Fan Film Features – Page 13

FARRAGUT FORWARD’s first full foray into frenetic fan filming looks PHENOMENAL (featuring a few final photos)!

If you’re anything like me, you just looked at the above image and asked, “Wait, is this a FAN film???” And yes, yes it is.

Earlier this year, the folks at FARRAGUT FORWARD, the sequel to the long-running and celebrated Star Trek fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT, held an Indiegogo crowd-funder that managed to raise $33K for their newest effort—a TOS movie-era story featuring impeccable monster maroon costumes and amazing interior sets!

Neither of the above should surprise fans familiar with the team behind this production. Led by JOHN BROUGHTON, many of these folks are the same people who designed and built most of the incredible TOS set reproductions still being used at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA. Others are brand new to the adventure of constructing Star Trek sets, but the one thing they have in common is that their work looks incredible…

And beyond those amazing sets, the costumes are uncanny in their accuracy. Not only will this production be featuring monster maroons, hand-crafted and tailored to each individual actor, but they’ve also recreated movie-era engineering radiation suits and some of the best cadet uniforms I have ever seen…and that includes the ones in Star Trek II! No, seriously. Take a look at actress DANA NORVILLE—quite possibly the first person from Barbados to ever appear in a Star Trek fan film—wearing her costume…

In the case of one actor, JONATHON JAMES, only half a costume was needed, as Jonathon already had a very nice Anovos monster maroon. So John Broughton just sewed him up a pair of pants with the right striping, and another background extra was now properly dressed…

*It was “take-your-daughter to the future day” for Jonathon James, who described the experience of being on set as “an absolute dream come true.”*

Of course, none of those sets or costumes would have been possible without the money to pay for them, much of which was supplied by enthusiastic and supportive fans (like me!) through their Indiegogo. And although the campaign officially “ended” back in April of this year, because it reached and surpassed its goal, Farragut Forward gets to continue on as an “In Demand” status crowd-funder. And that means that fans can STILL donate, even now! Indeed, since April, an additional $1,500 has come in with even more possible. In fact, you can donate right now at the link below…

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

The biggest news so far happened over the weekend of October 8-9 when, after years of anticipation and months of pre-production, filming actually began! With all of these unbelievable movie-era sets fully assembled and actors wearing these intricate movie-era uniforms, the cameras began rolling in Frederick, Maryland, with results that looked like this…

An unexpected obstacle (or two) that wasn’t a death sentence for STARSHIP CALIBORN’s latest release: “DEATH SENTENCE”…

The creation of a fan film (like the creation of any creative work) can often involve the unexpected. And in those cases, the persons doing the creating often have to adapt, adjust, and put in extra efforts that they hadn’t previously planned for. Otherwise, the unexpected can become a death sentence for a project like a Star Trek fan film. And indeed, the mark of a good creative team is how they tackle those unexpected challenges and still complete their production.

And that’s what happened with the second release from the STARSHIP CALIBORN creative group: “DEATH SENTENCE.” One of many teams producing fan films for POTEMKIN PICTURES at the moment, the majority of those involved with Caliborn are based in the Lexington, Kentucky area near showrunner RANDY LANDERS. Usually, Randy also takes an active role in either writing and/or directing Potemkin Pictures releases. But this time, his efforts were limited to film editing and playing a (comic) relief helmsman on the Caliborn named Peter Reigert, a recurring and somewhat incompetent officer who keeps getting booted off various ships.

“Death Sentence” was directed by ROBIN KUNKEL, who joined Potemkin Pictures recently and was listed as a producer on Caliborn‘s first release “WAR TARG” earlier this year. The writers were HOMER EVERSOLE and his brother DAVID EVERSOLE, both of whom had separately started writing Potemkin Pictures episodes back in 2016. In fact, David penned “The Night the Stars Fell from the Sky,” the most-watched of any Potemkin fan film with 155K views.

“Death Sentence” was the brothers’ first collaboration, originally intended to be an episode of STARSHIP WEBSTER, the other Starfleet-based creative group located in Lexington. However, when COVID hit and the Webster folks suspended production until the pandemic eased up, the Eversoles adjusted their script for Caliborn instead. Tragically, Homer passed away a year ago at the too-young age of 56, before seeing his final fan film completed. This is how it turned out…

But while losing one of the writers was certainly a blow, that wasn’t the unexpected obstacle(s) that needed to be dealt with. Let me tell you what was…

Now there are TWO crowd-funding campaigns in “IN DEMAND” status: AVALON and FARRAGUT FORWARD!

For anyone who’s curious, the 2-month long crowd-funding campaign for the AVALON UNIVERSE’s ambitious new multiversal crossover fan film, CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS, finished up with $11,605. Since it surpassed its initial $8K goal (by 45%, in fact!), Indiegogo allows the the campaign to shift into “In Demand” status, meaning showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN can continue to crowd-fund beyond this past Monday’s deadline.

Oh course, if you’re talking AMBITIOUS fan films that are still crowd-funding using “In Demand” Indiegogos, you have to enthusiastically include FARRAGUT FORWARD from showrunner JOHN BROUGHTON and director JOHNNY K. They already released a short teaser trailer back in February that blew people’s socks off with the quality of the monster maroon uniforms, Klingon armor and make-up, and overall production quality. Take a look…

At the same time, they launched an Indiegogo to raise $30K intended to complete the full film, a sequel to their long-running STARSHIP FARRAGUT fan series. At the start of their campaign, I interviewed John and Johnny about the new project, which you can watch here…

Like Avalon, the Farragut Forward Indiegogo managed to surpass their goal, finishing at $33K on April 2 and shifting into “In Demand” status. And since then, they’ve managed to add 11 more backers and an extra $1.5K on top of their previous total. Johnny K. confirmed to me that the campaign is still very much active…

Our crowd-funder on Indiegogo is still open, and additional funds will give us even more options for Klingon sets, and maybe even a few surprises. So please keep the donations coming, and help spread the word that we’re still funding. Now is a perfect time to jump on board and help be a part of this project.

Here’s the link to donate:

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

Johnny continued…

There’s so much passion and genuine love for Star Trek, and we all know that we’re creating something special. You can just feel it. Dozens of very talented people are taking time away from their personal lives and families to bring this vision to life, and we’re incredibly grateful for that.

In the meantime, John Broughton continues to supervise the creation of the costumes, the construction of the sets and props, and a whole bunch of other pre-production tasks. And he’s been chronicling these efforts in a series of updates posted to their Indiegogo page. Speaking of sets, take a look at this…!

Impressed? Johnny K. sure is…

I was blown away when I saw the mocked-up sets for the first time. It just reinforces how massive this undertaking really is. From the sets, to the top-tier costumes, props, SFX and VFX, the time and energy poured into this production is unbelievable.

Filming kicks off on October 8, and we’ll be shooting off and on in several stages for many months and into next year. It’s a huge story to tell and we’re taking our time with it to make the best film we can possibly make.

AVALON Indiegogo surges past its $8K goal to $11.5K and announces stretch goal!

A friend is someone who will lend you his lawnmower. But a GOOD friend is someone who will lend you his 18,000 donor e-mailing list!

Early this past Wednesday morning, ALEC PETERS sent out an e-mail request to all previous Axanar donors to please help JOSHUA IRWIN and TEAM AVALON raise the last 20% of their $8K goal to fund their ambitious multiversal crossover fan film CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS that’s scheduled to go into production early next year. Within a few hours, the Avalon Indiegogo had crossed the $8K level thanks to about ten new donors, including one $1,500 executive producer package donor (who has asked to remain anonymous). And then yesterday, another executive producer-level donation came in, bringing the total number of highest-tier supporters to FOUR and a staggering $6K donated just from them!

There’s also been a $1,000 donation for a producer level (they get to do a voice-over of background bridge chatter in the episode), as well as a $700 associate producer donation…all since Wednesday’s e-mail blast. So never underestimate the value of e-mailing potential donors, folks!

As it happens, the e-mail blast couldn’t have come at a better time, as the Avalon campaign had essentially slowed to a trickle over the previous week or so, and some of Josh’s plans to promote the campaign had failed to materialize…including a series of Avalon videos that were supposed to post on the 115K-subscriber Lore Reloaded YouTube channel, as well as an interview with Star Trek podcaster LARRY NEMECEK.

But now that the campaign has surpassed its $8K goal, it is now eligible to enter Indiegogo’s “In Demand” status, meaning this specific crowd0funder can remain active beyond its original deadline. Other fan film campaigns have also gone into “In Demand” status, including THE ROMULAN WAR, which managed to get a couple thousand dollars extra after the initial deadline of the campaign.

For this reason, Josh has announced his intention to set a stretch goal at $14,000. He hasn’t yet revealed what the perk will be—only that it will be a downloadable digital file that every backer will be able to access. He also mentioned that that last sentence contains a hidden clue to what the perk will be.

Josh explained where the extra money would be going…

What’s in “BOTTLES OF ALE” from STARSHIP WEBSTER?

STARSHIP WEBSTER launched back in October of 2020 shortly after showrunner RANDY LANDERS and his wife moved from Birmingham, Alabama to Lexington, Kentucky the previous year and assembled the eighth creative group from POTEMKIN PICTURES. Since then, the Webster crew has been on a tear, completing EIGHT fan films in less than two years!

Their latest release, “BOTTLES OF ALE,” made its debut in mid-July and featured a lot more than meets the eye. Randy gave me some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits about this production. But before I tell you about all of the things you might not notice, take a look at the finished fan film…

Potemkin Pictures has always presented a wide variety of story genres: action and suspense, quiet and contemplative, sad and tragic, mysterious, etc. This episode was obviously intended primarily to be a comedy. The writer, LIZ KNAUEL, has penned a number of Potemkin scripts over the years, but what few people know is that Liz used to write for Randy Landers’ fanzine group, Orion Press, a full decade ago. So their collaboration goes back a long way!

“A Bottle of Ale” features three actors who might look familiar to viewers of Potemkin’s most recent releases: BILLY SWANSON (who plays the lead Romulan “Crocutus”), MAT ACRA (who plays “Rifkin” in the red jumpsuit), and CLINTON RIDDLE (who plays the “Adjutant” in blue). All three are local to the Lexington, KY area and have collectively appeared in more Potemkin fan films as more different characters than all of the other local actors combined! Part of the reason for their being able to do this is because three different Lexington creative groups are currently producing films. In addition to Webster, there is also STARSHIP CALIBORN (where Billy Swanson plays Captain Hawkins) and the recently-premiered KLINGON SCOUTSHIP QAB’ELTH (where Billy played the first officer Commander Kodai).

Mat and Clinton also appeared in the Qab’elth debut. In fact, that was Clinton’s first experience with Potemkin and led to him getting two additional roles, including being cast as the new captain of the U.S.S. Webster. Randy explained what happened…

Big donations take the AVALON UNIVERSE Indiegogo from STALLED to STELLAR!

For the past two weeks, the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS from THE AVALON UNIVERSE was going nowhere fast. Prior to that, there’s had been doing well for the first four weeks, with donations nearing the halfway point to their $8,000 goal. But then Star Trek Last Vegas and DragonCon began to suck up all the oxygen in the fan community for two consecutive weeks, and it was hard to generate enough attention in all of the excitement to promote a fan film crowd-funding campaign.

But the timing worked out well in the end, as the middle weeks of any crowd-funder are typically the slowest, and over the past several days, a healthy influx of new donations has brought Team Avalon up to $6,430—only 20% short of their goal—with two weeks left.

Most of that recent jump came from two mega-donors, one of them choosing a $1,000 Producer-level package (which includes an optional voice-over as background “bridge chatter” in the final film), and the other selecting a $1,500 Executive Producer donation, qualifying that supporter for a walk-on role. Since showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN already made the announcement on Facebook, I can likewise reveal that Executive Producer to be none other than RAY MYERS, who was also my top donor on INTERLUDE and appeared on camera as the first officer of the ill-fated U.S.S. Artemis. In Crisis on Infinite Excaliburs, Ray will be playing the character of Captain Jennings of the Excalibur. The only question is: WHICH Excalibur?

*Soon-to-be Executive Producer for AVALON, this is RAY MYERS on the set of INTERLUDE.*

While online promotion for the campaign slowed for a couple of weeks, it will kick back into high gear for the duration of the Indiegogo, which will continue through September 26. Josh is preparing for a special partnership with the Star Trek-themed Lore Reloaded YouTube channel, which has 115K subscribers and will be posting some new Avalon content over the coming weeks.

Josh is also working to set up a podcast interview with a widely-viewed prominent member of the professional Star Trek fan community. (Is there such a thing as a “professional Star Trek fan”? Yes, as a matter of fact, there is! Assuming it happens, I’ll share the name in an upcoming blog.)

And finally, Josh informs me that he is planning to purchase a YouTube boost for his “ask” video, which has been very effective in generating donations (including his first Executive Producer $1,500 package from a first-time contributor). The boost is supposed to provide an additional 7,500 views of the video. Even if only a tiny fraction of those people decide to donate, it should easily cost of the cost of the boost. Here’s the “ask” video if you’d like to see it…

And of course, if you’re able to donate, that’s just peachy-keen, too! The Indiegogo link is below…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crisis-on-infinite-excaliburs-a-star-trek-fan-film#

As always, I’ll keep you all posted on how the campaign is doing as it reaches its finale.

Announcing the 2022 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER Award WINNERS!

First off, a very happy 56th anniversary of Star Trek to all of you!

And now, I am very excited (and somewhat relieved!) to announce the winners of the inaugural 2022 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS. I say relieved because 1) it was waaaaay more work than I ever expected it would be, and 2) everything went more smoothly than I could have possibly imagined.

And for the latter, I have to give my sincere thanks to my panel of judges, each a showrunner of at least one fan film or series. These eleven judges (plus me) each watched just about 13 HOURS of Star Trek fan films! Many of them took notes as they watched, and all of them submitted their ballots in 18 categories prior to my deadline for them of August 15—giving me enough time to record and tally the vote totals, check them twice (like Santa Claus does), and get the certificates ready.

I would like to, once again, thank all of the judges and list them here by name…

SAMUEL COCKINGS (Trek Shorts)
GARY DAVIS (Dreadnought Dominion)
JOSHUA IRWIN (Avalon Universe)
PAUL JACQUES (Raincross)
MARK LARGENT (Stalled Trek)
MIKE LONGO (Star Trek Fan Productions International)
VANCE MAJOR (Constar)
FRANK PARKER, JR. (Project: Gemini)
DAN REYNOLDS (The Federation Files)
GLEN L. WOLFE (The Federation Files)
RANDY WRENN (Dreadnought Dominion)

Most of these judges unavoidably had fan films of their own entered, and so the rule was this: each judge had to select their top five choices in each category—their choices being worth 10 points for #1, 7 points for #2, 5 points for #3, 3 points for #4, and 1 point for #5. No judge was allowed to rank a fan film that they worked on among their top three choices. This kept them from “playing favorites” while also not penalizing them completely for agreeing to be a judge.

In the end, this process seemed to work out very well, and we had a very nice variety in winners. In other words, the same two or three fan films didn’t sweep all of the categories. In fact, out of 38 total entries, nearly half of them (16 films) won in at least one category. Granted, strong fan films would rack up high scores with lots of 7’s and 10’s, but lower scores of 5’s, 3’s, and even some 1’s often made the difference between coming in first, second, or third place…or just barely missing the cut.

Speaking of which, remember that each category will have THREE winners: Admiral Award, Captain Award, and Commander Award, for the aforementioned first, second, and third places, respectfully. (Note, there is also a special Cadet Award at the bottom of this blog.)

AVALON UNIVERSE takes on Pon Farr in THE NEEDS OF THE ONE… (part 3: video interview with JOSHUA IRWIN and TYLER DUNIVAN)

About six weeks ago, I published a blog including the first of three video interviews spotlighting the latest release from THE AVALON UNIVERSE, an impressive 30-minute fan film titled THE NEEDS OF THE ONE. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out below…

That first interview was with the new lead actress for the series, ALEXANDRA REXFORD, who plays Commander Mikeala Allenby, the first officer of the U.S.S. Excalibur. Two and a half weeks later, I posted the second video interview with CORA WILSON and WADE KING, who played the adorable shipboard couple of Vulcan Nurse T’Prin and Security Officer Williams.

And now it’s three weeks after that, and I’ve finally completed the hat trick with my third and last interview, this time with showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN and actor TYLER DUNIVAN…the Butch and Sundance (or perhaps Bill and Ted) of fan films! And why the long delays between interviews? Busy people, busy schedules—and it’s much more challenging coordinating two interviewees than one!

However, before we dive into the chat-fest, a quick update on the Indiegogo crowd-funder for CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS. You are welcome (and encouraged) to donate here…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crisis-on-infinite-excaliburs-a-star-trek-fan-film

I’ve actually been contacted by a few members of our fan community asking if I was concerned that the campaign has “stalled out” a bit over the last two weeks, stuck just short of the halfway point with only 21 days left, and if I had any ideas why donations had seemingly dried up.

Here’s a few answers…

I know that a couple of larger supporters haven’t donated yet but are still planning to. By my estimates, this will potentially bring in another 20%.
The middle weeks of a crowd-funding campaign are typically the weakest for donations. Add to this that, for the past two weeks, Star Trek Las Vegas and Dragoncon have sucked up a lot of oxygen in the fan world, leaving it harder to promote a crowd-funder.
Beginning this week, Josh is planning to release the first in a series of videos on both the Avalon YouTube channel as well as Lore Reloaded, which has 115K subscribers. The latter will expose Avalon to many new potential donors that may not have ben aware of the fan series before this.

So no, not terribly worried yet. Let’s see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, today’s video chat with Josh and Tyler begins with a discussion of the upcoming project, with new details revealed.

Then we hit a delicate subject that Josh and Tyler wanted to address personally, and that is the departure from the series of a few team members, including executive producer and lead actress PIXI NEREID, who had been so prominent last year both during crowd-funding for and then starring in the ambitious AGENT OF NEW WORLDS. Now she and two other actresses have been recast. So…what happened? We’ll be talking about this, as well.

And of course, we’ll also be taking about The Needs of the One!

“MUDD’S MISSION” from THE FEDERATION FILES sets a bunch of fan film WORLD’S RECORDS!

Okay, I admit that there is no Guinness Book of World Records for Star Trek fan films. But if there were, the newest release from THE FEDERATION FILES, “MUDD’S MISSION,” would hold a whole bunch of ’em!

“Mudd’s Mission” is the twelfth production from this long-running fan series which began in late 2016 with their debut episode, “His Name Is Mudd.” Since then, showrunners GLEN L. WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas have released the following:

This latest offering is partially a sequel, of sorts, to their initial offering from six year ago in that it features the return of several characters from “His Name Is Mudd“—most notably Harry Mudd himself, deliciously played both times by fan filmmaker DAVID WHITNEY from STARFLEET STUDIOS in Iowa (producers of the fan series VOYAGER CONTINUES, PROJECT PROMETHEUS, and QUICK TREK). Also reprising roles from the original were JIM VON DOLTEREN as Captain McCann, ROBERT WITHROW as Admiral Withrow (a recurring character whom he also played in multiple episodes of STAR TREK: PHASE II), JOSHUA MALONE as Harry Mudd’s son Corey, and MICHAEL L. KING playing Captain Jackson Bishop (a role he originated on the fan series STARSHIP VALIANT).

In total, eleven actors returned from “His Name Is Mudd” for the sequel, the other six I didn’t list playing different characters than before. But having eleven returning actors isn’t enough for the record books. Many ongoing fan series have large casts. However, before I tell you what does mark “Mudd’s Mission” for a record, take a watch so I don’t spoil anything for you…

The thing you probably noticed immediately was the sheer number of actors listed in the closing credits. A jaw-dropping total of 45 people(!!!) appeared in this fan film…many in multiple roles. For example, CHALEN EVERTS, a producer who recently released this fun behind-the-scenes video from a weekend of filming, played two different security officers and also an Andorian. These 45 actors traveled to Arkansas from a total of 11 different states, and represented at least four other fan series in addition to participating in The Federation Files. That’s gotta be a couple of records right there! (Actually, His Name Is Mudd had 52 actors.)

But perhaps the most impressive “record” was how many episodes of TOS were referenced, either directly or indirectly, in this fan film. Glen and Dan are already well-known for keeping TOS alive and healthy with such fan films as “The Green Manifesto,” which features Major/Colonel Green from the TOS episode “The Savage Curtain, and “No Good Deed,” in which Glen constructed a nearly-identical set recreation of the S.S. Botany Bay from “Space Seed.”

“Mudd’s Mission” obviously references the two TOS Harry Mudd episodes, “Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd.” It also recreates a portion of the K-7 Space Station seen in “The Trouble With Tribbles.” But that’s not all…!

VANCE MAJOR concludes CONSTAR! (some final thoughts from me)

It’s the end of an era.

Granted, that “era” has only been going on since 2016 or thereabouts, but it seems like so much longer! And maybe that’s because, over the past seven years, VANCE MAJOR (Owen is his middle name) has produced and released a total of 146(!!!) Star Trek fan films featuring his character of Erick Minard (in all its many iterations!) as well as a bevy of recurring characters, cameos by a who’s who of other fan filmmakers (including myself), and even his own 5-year-old son Royce…who has been appearing in Vance’s films literally since infancy.

And that doesn’t include Vance’s appearances in other fan series like STARSHIP VALIANT and THE AVALON UNIVERSE. Vance has been a staple of our fan film community this entire time, and his parade of new releases—sometimes coming almost weekly!—provided a recurring reminder that Star Trek fan films come as much from the heart as from the camera.

Of course, Vance’s stuff isn’t to everyone’s taste, and I totally get that. His production budgets are ridiculously humble (like, “Buddy, can ya spare some change?” humble), the quality modest at best, and the acting as likely to be hit as miss. More often than not, there’s limited if any “action,” and the more recent films (especially since COVID) have been little more than a series of interstellar Skype calls as two people have a conversation. “The Best of Both Worlds” or “Sacrifice of Angels” these fan films are most assuredly not!

But what they are, in my opinion, is a form of poetry. Vance presents his thoughts, feelings, observations, perspectives, concerns, triumphs, frustrations, dreams, and passions through his films. Most poets don’t need much more than a pen and paper (or keyboard). For Vance, it also means a camera phone, Starfleet uniform, and video editing software. But the idea and the goal is the same: to share a part of himself with others.

Some of us enjoy that sharing and don’t mind seeing the cord in the doorway or not being able to hear bits of the dialog because of the wind. We don’t mind seeing 20th and 21st century cars and trucks, or clothes and baseball caps that look like they were bought at Target, appearing in a story set centuries in the future. That’s never been what Vance’s poetry has been about. Instead, it was always about using Star Trek to speak his truth…for those interested in listening.

And even though it was never Vance’s primary intention, his fan films also served as inspiration for others for make fan films of their own. If Vance didn’t care about top-tier production quality or jaw-dropping sizzle, then how important was it really? If you have a story you want to tell, then hey, just do do it.