Crowd-Funding Blogs – Page 3

Neutral Zone’s THE TEST OF TIME Indiegogo launches…offering over 20 TOS UNIFORMS for donors!

These days, it’ll cost you $50-100 just to get a decent TOS tunic from the Internet. But now you can get one (with chest patch and rank braids included…any size) and feel good about donating to the latest crowd-funder from NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS—all for as little as $150.

Or if you don’t have that kind of cash available, maybe you’d like a T-shirt for $75…or maybe a set of TOS data disks and console button replicas. Still too much? $25 gets you two digital prints and a 1080p digital download of the final film. And heck, even $10 gets you your name in the credits! (Actually, any donation of $10 or more gets your name into the credits.)

Here’s the link to the campaign…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-test-of-time-a-star-trek-fan-film-production

Neutral Zone Studios scored a major hit on April 5 of this year with the release of the TOS-era fan film DOOMSDAY, which is currently nearing 90K views on YouTube after just two months. That production was directed by JOSHUA IRWIN (of AVALON UNIVERSE fame, who will be launching an Avalon crowd-funder of his own in a few weeks) and looked amazing! Josh has returned for this new fan film, THE TEST OF TIME, as director of photography, so you can be certain it will look just as good.

Actually, a majority of this new project has already been filmed, with some pick-up shots still needing to be filmed. Most of the work remaining is VFX by the Q of the CGI Continuum, the omnipotent SAMUEL COCKINGS, who will be rendering starships from multiple centuries plus incorporating green screen actor footage against a modified virtual background inspired by the U.S.S. Stargazer from season two of STAR TREK: PICARD…

Plus there’s post-production editing, music, and sound still to do. Indeed, the funds raised from the current Indiegogo will be going to a mix of covering the upcoming post-production costs as well as offsetting expenses that were already paid upfront by showrunner and Neutral Zone Studios owner RAY TESI, who uses his own money to pay most of the rent on the studio.

The $6,000 goal of the campaign isn’t particularly ambitious, and already five donors (including me) have taken the total up to 19% of the money needed. Granted, four of those TOS tunics are now gone, but nearly twenty still remain for the fleet of finger!

Meanwhile, speaking of Ray Tesi, I asked him why he’s willing to risk his own money shooting The Test of Time BEFORE successfully crowd-funding it? After all, if they fall short of their goal, Ray’s on the hook for potentially thousands of dollars.

“I believe in the fans, and I believe in what we’re doing,” he answered. “Star Trek enables creative people to express themselves, to tel their stories. And that’s how I feel…that we have become a benefit to the fan film community. Right now, I’m confident that our fans and supporters will come through for us.”

And again, if you’d like to be one of those supporters, here’s the link to donate…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-test-of-time-a-star-trek-fan-film-production

STALLED TREK is crowd-funding its third TOS puppet parody: “THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE”! (interview with MARK LARGENT)

Back in 2012, one of the earliest Kickstarters for a Star Trek fan film set a goal of $600 and raised $2,200 from over a 100 backers. The result, a hilarious animated puppet parody of the TOS episode “Amok Time,” premiered later that same year. Showrunner and animator MARK LARGENT originally intended that STALLED TREK: “AMUTT TIME” would be a one-off fan production…especially considering all of the work and computer rendering hours required to complete it.

But Mark’s CGI puppets weren’t quite finished yet!

In 2016, during the early days of the AXANAR lawsuit, I was interviewing Mark about “Amutt Time,” we got to talking, and we ended up co-writing and co-producing a hysterical puppet parody called PRELUDE TO AX’D-WE-ARE. Although it didn’t feature any of the zany Kirk/Spock/McCoy/etc. characters, it was still branded as Stalled Trek.

Two years later in 2018, Mark decided that it was time to go back to the TOS roots of Stalled Trek and parody a second classic episode. STALLED TREK: “THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FORECLOSURE” launched a Kickstarter with a humble goal of just $600 and blew past it in just 8 hours! By the time that campaign ended, Mark had generated $4,181 from 114 backers. But shortly thereafter, Mark discovered that the 3D application he’d been using to animate Stalled Trek would no longer be supporting or updating the application on the Macintosh platform, and Mark didn’t have the money to switch to a Windows PC. Instead, he switched programs and started from scratch with Blender 3D.

