SwanCon

Science Fiction Convention
Name:	SwanCon
Dates:	Easter
Frequency:	Annual
Location:	Perth, Western Australia
Type:	Fan-run, professional and fan guests
Focus:	science fiction
Organization:	WASFF
Founder:	Grant Stone
Founding Date:	1976
URL:	http://www.swancon.com
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SwanCon is Australia's longest-running science fiction convention, and is thought to be the longest running convention of this type in the southern hemisphere. It has been held annually in Perth, Western Australia since its inception in 1976, and has grown from a small gathering of like-minded friends into multi-fandom event that attracts upwards of 250 people. It is traditionally held in the first half of the year, typically for five days over the Easter long weekend.

2008: Introduction of Transformative Fanworks

In 2008, black_samara, Transcendancing and cupidsbow hosted a panel on transformative fanworks.

From cupidsbow convention report:

BLACK_SAMVARA, TRANSCENDANCING and I hosted "Transformation and Fanworks". I kicked things off by talking a bit about the Organization for Transformative Works, and what its goals are. People asked really thoughtful questions -- some of the best questions about fanworks I've received so far.

After the intro, we moved on to the main topic of the panel: what transformative works actually are. We showed some different examples to give people an idea of the range and different types of transformation possible, and the audience gave some examples too, including some really interestingly borderline ones....

For those interested, here are the texts we chose to illustrate different types of transformation:

Example of a CreativeCommons licence compared to a typical fanwork disclaimer.

• My Own Kind of Freedom, by Steven Brust (Firefly fanfiction novel -- click through to the pdf for the copyright page)
• Jayne Eyre, by BOOKISHWENCH (fanfic crossover Firefly/Bronte)

Different types of transformation: "What if?", motivational posters, and an AU.

• First Officer T'Pura, by BUGGERY (Star Trek: TOS AU)
• Motivational Posters, by TECHNO4TOMCATS (Dr Who, classic and new)
• Cyberwoman vs Pterodactyl!, by ACE_GIRL (Torchwood AU)....

Some of the more complex examples of transformative work, which transform the source on several levels at once:

• Missed the Saturday Dance, by ZOETROPE (SGA AU multi-media story)
• Written by the Victors, by CESPERANZA and others (SGA multi/meta-verse)
• The Corruption of Canon, by VIRTUALINSOMNIA (Anthropomorfic meta-fiction)
• Piece of Me, by OBSESSIVE24 (RPF, Britney Spears)

2009: Vidding and Podfic added to the mix

In 2009, cupidsbow discussed fanworks again including the OTW, slash fanfiction, podfic and vidding. Two vids were shown: Vogue by Luminosity, and Twist by special_trille.

She also linked to her Gumby's Guide to Vidding, ^{Archived version}, along with her Primersfor Reading SGA Fanfic; Primer for reading Torchwood fanfic; and Primer for Reading Merlin Fanfic.

2011:Politics of Fanworks and Vidding

In 2011, cupidsbow and chaosmanor hosted the Politics of Fanworks panel: "the ways fanworks speak back not only to a primary text (in many cases), but also to other fanworks, and most importantly, that they are part of a large, sprawling conversation about issues which can loosely be labeled "feminist" or "activist"." From cupidsbow convention report:

Below the cut are the fanworks chaosmanor and I recommended for the Politics of Fanworks panel. They were intended as a starting point for discussion; they aren't the "best" examples on a given theme, or definitive in any way, but they do give some sense of the range of topics being covered.

And here's the link to chaosmanor's fanwork which speaks back to Keen: It's the Economy. I think the dog is my favourite part.

• TREK REBOOT Various Pairings, 'You're Gonna Make It After All' by igrockspock (fanfic)
• TREK Various pairings, ‘Trashy Vulcan Romance Novels’ by innervoice_chan and tvcatbarn (fan art and fanfic)
• BtVS-TWILIGHT Buffy/Edward, ‘Buffy vs Edward’ by rebelliouspixels (fan vid)
• SPN Dean/Castiel, 'Make the rockin' world go round' by cafe_de_labeill (fan art)
• SPN No Pairing, 'Supernatural Racebending' by glockgal (fan art)
• META ‘Good Fourth Walls Make Good Neighbours’ by counteragent (fan art)
• J2 RPS-DARK ANGEL Jared/Jensen, 'September' by dragonspell (fanfic)
• SHERLOCK BBC Holmes/Watson, ‘Sex is Boring’ Mr_X_Indeed (fanfic)
• META ‘Love and Marriage’ by melannen

They also hosted a panel about vidding where the following vids were shown:

• TREK Worst Job in Starfleet, AkharinFlint (No longer available)
• MISC (Evil Dead) Evil Love Shack of Darkness, sol-se
• MULTI Half the Man, isagel
• MISC (Jurassic Park) They Want More, bironic
• MULTI I Want to Be Evil, Lithiumdoll
• GWTW Gold Digger, AbsoluteDestiny
• WHO Boulevard of Broken Songs, hollywoodgrrl
• MISC (Minority Report) Silence, aycheb
• MULTI The Golden Age of Video, Ricardo Autobahn
• TREK REBOOT Spork An Erotic Love Story, jiaren_shadow and cirrocumulus
• MISC (Scrubs) Dance Across the Floor, littleheaven70
• MULTI Modern Love, ferdalump

I didn't have a formal playlist for Show 2, but this is my best recollection. Many of these are already linked over on my delicious account: rec_room. And some are easily Googleable. I'll paste in links over the next week or so.

