Blog Entries – Page 17 – Fan Film Factor

The 2022 SHOWRUNNER AWARDS now have their final 38 entries!

My friends, the great experiment: THE SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

In January of this year, two new fan film competitions launched, to join the third (the long-running annual BJO AWARDS) in celebrating our fun and quirky little niche-of-a-niche-of-a-niche of fandom. The first of the two new yearly award shows to begin—and conclude—was the DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS, where the directors of the submitted fan films became the judges (and were not allowed to vote for their own fan film, of course). And once those awards were handed out, it was time to launch of the new SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

Both first-time contests had fresh and unique aspects to them. For example, for the past almost-decade, ERIC L. WATTS of the Bjo Awards automatically entered any Star Trek fan film from the previous year that met the eligibility requirements. So a fan filmmaker didn’t have to do anything to be considered for a Bjo aside from release an eligible fan film in the previous year. The Directors Choice and Showrunner Awards, however, each required a small $10 submission fee to enter (in order to prevent a flood of entries). The Directors Choice also opened their contest to fan films beyond Star Trek—Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.—while the Showrunner Awards limited ourselves to only Star Trek fan films.

All three competitions have the standard categories like Best Fan Film, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress, Best Hair and Makeup, etc. But the Directors Choice introduced some interesting outside-the-box categories like Best Ensemble Cast, Best Foreign (non-U.S.) Fan Film, Most Canon Fan Film, Best Animated Fan Film, and Best Parody.

Meanwhile, the Showrunner Awards created categories for Best Original Character, Best Scene (a short clip up to two minutes in length), and Best Micro-Budget ($1,000 or less) Fan Film. We also decided to do something the other two contests don’t do: give out THREE awards per category rather than just one winner and five finalists or one winner and one runner-up.

I keep saying “we” when referring to the Showrunner Awards. That’s because our panel of twelve judges—each the showrunner of a Star Trek fan film or series—brainstormed, discussed, and voted on our categories, entry fees, and rules. Among those rules is that we will use ranked-choice voting, each judge selecting their five favorites in each category in descending order. First choice gets 10 points, second gets 7, then 5, 3, and finally 1 point. A judge cannot vote for their own fan film in any of the top three slots.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the Showrunner Awards was our decision expand eligibility to a 5-year window. For our 2022 awards, any Star Trek fan film released from January 2017 through December 2021 could enter. Of course, that aspect of the “great experiment” carried some risks…

Does STARSHIP WEBSTER’S latest fan film “SNOWBOUND” prove that RANDY LANDERS is absolutely NUTS??? (interview)

I’m just kidding about you being nuts, Randy…well, kinda kidding!

If you look on the Internet (I’ve heard some people are doing that now), you’ll eventually run into a meme of DANNY DeVITO wearing a white wig pretending to be a pretentious art collector named Ongo Gablogian. It’s from an episode of the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and the quote is:

Artists must suffer for the art. That’s why it’s called PAINting!

Well, if PAINting includes clicking multiple points with your mouse on literally tens of thousands of individual frames from a Star Trek fan film, then yes, RANDY LANDERS, showrunner of POTEMKIN PICTURES, has certainly suffered for his art. More precisely, he suffered for the most recent release from the STARSHIP WEBSTER Creative Group, “SNOWBOUND.” After filming, this fan film took an entire YEAR to finish!

Have a look…

Now, you might watch the above fan film and say, “So a bunch of Trekkies in Lexington, Kentucky went out on a day when it was snowing, shot some scenes, and turned it into a five-minute fan film (not counting opening and closing credits.) What’s the big deal?”

The big deal, my friends, is that it WASN’T snowing when Randy Landers shot it! Here’s what it looked like before Randy’s year-long odyssey of post-production began…

And here’s what it looked like after…

Of course, that’s just one still-frame. As I said, there’s nearly FIVE MINUTES of that!!!

So the obvious question this time out is: how on earth (or whatever planet that is) did Randy manage to accomplish this chilling feat? And since Fan Film Factor is mainly about fan filmmakers’ journeys getting from there to here, it’s time for another chat with Mr. Landers…

STAR TREK: TNG – THE ANIMATED SERIES vignette quickly goes VIRAL! (interview with JUSTIN LEE)

Most Star Trek fan films get anywhere between a few hundred and a few thousand views on YouTube. The more “polished” ones can make it into the tens of thousands of views and, maybe, after a few months or even years, crack the 100K threshold.

But STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – THE ANIMATED SERIES, a two minute and 14 second fan film with no “coming soon” trailers nor any fanfare prior to its April 12, 2022 premiere, was able to blast its way into the six-digit range in less than a week, and after five weeks on YouTube is now nearing a half million views!

Sometimes a video just goes viral—although the simplicity of the concept along with the flawless technical execution and inspired concept was certainly enough to justify the rapid word-of-mouth, including a shout-out from WIL WHEATON on his blog. Take a look…

Part of the brilliance, in addition to choosing one of the most iconic scenes from one of fandom’s favorite episodes—the kidnapping of Picard by the Borg in “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1”—was coloring the Borg and their cube in bright purples and violets rather than dull grays. This harkened back to how the original Star Trek animated series would color the Klingon uniforms in those same ridiculous purple and violet colors…

The short vignette animation was released on the YouTube channel of GAZELLE AUTOMATIONS, a small Toronto, Canada-based agency specializing in puppetry, model miniatures, and animation. Five days after its debut, in response to many, many questions posted by hundreds of viewers, animator JUSTIN LEE released a second video, twice as long as the original fan film, explaining how the project was animated. It’s also worth checking out..

Of course, you know me—I had even more questions that I was sure my readers would love to hear the answers to. So I reached out to Justin via e-mail to ask if he’d be up for an interview. Since Justin is from Canada, he couldn’t have been nicer (I think it’s in their DNA, eh?), and he was happy to oblige…

ComicMix will sell an UNLICENSED book of “lost” DR. SEUSS short stories now in the PUBLIC DOMAIN!

Well, this story suddenly got interesting again!

Last October, I reported on the sudden and unexpected settlement of the half-decade copyright infringement lawsuit filed by DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES (DSE) against tribbles creator DAVID GERROLD, award-winning comic book illustrator TY TEMPLETON, and COMICMIX, LLC editor and vice-president GLENN HAUMAN. The latter three individuals had attempted to crowd-fund through Kickstarter a mash-up of Star Trek and Dr. Seuss titled Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go! But DSE quickly put the brakes on that, forcing Kickstarter to take down the fully-funded $30,000 campaign and return the donations, and then suing Team Mash-Up for what could have been six or even seven figures if the legal verdict went in DSE’s favor.

What followed was years of a litigation roller coaster, sparking approximately thirty blogs from me as I tried to explain (in layman’s terms) everything that was being argued by both sides and the various rulings from the judge(s). At first, it looked like Team Mash-Up had actually won when, after two and a half years, Ninth Circuit Federal Judge Hon. JANIS SAMMARTINO dismissed DSE’s complaint, finding that Boldly! qualified for free speech protection under the legal doctrine of fair use. But a year and a half later, a 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, ruling that Boldly! was NOT fair use and sending the complaint back to the district court.

In October of 2021, weeks before the case was to go to trial, the two sides announced a settlement because Ty Templeton had developed late-stage colorectal cancer, and neither side wanted to put the man through the stress of a multi-week jury trial (at the height of COVID, no less!) while prepping for major surgery and months of intense cancer treatments. The two legal adversaries agreed that there would be no trial, no judgment, no payout in either direction, and each side would cover their own legal fees. But sadly, ComicMix would give up all efforts to create or publish a Star Trek/Dr. Seuss mash-up book.

End of story, right? Not quite…!

DOOMSDAY quickly becomes the most popular TALE FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE! (interview with RAY TESI and JOSH IRWIN, part 2)

Last week in Part 1, we learned how, in March of 2021, RAY TESI from NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS had asked JOSHUA IRWIN from THE AVALON UNIVERSE to make the half-day drive from northeastern Arkansas to southeastern Georgia to be the director of photography for the newest TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE fanthology film “DOOMSDAY.” Josh was happy to help out, and the completed production has quickly become the most watched of all three of the Neutral Zone releases, nearly doubling the views of the previous two offerings, THE LOOKING GLASS (released in June of 2019) and ENDOSYMBIOSIS (February 2021) in only a couple of weeks.

Take a look…

We had just learned that, after arriving at the studio on the day of shooting, Ray had gotten buried under other studio-related tasks he needed to do. And so he asked Josh if he would mind taking over as director in addition to being director of photography (two VERY different jobs). Josh is used to dealing with the unexpected on film sets, working in the film industry himself professionally, and so he agreed to the challenge.

Of course, this gave Josh essentially no time to prepare as director, and so I asked him the following question…

DREADNOUGHT DOMINION’S “MOM” debuts on Mother’s Day…of course! (interview with GARY DAVIS)

Ya just gotta love the folks at DREADNOUGHT DOMINION. Well, you don’t have to love them, but it’s hard not to! They spread such fun and joy through their fan films.