The following year, as a proof of concept, Mark released the short vignette, ALL AHEAD FULL, in June of 2019, which was—as usual—brilliantly funny. And in the meantime, work continued on “City…”

Close to the finish line, Mark held an additional Indiegogo campaign at the end of 2020/beginning of 2021 that raised another $3,785 from 54 backers for “City…” offering DVDs/Blu-rays plus a high-quality 48-page “flip” comic styled after the old Star Trek “fotonovels” from the 1970s—one side adapting “Amutt Time” and the upside down side adapting City…”

And before anyone starts yelling about selling unlicensed Star Trek merchandise, Stalled Trek is unquestionably a PARODY and is—unlike most non-parody fan films—directly protected under the Fair Use doctrine.

“City…” was finally completed and mailed to donors on a blu-ray in June 2021. Since then, this humble fan film has gone on to win a ton of awards…

Indie Short Fest
IndieX Film Fest
Azure Lorica Fan Film Awards
LA Sci-Fi & Horror Festival (2 awards)
New York International Film Awards
Grand Rapids Comic-Con Film Festival
MonsterFlix Awards
Oniros Film Awards
Cult Movies International Film Festival
Independent Shorts Awards
RED Movie Awards
Berlin Sci-Fi Filmfest

Plus it was a finalist in The Galactic Imaginarium Film Festival and the Beyond the Curve International Film Festival.

So where can you see this marvel on YouTube? At present, you can’t. But Mark is once again making “City…” available on DVD along with “Amutt Time” and a BRAND NEW puppet parody, STALLED TREK: “THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE.” Here’s a trailer for it…

FARRAGUT FORWARD blasts past $30K goal, adds two new STRETCH GOALS!

Earlier this week, the folks at FARRAGUT FORWARD did what seemed almost inconceivable to many just two short months ago: reach and surpass a $30K crowdfunding goal on Indiegogo!

Since the publication of the fan film guidelines in June of 2016, no Star Trek fan film (with one unusual exception) has surpassed $25K in crowd-funding (not counting the DS9 and Voyager documentaries, of course). And indeed, after their first four weeks, Farragut Forward‘s campaign was struggling just to get over $3K…only 10% of the way there. And this despite releasing this really amazing PROLOGUE trailer right before the start of the campaign…

But showrunners JOHN BROUGHTON and JOHNNY K. weren’t worried. Instead, they redoubled their efforts to create content and released behind-the-scenes features, interviews, and videos almost daily (sometimes even more frequently!). And while doing all this online publicity and marketing, they also reached out directly to several people they hoped would become significant backers.

“I wish I’d filmed more of all the work that happens behind the scenes during a funding campaign,” says Johnny K., the director of Farragut Forward‘s premiere fan film and the owner of KAOTICA STUDIOS, the company producing the project. “All the planning, the coordination, the late-night production meetings after full days of work…you never see how much work goes into these things until you live it. These are passion projects, and they’re not easy. I’m so happy we are funded and get to see this project come to fruition.”

Now, with just 3 days left in the campaign, and with donations having reached an amazing $33,541, John and Johnny have added not just one but two exciting stretch goals!

If they manage to hit $37K by this Sunday’s deadline, they will build the full movie-era Klingon Bird-of-Prey bridge set. And beyond that, if they reach $40K by the end of this weekend, they will also build the transporter room and full corridor set!

How did they manage to reach this incredible crowd-funding milestone? As I said, they courted some big donors. Seven backers gave $1,000 contributions while three others gave $5,000 each! But the other $11,500 has come in from more than 125 different backers with donations ranging from less than $10 all the way up to $500. And indeed, as the total began to edge closer to the goal last week, a number of folks doubled down to get FF across the finish line.

“I couldn’t be more excited about what we’re about to do,” adds Johnny K. “Huge thanks to everyone who has supported this project and helped us reach our goal!”

And now, with just a few days left, FF is within $3.5K of being able to construct a full Bird-of-Prey bridge. Can they make it? And how about a transporter room and corridor, too? If you’d like to help them make fan film history, click on the link below…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-forward-a-star-trek-fan-production#/

With two and a half weeks remaining, the FARRAGUT FORWARD Indiegogo passes $15,000!

On the one hand, $15K is only halfway to the $30K goal of the current Indiegogo campaign for FARRAGUT FORWARD, the movie-era sequel to the long-running fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT. And with only 17 days left, that means they’ve got just about 25% of the time left to get the remaining half.

