Fan Film Features – Page 17

STARSHIP FARRAGUT finally releases series finale “HOMECOMING” (interview with JOHN BROUGHTON, PAUL R. SIEBER, and STEVE SEMMEL – part 1)

The history of the fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT stretches all the way back to 2004 and spans a total of 6 full-length fan films, 3 shorter vignettes, and 2 animated-style fan films (one of them featuring the voices of TIM “Tuvok” RUSS and CHASE “Leeta” MASTERSON). Farragut Films was responsible for the majority of the construction of amazing TOS sets that were also utilized for STAR TREK CONTINUES and DREADNOUGHT DOMINION and are still available for use by fan filmmakers at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA. Farragut also spawned a short-lived spinoff series called TREK ISOLATION that released three vignettes. And coming in 2022, a sequel series titled FARRAGUT FORWARD will move some of the Starship Farragut characters into the Wrath of Khan movie era Trek.

Since we have so much material for today’s interview, I’ll keep the background introduction fairly brief. But if you’d like to read the full backstory of this proud fan series, here’s Part 1 of a 3-part deep-dive into the full history of Starship Farrugut. Well, ALMOST full. The final part of that blog feature came out in early 2016, a month before the release of their penultimate episode, “The Crossing,” and a few months before reshoots wrapped on their announced series finale, “Homecoming.” Crowd-funded with about $15K in late 2015, fans expected to see a completed fan film later in 2016 or maybe 2017. That didn’t happen.

Instead, it wasn’t until mid-2020 that STEVE SEMMEL announced that he was taking over as post-production supervisor, having started off simply doing the music for the episode. I interviewed Steve in June of last year, and he promised a delivery date in the second half of 2021 “most definitely.” And indeed, that’s exactly what happened, as “Homecoming” was released on October 1. Take a look…

I reached out to three people to discuss “Homecoming”: show-runner and lead actor JOHN BROUGHTON and writer PAUL R. SIEBER (both of whom have been with Starship Farragut since the very beginning), and of course, Steve Semmel (who came on board in 2018). We covered so much great behind-the-scenes information about both the finale episode and also going back to the earliest days of the series back in 2004.

I received so many awesome answers that I’ve decided to divide this interview into two parts. Let’s get started…

‘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

AXANAR finally has its first film shoot in 20 MONTHS! (video interview with MARK EDWARD LEWIS)

It’s been more than five months since I’ve published a blog regarding AXANAR, ARES STUDIOS, or ALEC PETERS…and that might be some kind of record for Fan Film Factor! The previous blog covered the moving of the U.S.S. Ares bridge set to a new, smaller facility (with lower rent) down the road in Lawrenceville, GA. But since then, there hasn’t been much Axanar news worth covering (I don’t bother with the non-production-related drama anymore).

That said, this past weekend finally featured some Axanar news definitely worth reporting on. For the first time since before the pandemic and lockdown, new footage for the two Axanar sequels was filmed. The shooting location was NOT Ares Studios, however. The bridge set still sits disassembled, awaiting the return of DANA WAGNER (whom I call “the miracle worker” because he’s basically Scotty when it comes to that set and studio) from medical treatment. We all wish Dana the best of outcomes and a speedy recovery…we love you, Dana!

Instead, the shoot took place in a nearby Gwinnett County high school video studio with ample green screen space available. Because Dana’s wife Allison teaches video for the school district and Alec had previously allowed students in the school video program to film on the bridge set at Ares Studios, the school was all too happy to return the favor and allow Axanar to be shot at their campus facility.

Alec reported in a blog on the Axanar website that the shoot was a “HUGE success” (I’m glad my use of ALL CAPS is catching on!). Unlike the first Axanar shoot back in October of 2019 that had 80 people (cast, crew, volunteers) present over three days, last Saturday’s activities were much smaller in scope, lasting for a single day with only about 15-20 people present. The main reason was COVID, which is still a major consideration for all SAG union shoots—so at present, only the most essential personnel are allowed on set…any set.

The scenes being shot this past weekend were of actors J.G. HERTZLER (who flew in from upstate New York), ROBERT HAYES (who recently appeared on The Walking Dead and plays helm officer Deville), and RAJ KALA (an Indian Sikh who plays Commodore Singh). All three of these actors had filmed their lines previously during the first Axanar shoot, but for various reasons, their footage wasn’t usable (which I can personally confirm, having seen it), and in one case, the original footage was completely lost to a damaged memory card.

