FARRAGUT FORWARD finally fascinates and fires up fans with a FEAST of fancy fan filmmaking at its FINEST! (video interview with JOHNNY K. and PAUL R. SIEBER)

The wait is over, and I think it’s fair to say that it was very much worth it!

In some ways, the “wait began back in 2016 when the long-running fan series  STARSHIP FARRAGUT wrapped filming on its series finale, “HOMECOMING,” and announced a sequel fan production set during the TOS movie-era to be titled FARRAGUT FORWARD. But five years would pass before fans heard anything more about this proposed project.

In 2021, showrunner and series star JOHN BROUGHTON invited his friend JOHNNY K. of KAOTICA STUDIOS to direct the Farragut Forward fan film. Johnny had already directed a growing number of independent short films and agreed to join the team. The next step was crowd-funding the project, as John Broughton wanted this to be a top-quality production with elaborate movie-era sets and impeccably-reproduced costumes.

Of course, few things are as effective when crowd-funding than showing potential donors what you’re capable of creating. So John and Johnny proceeded to create a 3-minute PROLOGUE teaser-trailer that really blew away fans…

The following weeks and months were filled with numerous behind-the-scenes photos and videos, each more exciting and enticing than the last. You can view three of those videos at the bottom of this blog.

The strategy worked amazingly well, as a 60-day Indiegogo exceeded its $30K goal by more than $3K! This allowed the campaign to attain InDemand status and continue to raise funds, ultimately wrapping up last month with a final total in excess of $45!!!

The money was put to good use, as the costumes and sets that were created nailed the look and feel of movie-era TOS Star Trek beyond what any fan film had ever been able to achieve before. A cast and crew of nearly (perhaps more than—I lost count tallying all the names in the credits!) a hundred people worked diligently to produce what can only be called a masterpiece. Farragut Forward debuted on October 1, and in just eight days has already gotten more than 65K views on YouTube. And now you can view it, too, below…

I had initially hoped to interview John Broughton and Johnny K. along with PAUL R. SIEBER, who plays the evil villain Prescott from the Mirror Universe. Unfortunately, a few hours before our scheduled Zoom call, something unexpected came up for John Broughton, and he wasn’t able to make it. But John has offered to do a one-on-one interview with me in the near future.

In the meantime, Johnny K. and Paul Sieber were still able to do the video interview, providing some eye-opening insights and fun stories about the planning and work that went into the making of this 3-year project. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to both of them, taking a look back at Farragut Forward

3 thoughts on “FARRAGUT FORWARD finally fascinates and fires up fans with a FEAST of fancy fan filmmaking at its FINEST! (video interview with JOHNNY K. and PAUL R. SIEBER)”

  1. Simple one of the best STAR TREK fan films ever made. Fans will be talking about it for years.

    1. The guidelines are guidelines, not necessarily rules. It is up to CBS and Paramount whether or not to spend the time and manpower dealing with fans who do not follow the guidelines. Over the last eight years, the studios have only made the decision to be an enforcement entity twice: once in 2018 with “Temporal Anomaly” (essentially for using short clips from the later TNG movies) and this past year when the Axanar production team left out the “A Star Trek Fan Film” from the title screen of “The Icarus Maneuver” and did not include the legal disclaimer. And the legal trouble that resulted came not from CBS/P per se but from the law firm of Loeb & Loeb…who were just waiting for Alec and Axanar to cross a line and justify a legal letter. To me, that was an unforced error on the part of Team Axanar, as including those two elements was a pretty simple thing to overlook. But what’s done is done.

      Many, MANY Trek fan films have exceeded the time limit since the guidelines were released, and CBS/P have said nothing. I actually suspect that might be one of the reasons for their keeping quiet now, as established precedent has made it reasonable to assume that the 15/30-minute time limit is more of a suggestion than a hard-fast draconian rule. As such, any attempt to take a fan producer to court for infringement based solely on the length of the film triggering a copyright lawsuit would likely result in a ruling of non-willful infringement and a $250 judgment against the producer. So CBS/P is likely mindful of that potentially embarrassing outcome scenario.

      Also, Paramount (which is the parent company of CBS) was just purchased by Skydance. As such, they are in a bit of an adjustment period at the moment. Considering the tenuous financial disaster that led to the sale, job cuts are likely coming. In such a situation, most employees tend to keep their heads down rather than attract potentially-unwanted attention, lest they become the first to get the axe. Being the person who decides to confront fans for being fans brings with it the potential of significant (negative) media coverage for the studio, which Paramount/CBS might not want at the moment. No one knows how Skydance feels about Trek fan films? Are they a nuisance or a boon to the franchise? Guess wrong, and you might be polishing up your resume! So better to let the fans do what they do until such time as the new overlords provide some guidance.

      That’s my two cents, at least.

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