO". Film Threat. 13 January 2003. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  14. Flemming, Brian (23 October 2003). "Nothing So Strange makes history again: First worldwide int". Slumdance.com. Archived from the original on 27 January 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  15. Bovberg, Jason (11 April 2004). "Nothing So Strange". DVD Talk. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  16. Berman, John (30 January 2007). "The Blasphemy Challenge". ABC News. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  17. Hartlaub, Peter (10 February 2003). "Beyond the big coverup / Indie film takes on conspiracy theories". SF Gate. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  18. "BRIAN FLEMMING'S MEDIA ATTACK". Film Threat. 28 August 2003. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
  19. Orland, Kyle (31 January 2007). "Columbine game blocked from receiving Slamdance special jury prize". Joystiq. Archived from the original on 22 October 2008. Retrieved 10 December 2008.

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