Fan Film Features – Fan Film Factor

Where did JONATHAN go?

Don’t look now, but my last published Fan Film Factor blog was on January 9th! And for a guy who prides himself on posting at least one or two new blogs a week, that’s almost an eternity of radio silence! Indeed, it had gotten so noticeable that one fan filmmaker actually IM’d me recently to ask if I’d survived the recent Los Angeles wildfires. (I was tempted to respond, “No, I died in a smoldering inferno last month. I’m writing to you from the Great Beyond…and they have Star Trek reruns!”)

So what did happen?

Well, as I mentioned in my final blog of 2024, I had been spending quite a bit of time finishing the writing of a new book on day trading. (Don’t laugh! I’ve gotten quite good at it, folks. And something has to pay for my next fan film!) But the book came out in late January, so that doesn’t explain my lack of blogger productivity for much of January and all of February.

I could, of course, blame the wildfires that devastates L.A. and left a number of our friends effectively homeless. But fortunately for myself and the Lane family, homes on the west side of Los Angeles were spared from the fiery maelstrom. I did volunteer at an organization called Project Angel Food (mostly chopping vegetables), but that didn’t take away too much blogging time.

No, the two reasons for my lack of new fan film blogs these past two months were twofold: the DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS and robots.

Usually, I simply report on the annual Directors Choice fan film awards. But this year, due to my entering of my own fan film, AN ABSENT FRIEND, into the competition, I am also a judge. And as it turns out, there were FIFTY-FIVE different entries this time out!!!! Some of them I’ve already seen, as they are Star Trek fan films. But others are superhero, Alien, Nightmare on Elm Street, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, The Last of Us, Power Rangers, Narnia, and a host of other sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres. And many of them are truly excellent and worth watching (for example, this one and this one). But while some of them are fairly short, others have run times of thirty minutes to over an hour…and there’s quite a few of those! So I’ve been spending a LOT of time just watching dozens and dozens of different fan films so I can cast an informed ballot before the March voting deadline.

As for the robots…

California wildfires threaten the house where 70 episodes of STAR TREK: HIDDEN FRONTIER and its spin-offs were filmed!

From 1999 through 2010, a humble little house on the border of Pasadena and Altadena, California was one of the hubs of the early Star Trek fan film scene. The house belonged to fan filmmaker and CG artist ROB CAVES, and it served as the “studio” for 50 episodes of STAR TREK: HIDDEN FRONTIER and another 20 episodes of multiple spin-offs fan films and series. I was there for the filming of several episodes, and even appeared in one as an alien guard.

The house had a living room and kitchen in the front where actors and crew would hang out between scenes, a master bedroom off the kitchen where Rob slept, and the rest of the space was dedicated to serving as a studio. One bedroom/office was turned into a make-up room with mirrors, a countertop, and wigs and prosthetics against the opposite wall. Here’s a photo of me getting into makeup in 2008…

Another alcove held costumes, a third was dedicated to the green screen, and a back room was used for equipment like lights and boom mics. And finally, in a small nook in the very back of the house—only large enough for one or two people to sit at a single desk and crammed with digital equipment—Rob would squeeze himself in to composite the green screen footage against virtual backgrounds while scenes were being filmed. (Those were the days when video files were still very large and hard to edit; so it wasn’t practical for a non-professional to capture green screen footage first and then composite it later.)

Rob has since moved on from producing Star Trek fan films and is actually rather passionately involved in model trains these days. But he and I still have some contact every now and then. Last night, I e-mailed him to check if he was safe. I didn’t hear back directly, but this morning on Facebook, I saw him post the following to his feed…

There’s only ONE WEEK LEFT to enter the fourth annual DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS!

Back on November 1, GLEN WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS announced that entries were now open for the fourth annual DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS. The deadline to submit an entry is January 11, 2025…as in next Saturday!! If you made a fan film (of any genre, not limited to just Star Trek) that was released during calendar year 2024 and you haven’t entered it yet, here is the link to do so…

https://thefederationfiles.com/?page_id=1407

Winners will be announced on First Contact Day: April 5, 2025.

