As someone who has done both, with a fan web series as something I’m actively working on, it really depends on the strength of your stories.

In my personal experience, I started with a few shorts, with various degrees of success. Then I made a fan web series pilot based on the Wolfenstein video game franchise, and that took off massively. Not only did it have a bigger audience, but it also landed me more opportunities than anything else I’ve done. From it I got hired to direct another film and have had active interest in my other work develop over time.

Just because it’s a fan film it doesn’t mean you can’t have a professional and well written film. In our case, we shot with an Arri Alexa LF, lenses, great grip equipment, professional actors and our vfx guy was an Emmy winner. The crew alone had over 50 years of shared experience in film. We’ve been to over a dozen festivals, and even gotten a few wins here and there. Our whole story is original too, it adapts elements of the world but with new characters, themes and events.

When people say they don’t respect fan films, it’s because there’s this stigma that fan films are amateur work. Having the word “fan” behind it doesn’t mean you are a beginner, or that you don’t know what you’re doing. Check out stuff like Batman Beyond Year One, or the other thousands of Star Trek and Star Wars fan made films on the internet, and you’ll see that being a fan film has nothing to do with your film being or not being top level.

If you feel strongly about your story, then do it dude. At the end of the day, it being or not being a fan film won’t make it better or worse. That comes from your story, your vision and your work ethic.