When I was seven years old (waaaaaay back in 1974), I literally used to dream of walking around the U.S.S. Enterprise and serving in Starfleet. But for ROYCE LEONARD MAJOR, son of fan filmmaker VANCE MAJOR of Kansas, my dream is his reality…and has been for as long as Royce can remember. That’s because Royce has appeared in several of Vance’s Star Trek fan films—many of them with scenes shot on TOS sets in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Georgia—since he was an infant (and repeatedly in the years thereafter).
Vance himself has produced and appeared in well over 160 different Star Trek fan films, including 146 episodes of his various CONSTAR fan series as well as in other productions like STARSHIP VALIANT and THE AVALON UNIVERSE. Back in the summer of 2022, Vance announced his long-planned retirement from producing fan films, intending to focus more on his role as a father and less on playing Star Trek.
But then the two pursuits locked onto a collision course.
“Royce and I were watching STAR TREK: PICARD season 3 and seeing a bit of nostalgia,” Vance told me. “Then I started talking to Royce about filmmaking and showing him more and more. Within a month, he was working on his own films and getting the hang of my studio and how to light a green screen, understanding why we do things the way we do for the editor. After I felt he could follow through, I began reaching out to a few friends to see if they would be interested in doing a special Constar sequel.”
Vance continued, “It had been a long time since I had seen most of the classic Constar characters, and I wondered where they would be in the Picard era. That excited me. And it would be something I could take my time doing and show Royce how to do properly. And it just grew from there.”
The sequel, titled CONSTAR: THE MOTION PICTURE, was shot in part on high-quality fan-made sets at WARP 66 STUDIOS in Arkansas as well as FILK FERRET STUDIOS in North Carolina. But the majority was filmed in what Vance and Royce call MAJOR STUDIOS, which is primarily a green screen that Vance and Royce set up a few years ago in the den of their home. “That’s where Royce learned how to light and set up shots all on his own.” said Vance. “My kid could film an entire movie on his own, and he wasn’t even seven yet! It was very fun.”
Vance began working on Constar: The Motion Picture when Royce was still six, and the project itself took more than a year just to film, uniting three dozen Constar alumni, including such notables from other fan series like JOSH IRWIN, FRANK PARKER, JR., JOSE CEPEDA, SAMUEL COCKINGS, NICK COOK, MIKE LONGO, DAVID CHENG, PAUL JACQUES, LEZLIE SAWYER, RAY MYERS, GLEN WOLFE, and DAN REYNOLDS (just to name a few). It’s quite a full cast!
Check out the finished production here…
As you can see, Royce is a major (no pun intended) part of this nearly two-hour labor of love, appearing in about 75% of the scenes that were filmed on TOS sets. “We shot in the freezing cold, in front of a hot green screen, on set location, shooting all throughout the year,” Vance said, “and Royce holds his own against everyone in the film. I say that with a sense of parental pride, but I’ll be honest, that’s all him. He listens to direction great and is very excited when he sees the end result.”
Of course, working with a 6 or 7-year-old requires a bit more patience and flexibility than working with adult actors. Vance remarked on this, “On most days it was a lot of fun, but some days it wasn’t. I had to learn when not to push. And, honestly, it got discouraging sometimes. But at the end of the day, I’m a dad first, and if my kid isn’t in the mood to film, I didn’t push. This was supposed to be a fun experience, not something that I wanted to be pushy on. That mentality helped Royce because he saw that I didn’t force anything, and he pushed through even when he was tired and getting cranky. It was a lot of give and take. I stressed to him and others, though, that I didn’t care how long it took to get this made; I wanted everyone involved to have a good time making it. I didn’t want it to be stressful—or at least as stress-free as it could be.”
To celebrate this amazing milestone of ushering in the “next generation” of Star Trek fan filmmakers, we’re shining the interview spotlight today on Royce Major…
JONATHAN – Welcome to Fan Film Factor, Royce, and great job on Constar: The Motion Picture!