On the other hand, few Star Trek fan films have managed to get even as far as $15K since the publication of the fan film guidelines back in June of 2016. And they also spent their first four weeks struggling to get over $3K. So really, they’ve taken in nearly $12K in donations in just the past three and a half weeks…and that is VERY impressive!

One of their donors gave $5K, and three others threw in $1K each…which certainly helps! They’ve also had three $500 donors and eight $200 donors. So that’s $11K right there from just 15 donors. The other 70-or-so backers have given at levels ranging from $5 or $10 up to $150.

So how are they managing to generate so much enthusiasm and support so quickly? Things started rolling after they had a table at the annual FARPOINT Convention near Baltimore, MD at the end of February. And since then, showrunner (and lead actor) JOHN BROUGHTON and director JOHNNY K. have been on a tear releasing engaging behind the scenes content! One of their most exciting offerings so far has been this new video released last week:

But there have been a dozen other, almost daily (sometimes twice daily!) updates posted to this page on their Indiegogo campaign in the last twelve days…some of them rather elaborate and filled with images from pre-production like in-depth looks into building the practical ship models that will be used for the visual FX…

Sneak peeks at the Klingon make-up and costuming…

Updates on early set construction and those awesome monster maroon uniforms…

Plus there are cast spotlights, links to podcast interviews (they’ve been doing a lot of those), and the announcement that the Grand Chieftain of CGI, SAMUEL COCKINGS, has joined the team to provide digital VFX to augment their practical model effects.

And of course, this is the point in the blog where I provide a link to the Indiegogo campaign and ask you to please help support this project if you can because it looks so amazing. Also, it would be totally awesome if a fan film could once again raise $30K—almost like the good ol’ days!

Here’s the link…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-forward-a-star-trek-fan-production#

At the halfway point, FARRAGUT FORWARD Indiegogo is 40% of the way to its $30K goal!

Since the announcement of the guidelines back in 2016, few Star Trek fan films have managed to crowd-fund into the five-figures. Of those, only INTERLUDE, THE ROMULAN WAR (Part 1 and Part 2 combined), and the still-not-completed TEARS OF J’KAH have managed to exceed $25K. Interlude just barely made it, although the last couple of thousand were a late add-on to replace PAUL JENKINS’ damaged green screen. The Romulan War probably shouldn’t count because it was actually TWO fan films, although they combined to reach just under $30K. And finally, Tears of J’Kah was funded to $49K, but that was from only 13 backers, most of them wealthy Hollywood connections that showrunner BENNY HALL asked for donations from.

And then there’s FARRAGUT FORWARD.

Last month when they launched their Indiegogo campaign, showrunners JOHN BROUGHTON and JOHNNY K. explained in a video interview why their goal was set at $30K. They’re planning on building screen-accurate Star Trek movie-era sets, based on those that became the U.S.S. Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Considering that Farragut Films had built most of the meticulously-crafted TOS sets that were used for STARSHIP FARRAGUT, STAR TREK CONTINUES, and now are NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA, one expects the Farragut Forward sets to also look amazing.

And speaking of looking amazing, their “monster maroon” uniforms are studio quality (maybe even better!), as are their Klingon uniforms, and can cost up to one thousand dollars apiece…and the Farragut folks are planning to make about two dozen of them! And that’s how you get to $30K (not to mention make-up, props, food…and other production expenses).

Even so, $30K is a LOT of money to generate in a post-guidelines world with global inflation and rising fuel prices also becoming an issue of late. And of course, back in 2015, there was no new Star Trek on television, so fan films were all we had. Nowadays, fan films are “competing” with five different weekly TV series from CBS/Paramount. And even before the guidelines, Starship Farragut‘s last campaign back in late 2015 reached its goal $15K but didn’t get much further ($15,787). Can they really DOUBLE that in today’s crowd-funding environment?

To be certain, they started off frustratingly slowly, languishing in the low four-figure range for the first four weeks. But that all changed this past weekend. John B. and Johnny K. had a table at the long-running FARPOINT convention in Hunt Valley, MD along with a presentation of their “PROLOGUE” vignette, which is a must-see…

The above video along with the promised return of Farragut got folks at the con VERY excited, and thousands of dollars in on-site donations came in by Sunday evening. And then on Wednesday, they received their first donation at the $5K level. Other smaller donations have followed, and they are over $12K…which is 40% of the way to their goal!

