Fan Film Features – Page 31

“VOICES FROM THE PAST” – the sixth fan film from THE FEDERATION FILES (audio interview with GLEN L. WOLFE)

When is a Star Trek fan film NOT a Star Trek fan film? Or is it vice-versa? For GLEN L. WOLFE, writer and director of the sixth installment of the anthology series THE FEDERATION FILES, “Voices from the Past,” any distinction is totally blurred and probably irrelevant. No matter what “Voices” might seem to be, it is at heart VERY much a Star Trek fan film!

Granted, it certainly doesn’t look like a Star Trek fan film. There are no starships flying around, no one wearing Starfleet uniforms, no Klingons or Romulans or Cardassians in sight. No main characters from any Star Trek TV series or movie are walking around. “Voices” doesn’t even take place in the 23rd or 24th century. And yet, it’s 100% a Star Trek fan film!

The fact that no scene takes place on a 23rd century starship is particularly surprising considering that Glen and his partner DAN REYNOLDS are the co-owners of WARP 66 STUDIOS in northeastern Arkansas and have access to a number of very high-end TOS-era sets like the bridge and sickbay. Indeed, over the course of the past three and a half years, The Federation Files has released these five fan films all set in the 23rd/24th century:

But this time, Glen has something very different in mind, and very unique in the world of Trek fan films. Without spoiling it for you, how about you just give it a look-see for yourself…

At nearly 39 minutes, the two parts of this fan film exceed the 30-minute limit imposed by the ViacomCBS guidelines, but I doubt these are the droids the license holders are looking for…as it would be highly unlikely that the casual viewer might mistake “Voices” for anything resembling Star Trek. So I’m guessing Glen and Dan are safe for the time being.

I always enjoy chatting with my pal Glen, especially after the release of a new Federation Files production. So once again, I’ve got a great audio interview with this mover-and-shaker of the Star Trek fan film community…

INTERLUDE Confidential #8 – lights, camera, acting!

When our Axanar Universe fan film INTERLUDE is released in a few months and the credits roll, two names will appear prominently: JOSHUA IRWIN and VICTORIA FOX. And it’s because of them that Interlude will not only be an awesome Star Trek fan film but also a visual work of art.

A year and a half ago, when I first suggested to Josh the idea of shooting a fan film on the Ares bridge set, I didn’t really have much in the way of expectations other than, “It’ll be SOOOOO cool!” Y’see, the Ares Studios bridge set is just so darn awesome-looking that I figured any fan film shot on it would have to look amazing. And when Josh started talking about all of the ways he planned to light it, the angles he’d shoot it from, types of lenses he’d use, etc.—it all just zoomed completely over my head. I simply figured that my fan film was in good hands, and it was gonna be such a blast flying to Georgia and getting to watch someone shoot on those sets.

A couple of months later when I discovered that Victoria usually collaborated with Josh on their amazing AVALON UNIVERSE fan films, I invited her to come on board the project, as well…and after some discussion, she accepted. At the time, I naively thought I understood how things worked with the two of them: Josh would set up the lights and cameras (cinematography) while Victoria would work with the actors. The perfect team, splitting the tasks right down the middle.

Man, was I wrong…!

Newly rediscovered 1967 STAR TREK FAN FILM used actual TUNICS from the Paramount set! (interview with ALAN WHITE)

In my first-ever Fan Film Factor blog from 2016, I credited PARAGON’S PARAGON as the generally-accepted first “major” Star Trek fan film. It was made back in 1974. But even in that blog, I mentioned “…that the earliest Star Trek fan films dated back to when the original series was still playing on first-run broadcast TV on NBC.”

At the time I first wrote the blog, I didn’t have any specific examples of such early fan films, but today I do! From way back in March of 1967, while the original Star Trek was still in its debut season, a trio of youngsters created a short Trek fan film titled THE THING IN THE CAVE. And here’s the most amazing thing: they used actual tunics from the show loaned out to them directly from the Star Trek set on the Paramount lot!

Imagine a fan film today using actual spare uniforms from Discovery or Picard. The mind boggles! But things were apparently much different in 1967 (the year I was born).

So who were these kids, how did they get a hold of actual Star Trek tunics, and why are we only first finding out about this “lost” fan film 53 years later?

For the answers, I have an interview with ALAN WHITE, one of the fan filmmakers behind The Thing in the Cave. A current resident of Las Vegas—where he lives with his wife of 30 years, DeDee—Alan was 20 years old back in 1967. About a month ago, Alan posted some photos to Facebook that he took of individual frames from a surviving roll of film from The Thing in the Cave. I was fascinated by both the age of the project and by how well-made and authentic the tunics looked. Naturally, I reached out to Alan in order to learn more…

The story behind POGO and his DATA & PICARD music video…

The strangely surreal DATA & PICARD Star Trek fan music video has been viewed on YouTube nearly seven and a half million times…making it one of the most widely seen Trek fan productions of all time. And yet, I haven’t covered it here on Fan Film Factor up until now—somewhat on purpose.