There is a $10 entry fee that includes submitting the film for consideration in up to seven of the following specialty categories in addition to being considered for Best in Fest (which carries a $250 cash prize). The categories are…

Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Director
Best Original Costuming
Best Make-up/Hairstyling
Best Cinematography
Best Original Music
Best Audio Mixing
Best Lighting
Best FX Make-Up
Best CGI FX
Best Green Screen
Best Composite Shot
Best Screenplay
Best Parody/Comedy
Best Portrayal of an Existing Character
Best Animated Fan Film
Best Editing
Most Canon Award
Best Ensemble
Best On-Location Scene
Best Plot Twist
Best Use of Improvised Sets
Best Choreography
Best Trailer
Best Poster

The last two categories are brand new for this year’s awards. Glen clarified that the poster must be for a fan film that premiered in calendar year 2024. However, the trailer can be for a fan film that hasn’t been released yet. The only requirement is that the trailer itself must have been publicly posted for the first time during 2024.

As with the three previous years (and in line with the name of the contest), the fan films will be judged by the directors themselves. Each director will be e-mailed a ballot for each film they submitted . A director cannot vote for any fan film they themselves directed, and all ballots will be due no later than March 15. If a judge fails to return their completed ballot in time, their film submission(s) will be disqualified.

Glen reports that submissions have been robust this year, with a late push of Star Trek genre fan film entries. Typically, those are one of the most prolific types of fan films submitted, but until late December, Trek fan films were actually in the minority of submissions. Also notable (at least for me personally, as I’ve entered my own fan film, AN ABSENT FRIEND, since it was released last April and was eligible), is that a record number of animated fan films from various genres have been submitted this year.

So things are looking pretty exciting for this fourth installment of the Directors Choice Awards!

2024 Star Trek Fan Film YEAR IN REVIEW

First, my friends, I must apologize for being a bit less diligent in my coverage of Star Trek fan films this past year. Granted, I’ve still published over 65 blogs since January 1, 2024, but that’s compared with 90 blogs in 2023 and 114 in 2022.

The reason behind my diminished output is that I’ve been spending much of this past year co-authoring a book, which I’ve only just completed (it will be out early next year). It was a paying gig, so it needed to take priority. It’s actually my third co-authored book, my first being Starship Spotter (with ADAM “MOJO” LEBOWITZ, ROB BONCHUNE, and ALEX ROSENZWEIG) and my second, Being Santa Claus, still available for purchase in various formats here on Amazon.

But enough about me!

Let’s get started looking at what’s been happening in world of Star Trek fan films for the last twelve months. As usual, I won’t have enough time or space to get to everything, but here are the biggest stories of the year…

IS CROWD-FUNDING STILL A THING?

Sadly, the year kicked off on a bit of a sour note as a debate began to rage on social media whether Trek fan films should continue crowd-funding. It began when RANDY LANDERS announced that POTEMKIN PICTURES would no longer do any public crowd-funding. But then he added (somewhat forcefully) that he felt that other fan productions shouldn’t crowd-fund either. Things got heated from there. And sadly, in part because I didn’t agree, Randy told me to no longer cover any of his Potemkin releases on Fan Film Factor…and I have, of course, complied with his wishes, albeit regrettably.

Perhaps ironically, not many fan productions chose to crowd-fund this year. In fact, I only counted four during all of 2024 (well, technically five, since FARRAGUT FILMS ended one campaign and began another shortly thereafter), and those were for:

FARRAGUT FORWARD/FARRAGUT 2024
NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS (to fund their move from Georgia to Ohio)
TREK SHORTS
STALLED TREK: THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE

In previous years, crowd-funding campaigns were much more prolific. Now, it seems they are diminishing in frequency and, in general, bringing in less money (although FARRAGUT FORWARD did reach $47.5K before wrapping). Will 2025 continue to see this phasing out of crowdfunding? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

