Author: Jonathan Lane

AKIRA YOSHIMURA reprises his role as SULU on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE…41 years later!

Does a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE sketch count as a Star Trek fan film?  Aw, who cares?  This is still a really fun story…

The earth date was May 29, 1976, and Saturday Night Live (SNL) was about to air the 22nd episode of their first season.  The cutting-edge sketch comedy series had become a late night TV hit, and Elliott Gould was the host for that week’s show.  The writers had come up with a clever skit (that has since become a true classic) entitled Star Trek: The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise.  The legendary JOHN BELUSHI played an over-the-top, Shatneresque Captain James T. Kirk.  CHEVY CHASE played a perfectly deadpan Mr. Spock.  And the awesome DAN AYKROYD played both Dr. McCoy and provided a voice-over of Scotty on the com from Engineering.

During the skit, the Enterprise is chased by a 1968 Chrysler Imperial with a tinted windshield, registered to a 20th century corporation known as “NBC” (which, according to the ship’s computer, used to manufacture cookies).  The starship is boarded by Elliott Gould and Garrett Morris, two executives from the network announcing that Star Trek has been canceled due to low Nielsen ratings.  Hilarity ensues…mostly thanks to the brilliant performances of the main actors.

DORIS POWELL as Uhura, CHEVY CHASE as Spock, John BELUSHI as Kirk, and AKIRA YOSHIMURA as Sulu.

There was only one problem at the time: SNL didn’t have an Asian comedian or actor available to play Sulu.  Rather than leave the helm seat empty (which wouldn’t work anyway, as Kirk orders evasive action during the sketch), the producers grabbed one of the production designers, a Japanese-American named AKIRA YOSHIMURA, to play Sulu.  There also wasn’t a black woman available to play Uhura, so a production assistant named DORIS POWELL was put into a red uniform (with the wrong rank braids).  Both people were given a bit of of dialog to speak, although Yoshimura got nearly a dozen lines (and flubbed two of them)…but hey, at least he was willing to be on camera in front of millions of people!

Flash forward to May 6 of 2017.  Actor CHRIS PINE (who plays James T. Kirk in the rebooted Star Trek movie series) was the SNL host, and the writers decided to once again feature a Star Trek skit.  There was only one problem: it was four decades later and Saturday Night Live STILL didn’t have an Asian comedian or actor available to play Sulu!

Continue reading “AKIRA YOSHIMURA reprises his role as SULU on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE…41 years later!”

FAN FILM GUIDELINES: Reality Check (Part 7) – Eating the Elephant!

In the previous entry of this blog series, I shared my thoughts on how to proceed with the SMALL ACCESS protest campaign.  I created the Small Access Facebook-based group to try to put pressure on CBS and Paramount to revise some or all of the fan film guidelines by having our members pledge to watch the new Star Trek: Discovery TV series on All Access only in groups (with a single designated subscriber hosting viewing parties) rather than subscribing as individuals.  This would be a potential revenue hit to CBS and a way to (hopefully) get them to take notice of our protest.

Our first attempt at convincing the studios to revise the guidelines culminated in a letter-writing campaign that met with no discernible success.  One of the challenges we faced—along with our unfortunately small size—was the fact that CBS and Paramount worked very hard writing these guidelines.  The people involved had to get approvals and sign-offs from numerous stakeholders at higher levels.  And so, convincing the studio executives to make significant changes to the guidelines now requires them to go back through that same time-consuming review and approval process.  And spoiler alert: it also means they have to explain to their bosses that they screwed up writing the guidelines in the first place!  To be honest (and realistic), I doubt that 1,300 irate Trekkies are going to be much of an incentive to get them to do that.

So I realized, sadly, that a wide-ranging change to all or even most of the guidelines wasn’t a realistic goal.  It was just too much of an uphill climb, no matter how passionately some might feel about the righteousness of our “noble” cause.  To the studios, the guidelines are now written in stone….and it’s a BIG stone…elephant-sized, in fact!

But it’s said that if you want to eat an entire elephant, you need to do it one bite at a time.  Could this be a viable strategy with the guidelines?  Could we start with just one bite and work our way forward from there…?

Continue reading “FAN FILM GUIDELINES: Reality Check (Part 7) – Eating the Elephant!”

AXANAR SETS get a CORPORATE SPONSOR… and a NAME for their NEW STUDIO!!!

ALEC PETERS has just announced that his new studio in Lawrenceville, GA now has a corporate sponsor that has purchased naming rights.  So allow me to introduce… OWC STUDIOS!!!

