Fan Film Features – Page 50

SKY FIGHTER is finished and available for donors! (interview with LUKAS KENDALL, part 2)

Last week, we began a fascinating discussion with LUKAS KENDALL, who, after raising $31,000 in an Indiegogo campaign a year ago, set out to direct a short sci-fi film that he wrote himself: SKY FIGHTER. The 15-minute vignetter story is part of an expansive full-length feature film which Lukas will be pitching to production studios. Sky Fighter will serve as a proof of concept to illustrate not only what the completed film could look like but also how competent of a director Lukas can be.

As a first-time director, studios might be more willing to buy his script and give it to someone else to direct, and Lukas doesn’t want that. This is his dream, and he is going all out to turn it into a reality.

Although the film was just completed a few weeks ago, it hasn’t yet been shared with the general public because that would disqualify Sky Fighter from consideration in most film festivals. However, backers to the original campaign were given a password-protected private link to a screening copy, and those wishing to donate to a new campaign (to fund a Blu-ray and music CD) will also be given special access to the completed film…and it is absolutely worth checking out! Here is the trailer…

A donation as low as $5 gets you immediate access to the backer-only link—and donating a little more gets you other cool stuff…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-fighter-sci-fi-short-film-blu-ray-release

And now, the conclusion of our deep-dive interview with Lukas Kendall…

From REEL to REAL: DS9 DOCUMENTARY wraps fans in a warm blanket of LOVE! (editorial review)

TEENSY-WEENSY SPOILERS (hardly noticeable)

“A warm blanket of love”??? Who writes this crap? Well, I do…and frankly, that’s what it felt like to me Monday night as I sat in a Los Angeles movie theater watching a special screening of WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND with 200 other Trekkers. It was love, pure and simple…from IRA BEHR and the cast and crew of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to their fans and also to each other.

Most of you know the story of how an Indiegogo campaign in early 2017 with what seemed like an ambitious budget of $150K exploded into $650K in donations from fans of DS9. This would fund the documentary that Paramount and (now) CBS never made and were never going to make. All their effort went into remastering TOS and TNG. But DS9 was never seen by the studios as reaching the level of significance and commercial viability as the former two Trek series.

So if you want something done right…

I have to admit it: Deep Space Nine is my favorite of all the Star Trek TV series. That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy the others. I could watch “The Doomsday Machine” and “The Inner Light” over and over again. (“Spock’s Brain” and “A Fistful of Datas”…not so much.) And even DS9 had its share of clunker episodes. But overall, for me, the series that I feel captures Star Trek the most of all of them, the series that I’d take with me if I were ever stranded on a deserted island…that would be DS9.

This documentary was for ME. And if you’re like me, then it was made for YOU, too. If you never “got” Deep Space Nine or preferred all or most of the other series more, then this documentary is probably not for you…and that’s fine. The beauty of Star Trek is IDIC, and we’re all entitled to an opinion.

But if you are a “Niner” like me, here’s why I enjoyed this documentary so much…

THE HOLY CORE premieres! (interview with GARY O’BRIEN)

It’s not easy making a set-based TNG-era Star Trek fan film! Unlike TOS, where there are multiple set recreations where fans can film, TNG sets are much more difficult to construct and maintain. Most often, 24th century Trek fan films go the route of compositing actors filmed in front of a green screen with digitally-generated backgrounds.

Such was not the case with GARY O’BRIEN from Great Britain. His first Trek fan film, the must-see CHANCE ENCOUNTER, was released in 2017 to rave reviews from fans. While filmed primarily in outdoor locations, it also featured an elaborate shuttlepod interior set as well as a turbolift constructed for the production. The whole film was produced for an unbelievably meager $2,700 crowd-funded from fan backers via Kickstarter.

For Gary’s next TNG-era project, however, there were a LOT of sets to build (you can see some behind-the-scenes video in this blog entry). Once again co-written with Gary’s friend PAUL LAIGHT, this new script—titled THE HOLY CORE—was much more ambitious and would require $11,000 (£8,700) to produce. Unfortunately, a 30-day Kickstarter campaign in early 2018 failed to reach more than half-way to the goal, and so no money was collected from backers.