BJO AWARDS announces FINALISTS for 2020…

Wait…did I say “2020”? Yep. As I explained in a blog last month, the BJO AWARDS (the annual awards presented exclusively to Star Trek fan films) was forced to skip the awards for last year due to the pandemic. Since the awards’ debut back in 2015, winners were announced live and in person at the annual TREKLANTA convention, with plaques being handed out to winners who were in attendance. But last year’s Treklanta was virtual, and the awards were skipped for 2020.

Well, perhaps “skipped” isn’t the right word. “Delayed” is more like it.

Each year’s awards are presented to qualifying Star Trek fan films that were released in the previous calendar year—meaning that this year’s Bjo Awards for 2021 should have been presented to fan films released in 2020. But that would mean those fan films from 2019 would never be recognized (a “skipped” year). Of course, one possible idea was to combine the releases from 2019 and 2020 into a single awards show, but it didn’t seem fair to double the nominees while keeping the number of winners the same.

So Treklanta Chairman ERIC L. WATTS decided to hold the 2020 Bjo Awards in 2021, and then hold the 2021 Bjo Awards early in 2022…hopefully leaving enough time left to also hold the 2022 Bjo Awards later in 2022 and get everything back on schedule.

You got all that?

Anyway, my previous blog from October listed all of the qualifying fan films from 2019—32 in all, although 10 of them were two-parters that were combined on the ballot into single entries, leaving a total of 27 qualifying Star Trek fan films. According to Eric Watts, the total runtime for all the films combined was 9 hours, 54 minutes, and 19 seconds (gotta love Eric’s Vulcan precision!)…ranging from just under 3 minutes (STAR TREK: UNITY‘s “Tabula Rasa”) to just over 51 minutes (TEMPORAL ANOMALY “Part 1” and “Part 2” combined). The average run time was 22 minutes.

Eric is particularly appreciative of the eleven judges who watched through every entry and took their job very seriously. In order to qualify to be a judge, a person had to have “…an established professional credit in the Star Trek franchise (actor, author, artist, writer, director, designer, producer, makeup artist, stunt double… pretty much anything)” or be “…a Star Trek fan currently working in the television/motion picture industry [without] any known association with any previous or current fan film.” With criteria like that, finding a panel of willing judges was NOT going to be easy!

“Yes, recruiting this year’s panel was a huge challenge,” says Eric, “and I’m proud of the calibre of judges that made this commitment. The Bjos are NOT a popularity contest, but rather, a juried competition of professionals who are impartial and know what Star Trek is… and should be. I want to give them all the recognition I possibly can.”

Four years in the making, THE FEDERATION FILES’ tenth episode is “DOPPELGANGER” (video interview with DAN REYNOLDS)

I first heard about “Doppelganger” back in early 2017 when I watched this short trailer, released at the same time as this short trailer for “Walking Bear, Running Wolf.” Both didn’t show any filmed footage, but they promised new releases coming from the fan anthology (fanthology?) series THE FEDERATION FILES, which had launched a few months earlier in late 2016 with their debut episode, “His Name Is Mudd.”

Following that initial premiere and those two trailers, The Federation Files released another eight episodes…

And while “Walking Bear, Running Wolf” was completed and released pretty quickly later in 2017, “Doppelganger” was nowhere to be seen…until this past summer, that is. On July 9th, 2021, The Federation Files debuted its TENTH full episode, and fans finally got to see “Doppelganger.”

It also marked the first time in five releases that an episode of The Federation Files featured any of the amazing Star Trek TOS sets at WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas. After using the sets in their first four releases, the next five episodes were either filmed on location (both indoors and outdoors) or else on non-TOS sets custom-built for the needs of a particular story.

Of course, that’s the advantage of a fanthology format, as the time period can jump around and not be limited to only 23rd century Star Trek history. But the trend was enough for me to notice and ask co-showrunner GLEN L. WOLFE about the lack of use of the TOS sets in my previous blog about “Mask.” Amusingly, though, before I had a chance to publish that interview, these busy beavers in Arkansas released their newest fan production, “Doppelganger,” which most assuredly makes copious use of the many TOS sets, as you can see here…

That said, Federation Files has once again “lapped” me by already posting an ELEVENTH fan film, “No Good Deed,” before I could cover this tenth release. And I’ll certainly get to that one (hopefully before they release their twelfth episode!).

