Fan Film Features – Page 64

New video for THE ROMULAN WAR spotlights the ACTORS!

One of the most anticipated Star Trek fan films at the moment, THE ROMULAN WAR, is currently seeking $10,000 in donations from fans with an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign. As of today, with 19 days left, they’ve advanced more than 42% of the way toward their goal, which is awesome news.

Have you donated yet? Have you at least helped to spread the Indiegogo link? How it is, by the way:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-romulan-war

Last week, I featured an 2-part interview with show-runner MARK NACCARATO, and it sure got fans talking! One of the most interesting comments I saw was a person who wanted to donate but wasn’t sure he was going to like the acting. After all, many Star Trek fan films can’t or don’t use trained actors, and for $10,000—well—I guess this guy really wanted trained actors.

And as it turns out, Mark’s got ’em! (Remember that the guidelines don’t preclude using trained actors. You simply can’t pay them as professionals.)

In fact, Mark has just released a new update video featuring interviews with four members of his cast along with brief clips of their performances (and reveals of their character names). As Mark mentioned in his interview, 75% of the green-screen scenes for this project have already been filmed, and the $10,000 is intended primarily for post-production (sound, editing, VFX, music, etc.) as well as filming that last 25% of the scenes.

The latest video appears below. Buckle up…

THE ROMULAN WAR fan film launches a $10,000 INDIEGOGO! (interview with MARK NACCARATO, part 2)

Yesterday in Part 1, I began chatting with MARK NACCARATO, the show-runner behind the upcoming fan film project THE ROMULAN WAR. People have gotten really excited about this new production…and with good reason! The brutal interstellar war between the Romulan Star Empire and Earth and its allies has fascinated fans since it was first referred to during the TOS episode “Balance of Terror.” But before the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise could really sink its teeth into the conflict, the show was canceled. So frustrating!

But now an ambitious new fan production will give Trekkers a unique look inside this fascinating struggle…not simply as a scripted drama but in a mock documentary format similar to that presented in the fan film hit PRELUDE TO AXANAR. Mark revealed in part 1 of his interview how his project actually predates the creation of Axanar by over a decade, as he began working on The Romulan War as far back as 2000.

The production just launched a $10,000 Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign last week, and yesterday alone, they took in more than $800…bringing them nearly 21% of the way to their goal. And because this is Indiegogo and not Kickstarter, they don’t have to reach that goal to actually collect their contributions. Every dollar donated WILL go to their project, which has already filmed about three-quarters of their scenes and will soon be entering post-production.

If you haven’t watched it yet, they’ve created a very engaging promotional video about their project and crowd-funding campaign:

And now, let’s dive right into the conclusion of our 2-part interview with Mark Naccarato…

Continue reading “THE ROMULAN WAR fan film launches a $10,000 INDIEGOGO! (interview with MARK NACCARATO, part 2)”

THE ROMULAN WAR fan film launches a $10,000 INDIEGOGO! (interview with MARK NACCARATO, part 1)

As any long-time Trekker will tell you, the founding of the United Federation of Planets happened just after the end of the Romulan War with Earth and the Coalition of Planets. In fact, Star Trek: Enterprise was just beginning to explore the origins of that war when it was ignominiously canceled after only four seasons.

Thanks to the Pocket Books Trek novels, fans have gotten a better glimpse into the Romulan War. But what if you want to WATCH the war unfold? Star Trek fan films have offered fans a couple of options. The long-running, low budget fan series THE ROMULAN WARS (based in Arkansas) produced ten episodes over the span of a decade. Then in 2016, TOMMY KRAFT released the super-impressive STAR TREK: HORIZON, also based during the Romulan War and featuring the crew of the starship Discovery NX-04.

And now, lightning is about to strike THRICE with a brand new fan series titled THE ROMULAN WAR (no ‘s’ at the end) that’s going to take a very unique look at this significant piece of Star Trek history. Creator MARK NACCARATO (from Nashville, Tennessee), has created a mockumentary-style production looking back at the Romulan War as a 24th century historical documentary. Trekkers haven’t seen a fan film approach like this since the wildly popular PRELUDE TO AXANAR with featured a mockumentary-style look back at the Federation’s Four Years War with the Klingon Empire from the point of view of a decade later.