John Broughton remains extremely optimistic. In a Facebook post earlier today, he said the following…

FARRAGUT FORWARD finally funding ferociously formidable fan film! (video interview with JOHN BROUGHTON and JOHNNY K.)

Back in 2016, after a decade of producing an impressive parade of both live-action and animated Star Trek fan films, the team at STARSHIP FARRAGUT began production on the series finale “Homecoming.” But the bittersweet ending to this celebrated fan series was much more sweet than bitter because, at the same time, they announced plans to begin production on a new project that would take the crew forward into the Star Trek movie era…complete with monster maroon uniforms and brand new sets! (You can read the full history of Starship Farragut starting here.)

Farragut Films had already distinguished itself as capable of building jaw-dropping TOS set recreations, having constructed most of the Constitution-class heavy cruiser sets that are currently housed in Kingsland, GA, sets that have also been used for the fan series STAR TREK CONTINUES, DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, AVALON UNIVERSE, TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE, CONSTAR CHRONICLES, and many others. Imagine what these guys could do with movie-era sets!

But then, shortly after the announcement of the fan film guidelines in June of 2016, Farragut showrunner and lead actor JOHN BROUGHTON all but disappeared from the fan film community, and the series finale remained uncompleted and unreleased. As for Farragut Forward, an announcement was made that the planned series was being tabled.

Then everything changed on a dime. In the span of just two months last year, an announcement came in August that Farragut Forward was now officially in pre-production, and in October “Homecoming” was finally released! Fans were really excited at both developments but especially that the new movie-era fan film would be produced…and not just by any ol’ director. John Broughton had teamed with KAOTICA STUDIOS in the Washington, DC area, and specifically with director JOHNNY K. (he likes to use just his last initial professionally), whose camera and lighting skills are truly impressive. In fact, his debut independent film, The Killer of Grassy Ridge, has since earned a dozen different awards in film festivals around the world.

Johnny K. has brought that same finesse to the new Farragut Forward project, and John B. has brought along props, a couple of new Klingon bird-of-prey sets, and the spiffiest monster maroon uniform you will ever see in a fan film (and probably even in studio-produced Star Trek!). Don’t believe me? Well, you can see for yourself, as they have already released the opening three minutes of the project in a vignette titled PROLOGUE…

Of course, there’s a LOT more sets to build and costumes to craft (by hand!)—plus all of the other costs of production like equipment, studio space, food, make-up supplies, etc. And all that stuff doesn’t exactly come free. So Farragut Forward has launched a brand new, 60-day Indiegogo campaign trying to reach an ambitious goal of $30K!

‘Tis the season for GIVING…to FAN FILMS!

When folks come to me for advice on crowd-funding their fan projects, I always tell them the same thing: DON’T LAUNCH YOUR CAMPAIGN DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON!!! Ever since 2015, I’ve noticed that fan film crowd-funders that try to raise donations in November and December often struggle to reach their goals or even fail outright. The holiday season seems to be a “donation desert” for fan films.

It makes total sense. Nearly everyone is buying Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanza or Festivus) gifts for friends and family. And before COVID, people used to take expensive vacations during the holidays to visit family or just get away—remember when that used to happen? Charities, of course, usually choose this time to appeal to that ol’ spirit of giving and approach (hopefully) generous donors to give a little sumthin’. And soon Christmas bonus checks are spent before they even get cashed, and bank account balances do their impression of the Titanic.

I get that…not the time for fan films to ask for money.

But this past Monday, I received a bunch of e-mails from various places informing me that “Giving Tuesday” was here. So now we apparently have Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and…Giving Tuesday? When did that become a thing? Actually it started in 2012 at New York City’s famous 92rd Street Y (where I went to summer camp back in 1981) and has grown into an international movement to encourage a little healthy philanthropy among the manic bargain-hunting.

I wasn’t able to write a blog in time for this year’s Giving Tuesday because I just had cataract surgery early this week, and it took away my ability to see the text on my computer screen for a couple of days. Today is the first day I’ve got reliable sight back enough to compose a blog.

I’d actually been meaning to post something reminding folks about the ongoing Fan Film Factor Patreon to cover my annual expenses for keeping this blog site running. Currently, I’m taking in enough in monthly donations to cover the costs of domain registration and hosting, technical support, and security services.