When the musician/DJ/remix artist/film editor/YouTuber POGO (whose real name is NICK BERTKE) first uploaded this unusually hypnotic video back in late 2016, it was certainly a project I intended to cover. But less than two years later—and before I was able to blog about him—Pogo/Nick created some major controversy and trouble for himself.

In a video from 2016 which was posted to YouTube in May of 2018 (and has since been removed for reasons of hate-speech), Pogo shared some very homophobic opinions, including calling gays an “abomination” and seeming to approve of the 2016 massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse. And of course, social media sleuths quickly unearthed another controversial rant of his against feminism from 2017. Within days, public opinion had turned strongly against Pogo, and the Lamplight Lounge at Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim, CA, which featured some of Pogo’s Disney-related tracks on their restaurant’s playlist, quickly bowed to pressure and removed them all. (For more details on Pogo’s controversial statements and attempts to walk them back, click here.)

And so I was torn. On the one hand, Pogo had created this wildly popular Star Trek fan film music video…and his background story is quite interesting. On the other hand, hate speech and homophobia is anathema to me. I am totally repulsed by Pogo’s prejudices against gay people and women. I decided not to cover Pogo and his video…a decision I’ve stuck with for nearly two years (despite a number of readers sending me links and asking me to cover it). Eventually, I mostly forgot about the video.

A few weeks ago, however, I happened upon a new version of the Pogo video that had used a digital manipulation technique called Deepfake to replace Pogo’s image with the faces of PATRICK STEWART and BRENT SPINER. (I’ll include that new video at the end of this blog.) This new video got me thinking about maybe covering Pogo after all.

If you can’t stomach my decision, then please feel free to skip this blog. Otherwise, let’s start with showing Pogo’s original Data & Picard video (without the Deepfake) for those who haven’t seen it yet or who just want to see it again…

HINDSIGHT: The Unmaking of ALTERNATIVE VICTORY…the 1982 fan film that never was!

Why do I spend so much time and effort showing support for fan films large and small? Why do I insist on always being positive about these productions…even when it would be so easy to find things to criticize?

The answer lies in this amazingly well-crafted video documentary that I present to you today. I began watching it on a friend’s recommendation. Initially, I took one look at the run-time—just over an hour—and thought: “Well, I’ll watch the first few minutes, at least…”

A little over an hour later, I’d watched the whole thing and was truly moved. THIS is the reason I write Fan Film Factor, folks!

If you’ve never worked on a fan film—even a really amateur one (my first, Voyages of the USS Angeles back in 1999, was pretty, um, humble)—it’s hard to explain what a truly intense and often (hopefully) rewarding and bonding experience it is for those involved. Whether your tasks on the production are large or small, you feel like part of a team, part of a joint creation and shared accomplishment. And even if the finished product doesn’t turn out as magnificent or awe-inspiring as you first imagined, no one can take away that time, effort, and camaraderie that you and your friends put into it.

And that’s the story presented in HINDSIGHT: THE UNMAKING OF ALTERNATIVE VICTORY. Back in the winter of 1982, a number of dedicated Trekkers from northern California came together to make a Star Trek fan film. Most were in high school or college, and nearly all of them were pretty clueless about filmmaking. But the thing was: they didn’t know they were clueless! And so they soldiered on, always imagining the awesomeness of their final production.

This 2013 documentary is a retrospective from 30 years later, featuring the young kids—now all grown up—who tried to make Alternative Victory. Looking back from the perspective of adults in their 40s and 50s, the documentary isn’t just about the making of this fan film. It’s about the people involved and the effect this shared experience had on all of their lives…even decades later.

I invite you all to share this special journey, this trek, with documentary-filmmaker DAVID HOGGAN and his friends as they look back at a fan film that almost was…

SQUADRON campaign reaches $8K with the help of AXANAR and INTERLUDE donors!

Lately, it seems like every morning we wake up with a choice to make: optimism or pessimism? Either the world is collapsing around our ears or else we’re gonna make it through this pandemic and everything will be fine again. Sometimes it feels like we’re faced with this decision multiple times each day!

And that brings us to the topic of crowd-funding campaigns. At the moment, with the global economy teetering on the edge of a second Great Depression, there aren’t any new Kickstarters or Indiegogo’s or GoFundMe’s starting up for Star Trek fan films. The odds are simply too long on reaching one’s goal. But what about those campaigns that launched BEFORE the pandemic (or just as quarantining was beginning)?