Just when all seemed lost, however, an angel donor named ALEXANDER MAYER stepped up with an offer to fund the entire project. Gary and Paul were ecstatic and immediately got to work turning The Holy Core into a fully realized fan film. One year later, here is the result…

Although Gary has produced a plethora of behind-the-scenes updates and videos, there were still a few things I figured the fan viewers might like to know. So here’s a short interview with the director and co-writer of The Holy Core…

VANCE MAJOR cameos in STARSHIP ANTYLLUS: “Desperate Gambit” (interview with GEORGE and ANYA SHEILA KAYAIAN)

I love it when fan filmmakers come together.

GEORGE KAYAIAN has been creating Star Trek fan films since George Bush was president…the first George Bush, that is! ANYA SHEILA KAYAIAN is only nine years old and wasn’t even around for the second President Bush. VANCE MAJOR has been appearing as fan favorite character Erick Minard since 2014 when he first donned the engineer’s tunic in Starship Valiant.

And now these three people all have something in common: they’ve each appeared in the latest, twelfth episode of STARSHIP ANTYLLUS: “Desperate Gambit.” For George, his character of Captain Holt Allen has commanded the USS Antyllus since this fan series first debuted in 2013. And daughter Anya has appeared in a couple of episodes before this one—most recently the 11th episode: “247”—and helped out on a bunch of others. (You can check out her very full IMDB page here.)

But now Anya is joining the Antyllus bridge crew as a brand new alien character named Sharb. How they solved the challenge of how to show a child as a bridge officer is one of the reasons I consider this ultra-low budget fan series to be so masterful: they do so much with seemingly so little. I asked Anya what she thinks about this new character, and she said: “I think Sharb is very intelligent, which shows off a part of me… it was a joy to play him!”

You can watch Anya’s debut in the full 29-minute episode below…

As you can see, Vance Major has a decent sized cameo as Minard. George appeared briefly in one of the three dozen or so Minard saga fan films that Vance produced, and George will be appearing in a couple of episodes of Vance’s upcoming Constar Chronicles films. The two fan filmmakers have become good friends, and recently, Vance had this to say about George…

Who will DIRECT my STAR TREK fan film?

“But I really want to direct…”

That sentence has become a true Hollywood cliche, spoken by actors, writers, producers, editors, gaffers, grips, VFX guys, sound FX guys, accountants, caterers, Uber drivers, and Starbaucks baristas. In this town, it seems like everybody “really wants to direct.”

Not me, though.

I don’t know the first thing about directing—not even when to shout “Action!” and “Cut!” And I don’t pretend to know. Of course, I applaud those countless fan filmmakers who have taught themselves to direct through creating their own fan productions. More power to ’em! But I know my limits…and I don’t want my fan film to suffer just because I haven’t got the slightest idea what the frack I’m doing.

Fortunately, the fan film community is full of folks who DO know what they’re doing…including directors. Now, you might be thinking that I first decided to make my fan film and then went out to find a director. In fact, the exact opposite happened—and not only did I find one director, I found TWO!

Let me tell you what happened…

SKY FIGHTER is finished and available for donors! (interview with LUKAS KENDALL, part 1)

A little over a year ago, a Star Trek fan named LUKAS KENDALL set out to do something that some folks out there have suggested: crowd-fund something NEW that isn’t Star Trek so there’s no questions of rights or ownership. Of course, the big question was (at the time) whether people would donate to a fan-funded project that wasn’t part of an existing franchise like Star Trek or Star Wars or superhero, etc.

The crowd-funding campaign was atypical in a couple of ways. In addition to taking a very tongue-in-cheek approach in the pitch to donors and offering music CDs as perks (Lukas sells ’em as a business), Lukas included the full 12-page script for the short film for potential backers to read and evaluate.

The unusual approach worked, and Lukas was able to blast past his $25K goal on Indiegogo and reach $31K to produce what was intended to be a short segment of a longer, full-length movie that Lukas wanted to direct himself. The short segment was called SKY FIGHTER and was a self-contained story. But it also fit into the larger full-length feature, and the plan was (is) to use the 16-minute Sky Fighter to try to sell the larger project to production studios.

Coming on board to work on the project were two names VERY familiar to the Trek fan film community: ROBERT MEYER BURNETT to edit and TOBIAS RICHTER and the Light Works to do the visual effects.