ROYCE – Thanks.
JONATHAN – So I guess you really like Star Trek?
ROYCE – I like it 100%, yeah.
JONATHAN – Do you have a favorite Star Trek series that you like the most?
ROYCE – I like LOWER DECKS.
JONATHAN – What do you like most about it?
ROYCE – Well, I kinda like how they do that bad word thing.
JONATHAN – You mean when they bleep over words that kids shouldn’t be hearing (or saying)?
ROYCE – Yeah. It’s just so hilarious. It just makes me laugh for some reason.
JONATHAN – And who’s your favorite character on Lower Decks?
ROYCE – Boimler. And, um, what’s the captain’s kid’s name again?
JONATHAN – Mariner?
ROYCE – Yeah, Mariner. Oh, and Rutherford.
JONATHAN – And they’re your favorites.
ROYCE – Yeah.
JONATHAN – What other shows do you watch besides Star Trek?
ROYCE – I watch tons of things. I like Duck Tails, Gravity Falls, and Ben and Cam, which is a YouTube show.
JONATHAN – That’s a good list of things to watch! How about hobbies?
ROYCE – I definitely like to draw a lot.
JONATHAN – What do you draw?
ROYCE – Mostly “Among Us” and Sonic.
JONATHAN – My son Jayden used to draw the “Among Us” people, too, when he was your age. So what’s your favorite toy to play with?
ROYCE – I play with my mini Minecraft figures that my dad’s friend gave to him and he gave to me. I really love those things. I like to take a skeleton and one of the Minecraft humans and make them fight each other.
JONATHAN – Cool! Okay, now that folks have gotten to know you a little better, let’s start talking about fan films. What is it like having a dad who makes so many fan films?
ROYCE – I would say it’s really good, actually, because it’s very fun. We get to make films together and have fun together, and that’s really good.
JONATHAN – What are some of the things you do with your dad when you make films together…other than act?
ROYCE – Well, I help him light the green screen and do pretty much whatever he tells me to do. He asks me to do something, and I say, “Okay, sure.”
JONATHAN – Sounds like you’re very helpful, Royce. What’s your favorite part of making a film?
ROYCE – Seeing the end result…definitely!
JONATHAN – I can certainly understand that.
ROYCE – Oh, and it’s really run being inside of the ships that my dad’s friends built.
JONATHAN – You mean being on the sets?
ROYCE – Yeah, the sets. That part is really fun.
JONATHAN – What makes that part so much fun?
ROYCE – Well, I would say that if I have to do something where there’s, like, buttons that just do random things or don’t do anything, and my dad tells me to press them for the scene. I would say that’s what I like the most about it. In one scene, my dad told me that I could press any button, and so I pressed the alarm one.
JONATHAN – There’s an alarm button?!? Did it make a loud noise?
ROYCE – No, it didn’t set off a loud alarm. It just made red buttons flash. But it wasn’t like the alarm that meant “get out.” Just the ship alarm, not the house alarm.
JONATHAN – Ah, so “red alert” and not “there’s a fire!”
ROYCE – Yeah. You know, like, in Star Trek, whenever they get hit, and they need to put on those sirens that say, “Hey, we’re being attacked. Someone’s attacking us.” Yeah, so that’s also one of the parts that I like.
JONATHAN – Speaking of which, there’s a scene in the film where the ship is getting hit and you have to rock back and forth, pretending that everything is shaking even though it’s just the camera that’s shaking. Was that fun to do?
ROYCE -I think it was pretty cool, but I can’t really remember that so well.
JONATHAN – Fair enough. But it sounds like it’s pretty fun to be in a fan film, huh?
ROYCE – I would say it’s fun and a little bit hard…and by hard, I mean exhausting. So I would say it’s both. It’s definitely fun to press all the buttons. And, some of them were realistic, like, I could flip some of them up like switches.
JONATHAN – Kind of like a futuristic playground.