You would think that a fan series set on board a three-nacelled dreadnought-class starship would involve lots of battles and intense, serious action. And you would be wrong. Out of all of the most active ongoing Star Trek fan series, Dominion is one of the ones that takes themselves the LEAST seriously. Although they have had a handful of dramatic releases, they’ve also had a whole bunch of good, wholesome, fun-for-the-whole-family style episodes that just make you want to laugh and smile.

And what could be more wholesome than the captain’s mother visiting her son on the bridge of his starship? And what could be more family-friendly than releasing an episode titled “MOM” on Mother’s Day? Are you ready for something adorable…?

Seriously, how cute was that??!

Yeah, I know. Nothing like that would REALLY happen on a Federation dreadnought starship …or any starship, most likely. And the repercussions of a cloaked Klingon scout ship deep within Federation space could lead to interstellar war. And to that I say: “Stop complaining and go call your mother and tell her that you love her!” (My apologies to any out there who have lost their mothers, but if you know any mothers in your life, send them a link to this wonderful vignette and put a smile on their face.)

Speaking of smiles, I just couldn’t wait to ask GARY DAVIS, longtime Dominion showrunner and Captain Jason Brousseau himself, some things about this precious piece of production positivity…

STAR TREK: PICARD wraps up season with a nice, tidy bow…but was it worth untying? (editorial review)

AND FOR MY FINAL TRICK: SPOILERS!

As I mentioned in last week’s blog review, the final two episodes of STAR TREK: PICARD‘s first season left me feeling quite disappointed and ended things on a distinctly bad note for me (and many others).

As season two drew to a close, a strong series of early episodes stumbled as the show approached the finish line, with episodes 7 and 9 (as opposed to 7 of 9) significantly missing the mark for me. So going into the final, 10th episode, “Farewell,” I was ready for either a second-in-a-row disappointment or else a triumphant salvation. What I got was…

…a little bit of each.

On the good side, there were several powerfully emotional moments, elegantly acted with touching music, that left me tearing up. There were also some fun easter eggs thrown in for the hard-core Trekkers to cheer (or complain) about. And of course, everyone got their happy ending…except Adam Soong, who got a more ominous ending (but perhaps happy for him).

The scene with Taillinn finally talking face-to-face with Renée was beautiful. The exciting sequence trying to stop Soong’s drones and get Renée safely onto the rocket was textbook action and suspense (even if it was super-obvious that the Renée who came out of the ready room was really Taillinn in disguise). And the scene with Picard and Q was masterful, even though it left way more questions frustratingly unanswered (more on that later). But seeing these two accomplished thespians (SIR PATRICK STEWART and JOHN DE LANCIE) playing off each other as Q prepares for his final farewell was simply a treasure and pleasure to watch…campy though it was, I didn’t care.

On the bad side, the episode was a bit of a hurried mess. Having let every storyline slowly percolate for most of the season, the final episode needed to…

Wrap up the Renée Picard storyline in some exciting way;
Include the sacrifice of at least one character (more on that shortly);
Get Raffi and Seven back together;
Resolve the Rios/Teresa romance plotline;
Give Kore a final confrontation with her “dad”;
Leave Soong defeated;
Wrap up the storyline with Q and answer any lingering questions;
Get the team back to the future to finally pay off the scene at the end of episode one that got them there;
Reveal the masked Borg Queen as Agnes Jurati;
Establish that Elnor is alive;
Include a scene with Whoopi Goldberg to explain why she didn’t clue-in Picard way back in episode one about what was to come ;
Get Picard and Laris together;
Leave an opening for a plot element that could continue into next season.

Here is a list of every BAD DECISION and AWFUL THING that I absolutely DID NOT LIKE about STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS! (editorial review)

This space intentionally left blank.

Why I am officially WITHDRAWING my name from consideration in The 2022 TREKZONE Fan Film Awards…

You know me. I love Star Trek fan films and I LOVE the fact that there are now SO many Star Trek fan film award competitions, including the annual BJO AWARDS, the recently-concluded DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS, and the brand new SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, which is currently accepting submissions of fan films released between January 2017 and December 2021. If you haven’t entered yet, the deadline is May 31, and the application form can be accessed here:

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2022StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

Shortly after I published my blog announcing the launch of the Showrunner Awards on April 11, a small number of detractors rushed to criticize those awards for charging a $10 entrance fee. Fair enough—to each his own. GLEN WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS charged $10, as well (although we’re charging an extra $1 per additional category like Best Music or Best Cinematographer). It’s actually pretty common with independent film award shows, although ERIC L. WATTS doesn’t charge anything to enter the Bjo Awards. Different strokes for different folks, right? No one’s forcing anyone to enter anything.