But “Doppelganger” gives me a chance to interview the “R” in WARP 66 Studios: Mr. DAN REYNOLDS of Wolf/Reynolds Productions. In fact, Glen has sorta been hogging the last four interviews, and I haven’t had Dan in the hot seat since January of 2020!

So let’s remedy that absence with a brand new video interview (lately, I’ve kinda graduated from audio interviews to recorded Zoom calls—let me know what you think)…

Wanna see NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS turned into a live STAGE PLAY???

Now, THIS is something really cool!

On Saturday, November 6, a truly unique (and busy!) event happened at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA. Star Trek fans from around the world, sitting at their computers or watching from their smart devices, got to experience the amazing TOS sets while cosplayers played the roles of crewmen in what was a combination guided walk-though plus live performance.

Originally constructed for the fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT and later STAR TREK CONTINUES, the contents of what is now known as Neutral Zone Studios were sold by VIC MIGNOGNA to Florida resident RAY TESI in 2018. Since then, Ray has opened up the sets to any fan filmmaker who wants to shoot there, and they’ve been used by DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, AVALON UNIVERSE, as well as others, including a series of fan films from Ray himself under the banner of TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE.

Because JAMES CAWLEY in Ticonderoga, NY has the license from CBS to host the exclusive STAR TREK Original Series Set Tour, Ray has to limit himself to fan film productions and free fan appreciation weekend events. And if Ray does provide a guided walk-through, then it must be completely free of charge to not compete directly with James’ commercial license.

The fan appreciation weekends have been a blast for visitors…or so I’m told, as I haven’t been able to make the trip yet (to either Kingsland or Ticonderoga). And indeed, that has been a reason for many a Trekker to feel frustrated. But what about getting a set walk-through without ever leaving your house? It’s now possible thanks to a relatively new website called Heygo.com.

Heygo was founded in May 2020 by LIAM GARRISON and JOHN TERTAN, two world travelers who met at Oxford University about ten years ago. As the global pandemic wore on and tourist travel became a distant memory, Liam and John realized how much not only they but the world as a whole was losing by no longer being able to connect with people in exotic lands with fascinating cultures. So they started a website—originally called VirtualTrips.io—to offer live virtual tours, 24/7, to destinations all over the planet. Tour guides would be English-speaking locals who knew the landmarks and histories and other fascinating aspects of the people and their customs. Their guided tours would be livestreamed to small groups of people who could sign up for free through the website.

Wait…free? Why would anyone spend their time giving tours to virtual strangers for no money??? The answer in that the site runs on “tips,” which are optional. But giving $5 to a tour guide in Slovenia or Egypt or Vietnam could help someone feed their family for a week. Indeed, one formerly homeless man in Edinburgh, Scotland has been using the Heygo service to help other homeless people get off the streets by training them to give virtual tours for tips!

So what does any of this have to do with Star Trek???

STARSHIP WEBSTER invites you to a LANDING PARTY…but wear your MASK! (interview with RANDY LANDERS)

Chalk up another fan film release for POTEMKIN PICTURES, and the fifth in just over a year for the STARSHIP WEBSTER Creative Group. The Lexington, Kentucky-based team of actors is the eighth such group to assemble for Potemkin releases, and as you’ll discover in today’s interview with showrunner RANDY LANDERS, they won’t be the last!

Their latest release is a fun little jaunt that includes a bunch of Gorn, a landing party, and less than five minutes of actual footage shot on location in Belleau Woods Park in Lexington. Who says you can’t make a fan film that runs less than 15 minutes???

But what I found particularly intriguing was the use of “breather masks” for the Webster planetary reconnaissance team. During this time of COVID, masking up is an effective way to stay safe—but it doesn’t always make for good cinema. After all, unless you’re Darth Vader or Spider-Man, you kinda need your face in order to act and show emotions. However, when masks work in your story, they can serve multiple purposes in addition to keeping the cast COVID-safe.

First of all, they add a little bit of “real science” into your science fiction, since the odds are actually very slim that every alien planet you visit will contain a class-M breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere. And second, if you’re filming outdoors and don’t have good mics or sound equipment, masks allow you to record dialog later on (a process known as ADR) and not have to tear your hair out trying to make certain that the dubbed dialog matches the lip movements from the original footage.