SHORT VOYAGES offers TWO MORE fan films—“DESPERATE MEASURES” and “RENAISSANCE”—that you can watch in 5 MINUTES AND 42 SECONDS! (interview with AARON VANDERKLEY)

Do you have nine minutes to spare? If so, you can watch THREE full fans films from Australian filmmaker AARON VANDERKLEY. I last interviewed Aaron back in September after the release of the first of three planned SHORT VOYAGES, “UNAVOIDABLE DELAYS.” Aaron had already made quite a name for himself with the release of five full-length NX-01 era fan films…

Then Aaron leapfrogged a century to release a trio of full-length Voyager-era fan films under the banner THESE ARE THE VOYAGES…

BEYOND THE SUN
OUTBREAK
RESISTANCE

Each of the above fan films is truly excellent and absolutely worth watching. But Aaron still had a bit of fan filmmaking left in him. Inspired by the challenge of the TREKS IN 90 SECS contest, Aaron set out to see how short a runtime he could give his own Voyager-era films. And while he wasn’t quite able to shave his times down as far as 90 seconds or two minutes, he did come impressively close. Indeed, as I mentioned at the top of this blog, you can watch all three of his Short Voyages in less than nine minutes total. Check ’em out…

As you can see, each film is unique. The first is comedic, the second quiet and introspective, and the third is full of drama and suspense. That is NOT easy to do when your runtime is three minutes or less!

I also couldn’t help but notice the amazing subdued lighting and shadow-play in “Renaissance.” Since most fan filmmakers aren’t trained or experienced in cinematography, fan films don’t usually feature anything but the most basic, rudimentary lightning—and there’s nothing wrong with that. Fan films are intended to allow fans to play in the sandbox, not to construct an elaborate beach house. That said, it is nice, every so often, to be treated to this level of craftsmanship in a fan film.

The latter two vignettes were released in mid-November and mid-December, just five weeks apart and too quickly for me to cover “Renaissance” and “Desperate Measures” each in its own blog. So I’ll be asking Aaron about both fan films together (with behind-the-scenes photos, as usual, at the bottom of the blog)…

FOUR more STARFLEET [JOBS] in 2024…the THINKING FAN’S Star Trek fan film!

At the beginning of this year, I posted a video interview with STEVE SHIVES after the release of his fourth STARFLEET [JOBS] video in 2023. In release order, those one-man fan films were:

The idea behind them is simple, but their depth is wonderfully complex. On the one hand, these films appear to be basic “talking head” one-person interviews with Starfleet individuals who have interesting or unexpected jobs. At first glance, you might think: “Wait, why would starships need a lawyer on board? Didn’t Picard and Riker do a decent job in ‘The Measure of a Man’?” Actually, Steve’s Starfleet lawyer addresses that very question! Or maybe you’re thinking that janitors wouldn’t be needed on futuristic vessels that can probably clean themselves. But can they really? We’ve actually seen someone cleaning the floor outside of the Kobayashi Maru simulator room in Star Trek II…

So, yes, Starfleet has janitors/custodians…but do we care about them? After all, theirs is probably the least desirable job in the service. At least security officers get to shoot phasers. What do janitors do? They clean up security officers!

“Oh, I get it,” I can hear you thinking. “So it’s LOWER DECKS, right?” Well, kinda. Steve certainly shines a spotlight on Starfleet’s lesser-known occupations—officers and enlisted personnel not usually stationed anywhere near the bridge—and many of his fan films do have funny parts. But look a little deeper. Each of these people is an individual with a personality, backstory, experiences, and often pretty strong opinions about things most Trekkers never even bother thinking about.

And thanks to Steve’s natural acting abilities, these colorful characters are brought to life in intriguing ways. Steve even provides accents and mannerisms, along with fun uniforms from various eras of Star Trek, making each one unique and compelling. And all of this is BEFORE we even get to the content of their interviews.

