Browncoats: Redemption will be a fan-created-sequel to both Firefly (the TV series) and Serenity (the film), produced with Joss Whedon's implicit approval, with proceeds going to charity (so there is no copyright infringement). Redemption (premiering at DragonCon 2010) is set shortly after the events of Serenity, showing characters from another ship of  Browncoats reacting to those events, so that it's not in the way of anything else that the official owners might wish to do with this property later.

To learn more and pre-order a copy (hint hint), here's the main site:

http://www.browncoatsmovie.com/

Everything about this effort is fascinating for those of us who are into team collaboration: the way they've produced and funded it, the fact that they're going to finish it in style ... and the superb charities they're supporting ... make this is an effort totally worth watching from a process point of view, no matter how you feel about Whedon's Worlds or fan films generally.

On the few times I have been able to show up for this team's USTREAM chats, they have said "great questions Julianne" (blush). Often I am sad that there are not MORE great questions being posed. So as a public service, if any of the @browncoatsmovie chats seem to be dragging, people are welcome to ask my questions again (because there are different participants each time and because the third one is big and maybe unanswerable, which is a good thing for a question to be). And here they are:

(1) How did the preview screenings go? [A rough cut was sent to a few of the Can't Stop The Serenity events earlier this year; each event had to write an essay about how it would use the rough cut to support the goals of what I will call "the movement" and they chose based on the essays. One of the lucky cities was Portland, home of the first CSTS.] Was there any feedback that made you want to do anything differently?

(paraphrased answer, given when a few screenings were still to come) All the things people asked for were things we were planning to do, so no big surprises. Some people didn't realise how rough a rough cut could be and just wanted us to finish the thing, which is the plan.

(2) Once this comes out, for those fans who create fanfiction (rule 34), which Browncoats: Redemption characters do you think will be most slashable?

(3) The fact that you're going to finish this (unlike so many fan projects that start off ambitiously but later fall by the wayside)...could that have anything to do with (a) the do-it-yourself with-what-you-have ethos of the fictional Browncoats, or the fact that (b) keeping their pledged word (in an Old West-ern sense) is critically important to them? In other words, by getting this out, aren't you being extremely Browncoat yourselves?

(4) [Bonus for this week: how did it go at the Comic-Con?!! Everyone will ask that, but just for completeness.]

Shinily yours,

Julianne

PS For those unaware of Joss Whedon, his first name has become a verb:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Jossed

and people kept using the term "Whedonesque" so often that he decided to use it as the name of his blog...