“Breather masks” were used for the first time during the pandemic about a year ago by the fan series DREADNOUGHT DOMINION in their film “We Are Many.” Now they appear in the latest release from Starship Webster: “Landing Party. Take a look…

With 58.5% of the country’s population fully vaccinated, many fan filmmakers have gone back into production without masks—at least when the cameras are running. (I know of several that are still requiring crew on set to be masked and actors to be masked while not actively filming a scene.) So I was a little curious about what prompted the Webster team to mask up in front of the camera, as well. And for that, as usual, I reached out to Randy Landers…

CANADIAN fan filmmaker announces a brand new CAPTAIN GARTH fan film! (interview with DARREN HANN)

I love Canada. I’ve been there many times—summer and winter (BRRRR!!!)—and there are two things I can assure you of: the place is absolutely gorgeous and the people are some of the nicest and most courteous I’ve ever met anywhere on the planet.

Over the years, I’ve covered many “international” (as in not-made-in-the-United-States) Star Trek fan films—from England and Scotlnd, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Australia, and I’ll soon be covering ones from Italy and Russia. And I always found it somewhat odd that I hadn’t yet happened upon a current fan group in Canada…the birthplace of WILLIAM SHATNER and JAMES DOOHAN and the current filming location of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. The closest I got was JOHN ATKIN, who is the co-showrunner of YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL (due out soon) and lives in Toronto. But most of the production on Yorktown happened in the U.S.

And so it was that I took great interest in an announcement that was posted to Fan Film Forum this past Friday by DARREN HANN…

DHann Productions is pleased to announce its exciting new film project- CAPTAIN GARTH: A STAR TREK FAN PRODUCTION. Based on the character from the original Star Trek series, CAPTAIN GARTH will follow the highs and lows of Garth’s starfleet career post the Four Years War and prior to the original series episode “Whom Gods Destroy” and aims to give an insightful look at one of the most fascinating and tragic characters within the Star Trek iconography.

CAPTAIN GARTH is being produced in the province of Newfoundland, Canada, and is produced by Darren Hann. The production team includes various members who have brought the geek fandom favourites like STAR TREK: RELIANT (web series) 11 Episodes, STAR WARS: Inner Demons (short film), STARGATE: REPLICATION (short film), and PLAN 9.5 FROM OUTER SPACE (short film) all of which can currently be found on youtube and Vimeo.

As per the Fan Film Guidelines set by Paramount and CBS, CAPTAIN GARTH will consist of two 15 minute episodes, shot with a cast and crew of amateurs, and is self-funded.

Of course, the announcement attracted my attention for another reason beyond the location being Canada’s easternmost province—and that was the use of the “G”-word: Garth. Up until now, in the fan film world, Garth has meant AXANAR—more specifically PRELUDE TO AXANAR, INTERLUDE, and the upcoming Axanar sequels. And Garth has also meant ALEC PETERS. So many folks in the fan film community (including I) were wondering if this new production might be somehow linked to Alec or the Axanar project, or if it was going to be a completely separate story with no tie-ins to the Axanar fan films that have come before.

To get the answers to these and other questions, I reached out to Captain Garth showrunner Darren Hann, who lives in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, just a few short kilometers from the colorful coastal capital city of St. John’s…

Welcome back, Parker! Prodigal fan filmmaker returns with CROSSROADS: THE GEMINI PROJECT (video interview with FRANK PARKER, JR.)

Report two casualties: Commodore Sam Grissom, Actor FRANK PARKER, JR.

Correction: they’re not casualties. They are…list them as “missing.”

That’s the way it seemed back in 2016. Frank Parker, Jr. had become a prominent name in the fan film community. Appearing in THE ROMULAN WARS fan series in 2012, he had gone on to help build sets that were used for both STARSHIP FARRAGUT and STAR TREK CONTINUES. In fact, Frank briefly appeared in the penultimate episode of Farragut, “The Crossing.”

But what Frank was really becoming known for was the debut of a new fan series filmed on the Farragut/STC sets in Kingsland, GA: DREADNOUGHT DOMINION. Frank played Commodore Sam Grissom of the titular starship, as bald as Jean-Luc Picard and plagued by a troubled past. Two episodes, “Haunted” and “Anchors Aweigh,” promised another fine addition to the world of Star Trek fan films with Frank as showrunner. But then, seemingly without any warning, Frank completely disappeared from the fan film community without a trace! POOF!!!