Last week, the completed Sky Fighter premiered exclusively to backers, and it is masterful…a top quality production in every way. Rob outdid himself on the editing and Tobias, well, when has he ever failed to impress? And Lukas himself did an extremely strong job directing.

In order to keep Sky Fighter eligible to be entered into film festivals, the completed production cannot be posted publicly to the Internet yet. However, if you want to see it now, a new Indiegogo campaign has been set up to cover cost overruns and the production of Blu-ray discs and CDs (the music is incredible!). For as little as $5, you can get an exclusive link to the finished film. Click below to donate…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-fighter-sci-fi-short-film-blu-ray-release

The goal is $5,000, and Lukas is already 21% of the way there. In the meantime, the trailer is publicly available right now…

Lukas was eager to talk about his first foray into directing and share a behind-the-scenes look into this amazing production. Let’s get after it…

THE HOLY CORE will premiere THIS SUNDAY!

Good news, everyone! THE HOLY CORE will make its debut this Sunday. Last year, this fan project failed to reach its $12,000 Kickstarter goal but was later funded with a private donation from a single backer. Work has continued in earnest since then, and I’m preparing a fun interview with director and co-writer GARY O’BRIEN, who also directed and co-wrote the wonderful CHANCE ENCOUNTER (a must-see TNG-era fan film with over 108K views on Youtube).

Unlike Gary’s previous effort, The Holy Core required the construction of multiple TNG-era sets, including a captain’s ready room, the engineering station on the bridge, the three command chairs in the “crescent” on a Nebula-class starship, and a deflector control room. Everything looks FANtastic, and you can read more about the construction of these amazing sets in this blog.

I’ll have more on The Holy Core next week—along with the full half-hour (in two parts, of course!) fan film itself. In the meantime, take a look at this sneak peek announcement from Gary…

I just interviewed NICHELLE NICHOLS…how cool is that???

As many fans know, beloved Star Trek TOS actress NICHELLE NICHOLS is embarking on a year-long farewell convention tour…culminating next May in Burbank, CA. Although Nichelle had a minor stroke back in 2015, and she’s 86 years old, she’s still going strong enough to appear in nearly a half dozen cons around the country.

The last time I saw her in person was in late 2016, when my then six-year-old son Jayden photo-bombed a picture she was taking with WALTER KOENIG on a partial TNG bridge recreation at a convention in Los Angeles. I told Jayden to get out of Riker’s seat, but Nichelle insisted that he stay for a photo—and it’s one that I’ll always treasure…

I love Nichelle. I think it’s fair to say that all fans love Nichelle! I can’t recall ever hearing a single negative thing said about this warm, gracious, talented, and elegant actress who gave women of color in the 1960s and beyond a precedent-setting character to admire and aspire to someday be like themselves. And indeed, starting in the 1970s, Nichelle was recruited by NASA to encourage promising women and ethnic minorities to become astronauts—among them was Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, and Charles Bolden, the NASA administrator until last year.

Nichelle has always loved her fans right back, and has been one of the major Star Trek actors to agree to portray her character in multiple fan films (along with GEORGE TAKEI, WALTER KOENIG, GRACE LEE WHITNEY, TIM RUSS, ROBERT PICARDO, GARY GRAHAM, and a few others). Nichelle appeared as Uhura in both STAR TREK: OF GODS AND MEN and later as simply “The Admiral” in the de-Trekified RENEGADES two-part episode “The Requiem.” She will also be adding her voice talents to another upcoming Star Trek fan film.

So imagine my excitement and jubilation when I discovered that SKY CONWAY, Nichelle’s long-time friend and business partner (and the producer of Renegades and Of Gods and Men), is pitching the idea for a documentary on Nichelle’s life and ground-breaking career. After the success of Adam Nimoy’s tribute to his father, FOR THE LOVE OF SPOCK, a similar spotlight on Nichelle Nichols seems like a no-brainer!

Sky has set up an Indiegogo campaign seeking to raise $25,000 (in just 16 days!) to create a “sizzle reel” to help pitch the full project to investors. This sizzle reel will include a two-day shoot on the Neutral Zone Studios TOS sets in Kingsland, GA. Just imagine Uhura back on the bridge of the USS Enterprise!