For anyone who listened to Axanar Podcast #41 last December, you’re already aware that OWC Digital (OWC stands for Other World Computing) is Axanar‘s second largest single contributor (behind Alec Peters himself), having donated well over $20,000 in computer hardware and software for director/editor Robert Meyer Burnett to store all the digital footage and edit it.  Their equipment was already used to edit Prelude to Axanar and the Vulcan scene.

To give you an idea of how large high-quality digital video files can be, most of us can go to Best Buy and purchase a consumer hard drive with up to four terabytes (a terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes).  Axanar was given a drive with 64 terabytes…and it’s already half-full!

And when you’re dealing with files that are so large, it’s not enough to simply have a big hard drive; you need software to make sure it can access and edit those files quickly and smoothly without crashing or taking seven hours to open a file.  Those are the kinds of solutions that OWC Digital provides for Hollywood production companies and others in related industries.

OWC Digital is a privately-held company with offices in Woodstock, IL (just northwest of Chicago) and Austin, TX.  According to figures I was able to find on the Internet, in 2011, they had sales revenue of $88.3 million with 137 employees.  The company was on the Inc. magazine 5000 “Fastest-Growing Privately Owned Companies” and “Computer and Electronics Top 100” lists from 2007 through 2013.

The founder and CEO of the company is Larry O’Connor, who is a big fan of the Axanar project.  Back in 1988, at age 14, Larry started up LRO Enterprises selling computer memory chips via America Online.  In 1994, the company had grown to fill 6,500 square feet of office space and was renamed Other World Computing (OWC).  By 2008, OWC had grown to fill a 37,000 square foot space and, a year later, had installed a wind turbine that generated twice the electricity that OWC needed to run their facility…making OWC the first technology manufacturer/ distributor in the U.S. to become totally on-site wind powered.  Pretty cool, huh?

So now OWC has partnered up with Alec Peters and his new production company Rocketworx to sponsor a studio just outside of Atlanta dedicated to producing fan film and independent sci-fi projects.  This is the press release that I just received announcing the deal…

Continue reading “AXANAR SETS get a CORPORATE SPONSOR… and a NAME for their NEW STUDIO!!!”

AXANAR sets arrive in GEORGIA!

The Ares has landed.

On Saturday, nearly THIRTY(!!!) volunteers showed up at the new location for AXANAR PRODUCTIONS in Lawrenceville, GA to help unload three super-sized moving trucks carrying the amazing sets that were originally constructed to be used in the full-length Axanar fan film.  And even though that full-length film has been reduced in scope to two 15-minute episodes (agreed to in the legal settlement) and will now be produced in mocumentary style like Prelude to Axanar, those sets are still VERY nice and VERY usable by other fan films and sci-fi productions.  And so they’ve now been moved to a much less expensive location from their previous home at Industry Studios in Valencia, CA.

ALEC PETERS posted two live video segments to Facebook on Saturday, which I’ve compiled at the end of this blog entry for anyone who is curious to see what the move-in looked like.    He also provided some interesting tidbits of information.  And if you don’t feel like watching a 9-minute video, here’s a short summary of what he covered…

Continue reading “AXANAR sets arrive in GEORGIA!”

What is…THE CIRCUIT? An audio interview with MANU INTIRAYMI

What is THE CIRCUIT…and why are fans so excited by it that the project’s Kickstarter campaign surpassed its initial $50,000 in just ONE WEEK???  (They’re now up to $64,000!)

Is it a fan film?  Kinda.  Is it a professional independent film?  Well, yeah, it’s that, too.

Is it Star Trek?  No.  But on the other hand, just take a look at this cast…

  • Walter “Chekov” Koenig (Star Trek)
  • Terry “Jadzia Dax” Farrell (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
  • Robert “Chakotay” Beltran (Star Trek: Voyager)
  • Armin “Quark” Shimerman (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
  • Robert “EMH” Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager)
  • Ethan “Neelix” Phillips (Star Trek: Voyager)
  • JG “General Martok” Hertzler (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)               
  • Robert “Gowron” O’Reilly (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
  • Hana “Molly O’Brien” Hatae (Star Trek: TNG/DS9)
  • Tim “Tuvok” Russ (Star Trek: Voyager)
  • Doug “Lt. Saru” Jones (Star Trek: Discovery, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth)
  • Manu “Icheb” Intiraymi (Star Trek: Voyager)

But wait!  There’s more…

  • Ryan Eggold (The Black List, The Black List: Redemption)
  • Sylvester McCoy (The Hobbit, Doctor Who)
  • Gigi Edgley (Farscape, Rescue Special Ops)
  • Miltos Yerolemou (Game of Thrones, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
  • Valerie Leslie (The Paranormal Hour, 5th Passenger)
  • Corin Nemec (Stargate SG-1)
  • Rob Archer (Lost Girl, Pixels, Kick Ass 2)
  • Jai Koutrae (Death’s Requiem)
  • Mindy Robinson (V/H/S/2)
  • Olivia D’abo (The Wonder Years, Conan The Destroyer)
  • Cody Saintgnue (MTV’s Teen Wolf)

Interested yet?  Well, guess what?  YOU might even be able to work on this project!  Yes, YOU, Mr. or Ms. Fan! And it isn’t even just one fan film; it’s TEN—all linked together in…The Circuit!