ROYCE – Yeah, just with buttons that actually work. They just kinda do random stuff. It’s really cool, so that’s what I think is fun about it.
JONATHAN – So what is hard about being in a fan film?
ROYCE – Well, it’s just that I have to walk around and do a lot of stuff on the set, so it’s kind of exhausting. And I have to memorize a lot of lines, and that’s exhausting, too. The last time I did it, I was REALLY hungry and thirsty. I wanted some pizza! But when it was done, we finally got pizza.
JONATHAN – And the pizza made it all worthwhile?
ROYCE – Uh-huh. That’s what I would say.
JONATHAN – Have any of your friends seen you in your dad’s fan films?
ROYCE – Well, Patrick is one of my friends, and when he was staying in my house and we drove to the swimming park, Dad gave him his phone to show him the trailer for the Star Trek films that we made. And Dad also showed him the battle scene from the end of the movie. So technically, Patrick got to see one.
JONATHAN – And did he like it?
ROYCE – I don’t remember if it was my dad or me that asked him—I think it was me, but he said yes, he did like it.
JONATHAN – So, Royce, do you think you want to make movies when you get older? If not, what kind of job do you want when you grow up?
ROYCE – Well, I don’t really know about the movies because I’m having a lot of fun with it, so I don’t know if I want it to be my job. I think my job when I get older, you know those YouTubers? I would say it would either be those or a CGI maker.
JONATHAN – Well, your dad certainly knows enough CGI artists who would be happy to talk to you and give you some pointers! So my last question for you, Royce: is there any special message you’d like to give to your fans?
ROYCE – This is the first time that I’ve ever heard that I’m going to have fans, so I’m not really sure what to say. I remember once that someone recognized my dad and me in a gas station because they saw us in a film.
JONATHAN – Really? That must have been cool!
ROYCE – It was definitely cool because I didn’t know if a lot of people watched his videos or not so much. And sort’ve think, well, both, actually. Not very much do, and I think a lot of them do, too.
JONATHAN – You’re probably right on both counts, Royce!
ROYCE – Yeah, so technically both. And I think it was pretty cool that people who never even met before could suddenly start talking about Star Trek.
JONATHAN – I agree. So maybe that could be your final message to your fans.
ROYCE – Well, maybe that and thanks for watching my dad’s fan film!
JONATHAN – Perfect! Thank you so much for sharing with all of us, Royce…you did a FANtastic job!
We have just enough space left for me to include an answer to that same final question—“Do you have any message for your fans?”—that I also posed to Vance. Here’s what he said…
VANCE – For me, I’ve been able to see my son grow up from 4 months old on camera to almost 8 years old, firing weapons on the bridge of a starship. I’m doing my best to give him the greatest childhood I can. I always wanted him to look at the pictures of us and know that, whenever he saw the Enterprise on TV, he’d think of us. And he does. He sees the classic NCC-1701, and he says, “Hey, Dad, it’s your ship.” He doesn’t see the goofy things like different colored nacelles or registry numbers. He just sees something he’s been exposed to since he can remember, and it makes him feel good. I think any father wants that for his kid.
We’ve made a lot of different films, not just Star Trek, and these are things that we take our time doing so we can also focus on the important things like chores, school, family, etc. Our filming is usually done on our “guys’ nights” when we both are free and have nothing planned…and when we can sneak a pizza in to munch on.
I’ve gotten to share with Royce, over the past two years, everything from the start of the planning process to seeing the film completely edited, something that most fathers never get to with their kid—certainly not at this age. I’m blessed, brother. I’ve had a “career” in fan films, known as the most prolific Star Trek fan film maker in the world. And now, I’ve gotten to pass my limited knowledge to my son.
He had a blast with all of the people on set. He really grew during the weekend that we all filmed together. I don’t know if he’ll become a filmmaker or if he’ll love Star Trek as much as I do. And that’s okay. But we’ll always have these films and the memories that come with making them. That’s the legacy that I wanted to share. with him. It was all for my son.