In the case of Neutral Zone Studios, owner RAY TESI reports that he’s suspended (not canceled) plans to move his TOS sets to Orlando and start up an Escape Room business. Their WeFunder campaign kicked off in late February with a goal of $100K and stalled at $30K. Ray suggests that they’ll have to see when things start getting back to normal. “No change in plan, only time,” he says.

But another February campaign that was caught by surprise was the Indiegogo for SQUADRON from the Czech Republic. These hardworking and humble folks put everything they had into their campaign. But with two weeks left in their two-month campaign, they were barely 23% of the way to their $15,000 goal, and donations had essentially flatlined. Squadron show-runner JAKUB HOLÝ was hopeful that they could make it at least to 50% ($7.5K) of their goal in order to afford all of the VFX shots they needed to tell their story properly. As a battle tale set during the Dominion War, CGI effects shots would be super-important.

But with seven weeks gone and only 13 days left—and during an international health crisis and economic collapse—how could Squadron possibly manage to double their total when it had barely budged for nearly a month?

INTERLUDE Confidential #7 – we have PICTURE LOCK!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a locked edit!

Back in January, I wrote a blog discussing how we were transitioning from the production phase into post-production on my Axanar Universe fan film INTERLUDE. Over the past three months, JOSHUA IRWIN, VICTORIA FOX, and I have been working hard on the editing. As of this past weekend, we officially have picture lock.

“What’s the heck is a picture lock??” you ask.

Editing is kinda fun. You move a shot here, you trim a shot there, maybe you add an extra reaction shot in another spot. As you assemble the “puzzle pieces,” you can experiment and shift things around, tweaking and refining to your heart’s content. But there comes a point when you have to stop and hand the edit off to your composer.

Music is kinda unforgiving. If a scene lasts for 57 seconds, then you need 57 seconds of music underneath it. So that’s what your composer gives you. If the director or editor later decides to insert a 5-second clip in the middle of the scene or trim out 12 seconds, then the music will no longer match the scene length, and the composer will have to re-do all of the music for that scene from scratch. And eventually, if this happens too much, he or she will likely quit, often accompanied by a long series of expletives.

So achieving picture lock is a “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment. Once you hand the edit off to your composer, nothing changes that affects the timing. Nothing. Period.

Picture lock doesn’t mean the edit is all done except for the music, however. In fact, there is still a LOT left to do! For Interlude, LEWIS ANDERSON still needs to deliver two more VFX shots. “Wait,” you say, “doesn’t adding in VFX shots affect the timing and length of the film?” Not in this case. For one of the shots, Lewis has already provided us a low-resolution previsualization animatic to insert as a placeholder. His final high-resolution VFX shot will be the exact same length. In the other shot, he’s creating the digital background of Admiral Slater’s office at Starfleet Academy. We shot Slater (STEVEN JEPSON) against a green screen, and those video sequences are completed. So adding in the background doesn’t change the scene length.

Joshua is also still working on finishing touches here and there like shakes and flashes and sparks. But none of those things will affect the timing. We’re also adding in the background “bridge chatter” sounds, which doesn’t change timing either.

On Saturday, our composer KEVIN CROXTON began composing our score. Once he’s done, the edit goes to MARK EDWARD LEWIS for post-production sound-mixing. He’ll add sound effects, adjust the levels of everyone’s voices, clean up stray sounds from the set, and balance the music with the dialogue and other sounds so nothing is drowning out anything else. At this point, we’re still a month or two away from being finished.

The STARSHIP FARRAGUT finale “HOMECOMING” is still being actively worked on!

While AXANAR usually hogs the comments on social media asking, “Why isn’t it finished yet?” there’s been another crowd-funded Star Trek fan project from 2015 also still lingering in post production. No, not PACIFIC 201. And not FIRST FRONTIER either (it wasn’t crowd-funded). And not EQUINOX or PIKE (although successfully crowd-funded, neither project was ever filmed).

No, I am talking about the long-awaited finale to the venerable fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT, an episode titled “Homecoming.”

Starship Farragut got its start way back in 2005 when they began shooting their pilot episode “The Captaincy.” Over the course of the next decade, the folks at Farragut Films would release nearly a dozen more full-length episodes, vignettes, and even two animated episodes (featuring voice-overs by TIM RUSS (not playing Tuvok from Voyager) and CHASE MASTERSON (not playing Leeta from Deep Space 9). Along the way, they expanded their filming space and constructed an extensive TOS set recreation that was eventually shared with and later sold to VIC MIGNOGNA of STAR TREK CONTINUES. (Read the full and fascinating history of Starship Farragut here.)

