Okay, time to stop calling it STARSHIP TRISTAN. Show-runner RANDY LANDERS told me there are no series or episodes, there are only individual fan films made by the various creative teams working under the POTEMKIN PICTURES “umbrella”: Tristan, Deimos, Kupok, and Endeavour. The reason for this nominal change, of course, is the fan film guidelines that prohibit a fan film from releasing more than two 15-minute episodes of the same story “…with no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes.”
So the “elephant in the living room” (or “mugato in the cave”) question that I asked Randy was: if you’re being so careful to follow the guidelines, then why is this fan film 30 minutes long and not broken into two 15-minute parts? Randy’s answer:
It was filmed over a year ago, and it is our understanding that the guidelines probably wouldn’t apply.
Fair enough (at least as far as I’m concerned). Randy went on to tell me a little more about the making of this episode:
It was actually one of the first episodes we began filming once we moved here. Nearly all the dialogue shot at the park had to be ADRed…
[re-recorded and dubbed over later – Jonathan]
…and in some cases dubbed by a different performer. It was a challenging experience. We had folks recording their lines on phones. That’s where you can really tell. We’d’ve rather they’d returned to the studios for ADR, but that just wasn’t possible.
I always keep that last fact in mind when I watch the “low-budget” fan films. While not as slick and polished as the studio-made films and series with the professional actors and production crew, fan films like those coming from Potemkin Pictures show heart and dedication and, most of all, fans just having fun. For me, that’s extremely important.
Randy says the Tristan creative team currently has two films completely shot and now in post-production. And there’s three more films in pre-production for 2017. In the meantime, you can watch their latest release “Between Two Worlds” below or visit the website of Potemkin Pictures to catch up on all the episodes of their various series…oh, excuse me…to see all the independent fan films from the four creative teams.
One of the problems with the new Guidelines, is that no coherent method for searching for Star Trek Fan Films Exists. It would be nice to have a you tube page(or other source) that you can subscribe to, that would alerts someone when a new Fan Film Became available to watch and have a link.
Man, what a great idea, Martin! Why didn’t I think of that?
Oh, wait, I did. 🙂