But what is…The Circuit??  (Didn’t I already write that?)

I recently sat down with MANU INTIRAYMI (the actor who played the Borg teenager Icheb on Star Trek: Voyager) for one of Fan Film Factor’s first-ever audio interviews.  And I asked him to help fill in the mystery of what is……The Circuit???  So let’s find out the ANSWER…

MANU INTIRAYMI as Icheb on STAR TREK: VOYAGER (left) and today.

To learn more or to donate, click here.

2017 Independent Star Trek Film Awards (now the “BJO’s”) WINNERS ANNOUNCED!


Hollywood has the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Golden Globes.  Now Star Trek fan films have the Bjos!

Last year at the TREKLANTA Star Trek Convention, the second annual INDEPENDENT STAR TREK FAN FILM AWARDS were presented by none other than BJO TRIMBLE and her husband JOHN TRIMBLE.  As most fans know, Bjo Trimble is celebrated as being the woman who saved Star Trek from cancellation in 1968 by organizing the great letter-writing campaign (among other achievements).  She told Treklanta organizer ERIC L. WATTS how impressed she was with the entire awards program.

After the ceremony, Eric asked Bjo if she would endorse the awards by allowing them to be named in her honor, and she humbly agreed.  So now we get to save a bit of time and typing and just call them “The Bjo’s.”

The 2017 Bjos were presented at and by the Treklanta Star Trek Convention last Sunday in Atlanta, Georgia. The panel of judges included Diana Dru Botsford, Keith R. A. DeCandido, John DeSentis, Matthew M. Foster, Andrew Greenberg, Robert Greenberger, Cheralyn Lambeth and Archie H. Waugh.  Each judge had to watch through a combined total of nearly TWELVE HOURS of 33 different Star Trek fan films and rank them in twelve different categories!

The Masters of Ceremonies were Eric L. Watts and Brian Holloway. The presenters included David Gerrold, Gary Graham, J. G. Hertzler and James Horan. The award plaques were sponsored by Lawrence L. Fleming.

All of the entrants for the 2017 awards needed to have been released to the public during calendar year 2016.  For a full list of rules, entrants, and winners from previous years, click here.

Eric posted this 15-minute video to announce the winners…along with photos of all of the judges and a full list of film entrants selected for review.  But if you’d prefer a quick text summary of just the winners, here it is after some spoiler space…

Continue reading “2017 Independent Star Trek Film Awards (now the “BJO’s”) WINNERS ANNOUNCED!”

BLADE OF HONOR launches their NEW INDIEGOGO with a touching tribute to the late RICHARD HATCH… (I cried.)

Damn, I miss RICHARD HATCH.

For most sci-fi fans, he will always be Captain Apollo from Battlestar Galactica…and possibly even Tom Zarek from the new Battlestar Galactica.  For followers of fan films, Richard Hatch will be remembered for the intensity of his performance as the Klingon Commander Kharn in Prelude to Axanar.  But soon fans will be able to see Richard Hatch’s final performance in front of the camera, filmed a mere five weeks before his tragic and untimely death from pancreatic cancer.

I first featured BLADE OF HONOR here on Fan Film Factor nearly a year ago in a 3-part interview with RYAN T. HUSK, the Executive Producer of this independent fan series.  No, it’s not a Star Trek fan film, but it does feature Tim “Tuvok” Russ and Aron “Nog” Eisenberg plus a number of other actors, producers, and VFX luminaries from such Trek fan productions as Renegades, Horizon, Axanar, and New Voyages.  So yeah, I still consider Blade of Honor appropriate to cover here on Fan Film Factor.

In their first Kickstarter last summer, they set a goal of $30,000 and managed to raise more than $51,000.  This allowed them to film their pilot episode and to do a fair amount of editing and sound engineering.  But they need a bit more funding to complete post-production with:

  • Space Battles, starships, spacescapes, etc..
  • Special effects, airbending, landscapes, etc.
  • Green screen composition
  • Music and scoring
  • Sound effects and foley
  • More editing
  • Color Correction

This time, they are using Indiegogo with a goal of $28,000.  Pre-launch outreach to previous donors (like me!) has already brought them nearly 20% of the way to their goal with a full month left.  If you want to make a donation yourself or learn more about the production, please click here.