Fortunately, Dreadnought Dominion found a way to carry on without their lead actor and creator. GARY DAVIS and RANDY WRENN took over the series, releasing nearly a dozen follow-up episodes, including a crossover with STARSHIP VALIANT titled “Chain of Command,” which dealt with the aftermath of Commodore Grissom’s sudden departure.

Fast forward five years to early 2021.

As quickly as he disappeared, Frank reappeared in the Star Trek fan film world, almost as if he’d simply beamed down somewhere and beamed back half a decade later. And although Dreadnought Dominion had moved on, Frank appeared in an episode titled “The Passenger with Baggage” to tie up many loose ends and bring closure for most of the characters, including his.

But Frank’s return didn’t stop there. Frank has since formed an alliance, of sorts, with VANCE MAJOR of the MINARD and CONSTAR saga of fan films, partnering Frank’s FILK FERRET PRODUCTIONS with Vance’s NO BUDGET PRODUCTIONS to create multiple fan films. These have included the following for CONSTAR COMPLETED episodes released between March and June of this year:

Sam Grissom also appeared in a flashback during the alternate 24th century timeline fan film WASTELAND, released this past March. Plus, a Kelvin timeline version of Sam Grissom appeared in the 47-minute long MINARD 2: HEMORRHAGE released in June and the recent Dominion/Constar crossover fan film CALM, COOL, & COLLECTED released in July.

Whew!

If you don’t want to watch all of the above, Frank and Vance compiled a “highlight reel” titled THE STORY SO FAR – GRISSOM ADVENTURES. It serves as a user primer…

A primer for what, you ask?

How to be a SHOWRUNNER in the AVALON UNIVERSE…

We are now exactly one week out from the announced premiere of the latest fan film from THE AVALON UNIVERSE: AGENT OF NEW WORLDS. Fans are really looking forward to this one, for a number of reasons…

The showrunner, writer, and director, JOSHUA IRWIN, is a film industry professional in Arkansas and a skilled craftsman. Avalon releases are among the best-looking, best-sounding, and best-edited Star Trek fan films being produced right now.
This is a brand new era for Avalon. With the departure of director/writer/actor VICTORIA FOX from the series as well as lead actor CHUCK MERÉ (along with the characters they played: first officer Amanda Beck and Captain Lance Ramirez, respectively), a new cast and crew is coming aboard the U.S.S. Excalibur. This includes the ever-perky PIXI NEREID, who has already captured the hearts of fan film aficionados with a music video and interviews like this one. It also includes actor WARREN HAWK from my AXANAR Universe fan film INTERLUDE (now with 118K views!) who played fan-favorite character Captain Imari Jakande of the U.S.S. Artemis. Although Jakande died in the Axanar Universe, he’s alive and well in the Avalon Universe and is the new commanding officer of the U.S.S. Excalibur.
The film looks like it’ll be visually stunning. This is because Josh and members of his team traveled all the way from Arkansas to Arizona to film parts of this on location in a desert outside of Phoenix along with driving and hiking to two different scenic locations in western Oklahoma…all to create the feeling of being stranded on an alien world.

An overhead drone shot from the upcoming AGENT OF NEW WORLDS

And of course, I’ve been talking up this latest fan film for the past few months as I’ve endeavored to help Team Avalon raise crowd-funding for this production—as well as other upcoming projects. Speaking of which, they’re currently 60% of the way to their $20,000 goal, and if you haven’t tossed a few pennies (or preferably dollars) into the collection plate yet, this would be a great time to do so at this link…

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

Have you ever wondered what goes on a week before the release of a fan film? Of course, there’s all sorts of different scenarios. Sometimes a film is finished weeks or months early, pretty much ready to go, and maybe there’s a few minor tweaks as things head for an announced deadline. Sometimes there’s no announced deadline and a fan filmmaker just releases the finished product whenever it’s ready. And sometimes a deadline is announced and then has to be extended because things aren’t ready yet. I’ve seen ’em all.

But then there’s Josh Irwin. Josh doesn’t miss deadlines, no matter how many hours he has to work or go without sleep. It’s a matter of professional pride. And in the case of Agent of New Worlds, the announced release date of October 31 is significant because it marks exactly three years from the 2018 premiere of Avalon’s debut fan film GHOST SHIP.

So with the clock ticking down, what is life like for Josh right now…?