The brief crowd-funder got off to an explosive start, raising $10,000 in just three days. And it’s now nearly 60% of the way to its goal with just six days left. I’ve already listed it here on Fan Film Factor, but when I reached out to Sky Conway to get a quick quote from him or Nichelle, he invited me to write up some questions and do an actual interview.

Really? That’s totally awesome!

JONATHAN LANE’s fan film will take place in…the AXANAR UNIVERSE!

What…you didn’t see that coming?

I thought about keeping this little nugget of information secret for a few weeks longer, doing a “big reveal” just before launching my crowd-funding campaign next month. But I just can’t help myself! I want you all to know about INTERLUDE: A Star Trek Fan Film set in the AXANAR Universe.

Wait, Jonathan’s doing what now?

Okay, set your Guardian of Forever or Burnham-built Time-Suit to June of 2017 when ALEC PETERS sent me a script to review and provide him feedback. It was his first attempt to shorten the 90-minute Axanar feature film into two 15-minute episodes of “The Four Years War” (in a similar mockumentary style to PRELUDE TO AXANAR).

I was kind of a “unique” reader for Alec, as I’d purposefully avoided reading his full-length script up until that point. So I had no idea what Alec was taking out and keeping in. But when I finished reading it, I was left feeling a little confused. Despite some very exciting sequences in and around the epic Battle of Axanar, I noticed that there were no scenes that took place on that incredible USS Ares bridge! WTF???

I figured that Alec was worried that he didn’t have enough screen time available with just 30 minutes to include dramatic sequences on the bridge. But I felt that, if handled carefully, a few parts could be trimmed here and there to make room for some cool (albeit short) bridge scenes. To illustrate what I was trying to explain, I wrote out one of these scenes, taking a quick line of Garth’s dialogue that explained why Admiral Ramirez wouldn’t be in these next two movies (actor TONY TODD isn’t returning for the sequels) and turned it into a brief sequence set on the bridges of two Ares-class starships.

I ended up “catching a muse” and just kept writing…and writing…and writing. By 5 a.m., I’d created a full 15-minute Axanar script similar to Alec’s but littered with exciting bridge scenes. After a few hours of sleep, I began working on the other 15-minute script, finishing that one by 3 p.m. With a mixture of excitement and trepidation, I shared my new script versions with Alec…

NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS nearly doubles its Patreon total with an unexpected $800/MONTH donor!

As you might remember from my recent blog, NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingland, GA (where Star Trek Continues and Starship Farragut) has a Patreon campaign currently trying to raise $3,500/month to cover rent, utilities, insurance, and maintenance. Right now, those expenses are being paid primarily by RAY TESI, the super-fan who purchased the iconic TOS set recreations from STC show-runner VIC MIGNOGNA. Ray has generously opened up his sets to fan filmmakers and also to the general public during periodic Fan Appreciation Weekends (the next of which is coming up on May 24-26).

The challenge for Ray is that these monthly expenses are ongoing…which is not the case for his retirement savings, which is what is funding the dream at the moment. So Ray has asked the fan community to chip in in the form of small monthly contributions made via Patreon.

The campaign kicked off last July and kinda went nowhere for seven months. By February, Ray was up to only 17 patrons donating $176/month (of which Patreon takes a small percentage), leaving Ray with annual expenses that were still topping $40,000…YIKES!!!

But then things began to look up, as a renewed outreach effort on social media saw totals nearly triple by the end of February to 41 patrons and $566/month. Ray was down to having to cover “only” $35,000/year. Sure, still a long way to go…but definitely headed in the right direction.

The following two months saw reliably steady growth, reaching 74 patrons and $872/month by the time I checked the campaign before heading to bed on April 22. Ray was now taking in about $10,000/year, covering about 25% of his expenses.

When I sat down at my computer the next morning, Ray’s Patreon page was still on the screen, so I did a refresh just out of curiosity. I didn’t expect the total to change, but ya never know. That said, it took me a few moments to fully process what I was seeing…

At some point while I slept, Ray’s Patreon total had jumped from $872/month to $1,696/month—almost DOUBLING overnight! Surely this was some kind of glitch at Patreon. No one donates $824/month…do they????

I messaged Ray.