But last month, I added a new annual expense: a $160/year Pro Account for Zoom. You might have noticed that I’ve been doing more video interviews with fan filmmakers lately. Zoom is an easy way to reach multiple people and record the interview calls. And Zoom is free as long as your call is less than 45 minutes or has only one other person on it. But my interviews go 60-90 minutes, and I often have multiple people on at the same time.

So with “Giving Tuesday” happening, even though we’re in the middle of the “fan film donation desert,” as I call it, I thought this might be a good time to post a little reminder about my Patreon…

I’m looking for monthly contributions of $1, $2, whatever folks can spare to help cover the annual expenses of Fan Film Factor…

PATREON link: https://www.patreon.com/fan_film_factor

“STAR TREK IS REAL” and so is PIXI NEREID…real AWESOME, that is! (video interview with PIXI)

Finally! I get a chance to interview PIXI NEREID and share it with all of you…and it’s a really FANtastic interview.

Last week, I was supposed to interview Pixi along with AVALON UNIVERSE showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN and angel-supporter RAY MYERS, who donated $3,000 to their current GoFundMe campaign as a match for $3,000 in fan donations that came in last week. The Zoom call interview was supposed to accompany the released of Pixi’s new Avalon Universe music video STAR TREK IS REAL (edited by Josh), which debuted last Friday. You can watch it below…

Catchy, ain’t it? Yeah, you’re gonna be hearing that song in your head for hours!

Pixi (whose real name is Ilia McNeil—“Pixi Nereid” is her stage name when she’s appearing at children’s birthday parties as a mermaid…and yes, that’s a thing) is a very busy woman, teaching high school, working on a Masters degree, teaching improv classes, and of course, the mermaid gig…all while starring in the next major Avalon fan film release AGENT OF NEW WORLDS (coming out October 31) and serving as producer on the fan series.

Unfortunately, Pixi’s schedule unexpectedly exploded just before our Zoom call was supposed to start, and she felt so sorry that she had to bail at the last second. However, Josh was able to get Avalon actor TYLER DUNIVAN to fill in for Pixi, and we still managed to have a great interview discussion with the three of them (Josh, Ray, and Tyler). You can watch it here, if you’d like.

Speaking of Tyler, Josh released this fun “Shatneresque” interpretation of Star Trek Is Real sung by lounge lizard Tyler and his vape pen (hey, at least it wasn’t an actual cigarette like Shatner smoked on Rocket Man). Have a look…

But I was still determined to interview Pixi…mainly because she is just so darn awesome! I know this because I’ve gotten to be friendly with her since she “drafted” me onto Team Avalon to help guide their crowd-funding efforts. It’s tough to say no to Pixi—even if you’re NOT looking at that irresistible smile! Anyway, I kept hounding Pixi for that interview, and I finally got it on Saturday afternoon.

It’s hard to say why, but sometimes an interview just fires on all cylinders. This is not to disparage the interviews I’ve done with other fan filmmakers, but when you watch the recorded Zoom call below, you’ll see what I mean. Pixi herself is fascinating to learn about, full of surprises that I never even imagined! We learn about her theater, acting, and dance background, musical albums she’s released, and her oh-so-positive way to deal with her critics (not that there are many!).

Pixi also managed to draw out of me an unexpected 15-minute detour into my own background experiences with film production—which include some photos of when I stuck onto the sets of Star Trek: Voyager in 1996! Pixi and I just have a wonderful back-and-fourth, and I think you’ll find her enthusiasm to to be absolutely infectious…

And remember that you can still donate to their campaign here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

“STAR TREK IS REAL” – the next AVALON UNIVERSE song that will get stuck in your head (video interview JOSHUA IRWIN, TYLER DUNIVAN, and RAY MYERS)

On Monday of this past week, showrunner JOSH IRWIN and the folks in the AVALON UNIVERSE got the song “It’s in the Way that You Use It” by ERIC CLAPTON stuck in our heads when they released this hilarious blooper-filled video announcing the kick-off of their donor-dollar-matching promotion week. However, the “week” ended up lasting only two and a half days, as that was all the time it took for fans to donate a whopping $3,000 to their GoFundMe campaign, the maximum that angel-supporter RAY MYERS had offered to match. That brought the total raised so far up over $11,500!