And that’s where these fan films gain a whole other dimension—a dimension not only of depth and complexity but of mind. Sure, some of his characters are whimsical and funny, but others are no-nonsense or troubled or any number of personality traits that reflect our own modern and challenging society. And each has his own intriguing stories to tell!

Like the best Star Trek episodes, Starfleet [Jobs] often provides us a mirror to look at ourselves—whether directly through the obvious connections between what the characters are talking about and our present reality or indirectly using metaphors. An example of the latter happens at the end of one of the films below (I won’t spoil it by telling you which one) when a comment about something completely unrelated to artificial intelligence provides a haunting analogy to the abundance of A.I. -generated content today.

Four new Starfleet [Jobs] have been released in 2024, each with refreshingly unique characters who have very engaging stories to tell. I heartily recommend you watch all four, as each is excellent in its own special way…

SPARE THE FUTURE, SAVE THE PAST moves fan films into the 25th century… (interview with DAVID CHENG)

Jackets are petty awesome. Wanna make your superhero look more snazzy and cutting-edge? Ditch the tights and cape and give them a cool jacket. And in Star Trek? Jackets dated back to the first pilot, “The Cage,” continued into The Motion Picture, and probably reached their pinnacle with those snazzy maroon bomber jackets worn by Admiral Morrow in the Starfleet Lounge, Scotty on board the Excelsior, and Kirk when he comes about the Enterprise in Star Trek V. And of course, there were those cool landing party jackets of the late 23rd century, as well. Picard had a dashing jacket of his own starting in season five of Next Gen. And you could argue that monster maroons, along with the Deep Space Nice and Voyager duty uniforms include jackets as part of their jumpsuits.

Yeah, jackets rock.

But honestly, nothing even comes close to those 25th century jackets from STAR TREK: PICARD season three! And with a number of clothing manufacturers making replicas available at reasonable prices (remember, clothing designs cannot be trademarked or copyrighted), many fans—including yours truly—have purchased one. Indeed, here is a photo of myself and fan filmmaker DAVID CHENG at the recent premiere of the Star Trek: Voyager documentary at Paramount Studios with both of us wearing our Picard jackets…

Speaking of David Cheng, he recently released one of the first fan films to be firmly set in the Picard season three timeframe. Another recent fan film, CONSTAR: THE MOTION PICTURE, also featured scenes with VANCE MAJOR wearing his Picard jacket. (Side note: a couple of TREK SHORTS fan films have featured 25th century Starfleet uniforms, but no Picard season three jackets as yet.)

Anyway, David recently released what I believe is the first Star Trek fan film to feature the snazzy season three jacket, the latest offering from his STAR TREK FAN PRODUCTIONS INTERNATIONAL fanthology series (you can watch all of their completed films on their YouTube channel). SPARE THE FUTURE, SAVE THE PAST introduces two new main characters (one of them played by David himself) who, it would seem, will be returning for future adventures. Take a look…

I had the chance to shoot a few questions David’s way about this new release. Here’s what he has to say…

Has fan LOVE turned 765874: UNIFICATION into an “OPEN SOURCE” fan film?

Sometimes a fan filmmaker produces a fan film that inspires a completely different fan filmmaker to produce something—be it a tribute, continuation, or some other expansion of the original—based in whole or in part on the original work. This has come to be known as “a fan film of a fan film.”

The term was first coined in 2016 with the release of PRELUDE TO AX’D -WE-ARE, the STALLED TREK animated puppet parody of both PRELUDE TO AXANAR and the subsequent copyright infringement lawsuit filed jointly by CBS and Paramount against AXANAR PRODUCTIONS and ALEC PETERS.

Granted, such projects are very rare. Indeed, only INTERLUDE, THE ICARUS MANEUVER, and THE FEDERATION FILES‘ “The Equinox Effect” and “Friends and Foes” come to mind for me. And the former two were more expansions of an existing fan film “universe” of characters and settings, and the latter two were GLEN L. WOLFE’s attempt to complete unfinished fan films so their partial footage could finally be released for fans to see.