And if you’re wondering whether or not you should donate to help complete this production—Richard Hatch’s final cinematic performance—and turn it into the best independent film it can possibly be, please watch this touching tribute to Richard by the cast who were the last actors to ever work with him…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdjcDuyoL4c

This final funding effort will push Blade of Honor into a different stratosphere, and really allow us to make the final product huge, jaw-dropping, and something we can all be proud of.

FAN FILM FOLLIES looking for CONTRIBUTORS and PARTNERS

Well, it turns out I’m not the first or the only fan film blog site to have a name that abbreviates to FFF!  Recently, I was contacted by fellow blogger CHRISTOPHER MOSHIER asking if I wanted to collaborate in some way to synergize our two blog sites.

It was an intriguing idea, although I pretty much only have time to focus on Star Trek fan films here on Fan Film FACTOR, while Christopher’s Fan Film FOLLIES covers all genres of fan films—including Star Wars, superhero, fantasy, Indiana Jones, James Bond, and a host of others.

We’re not sure yet how we might work together in the future, but opportunities abound.  For now, though, Christopher has placed a graphic referral link to Fan Film Factor along his “Related Sites” sidebar and is featuring my blog site in his news links.  And since I don’t have that kind of cool stuff on my modern-stone-age WordPress blog site, I have offered instead to post Christopher’s recent blog post requesting contributors and partners for his blog site.

Christopher isn’t simply looking to publish other people’s content from other blog sites.  He’s interested in building up a team of like-minded fan film fanatics and followers who want to be part of a blog site to explore and promote the entire world of fan films of all genres.

And with that, I will hand the microphone over to Christopher Moshier…

Continue reading “FAN FILM FOLLIES looking for CONTRIBUTORS and PARTNERS”

J.G. HERTZLER discusses AXANAR and ALEC PETERS!

Well, it’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks for news about AXANAR, as literally every other blog entry I’ve posted over the past 12 days has involved that particular fan production in some way.  So heck, let’s keep the momentum going for one more day!

But seriously, folks, there’s an interesting bit of news about Axanar coming from Atlanta…but NOT from the new studio in Lawrenceville.  Instead, it happened during a panel yesterday at Treklanta, a small but well-attended annual Star Trek convention in the Atlanta area.  And the panel featured J.G. Hertzler, who famously played General Martok on Deep Space Nine (along with a few other Trek roles).  But his most recent Trek-related appearance came playing the character of Samuel Travis in the fan film Prelude to Axanar.

After Tony Todd’s public announcement that he had chosen to part ways with Axanar and not appear in the feature fan film after his mesmerizing performance as Admiral Marcus Ramirez in Prelude to Axanar, some were wondering if any of the cast and crew would be sticking with ALEC PETERS to continue their participation.  The late RICHARD HATCH was always very supportive of the project and of Alec himself, but with Richard’s recent passing, fans wondered if any of the former cast members would be making a return for the 2-part sequel allowed by the settlement.

Now, I knew that J.G. Hertzler and Gary Graham were both interested in reprising their roles, as I spoke with both last summer in Las Vegas.  But I’m just one blogger-guy, and those weren’t on-the-record interviews, just casual conversations at their tables in the autograph room.

But now, we’ve got the first public indication that at least one of those actors is still very much supportive of both the project and of Alec Peters himself.  Yesterday, J.G. Hertzler took time during his panel discussion to specifically address this beleaguered fan film…

Hoist with his own PICARD? (editorial)

Earlier this week, someone played a practical joke on CARLOS PEDRAZA of axamonitor.com.  Many think it was ALEC PETERS or perhaps one of his associates (not me, people!), although it’s looking like a “he said/she said” situation.

In short, here’s what we know happened…

Axanar Productions is moving to a new studio in Atlanta.  Carlos Pedraza, for some reason, was pushing hard for any information he could find out about the new facility.  I was sent screen captures of the following two Facebook posts from Carlos, although there may have been more…

I’m not sure why it was so crucial for Carlos to get information about the new studio, but that’s not really important.  What is important is that, apparently, he found a “mole” willing to funnel him information from Alec Peters (despite Alec’s request to volunteers not to share information yet about the new facility).

I’ve since been told by a few detractors in comments posted to Fan Film Factor that the name of this mole is Brian Hartsfield, and on Wednesday at 1:46PM, he received an e-mail (allegedly) from Alec Peters saying the following…

Continue reading “Hoist with his own PICARD? (editorial)”