The campaign goes on, by the way, as it still has about $8,100 (40%) to go to reach its overall goal of $20,000. You can donate here…

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

After seeing the announcement video, Avalon supporters requested a longer blooper reel, and Josh obliged on Wednesday when he posted this expanded video filled with even more bloopers and outtakes. Once again, fans got a healthy dose of Eric Clapton’s hit from 1986 (and later from Rick & Morty‘s fourth season).

On Friday, Avalon released yet another new video, but this one isn’t a blooper reel. Instead, it’s a full-fledged MUSIC VIDEO, shot on the TOS sets at WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas. However, you’re STILL going to come out of watching it humming a song for the rest of the day!

In this case, the song is “Star Trek Is Real,” written and performed by Avalon star and producer (and part-time mermaid) PIXI NEREID. Pixi wrote this song 15 years ago, but it’s still pretty fun and upbeat—just like Pixi herself! Take a look and a listen…

(It’s already echoing in your head, isn’t it? Go on, sing!)

This little firecracker has only been in the fan film community for a few months and hasn’t even appeared in her first full fan film yet (that’ll be October!). But nonetheless, she’s taken our little fiefdom by storm, spreading her unbridled energy and enthusiasm far and wide.

That said, I need to apologize to all of you reading this blog today expecting to see a video interview with this effervescent little elf. I was supposed to interview Pixi, but she got buried in work and had to bail on our Wednesday night Zoom call. That left Josh Irwin and Ray Myers as my 2-out-of-3, and Josh quickly reached out to TYLER DUNIVAN, another star of Avalon, and asked if he could fill in for Pixi, and Tyler joined us.

It seemed strange to talk about Pixi’s new music video without Pixi, so we ended up talking about the campaign, finding out more about Ray Myers and why he’s been so generous to fan filmmakers, and discussing how Josh has ended up having driven his car over 5,500 MILES TOTAL just for one fan film! We also have an exclusive sneak peek at a never-before-scene from the upcoming Avalon release AGENT OF NEW WORLDS (at 38:10) plus more info on what’s coming after.

Enjoy…

AVALON UNIVERSE reaches their $3,000 dollar match in just TWO AND A HALF DAYS!!!

I certainly didn’t see THIS coming! I mean, I was initially feeling hopeful that the AVALON UNIVERSE GoFundMe campaign would be able to reach (and maybe even surpass) the $3,000 maximum that wonder-supporter RAY MYERS was offering as a dollar-for-dollar match to any donations that came in this week between Monday and Sunday. That would double that maximum to $6,000—and more-than-double their total from where the week had started (which was just over $5,500 raised in about two and a half months).

I figured that Team Avalon (and I) would need to pull out all the stops and really talk up the dollar-match promotion as much as possible for the entire week to even have a snowball’s chance of reaching that $3,000 maximum. Instead, it only took two and a half days to get there, and good as his word, Ray donated a whopping $3,000 to the campaign earlier this morning…

As I write this, the total shown on Avalon‘s GoFundMe page reads $11,572…about 57.8% of the way to their $20,000 goal. This is, by far, the most ambitious Star Trek fan film crowd-funder to come along in a couple of years, and it’s not nearly as easy to reach into the five-figures as it used to be!

I chatted with showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN last night, wondering whether or not to publish this blog today announcing the good news. On the one hand…YAY! On the other hand, to point out that the $3,000 maximum had been reached runs the risk of potential donors thinking, “Well, if my donation isn’t going to get doubled anymore, why bother?” Likewise, some folks might be confused and assume that the goal was only $3,000 and say, “Great, mission accomplished.” But the overall goal for the ENTIRE campaign is still about $8,400 away.

In the end, we decided share the good news. After all, this will be my fourth Avalon Universe blog in four days, so why ruin the streak, right? And if all goes well, tomorrow will be my fifth, as I just completed an awesome video interview with Josh, actor TYLER DUNIVAN, and this angel donor Ray (who also donated more than $3,000 to my fan film INTERLUDE). Fans have seen multiple interviews with Josh and Tyler, but who is this Ray Myers guy, and why is he being SO generous? Is he just super-rich, or is his wife gonna kill him for throwing their nest-egg away on a couple of silly Star Trek fan films?

And in the meantime, remember that the Avalon GoFundMe is still VERY much alive and active—and still aiming for a $20,000 goal. So if you haven’t donated yet, even though your dollars won’t be doubled, this is still a wonderful group of fan filmmakers and very deserving of our support….just ask Ray Myers!

Here’s the link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021