• TREK Closer, TJonesy and Killa
• MISC (The Fall) Once Upon a Time, kiki-miserychic
• 300 Vogue, Luminosity
• BtVS Tragedy, dualbunny
• FFLY How Much is that Geisha, Lierdumoa
• META Kiki Miserychic profile, bradcpu
• MISC 10 Things I Hate About Commandments
• MISC (CHiPs) Life is a Highway, chinashop
• MISC (Cybill) LUFF, greensnail
• MISC (Gilda) Rock Steady, aycheb
• MISC (Sound of Music) Lullabye for a Stormy Night, barkley
• MISC (The Big Lebowski)State of Confusion, littleheaven
• MISC (Thoroughly Modern Milly) Move Your Feet, countessmary
• MISC (Will & Grace) Paul McCartney, jarrow
• MISC Amateur, Lasse Gertsen
• MISC Bootystyle, Kiki MIserychic
• MISC Scary Mary, Chris Rule
• MULTI She Blinded me with Science, counteragent
• MULTI The Glass, thingswithwings
• MULTI Your Man, Charmax
• MUPPETS, I Gotta Feeling, countessmary
• NCIS Be Somebody, tearful_eye
• MISC Bronte Sisters Power Dolls, FineMoustaches
• RPF Piece of Me, obsessive24
• RPF Single Ladies, creativenuts
• SGA Absolutely Cuckoo, zoetrope
• SGA Stress, Rache & Sandy
• SGA Supersmart, cesperanza
• SGA The Meaning of Life, Obfreak
• SV Freestyler, obsessive24
• WHO OMG, obsessive24
• WHO Set my World into Motion, beccatoria

2012: Focus on Fanvids

In 2012, cupidbow hosted a vidding panel called "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury"

We mainly talked about how I picked vids for vidshows, and the various genres of fanvids. Then I showed examples of the different styles: fan parodies, summarizing the show or a plot arc, character studies, sound mash-ups, constructed realities, montages, political commentary.

• I’m Reading a Book, Julian Smith
• Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, Rachel Bloom
• Doctorin’ the Tardis, Timelords
• Star Trekkin’, The Firm
• Yoda, Weird Al Yankovic and Ffloggerjb
• MISC (Evil Dead) Evil Love Shack of Darkness, sol-se
• XENA Boom Boom Ba, Charmax
• WC Let's Misbehave, greensilver
• MULTI The Golden Age of Video, Ricardo Autobahn
• DZ Day in the Life, shalott and speranza
• HERC HoldingOutForAHero, MaryCrawford
• MISC (Scrubs) Dance Across the Floor, littleheaven70
• MISC (The Fall) Once Upon a Time, kiki-miserychic
• SPN MovinOn’, cupidsbow
• MISC Happy Together, XmasHolly
• MULTI Modern Love, ferdalump

2013: Vidding Blowout

The last Swancon report posted by cupidsbow was in 2013 where she described her vidding panels:

I've been campaigning for more space to talk about fan vids and fan films at Swancon for a few years now, and this year we actually had a mini vidding stream. Yay! It kicked off with the vidshow on Saturday morning, and ended with an in-depth review panel on Sunday afternoon. Along the way, we also talked about the politics of vidding, and had an instavidding party. It was better attended than I expected, and Ash and I had so much fun brainstorming it and doing the panels. I'm calling it a big win, and I'm hoping to run another mini-vidding stream next year.

The goal of the 1 hour vidshow was "threefold: show some of the very best vids; give a sense of the wide range of genres fan vidders are working in; and raise awareness of the art of vidding so that we can move away from simple show-and-tell style vidshows and try some more interesting things."

The following vids were shown

• FILK Johnson Style (Gangnam Style Parody), NASA
• MULTI Starships, bironic
• MISC (Aliens) Stayin' Low, Hollywoodgrrl
• MULTI Doomsday 1 - Lost Home and MULTI Doomsday 2 - The Way, Norlack
• MULTI Touching Your Fear, Uniquevil
• SPN Dueling (cellos) Winchesters, Ash48
• AD Commercial Days, Proxy
• MULTI A Different Kind of Love Song, giandujakiss

In her con report cupidsbow expressed interest in expanding future vid shows even further to themed vid shows but needed "to have enough Aussie vidders to make up a solid part of the show, and as far as I can tell we're not quite there yet. There were more self-identified vidders at this year's con than ever before though, so I'm hopeful."

The second panel was titled: "The role of fanvids. In this panel, I wanted to discuss the politics of fan media works, ranging beyond the politics of copyright (as interesting as that is). I also wanted to cover lots of different types of fan media works, from fan films and AMV to songvids. The panelists did a good job of this, bringing a lot of perspectives and experience to the discussion."

Later in the hotel room she hosted an "Insta-vid room party. This was a trial run to see if Ash48 and I could run a simple vidding workshop which actually made a vid in a couple of hours -- an idea I got from reading discussions of joyful shenanigans at American vidding conventions.The short version was that yes, we could, and we did indeed make the fastest vid in the world -- about 3 ish hours of vidding, and four participants (Capsikin, WonderingElf, cupidsbow, Ash48), to produce a vid 1:07 minutes long."

The final vid panel was her introduction to the concept of an "In Depth Review" panel:

I floated the idea that we have a vid review panel which talked about just a few vids in depth, because I really wanted to talk nuts-and-bolts of why a vid works technically and/or emotionally.

Then I got really lucky, because Ash48 was just as interested in the idea, so we began the session by talking about one of her vids, At the Movies. I kicked off with why I loved it as a vidder (its clever use of genre, commentary on violence, use of humour, the colouring, the framing with the meta movie posters, the sequence, there's so much to love). Then Ash talked about making it -- the inspiration, the planning process, editing and effects, collaborating, beta, reception. Really interesting, and I got to ask all the nosey questions I've been burning to ask.

Then we talked about the showstopper from the vidshow -- Norlack's constructed reality, Doomsday."