The Romulan War just launched a $10,000 Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign last week, and a lot of people are getting very excited. Already, fans have donated over $1,200. Why are they so excited? Watch this video and see if you get excited, too…

Unlike last month’s Kickstarter campaign for The Holy Core, which only made it halfway to their $12K goal and, therefore, received nothing, Indiegogo doesn’t require that campaigns reach their published goal to turn pledges into actual donations. So every dollar donated to The Romulan War will go toward funding the project.

Also, most the scenes have already been filmed! So the question isn’t whether this fan film will be completed but simply how awesome will it look when it’s done.

I chatted with show-runner Mark Naccarato about his project and campaign…

Continue reading “THE ROMULAN WAR fan film launches a $10,000 INDIEGOGO! (interview with MARK NACCARATO, part 1)”

4th and 5th GRADERS meet the EASTER BUNNY at STARBASE STUDIOS! (audio interview with KEVIN CROXTON)

Easter came early to STARBASE STUDIOS on a cold day in January. That’s when Emmy-winning musician and Parkview Elementary School teacher KEVIN CROXTON brought 33 students from his Music Club to shoot a Star Trek fan film.

The previous summer, Kevin had agreed to compose and record music for GLEN WOLFE’s and DAN REYNOLD’s fan production “Walking Bear, Running Wolf” (part of their FEDERATION FILES anthology fan series). In exchange, Kevin was invited to bring his 4th and 5th grade students to the Starbase Studios TOS sets in Marble Falls, Arkansas (about three hours from Parkview Elementary) to spend a day there filming.

The finished product was released a couple of weeks ago and is already up to an impressive 3,200 views. I consider this a MUST SEE Trek fan film not simply because the kids are adorable but because it really is a remarkably well-produced fan film! It’s well-lit with lots of interesting camera angles, the sound levels are perfect, the music is great (the kids even get to sing!), there’s amazing make-up on Spock and the Klingons (plus really nice TOS Klingon uniforms), and all of the children do a spectacular job.

But don’t just take my word for it, have a look…

I reached out to Kevin for an interview, and we had a wonderful chat. Toward the end, he told me that a photographer named BRENDA YELVINGTON had taken hundreds of behind-the-scenes photos, and offered to let me use them for the interview.

Normally, I just do my audio interviews as MP3 files with no visual elements. But this time, I was able to do something a little extra special and turn the interview into a full YouTube video. But before anyone says, “That looked really great, Jonathan, you should do it more often…” it only works when you’ve got hundreds of photos and I have a lot of extra time!

Anyway, now that you’ve watched this wonderful little fan film, please enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at group of kids and adults who made it possible…

HOLY CORE, BATMAN! This TREK fan film KICKSTARTER has only 5 DAYS LEFT!

Lately, some of my readers have complained that the fan film guidelines have essentially ended quality Star Trek fan films. “You can’t make a decent Trek fan film in just 15 or 30 minutes,” they say, “and limiting crowd-funding to just $50,000 is ridiculously constraining.”

To them I reply, “Watch CHANCE ENCOUNTER!” This 20-minute TNG-era fan film out of the U.K. had real actors, real sets, a fantastic script, wonderful directing, emotional music, great effects…you name it! And it was made for just a few thousand dollars (or rather, pounds, since they’re all British).

Now these guys want to make another fan film…and they’re struggling to reach their Kickstarter goal of $12K. They’re nearly halfway there, have raised an impressive $5, 345 from 74 backers (including me)…

…BUT THEY HAVE ONLY FIVE DAYS LEFT!!!

And the problem with Kickstarter is that, if they don’t reach their goal, they get ZERO! Show-runner GARY O’BRIEN and co-writer PAUL LAIGHT are trying very hard to reach out to fans. They’ve produced multiple spotlight videos, have been living on Facebook, and even did a podcast. But so far, they’ve only made it half way…and time is running out!

Please help.

This is the kind of quality Star Trek fan film you’ve been wanting to see, folks. But without donations, you won’t see it. That’s why I’m pushing so hard to assist these guys…because I really want to see it, too!

Here’s the link to donate:

Please consider making a pledge. But whether or not you do, at least share that link on Facebook, Twitter, in chat-rooms, forums, e-mail lists, skywriting, smoke-signals, semaphore…whatever you’ve got!