All of this is to say that there aren’t many “fan films of fan films” in the Star Trek genre. But over this past weekend, we got our newest entry: PROLOGUE TO UNIFICATION from SAMUEL COCKINGS of Great Britain, the showrunner behind the TREK SHORTS fanthology series of fan films. As the title suggests, this release is meant to lead into the recent 765874: UNIFICATION from OTOY with involvement from WILLIAM SHATNER, the estate of LEONARD NIMOY, and THE RODDENBERRY ARCHIVE. In case you’re one of the four Trek fans on the planet who hasn’t seen this jaw-dropping, cutting-edge love letter to Star Trek yet, watch it now…

And now, take a look at what Sam Cockings was able to put together in the span of just three weeks based on OTOY’s fan film…

Oh! Before I go on, I need to make a disclaimer about my use of the term “fan film.” Technically, 765874: Unification isn’t a standard fan film. It was an approved production, licensed by Paramount Global to OTOY as a way of generating original Star Trek content for the new Apple Vision Pro VR headset. So calling 765874: Unification a “fan film” isn’t entirely accurate. On the other hand, it was not produced by either Paramount or CBS Studios…and it was obviously made by fans with a knowledge of and loyalty to long-established Star Trek canon.

So what is it? Much like the “uncanny valley” in early CG renderings of human faces (like Princess Leia at the end of Star Wars: Rogue One), 765874: Unification walks in two worlds without truly fitting into either. So rather than calling Sam’s latest project a “fan film of a licensed-non-studio-produced-but-still professional-quality-Star-Trek-vignette-CGI-film-made-by-fans-with-fans-in-mind,” I’m going to call it a “fan film of a fan film.” Feel free to argue.

CONSTAR: THE MOTION PICTURE brings FATHER and SON together for a very special Star Trek fan film! (interview with ROYCE LEONARD MAJOR…and his DAD)

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…

FARRAGUT is back for a SEQUEL next year, and it’s CROWD-FUNDING right now! (video interview with JOHN BROUGHTON and MIKE BEDNAR)

Last month, I posted a video interview with JOHNNY K. and PAUL R. SIEBER about the just-released FARRAGUT FORWARD. If you haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, this is about as MUST SEE of a fan film as you are ever likely to find…

The quality of this production is mind-blowing, even considering that they raised more than $45,000 on Indiegogo. The movie-era sets, costumes, props, make-up, direction, cinematography, lighting, editing, music, sound-mixing, etc…all were flawless. And after viewing Farragut Forward, fans only wanted more.

And now, it looks like they are going to get it!

Showrunner JOHN BROUGHTON just launched a new Indiegogo with the same initial $30,000 goal as the previous campaign. The money will go towards building new sets (including, apparently, a movie-era TRANSPORTER!), more amazing costumes, and various other expenses like food for the cast and crew, travel and lodging for those who can’t afford to make the trip to and stay in Washington, DC but are still essential to the production (like director JOSHUA IRWIN, who lives in northwestern Arkansas and will be directing the next Farragut film). The full budget is closer to $50,000, but since even the first film didn’t raise that much, best to start with a more manageable goal and try to attain InDemand status to keep the campaign live in order to raise more.

So what is the plot for this new fan film going to be? According to the following informational video, it will be a time-travel story much like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home but without any whales. And instead of traveling to San Francisco, the Farragut crew will be taking a trip to America’s capital city….

I just chipped in fifty bucks myself, and after four days, they’re above $2K in donations from 55 backers and are already 6% of the way to their goal. But every little bit helps, and ’tis the season of giving, right? So please consider contributing at least a little something to these extremely talented folks who want to give fans yet another spectacular movie-era film…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-2024-a-star-trek-fan-production

A few weeks ago, I recorded a Zoom interview with John and his longtime friend and fellow Farragut filmmaker MICHAEL BEDNAR. The two men provide even more behind-the-scenes background and stories from the sets of Farragut Forward along with some more information about the sequel, FARRAGUT 2024, and what else is being planned for the future. Check it out…