Fannish affect, “Quality” fandom, and Transmedia storytelling campaigns, by Melanie E.S. Kohen, describes Media Industry’s strategy to approach fans appealing to their sentimental attachment (Fannish Affect) and validating it to a degree (thus invalidating certain practices, in an attempt to control the fandom).
Severus Snape and the Marauders is a fan-produced film that serves as a prequel to the Harry Potter series of books and movies, portraying an hostile (never mentioned in the books or movies) encounter between newly graduated Severus Snape, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew in 1978; Snape’s path to redemption, and his first meeting with Lord Voldemort.
As explained by F. Coppa in her 2009 talk, “Things We Don’t Have in the Future and How Fan Arts Can Help, Industry investment is in Scarcity (that’s how Negative Capability hooks the fans, after all), but Fans, and specifically, Fangirls, invest in Plenitud: they do search for multiplicity, and long for alternative, competitive timelines not to disregard the Original Text, but to feed it and explore it by all its angles.
Severus Snape and the Marauders represents both an affirmational and transformative practice at the same time, borrowing canon facts from the books, such as the Marauders’ (and specifically James and Sirius’) rivalry towards Snape, Snape’s and James’ love for Lily, Snape’s loneliness, and Voldemort’s interest in young malleable wizard promises; while it takes the liberty of situating an unspecified magical confrontation between the 5 men, and an emotional one between Snape, Lily and James, going so far as to have the latter ones making a first step to amends, more than 3 years earlier than the implied in the books (HP and the Deathly hallows), not to mention giving -fanfavorite- Snape a grandiose victory over FOUR -very- talented wizards.
While expanding the universe is not always a practice welcomed by the property owners, S.S.a.t.M., along other fanfilms, is unlikely to be shut down (as long as it doesn’t make any profit), due to the publicity and fans’ craving appeasing it’s giving Harry Potter owners for free, while J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, and Warner Brothers keep the authorship and credit.
Kohen, Melanie E. S. “Fannish Affect, ‘Quality’ Fandom, and Transmedia Storytelling campaigns”. The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom, edited by Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott, Routledge, 2018, pp. 337-46.
Coppa, F. (2009). “Things We Don’t Have in the Future and How Fan Arts Can Help.” Talk at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. www.criticalcommons.org/Members/fcoppa/clips/things-we-dont-have-in-the-future-and-how-fan-arts/view Accessed June 3, 2016.
http://broadstrokesproductions.com/
