A friend is someone who will lend you his lawnmower. But a GOOD friend is someone who will lend you his 18,000 donor e-mailing list!
Early this past Wednesday morning, ALEC PETERS sent out an e-mail request to all previous Axanar donors to please help JOSHUA IRWIN and TEAM AVALON raise the last 20% of their $8K goal to fund their ambitious multiversal crossover fan film CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS that’s scheduled to go into production early next year. Within a few hours, the Avalon Indiegogo had crossed the $8K level thanks to about ten new donors, including one $1,500 executive producer package donor (who has asked to remain anonymous). And then yesterday, another executive producer-level donation came in, bringing the total number of highest-tier supporters to FOUR and a staggering $6K donated just from them!
There’s also been a $1,000 donation for a producer level (they get to do a voice-over of background bridge chatter in the episode), as well as a $700 associate producer donation…all since Wednesday’s e-mail blast. So never underestimate the value of e-mailing potential donors, folks!
As it happens, the e-mail blast couldn’t have come at a better time, as the Avalon campaign had essentially slowed to a trickle over the previous week or so, and some of Josh’s plans to promote the campaign had failed to materialize…including a series of Avalon videos that were supposed to post on the 115K-subscriber Lore Reloaded YouTube channel, as well as an interview with Star Trek podcaster LARRY NEMECEK.
But now that the campaign has surpassed its $8K goal, it is now eligible to enter Indiegogo’s “In Demand” status, meaning this specific crowd0funder can remain active beyond its original deadline. Other fan film campaigns have also gone into “In Demand” status, including THE ROMULAN WAR, which managed to get a couple thousand dollars extra after the initial deadline of the campaign.
For this reason, Josh has announced his intention to set a stretch goal at $14,000. He hasn’t yet revealed what the perk will be—only that it will be a downloadable digital file that every backer will be able to access. He also mentioned that that last sentence contains a hidden clue to what the perk will be.
Josh explained where the extra money would be going…
The original goal we posted was a very low estimate because we wanted to be certain that we’d reach it. And while $8K might seem like a lot for a single fan film, it was actually going to require us to sacrifice a number number of cool things I’d wanted to do in favor of releasing just the bare bolts of what the script called for.
If we can reach our stretch goal, it will allow us to have more people on set (actors, production crew, etc.) because we’ll be able to afford to feed and lodge them and reimburse their travel…which we always do for anyone who isn’t local. We’ll also be able to get more and better costumes. While we have ample Starfleet uniforms, this time we also need costumes from other sci-fi series like The Orville and Babylon 5: Crusade (the latter will have to be custom-sewn from scratch, as those uniforms aren’t commercially available). Oh, and we’ll also need something elaborate for Commander Presley. Who is Commander Presley? You’ll find out!
And finally, Crisis on Infinite Excaliburs will require the construction of a replica of the Obelisk control room from the TOS episode “The Paradise Syndrome” (where Kirk loses his memory and becomes Kirok). Initially, we were only planning to build the main control panel and have a single wall in the background. But with extra funds for building materials, and with the help of our amazing set production designer GLEN WOLFE, we can have much more of this replica available to shoot in…maybe even the staircase!
Josh says that he’ll soon be scheduling the initial shoots for Crisis, which will be taking place both at WARP 66 STUDIOS in Arkansas as well as NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Georgia. It will be a very ambitious shoot, with multiple scenes involving the same actor playing different roles simultaneously. Can Josh and the team pull it off successfully? If past is prologue, then the answer is most certainly yes. But the more budget that they have to work with, the better it will be!
Remember that there’s still time to donate before the deadline, even though now you can also donate after the deadline! Either way, you can get to the Indiegogo campaign by clicking below…
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crisis-on-infinite-excaliburs-a-star-trek-fan-film#
Given everything that is flying from the (physical) fan these days, I welcome this good news.