Within less than a week, MATTHEW MILLER of the TREKZONE Podcast in Australia quickly announced the launch of his own fan film awards show that would be FREE to all fan filmmakers. Hooray…FOUR award shows! I was getting ready to cover it once Matthew announced how fan filmmakers could enter, but apparently Matthew wasn’t planning to do it that way.

Setting a window of eligibility for fan films released between April 15 of last year and April 15 of this year, Matthew and his co-judge MTM (that’s a pseudonym) decided all by themselves who would be entered and who wouldn;t be…and then announced the finalists this past Tuesday on YouTube.

My fan film INTERLUDE had 10 nominations, which is great, of course….huge honor. And yes, I had a great team (although two of our nominations were for “Best Space Villain”—the Klingons—and “Best Hero Ship”—the U.S.S. Ares…neither of them able to give an acceptance speech).

Surprisingly, though, some fan films that I thought would be shoo-ins were almost completely excluded. While Interlude had an impressive 10 nominations in ten categories, the AVALON UNIVERSE’s COSMIC STREAM received only one nomination (TYLER DUNNIVAN for “Best Actor”) and shockingly AGENT OF NEW WORLDS got zero nominations, not even for best directing or editing .

Two other highly regarded and long-running Star Trek fan series also had their latest episodes passed over with no nominations in any category: DREADNOUGHT DOMINION‘s “THE MORE THINGS CHANGE” and STARSHIP FARRAGUT‘s series final “HOMECOMING.” It didn’t see fair that Interlude would be hogging so many of the nomination slots, but hey, not my contest.

However, there’s been something else that’s really been bothering me forr the past two weeks…

DOOMSDAY quickly becomes the most popular TALE FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE! (interview with RAY TESI and JOSH IRWIN, part 1)

NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA is the only place on the planet where fans can shoot TOS-era Star Trek fan films on a full range of TOS-era sets including the bridge, engineering, sickbay, briefing room, transporter room, auxiliary control, captain’s quarters, turbolift, and a full range of corridors. WARP 66 STUDIOS in Arkansas has some, but not all, of these sets for fans to film on. And while JAMES CAWLEY’s TOS sets in upstate New York feature all of the rooms listed above, his sets are now an official licensed tour and are no longer available for shooting fan films.

Originally, STARSHIP FARRAGUT and STAR TREK CONTINUES were shot on these sets in Kingsland. After STC wrapped in 2018, VIC MIGNOGNA sold the sets to RAY TESI, who then opened them up to any fan film or series that wished to use them—including DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, the AVALON UNIVERSE, CONSTAR, LET OLD WRINKLES COME, TO HAVE BOLDLY GONE, and a bunch of others.

But Ray Tesi and Neutral Zone Studios also have their own fanthology series called TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE. Their first episode, THE LOOKING GLASS, was released in June of 2019 and has had about 28K views on YouTube so far. Their second episode, ENDOSYMBIOSIS, was hit YouTube in February 2021 and is currently over 15K views.

Their third release, DOOMSDAY, premiered just last month on April 5 (“First Contact Day”) and is already up to a staggering 81K views!!! Why the immediate popularity? Well, it could have something to do with the telling of the long-speculated tale of how Commodore Matt Decker and the crew of the U.S.S. Constellation first encountered the Planet Killer device and wound up the way Kirk and the Enterprise crew found them at the beginning of the TOS episode “The Doomsday Machine.” Take a look…

No too shabby, huh?

One of the most intriguing aspects of this fan film isn’t simply what went on in front of the camera but also who was standing behind it. Fan filmmaker JOSHUA MCHAEL IRWIN (who is also a professional filmmaker) is based in Arkansas and typically shoots his Avalon Universe productions at WARP 66 Studios. He did film Avalon‘s first release, GHOST SHIP, at Neutral Zone, and he later shot their 2021 release COSMIC STREAM there, as well. And although Josh was the director of photography for INTERLUDE (filmed at ARES STUDIOS in Lawrenceville, GA), nobody in the fan film world ever associated Josh with Tales From the Neutral Zone.

Until now, that is.

Josh served as director, DP, and film editor for Doomsday while Ray served as executive producer. Apparently, that was a winning combination, as the film has proved extremely popular on YouTube.

So how did this pairing happen? And what went into the production of this new fan film? I decided to interview both Ray and Josh together…