What's Up With The FFF - Fan Film Follies

UPDATE! It is done. JustHost.com is now just a fleeting nightmare. We’re happy to see the site back up 100% and on a service that doesn’t go down multiple times in a month. Now bring on some fan films!

EARLIER POST 06/28/2011

You may of noticed the Fan Film Follies site was down for a couple days thanks once again to the colossal disaster that is our service provider JustHost.com. You may ask why we’ve stuck with them so long. It’s no small thing moving all our content from one host to another. But after this last episode we’re taking the time out to run away from them as fast as we can.

In the coming week we’ll be switching over to a much better and much more stable provider. It shouldn’t make the site go down again, but when it comes to JustHost I can’t imagine they wouldn’t screw it up somehow.

EARLIER POST 06/26/2010

I’m happy to report that the Audio section of the Fan Film Follies is back in full working order. This transition was almost painless taking a lot less time than I thought it would. There are some missing videos on the site that we host. Those films are being uploaded right now and everything will be 100% by the end of the day. As always please let me know if you find any films or audio that DOES NOT work for you so I can fix it. Thanks much!

EARLIER POST 06/17/2010

I just wanted any and all who are interested that the Fan Film Follies server is now online and waiting for the plentiful films and audio files to rest on her hardy hard drive. That means all the missing audio and video from this website should be online by next week sometime. Took a shorter time than I thought. I may even know what I’m doing! I know! A stretch there. I’ll let you know when the site is back up to 100%. Thanks for being patient!

EARLIER POST 06/12/2010

Some updates from Fan Film Follies. I debated if I should of put this in the news area or my Child of Alien Invaders column so I decided to do both to make sure everyone got the heads up on the current standing with the site.

I wanted to start by thanking everyone who has been supporting and viewing the website. A very special thank you to Larry Longstreth and JE Smith for helping out with their great columns. This site is theirs as much as it is mine.

As you can imagine it takes time to seek out these great films, add the content to the site, and do everything that needs to be done to make it into what my original vision for the FFF was/is. The one place to go to watch fan films and listen to fan audio.

On top the Fan Film Follies site I have “real life” responsibilities, I write and produce my own projects over at http://www.makingcomicsstudios.com, it’s the summer, I’m turning 40 (PARTY!) and sometimes I just want to sit down (although it rarely happens) and play a video game all day. Hence the reasons for the lack of updates the past month.

And now a new wrinkle. I was just informed by my webhost that they do not support streaming audio or video. They lovingly contacted me on Friday, June 11th to tell me I had 24 hours to take that content off or they would suspend my account. Mind you I’ve had this account for almost a year. I suspect that they’re only contacting me now because of the amount of bandwidth all you guys and gals are using. Needless to say JustHost.com left a bad taste in my mouth. Not to the fact that they told me I had to take the content down, but to the fact they did it on a Friday, only gave me 24 hours, and did this behind a cloud of emails. I couldn’t even get a phone number to talk to a human being about it. So whatever. Fuck you JustHost. I can’t download my files fast enough and be done with you. Yes. That’s called sour grapes!

SO NOW WHAT!? I entertained going to another provider and there are many that host both audio and video streaming for about the same price. Here’s the problem and it’s always the tricky problem because we are talking fan films with characters and concepts owned by another party. If I’m not the license holder of the films I could experience the same issue I’m having with JustHost if I do decide to go with another provider. “Take down the files or we’ll suspend your account.” And I understand it. It makes perfect sense.

And if you’re wondering why I don’t put the films hosted on the Fan Film Follies server to YouTube, Spike, Vimeo, or any of the number of video sites on the internet is because YouTube suspended an account I had a long time ago because Marvel Entertainment contacted them to shut me down. I put a lot of time into building that YouTube channel and wouldn’t want that repeated.

What is my answer? Many of you are probably already thinking it. Just host the content yourself. I’ll be dusting off an older computer tower and turning it into a server. I just wanted everyone to know that I may not have many updates in the coming weeks, but certainly will be working on the FFF behind the scenes.

As always if you would like to help with the website with articles, podcasts, or just helping me post content I would love you long time. Maybe you always wanted to learn some HTML, streaming audio/video, FTP – all simple stuff I’d be more than happy to teach. Send me an email at info@fanfilmfollies.com if interested.

Keep in mind during the transition the audio portion of the site won’t be working and many of the videos the Fan Film Follies host will be offline. We’ll get these back to you as soon as possible.

OK GANG! I just wanted to give you an update on the site. As it is my birthday today I am off to play some video games, drink some beers, and hang out with friends. That is my perfect day!

PEACE!!!