And just to get you a teensy bit more excited, here’s their latest spotlight video with a look at their LCARS…

The TOP TWELVE new STAR TREK: DISCOVERY title sequences created by FANS!

Ever since William Shatner first said the words, “Space, the final frontier…” every Star Trek series has had an opening title sequence featuring, well, space! All but one, that is…

STAR TREK: DISCOVERY broke with tradition to give fans an odd montage of seemingly random images—a drafting sketch of the USS Discovery, the Victoria Crater of Mars, a human nose/mouth/neck, a close-up on a human eye, an EVA-suit, a phaser, a communicator, a Vulcan salute, a Klingon blade, a weird giant plant spitting out the Discovery, a grappling hook, two space-gloved hands reminiscent of the iconic “The Creation of Adam” biblical fresco by Michelangelo, and finally the logo for the series and a fly-by of the USS Discovery again.

But no space (the final frontier).

The music is an eerie-sounding composition that transitions into a sometimes driving, sometimes mournful orchestral piece culminating in the familiar opening melody of the original Alexander Courage Star Trek theme. Composed by Jeff Russo, the Discovery music combines with the visuals to create an intensely surreal impression similar to the opening title sequence of the series Westworld.

For those who haven’t watched Discovery yet, here’s the opening title sequence that begins each episode…

Like the series itself, people seem to either love or hate the opening title sequence for Star Trek: Discovery…just as they did for the “Faith of the Heart” opening for Star Trek: Enterprise.

But Enterprise was canceled before YouTube existed (or rather, just as it was being launched). Now, however, fans feel quite comfortable making and posting their own new versions of the opening title sequence, and there are currently dozens of videos out there!

After reviewing all the ones I could find, I selected my TOP TWELVE. Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be TOP TEN, but I just couldn’t eliminate the final two. They were just so good!

I’ve assembled those twelve fan-made videos here in one blog—ranked in order so that my favorite is last. Which one is YOUR favorite?

Continue reading “The TOP TWELVE new STAR TREK: DISCOVERY title sequences created by FANS!”

The complete HISTORY OF STAR TREK CONTINUES…in a single PDF!

Just as STAR TREK CONTINUES was releasing their series finale last October, I was publishing an ambitious 6-part weekly blog feature covering the half-decade history of this beloved fan-made production.

The blog series was, without a doubt, my most ambitious endeavor to date, researched and compiled from several dozen sources—articles, interviews, features, reviews, Facebook posts, updates from STC itself, and even video recorded live by yours truly. The six parts took me months to complete, and in the end, a few thousand people came to Fan Film Factor to enjoy reading about this fan series and the people who produced it.

I kinda figured that was it for STC on FFF. The series wrapped up, the blogs were done…time to move on to other fan films both old and new. But one of my readers, BRYAN LEECH from Melbourne, Australia, posted a comment on Part 3 of the blog:

Is there any possibility that, when completed, you could make your work available as a complete downloadable entity?

Man, did that sound like extra work! I politely declined, explaining that I was pretty busy writing new blogs. But then Bryan offered to create a PDF himself. He’d assemble all of the text, add the graphics, and even include and test all of the hyperlinks that I’d included in the original blog.

Bryan got started in December and would send me versions to review every so often. We’d discuss designs and fonts choices; whether to use italics, bold, and/or ALL CAPS in certain places; where to place images and how large to make them, and whether to have the text by completely justified on the right or not. We troubleshooted bad hyperlinks, and Bryan even fixed some of my ultra-rare typos.

It took a few months and a lot of hard work on Bryan’s part to get things perfect, but in the end, the finished product is something we’re both very proud of. SO big thanks to Bryan!

In addition to the link below, I’ve also posted the PDF file to my new “PDFs” section here on Fan Film Factor. You can find that menu option in the middle of the top nav bar. Check it out, as there’s some other fun PDFs there for download as well.

And now for your reading pleasure, here it is: the complete HISTORY OF STAR TREK CONTINUES…

Click here to view the History of Star Trek Continues PDF.

Today is a good day to PLEDGE…to “The Holy Core” Kickstarter!

Hey, folks. Just a friendly reminder that the Kickstarter for THE HOLY CORE, a new Star Trek fan project from the folks who brought us CHANCE ENCOUNTER, has only 13 days left to go! There’s already 53 backers, and they’re up to nearly 1/3 of the $12,000 they need to raise. But remember that if they don’t make it to their goal, they get nothing…zero, zip, zilch, nada. And that would be such a shame.

The key right now is to help SPREAD THE WORD (and donate, if you haven’t already)! Send out and share links to their Kickstarter campaign page:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1512203744/the-holy-core-a-star-trek-fan-film

They’ve already shared a few cool videos of some of what they’re planning for this TNG-era fan film. This video spotlighting their transporter effect was just released:

Then there was this one from last week showing the design for the Vitan satellites, which will play an important role in the planned 30-minute fan film:

And here’s the Kickstarter campaign video for the overall project:

Please consider making a donation, or at least helping to spread the Kickstarter link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1512203744/the-holy-core-a-star-trek-fan-film

Thank you.

STARSHIP TRISTAN Creative Group releases their 12th fan film: “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE”!

Last week, I announced the release of the eleventh fan film, “Sepulchre,” from the STARSHIP TRISTAN Creative Group from POTEMKIN PICTURES. I noted that the previous tenth release had come out seven months earlier. But now, the new twelfth release, “Pride and Prejudice,” has followed only ONE WEEK after the eleventh. What gives?

I decided to go to the source and ask show-runner RANDY LANDERS. I was quite surprised to learn the answer:

Back in August, I had a quadruple bypass which delayed post production on a number of our short films. We have never before held back releases, in fact, but we actually are this time. We released “Sepulchre” as soon as it was ready, then released the follow-up “Pride and Prejudice” a week later. “Pride and Prejudice” was actually ready for release in January. For the same reason, we’re holding up the release of “Shattered Sky” (a Deimos film) until we finish up and release “Prodigal Daughter.”

It’s quite possible we will have four releases in March!

I asked Randy how he was doing after the bypass. (My own father had a double bypass about three years ago and is still going strong).

I’m doing great. You can quote me, and report that two productions were filmed without me (“New Orders,” which was directed by Jason Furman, and “Sepulchre” which was directed by Lee Drew). And “Pride and Prejudice” was directed by Christin Woods [who plays T’Noshi -Jonathan] relieving me of that concern as well. I’m very proud of the work they did to get these productions completed.

I should also mention that this latest episode from the Tristan folk was written by WILLIAM C. SEARCY, who plays the fan-favorite character of the half-Vulcan Dr. Skep Anderson.

So please enjoy the second Potemkin Pictures fan film release in two weeks, “Pride and Prejudice”…

The story BEHIND THE PURCHASE of the STAR TREK CONTINUES sets! (audio interview with RAY TESI)

Fans gave a sigh of relief in early February when it was announced that the STAR TREK CONTINUES sets in Kingsland, Georgia had been purchased by a fan filmmaker who intended to make the sets available to other fan filmmakers to create their Trek fan productions. The new owner is a fellow by the name of RAY TESI, and his own fan project was STARSHIP REPUBLIC, which had released the 9-minute “Serpent of Yesterday“ vignette in February of last year.

But I was curious about something: how was Ray affording all this?

Y’see, after releasing his fan film vignette, Ray launched an Indiegogo campaign to try to raise $16,000 to continue the production of his fan series. That campaign only made it to $2,351, and the project was shelved indefinitely.

Now, I didn’t know whether Ray had purchased the sets from VIC MIGNOGNA of Star Trek Continues or had gotten them for free (turns out Ray bought them). But I did know that the rent for the warehouse where the sets reside is tens of thousands of dollars per year!

So how is a guy who needed $16,000 in crowd-funding a year ago suddenly able to afford thousands of dollars a month in rent? Did he win the lottery? Rob a bank? Blackmail a rich politician?

It turns out, fortunately(!), that it was none of the above. In fact, when you hear the actual story behind Ray’s purchase of the STC sets, I think that you—like me—will gain a new respect for Ray Tesi and feel truly inspired and positive about the future of this wonderful fan resource.

Here’s the interview…

Ray Tesi in the center seat surrounded by the cast of Starship Republic

And for anyone wanting to see how awesome these sets are, here’s a walkthrough from a few years ago (before they added Engineering, which makes it all even MORE awesome!)…