At the end of 2014, Farragut Films made a decision to transition themselves to become the first full-budget, set-based regular fan series to be set in the Trek movie era. The actors had aged a decade since the earliest episodes of Starship Farragut, so jumping the series forward seemed logical. In fact, the new series was to be called Farragut Forward. But it never came to be. Instead, at the end of 2015, they crowd-funded a series finale episode called “Homecoming,” and raised $15,787 from 207 donors on Kickstarter.

Things seemed to be going smoothly on “Homecoming.” Filming took place in early 2016 with some outdoor reshoots being completed in June of that year, according to donor updates. In early 2017, donors were treated to a two-minute teaser-trailer with an unexpected cameo by Marvel Comics legend STAN LEE (who passed away in November 2018). The trailer looked promising…

An October 2017 update by show-runner JOHN BROUGHTON reported decent progress:

Our video editor Jay Pennington is doing an outstanding job with the edit. I’d say that we’re 1/2 way done based on the cuts that have been reviewed and critiqued for edits. Although he is on track to deliver as promised an edited film before year’s end, the CGI and FX shots still need to be done. In addition, there is also color correction and ADR work to do given the acoustical and lighting challenges we had filming outdoors.

And then, silence…

With just SIX DAYS left to crowd-fund, SQUADRON releases an exciting NEW TRAILER!

Here’s the link to donate to SQUADRON’s Indiegogo (if you can afford to right now):

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

It’s coming down to the wire for the Dominion War-era fan film SQUADRON from the Czech Republic and their crowd-funding campaign. Last week, I reported how the show-runners had sadly acknowledged that there was little-to-no chance that they would make it to their $15K goal. However, if they could reach about $7K, they would have enough to afford all of the CGI visual effects that they need to complete their fan film (since the live action footage has already been shot).

Last week when I published that blog, they were at about $3.5K. As of today, they’re at $4.6K. Pretty good! With just SIX days left, our Czech friends have just released an exciting new 30-second trailer. Take a look…

Executive Producer (and co-star) JAKUB HOLÝ had this to say…

Jonathan, I can’t tell you how grateful we all feel for the 18 new donations that bring us more than a thousand dollars closer to the money we need to finish our VFX. You see, our story is very visual, and the CGI sequences are terrifically important to conveying the action that happens. If we can’t make it close to $7,000, VFX scenes will have to be cut or the models pared down to lower quality. We wish we didn’t have to do that, but there would be no other choice.

So that’s why every dollar or euro people give means so much. They can literally save a visual effect by donating even a small amount. And those FX are going to look so amazing. I told you last week that we managed to get SAMUEL COCKINGS to come on board to make about half of our CGI sequences—possibly more if we raise enough—and the rest are being done by someone here in the Czech Republic. But as you can see from the trailer, the VFX are going to be top-notch to go along with our Hollywood-quality uniforms, prosthetics, make-up, and props. Our lighting, camera, sound, music…everything is among the best you’ll see in any fan film. We’re so excited, but we just need to get a little more in donations.

So please, Fan Film Factor readers, if you can afford it (and we realize that right now, not everyone can), we’ve got just six days left to raise only another $2,400. With your help, I know we can make it! And remember that we’re offering some great perks, even at smaller levels.

And whether you donate or not, please help to spread the link and tell your friends about us. You have our big thanks…

And again, here’s the link to donate to SQUADRON’s Indiegogo:

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

Meet the professional writer of the latest episode of MARIE CURIE: “Under Fire” (interview with BOBBY NASH)

The Star Trek fan film guidelines are seldom, if ever, enforced by ViacomCBS, but were they ever to be, I often wonder how guideline #5 would be interpreted. That’s the guideline which specifies, in part, “creators, actors and all other participants must be amateurs.” Amateur what, exactly? The show-runner of THE BUNNY INCIDENT, KEVIN CROXTON, is an Emmy Award winning composer…surely a professional. SAMUEL COCKINGS, the Wolfgang Puck of CGI, makes his own fan films like TEMPORAL ANOMALY and the upcoming CONVERGENCE, and yet he creates VFX professionally for a number of different clients. JOSH IRWIN and VICTORIA FOX produce the Avalon Universe fan series (and are also directing my fan film INTERLUDE), and they each work in the film production industry professionally. And the list goes on and on.

The latest addition to this growing list is BOBBY NASH, a professional author who has written novels, comic books, short fiction, and screenplays. And a few weeks ago, he added a new Star Trek fan film to his achievements with the release of “Under Fire,” the third offering from POTEMKIN PICTURES’ HOSPITAL SHIP MARIE CURIE creative group. And this isn’t the only Star Trek fan film Bobby has written. Back in 2014, the fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT released “Conspiracy of Innocence,” which Bobby also wrote.

Six years is a rather long gap between writing Star Trek fan films, and I was curious to learn a little more about this fellow. But before I present my interview with him, take a look at his latest work, “Under Fire”…

And now, let’s meet Bobby Nash…