There’s less than two and a half weeks left to enter you fan film into this year’s Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS. We’ve already had more than a baker’s dozen submissions covering the eligibility period of January 1, 2019 – December 31, 2023. Next year, the 5-year window of eligibility will decrease to 3 years, so if there’s an older Star Trek fan film you’d still like to enter, now is your chance. And hey, if there’s a more recent Trek fan film you want to enter, now is also your chance! Here’s a link to the submission form…
https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2024StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS
Three weeks ago, I posted a blog spotlighting the twelve judges for this year’s awards. Today, I’d like to discuss our newest category (just added for 2024): BEST GREEN SCREEN COMPOSITING. The name pretty much speaks for itself, but I personally feel that compositing actors who were filmed in front of green screens against sci-fi backgrounds has become much more of a fine art form in recent years.
I’ve recently begun watching a long-running fan series that began in 2008 that has always presented a majority of its scenes as green-screen composites. And comparing those early releases to their later work really illustrates how far both the technical and artistic aspects of chroma-keying have come over the years.
Today’s fan filmmakers are currently doing some truly impressive and in some cases groundbreaking (at least for fan films) things with compositing—from generating realistic 3D backgrounds that move and pan with the actors, to getting actors to interact with animated elements of their backgrounds, to matching the lighting on the actor perfectly to the lighting of the background…and quite a bit more than even that! I’m very excited to see which of this year’s films the judges select as the best three in this category.
And for anyone with is curious, here are the other 22 categories for this year’s Showrunner Awards…
- Best Fan Film
- Best Director
- Best Writer
- Best Lead Actor (submitter may enter up to three actors)
- Best Lead Actress (submitter may enter up to three actresses)
- Best Supporting Actor (submitter may enter up to three actors)
- Best Supporting Actress (submitter may enter up to three actresses)
- Best Cinematography
- Best Film Editing
- Best Sound Design/Mixing
- Best Visual Effects (CGI)
- Best Special Effects (non-CGI)
- Best Musical Score
- Best Costuming
- Best Hair & Makeup
- Best Original Set Design
- Best Props
- Best Original Character
- Best Scene (up to 2 minutes)
- Best Micro-Budget Fan Film (total production cost $1,000 or less, not including set construction)
- Funniest Fan Film
- Most Clever Easter Egg
And remember that the deadline to enter for this year is May 31 at midnight Pacific Time. Here’s the submission form link once again…
https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2024StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS