Fan Film Features – Page 15

Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards submission deadline is THIS TUESDAY!

Three weeks ago, I announced that submissions were now open for the first annual Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards, organized by GLEN WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of WARP 66 STUDIOS. Any fan film (not just Star Trek) released onto the Internet during calendar year 2021 is eligible for submission. Glen Wolfe reports that participation, so far, has been encouragingly strong so far.

The deadline to enter is this Tuesday, February 22, and if you want to submit your fan film, you can do so here:

CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR THE FAN FILM DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS

Voting is done exclusively by the directors of the submitted films, and directors cannot vote their own films—otherwise, there would likely be massive ties with each fan film getting one vote! Ballots are due back no later than March 15, and any director who does not return their ballot by that deadline will have their fan film disqualified from winning anything.

When entering, the submitter can choose up to five categories for which that fan film can be considered for an award:

Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Director
Best Original Costuming
Best Make-up/Hairstyling
Best Cinematography
Best Original Music
Best F/X Make-up
Best Audio Mixing
Best Lighting
Best CGI FX
Best Green Screen
Best Screenplay
Best Parody
Best Foreign Fan Film
Best Animated Fan Film
Best Editing
Most Canon Award
Best Ensemble
Most Valuable Crew Member

After all of the ballots have been tabulated, a “Best In Fest” winner will be determined as the fan film that receives the most votes overall in all of the categories combined (so it’s advantageous to submit your film for the maximum of five categories).

Winners will be announced on April 5, and each winner will be e-mailed an award certificate. If you’ve entered or are planning to (before the end of Tuesday!), I wish you the best of luck!

STARSHIP WEBSTER production crew discusses their latest “OPPORTUNITY”… (interview with a bunch of folks)

And then there were six…six fan films from the STARSHIP WEBSTER Creative Group that’s a part of POTEMKIN PICTURES, that is. And considering that this relatively new production team only launched 16 months ago, that’s going at a pretty decent clip…especially when one considers there was a pandemic lockdown for a decent potion of that time.

Webster got its start when show-runner RANDY LANDERS and his wife moved from Pelham, Alabama two states north to Lexington, Kentucky and reached out to local Trekkers and fans in the area to be a part of what turned into Potemkin‘s NINTH creative group (you can access all of the fans films from the various teams here). While other states in the vicinity like Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas have supported fan films and series for many years, as far as I’ve been able to research, Webster was the first ongoing Star Trek fan production to be based in the state of Kentucky.

And the group has done some impressive work so far. Most recently, their latest release, “OPPORTUNITY,” has a run-time of 19 minutes and a cast of 18 actors with scenes on multiple homemade sets (in addition to a couple of composited green screen backgrounds). There are more than a dozen VFX shots.

While some fans criticized the “unpolished” nature of many of the Potemkin Pictures releases over the years, if you’re watching these fan films solely to be dazzled by top-tier production quality rivaling the major Hollywood studios, then you may have gotten off at the wrong exit. But if you go into viewing these productions with a mind open to seeing what fans with little money but lots of heart can manage to do, then you’re sure to come away satisfied.

And if you know what to look for, a fan film like “Opportunity” accomplishes quite a lot. Take a look…

This time out, I decided to have a free-form chat with four of the folks behind this film:

BILLY SWANSON – a producer and actor who portrays Commander Robert “Hawk” Hawkins, Executive Officer and Security Chief of the U.S.S. Webster.

LAURA JOHNSON – one of the three writers of “Opportunity,” also a producer and actress who portrays Lieutenant Commander T’Varik, the Vulcan Science Officer of the U.S.S. Webster.

ROSS TROWBRIDGE – visual FX producer and artist.

And of course, it’s not a proper Potemkin Pictures interview without show-runner and executive producer Randy Landers, who also directed this film.

Let’s dive in…

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!

Submissions now OPEN until Feb. 22 for the Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards!

Last month, I announced TWO new annual award shows for fan films debuting this year. Up util now, Star Trek fan films were honored annually by the BJO AWARDS. However, now the Bjos will be joined by the Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards and (later this year) the Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

The two new competitions will be different in several logistical ways, with many details of the Showrunner Awards still needing to be worked out (by me and my team). In the meantime, however, coordinators GLEN L. WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of WARP 66 STUDIOS are launching the Directors Choice Awards today (February 1), with submissions being accepted for any fan film (not just Star Trek) publicly released in calendar year 2021. The YouTube/Vimeo publication date stamp will be used to verify eligibility.

Submissions are open from February 1 through February 22, 2022. Anyone can enter any fan film with a submission fee of $10 by filling out the form on this web page, but only a maximum of three films by the same director can be entered.

Voting is done exclusively by the directors of the submitted films. (So for INTERLUDE, for example, even though I am the one submitting and paying the entry fee, I won’t be the one voting since I wasn’t the director.) Directors cannot vote for their own films—otherwise, there would likely be massive ties with each fan film getting one vote! Ballots are due back no later than March 15, and any director who does not return their ballot by that deadline will have their fan film disqualified from winning anything.

When entering, the submitter can choose up to five categories for which that fan film can considered for an award:

Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Director
Best Original Costuming
Best Make-up/Hairstyling
Best Cinematography
Best Original Music
Best F/X Make-up
Best Audio Mixing
Best Lighting
Best CGI FX
Best Green Screen
Best Screenplay
Best Parody
Best Foreign Fan Film
Best Animated Fan Film
Best Editing
Most Canon Award
Best Ensemble
Most Valuable Crew Member

Winners will be announced on April 5, and each winner will be e-mailed an award certificate. To all the fan filmmakers who choose to enter (and hopefully, there will be many), I wish you the best of luck!

Click here to enter your fan film.

It’s RED SHIRTS…will they survive? (feature)

When it comes to everyone’s favorite walking Starfleet targets, there’s been a lot of fan film attention paid to the humble and ill-fated “Red Shirt.” Of course, Starfleet security only wore red for a few short years during the TOS-era, but that was long enough for Trekkers and even some non-Trekkers to accept that, when it came time to beam down—unless you were Scotty or Uhura or Rand—you did NOT want to be wearing the color red!

With titles like RED SHIRT, RED SHIRTS: A STAR TREK PARODY SERIES, and THE RED SHIRT DIARIES (to name but a few), fan filmmakers have been hilariously spotlighting these poor bastards—I mean, noble heroes—for nearly a decade.

One of the very first parody fan films of this sub-genre of a sub-genre of a sub-genre was posted to YouTube back in 2013—the brainchild of two show-runners who, at the time, were both studying Multimedia at California State University Northridge. ANTOINE BANDELE and his friend RICARDO ELLIOTT II decided in early 2013 to start up a YouTube channel called “Akimbros”—a hybrid of the word “akimbo” (when you stand with your hands on your hips) and “bros.”

*Antoine Bandele and Ricardo Elliott II…the Akimbros!*

At the time (and even now) African-American showrunners on Star Trek fan films were a rarity. So despite its light-hearted nature and the fact that this was the only Star Trek fan film that the Akimbros would ever release, RED SHIRTS still holds an important place in fan film history.

Antoine and Ricardo initially set out to release one new film every two weeks on their Akimbros channel, and Red Shirts was their first offering. It debuted on May 17, 2013. Their second release, an epic light saber battle on the roof of a garage next to the 405 Freeway in West Los Angeles, followed just over two weeks later. However, their third film, an action short titled Tower 46, took another six weeks to post, and their fourth release, an ultra-short but ultra-clever “real life” video game between Pirates and Ninjas, wouldn’t see release for another six months. Their final offering, a brief teaser-trailer for an Oblivion fan film, came out a year later…and then that was that for the Akimbros.

But right now, let’s take a look at their hilarious first project, Red Shirts…

INTERLUDE wins the GRAND PRIZE in the 5th annual IndieBOOM! Awards!

For the third time in the last five years, a Star Trek fan film has won the Grand Prize in the annual IndieBOOM! Film+Music Festival…and this year, the winner was my AXANAR Universe fan film INTERLUDE! The previous two winners were (in 2019) “The Equinox Effect” and (in 2020) “Mask“—both from THE FEDERATION FILES anthology series.

Actually, when I say “my” fan film, I really mean OUR fan film…because this was a labor of love and dedication from more than 50 people. And the two most important individuals in that group were my directors, VICTORIA FOX and JOSHUA IRWIN. Technically, Victoria was listed in the credits as “director” and Josh as “director of photography.” But as far as I’m concerned, they EACH deserve the highest accolades, which is why I submitted the film with both of their names listed—and here’s the official certificate that was just e-mailed to me yesterday…

Although entered in the Fan Film category, Interlude received more views and viewing hours than any other selection in any category. I was told by IndieBOOM! festival co-founder ANTHONY DEVITO that Interlude was viewed more than 2,600 times for a total of 488 viewed hours! As such, it was elevated to Grand Prize winner, allowing another fan film, Stegosaurus: A Jurassic Park Fan Film (directed by BARRY WILKINSON from the UK) to win the Fan Film category.

Another notable winner was the the music video STAR TREK IS REAL, written and performed by ILIA “PIXI NEREID” McNEAL, star and producer of the AVALON UNIVERSE fan series, which took the title of Winning Original Song and scored Pixi a $250 prize…yay, Pixi!

Continuing the Star Trek strength in the festival, Trek anthology series The Federation Files took the award for Best Series.

And finally, my composer for Interlude, KEVIN CROXTON, won in the category for Best Musical with his James Bond-inspired fan film starring the 4th and 5th graders whom he teaches: IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (which is an amazing film in its own right and something you should definitely take ten minutes out of your day to watch).

You can see all of this year’s winners here.

Now, some folks on Facebook have complained that choosing winners based on views and viewing hours turns IndieBOOM! into little more than a competition to see who has the most followers on social media and who can “turn out the vote” most effectively. Maybe so, but those are the rules. Other film festivals work differently, but IndieBOOM! has decided that this is the best way to let the viewers make their choices known. And so those of us who submit our films do what we can to reach out to friends, family, donors, fans, etc. and ask them to vote for us by viewing. In that way, it’s kind of like crowd-funding: the more interest and support you can generate from people, the more successful you’ll be.

And speaking of crowd-funding, the Grand Prize Winner for the IndieBOOM! festival receives $500. As soon as it arrives, I am going to donate it directly to the Avalon Universe crowd-funder!

Three positive COVID-19 tests among AVALON UNIVERSE cast and crew delay film shoot!

In a video interview that we did during the end of December, JOSHUA IRWIN of the AVALON UNIVERSE fan series was excited for a film shoot they had scheduled for early January. That shoot was supposed to be this weekend, but three significant members of the cast and crew have each, separately, been diagnosed with COVID-19 this past week, necessitating the delay of the shoot at least until February.

This was a major shoot for their next fan project, “The Needs of the One.” The story deals with a Vulcan crew member going through pon farr, similar to the beginning of the TOS episode episode “Amok Time.” But the similarities end there, as this crew member doesn’t simply accept the ancient traditions of the Vulcan culture where Vulcan females are “promised” to males as children. This episode turns all of that on its ear…or so I’m told.

This isn’t the first time a fan film has needed to delay a shoot due to COVID. Indeed, an earlier release from Avalon, AIR AND DARKNESS, had a COVID delay in late 2020, just as the pandemic seemed to potentially be receding a little (yeah, that didn’t happen).

Interestingly, it isn’t just Avalon that had to cancel a Star Trek-related film shoot this week. On Thursday, production on STAR TREK: PICARD season three had to be suspended when more than 50 members of the production crew (out of a total of 450) returned from the holiday break testing positive for COVID. SIR PATRICK STEWART was, thankfully, not among those reported to be sick. Filming restarted on Friday with COVID-negative replacements.

And it’s not just here in America where COVID is interfering with production. British Earl of CGI, SAMUEL COCKINGS, has already lost three shooting days for TREK SHORTS due to last-minute COVID infections. Sam has tried to make lemons from lemonade, though. During shoots when a single actor has had to cancel because of a positive COVID test or exposure to someone with COVID, Sam used the opportunity to either shoot scenes for alternate films or else write entirely new shorts with the actor or actors who did show up. You can read about one of those incidents in this blog about the origin of the bonus fan film HOURS AT WARP.

Three additional shooting days for Sam were affected by non-COVID illnesses (bloke can’t catch a break!) But because of costs to bring the actors in, travel and lodging, plus having to set up new shoots to replace the impacted ones, Sam no longer has the funds remaining to complete everything he promised donors. So Sam plans to launch an additional crowd-funding campaign. “There will be a LOT of new stuff to show,” Sam told me, “both to reveal what we actually did in 2021 but also all the new things we need help with finishing in 2022 and 2023!”

Announcing TWO new FAN FILM AWARD SHOWS coming in 2022!

File this under: “Great minds think alike…” or perhaps under, “This is what you get for missing staff meetings, Doctor.” Either way, GLEN WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of THE FEDERATION FILES and I had the same idea at the same time, and now there are going to be TWO new fan film awards shows coming your way in 2022!

In my case, the idea of hosting an annual awards show for Star Trek fan films has been percolating in the back of my mind for a few years…not as a way of competing with the annual BJO AWARDS but as simply an additional opportunity for Star Trek fan filmmakers and their productions to shine.

As the new year dawned a few days ago, I was able to finally enjoy a break from the blogging “sprint” that took up much of my December. And I decided that, if I was really serious about creating some Fan Film Factor awards show, now might be a good time to do some thinkin’…

At first, I tried to come up with a name—and you know how much I like things that abbreviate to “FFF.” The Fan Film Festival Awards? Nah. Fan Film Faves? Cheesy. Fan Film Friends? Family? Flamingos? Jeez, I had nothing decent!

Okay, time to try a different approach vector…

So I shifted to thinking about judging. I mean, I suppose it could just be me deciding the winners and losers, but no one fan should possess such power! And, sheesh, what a way to completely piss off almost all of my friends, right? Nope, I needed a panel, but whom? When I finally answered that question, the name for the awards show fell easily into place: THE SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

I’ve always felt there should be a fan film awards competition where members of the community judge each other’s work…and who knows more about what it takes to make a fan film than a showrunner? But I didn’t want too many judges, so I decided to limit my invitations to showrunners who had successfully released at least four or five completed Star Trek fan films.

Of course, the next concern was making sure there weren’t too many entries. Goodness knows that VANCE MAJOR alone (one of the judges) could enter dozens—maybe hundreds!—of fan films all by himself! So I decided that, unlike the Bjo Awards, the Showrunner Awards will feature a nominal entry fee (maybe $10) plus an additional $1 for each special category like Best VFX, Best Music, Best Film Editing, etc. As I’m learning from entering my fan film INTERLUDE in various film festivals, this is how most of them work with application fees.

Speaking of Vance, or any of the judges, how do we make certain that all of them don’t simply vote for their own fan film, and we wind up with a 6-way or 10-way tie each year? Glad you asked…

Please VOTE for INTERLUDE in the 5th Annual IndieBOOM! Film + Music Festival!

It was late 2017 when the IndieBOOM! Film Festival debuted with a category exclusively for “FAN FILMS”—one of the first major film competitions to do so. Created by the team at the award-winning Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, IndieBOOM! offers categories for filmmakers, musicians, and screenwriters working in all short-form formats and genres. In addition to Fan Films, their other categories include Comedy, Drama, Documentary, Horror/Sci-Fi, Experimental, Eusic Videos and Musicals, Animation, Series, Commercials, Dance, and Songs.

In 2019, the winner in the Fan Film category (and also the Sci-Fi category) was “Walking Bear, Running Wolf” from THE FEDERATION FILES. In 2020, the winning fan film was BATMAN: THE SCHEME IS SOUND, which (even though it wasn’t Star Trek) was written, directed, and produced by the man who composed the music for my fan film INTERLUDE: KEVIN CROXTON. And at the beginning of 2021, the announced winner in the category was a Star Wars fan film from Mexico titled JUNDLAND: NO MAN’S LAND.

Now, that we’re in 2022, I think it might be time for a Star Trek fan film to win again. What do you think?

This year’s official selections in the IndieBOOM! Fan Film category include two live-action Star Wars films (one from Australia and one from the USA), an animated Ghostbusters short from the USA, a live-action Jurassic Park fan film from the UK, a James Bond fan film from the USA with kids playing all the role, and two live-action Star Trek fan films from the USA. One of those is my fan film Interlude, and the other is an amalgamation of two fan films from The Federation Files (USA) released over the past two years.

Obviously, I’d like you to please vote for Interlude, although the choice is certainly up to you!

Voting is done by watching on Vimeo, and every view counts as one vote. So watch early, watch often! (Actually, if Vimeo works like YouTube, then each computer browser can log only one vote…so no cheating, I guess!)

Voting runs continuously from today through January 16. Here is the link to view and vote for Interlude…

https://www.indieboomff.com/interlude-star-trek.html

And maybe give it a like while you’re there, just so I know there’s someone out there watching Interlude.

The first prize for the most viewed film over all of the various categories wins $500. If Interlude wins (fingers crossed!), I intend to donate the prize money to the AVALON UNIVERSE GoFundMe so my DP and Film Editor on Interlude, JOSHUA IRWIN, can produce even more awesome Star Trek fan films. I fully expect to see him winning IndieBOOM! next year!

I encourage you all to check out each of the wonderful films selected as finalists. And if you do choose to vote for Interlude, I thank you.

2021 Star Trek Fan Film YEAR IN REVIEW!

Well, it’s been another year, and the CBS guidelines still haven’t killed Star Trek fan films! In fact, even focusing on just the highlights, this is still gonna be a loooooong blog. But that’s a GOOD thing…unless you’re the guy who has to write it up. But I don’t mind. In fact, I’ve actually written 108 blogs this year…94 of them about Star Trek fan films and the others a mix of editorials, reviews of new CBS Star Trek episodes and series, tracking the now-settled Star Trek/Dr. Seuss mash-up lawsuit, and sadly a few eulogies).

It’s always a challenge how to organize these year in review blogs, but this time, I think I’ll just go chronologically, highlighting the biggest releases for each month. However, before I do that, I’d like to acknowledge a few key people who go beyond simply making fan films and actually give of themselves to the greater fan film community in significant ways…

VANCE MAJOR – The creator of the fan-favorite character of Erick Minard, Vance has produced nearly 150 Star Trek fan films in total…including 30 this year alone covering both the CONSTAR series as well as other fan films released under the NO BUDGET PRODUCTIONS banner. (Because he’s released so many, I’ll be leaving most of Vance’s films off of this year’s highlight list…lest this blog becomes longer than War and Peace!) Vance has also been helping some of his actors make the transition to producers. In previous years, this included GREG TEFT and GREG MITCHELL. This year, PAUL JACQUES and SEAN REIMER joined that expanding group. And in addition to providing these wonderful opportunities, Vance is also spotlighting fan filmmakers regularly on his PIZZA ROLL DIARIES and CRITICAL, NOT CYNICAL video podcasts.

DAN REYNOLDS and GLEN WOLF – In addition to producing the Star Trek anthology series THE FEDERATION FILES, Glen and Dan also maintain TOS set replicas in their WARP 66 STUDIOS facilities, allowing those sets in northern Arkansas to be used by other fan filmmakers, as well.

RAY TESI – Another fan who owns TOS set replicas, Ray bought the STAR TREK CONTINUES/STARSHIP FARRAGUT sets from VIC MIGNOGNA and now allows them to be used by fan filmmakers at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland,GA.

SAMUEL COCKINGS – If you see amazing CGI visual effects in a Star Trek fan film, there’s a good chance that the British “Royal of Rendering” created them. Indeed, at this point, it’s almost shorter to list the fan films that Sam Cockings hasn’t done the VFX for! While top-level CGI isn’t a requirement for a good fan film, it can add a professionally polished look. Sam spends an unbelievable amount of his time doing this for his fellow fan filmmakers, and it makes such a big difference for so many.