Blog Entries – Page 15 – Fan Film Factor

AVALON UNIVERSE takes on Pon Farr in THE NEEDS OF THE ONE… (part 2: video interview with CORA WILSON and WADE KING)

First of all, here’s a quick update on the current AVALON UNIVERSE Indiegogo for their wildly-ambitious, multiverse crossover fan film CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS. With about six weeks left (one-quarter of the way through their campaign), Avalon is sitting at an impressive $$3,345 dollars, or 41% of the way to their $8K goal. This includes a weekend donation from a first-time Avalon mega-donor of $1,500, which gets her an Executive Producer credit and an on-camera appearance in the final film.

Also, don’t tell anyone, but if donations exceed $8K, there will likely be a very fun stretch goal involving Marty McFly, Captain Derek Mason, and Elvis Presley, but we’re waaaaaay too early to discuss that…yet!

Anyway, if you can afford a few bucks to support this campaign, it’ll be money well-spent (I know ’cause I’ve read the script!). And if not, if you could at least see it in your heart to share the following link with friends and family and friends of family and family of friends, it would be sincerely appreciated by the fine folks at Team Avalon:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crisis-on-infinite-excaliburs-a-star-trek-fan-film

And now we return to our regularly-scheduled blog, already in progress…

The latest release from the Avalon Universe is THE NEEDS OF THE ONE, and it’s proving to be quite the hit with fans! YouTube views have already exceeded 10,000 in less than three weeks, and showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN reported that he’d been contacted by the LORE RELOADED YouTube channel (114K subscribers) to partner up with Avalon and produce a series of behind-the-scenes features on the fan production to try to generate more donations for the Indiegogo campaign. So some exciting news there!

Equally exciting is the video interview that I have for you today, featuring actors CORA WILSON, who plays the the Vulcan Nurse T’Prin, and WADE KING, who plays Security Officer Williams. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, check it out now because the two of them are absolutely adorable as a couple…!

In addition to being adorable, the two provide incredibly strong performances and equally amazing stunts. Fight scenes in fan films are, not surprisingly, rare and often rather limited because Trekkies aren’t necessarily known for our martial arts prowess. But Cora and Wade are both very skilled fighters, and their abilities are on full display in this impressive fan film. AND they can both act!

It’s seldom that I say an interview is a “MUST WATCH,” but my recent conversation with Cora and Wade was really awesome. (Also awesome was my video interview from two and a half weeks ago with ALEXANDRA REXFORD, who just stepped into the role of Commander Mikaela Allenby.) Like Alexandra, Cora and Wade are both such warm and wonderful people, full of positive energy, with intriguing insights, fascinating personal histories, and some great stories from the production itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed talking to both of them, and I suspect you’ll enjoy watching our lively chat…

One TREK crowd-funder reaches their GOAL while another needs our HELP!

As one door successfully closes, another door optimistically opens…

On Sunday evening, the Indieogo campaign for THE TEST OF TIME, the next release coming soon from RAY TESI and TALES FROM THE EUTRAL ZONE, finished up at 124% of its $6K goal…reaching a very impressive $$7,452 in just 30 days! It’s still active, as Indiegogo offers an “In Demand” status where people can continue donating, and another $400 came in after the official deadline, bringing the total to $7,867 from 65 backers!

Among the fan filmmakers involved with The Test of Time is their dynamic director of photography, JOSHUA IRWIN, who also directed their wildly popular previous release, DOOMSDAY, already up to 90K views on YouTube since its release on April 5.

However, Josh is more widely known in this sector of the galaxy as the showrunner for the AVALON UNIVERSE fan series, and his just-released THE NEEDS OF THE ONE is also racking up the YouTube views as it nears 10K after just two weeks!

At the same time that The Needs of the One premiered, Josh also launched a brand new Indiegogo campaign of his own to fund the production of the ambitious multiverse-crossover fan film CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS. With a total duration of 60 days to reach their goal, the new campaign has started out decently (but not strongly)…having gotten only 11% of the way to the $8K they need.

