Late last year, STARFLEET STUDIOS (in Iowa) released the half-hour long Star Trek: Raven and, with it, introduced the world to the new VOYAGER CONTINUES fan series. Set aboard the titular starship during its time traversing the Delta Quadrant, the series promises to eventually feature members of the entire USS Voyager crew. Their first episode, a short film called “Derelict,” will focus on just two characters: Seven-of-Nine and Harry Kim.
Last week, show-runner David Whitney began shooting scenes of “Derelict” with real physical sets (unlike the virtual CGI sets composited behind footage of actors in front of green screens). And a few days ago, photos from that shoot were posted.
The first thing I noticed was that Seven-of-Nine’s hair was brunette, not blonde like actress Jeri Ryan had worn her hair when she played the character on Star Trek: Voyager. Knowing that David Whitney had not been averse to using wigs (as his lead actress in Raven had filmed all of her scenes wearing a purple wig), I asked David why he hadn’t done the same thing for Seven-of-Nine?
It would have looked lame. I know people will complain. I don’t care. Seriously, a wig would have looked crazy. Of course Raven’s wig was awesome. Finding the actress with blue eyes was hard enough. Frankly, finding someone who could act, was pretty, and had the right kind of bone structure was a real find. Brown hair? No big deal. Jeri Ryan is a brunette. She dyes her hair. No, I could just not bring myself to ask her to bleach her hair. I’m really happy with her. What a nice lady.
You can see more photos from the shoot and follow the latest news for this new fan series on the Voyager Continues Facebook page.
Wait a minute, how do these people get to do a series if fan productions can only be 15 minutes long (30 at most) with no follow-up stories, or am I missing something here?
Technically, they haven’t done so yet. Once they do, well, then we’ll have to see what happens. Personally, I don’t think “Voyager Continues” is the kind of fan film that the studios were trying to eliminate with the guidelines or a lawsuit.
Hey Jonathan,
If CBS/Paramount have a fair bone in their bodies they’ll let Alec tell his Axanar story in full, especially if they don’t do/say anything about this Voyager Continues – What do you mean when you say this isn’t the kind of fan film the studios were trying to stop?…
“What do you mean when you say this isn’t the kind of fan film the studios were trying to stop?”
When I interviewed David Whitney several months ago, he told me that he felt that he had already been following nearly all of the guidelines, and that fan films like his (“Raven”) weren’t really the ones the studio guidelines were targeting anyway. While other fan films were using Hollywood actors and production crew, Starfleet Studios was using the best talent Iowa has to offer. While other fan series were building exact replicas of the TOS sets or creating half million dollar studios with track lighting and soundproof floors and a green screen wall the size of a racquetball court, David was using a green screen the size of a blanket and building his set pieces quite literally in his garage. And while some fan productions were paying professional VFX wizards like Tobias Richter thousands of dollars to create mind-blowing space battle scenes, David was modeling and rendering his effects shots at home on his PC.
So when all is said and done, David figured the guidelines were targeted primarily at the Axanar’s and Renegades’s and Star Trek Continues/New Voyages’s of the world and not at the “little guys” with zero budget, home grown volunteer labor, and store-bought costumes and purple wigs. From what I know, I tend to agree.
Hmm, so I guess if Axanar did something like that we could maybe get a full movie, huh? *wishful-thinkin*
Hey, “wishful thinkin'” got me through maybe a final exam back at Cornell! 🙂
Derelict is a 5 minute short film.
Around here, we call that a “quickie.” 🙂
(No, we actually don’t do that. It’s a short film, folks. Move along.)