I partially blame myself for this somewhat slow start, as I haven’t been giving Josh as much early support here on Fan Film Factor as I did for Ray. And I intend to rectify that starting now!

The first thing I’m going to do is share with you Josh’s excellent new “ask” video…

And the second thing I’m going to do is provide the following link as I ask you to please consider donating something—if you can afford to—because Josh’s Avalon fan films are really something special (and if you can’t afford to, please share the following link)…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crisis-on-infinite-excaliburs-a-star-trek-fan-film

And the third thing I’m going to do is provide more promotional support for Josh and Team Avalon over the coming weeks. I’m currently editing the second of my video interviews with the cast of The Needs of the One (with more still coming). You can watch the first interview with ALEX REXFORD (the new actress playing U.S.S. Excalibur first officer Mikaela Allenby) on this blog page. The next video interview will feature fan films’ CUTEST Vulcan/human couple: CORA WILSON (who plays Nurse T’Prin) and WADE KING (who plays Security Officer Williams). And trust me, they are just as adorable in real life as they are in the Avalon Universe…AND they can kick your ass if you step out of line!

And finally, I’m preparing a blog for next week spotlighting the unique perks being offered with this campaign (like a smart-phone case), some of which were designed by yours truly! That’s gonna be a really fun blog to read…once I finish writing it, that is!

One fan film becomes two as Potemkin Pictures’ KLINGON SCOUTSHIP QAB’ELTH premieres as a crossover with STARSHIP DEIMOS! (interview with RANDY LANDERS)

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Admiral Kirk calls the U.S.S. Excelsior “The Great Experiment.” Well, Excelsior ain’t got nothing on POTEMKIN PICTURES as they launched their newest Creative group, KLINGON SCOUTSHIP QAB’ELTH, with an intriguing twist!

The debut episode from Qab’Elth was the 12-minute “HONOR BLADE,” featuring an all-Klingon crew on a newly constructed bird-of-prey bridge set built by Potemkin showrunner RANDY LANDERS and assorted yellow minions. Qab’Elth is the tenth fan series (or Creative Group making a series of fan films set on board a specific space vessel) to come out of this production studio (watch all of their many, many releases here), and the third to be based in Randy’s new home of Lexington, Kentucky. The other two are STARSHIP WEBSTER and STARSHIP CALIBORN, the latter having premiered this past June. But on July 23, it was time for Qab’elth, and here it is…

So what was “the great experiment,” then? What was the “twist”? On that exact same day, the latest release from the STARSHIP DEIMOS Creative Group was posted to YouTube. The 19th installment of Deimos, this 25-minute fan film was titled “PRIME DIRECTIVE” and seemed like a pretty typical episode…assuming you hadn’t already watched “Honor Blade.” But if you had, then about half of “Prime Directive” would have looked VERY familiar—almost déjà vu—because it was the EXACT SAME footage of the Klingons as was in “Honor Blade“! Take a look…

So now you can look at life from both sides now! It’s a fascinating experiment of telling the exact same parallel story in two simultaneously-released fan films…only from different perspectives. While Potemkin Pictures had previously done something similar when they took some of the footage from the Starship Tristan two-parter “RECLAMATION” to release the stand-alone fan film “FIREHAWK,” the latter was released more than two years after the former fan film. In the case of “Honor Blade” and “Prime Directive,” the two films were posted to YouTube on the same day.

Both scripts were written by VICTORIA AVALON, who plays Captain Gabriel of the Deimos. Meanwhile, RANDY LANDERS served as director and executive producer on each fan film, and it’s he who gets to answer my questions this time out…

PROJECT: RUNABOUT boldly goes where no fan film has gone before: the Aircraft Carrier YORKTOWN! (video interview with GARY DAVIS and RANDY WRENN)

Up until last month, when most fan film Trekkers thought of YORKTOWN, they pictured the long-awaited production A TIME TO HEAL, starring GEROGE TAKEI as Sulu and the late JAMES SHIGETA as Admiral Nogura.

But as of July 17, 2022, YORKTOWN now ALSO means the latest episode of PROJECT: RUNABOUT, a relatively new fan series spun off from the long-running DREADNOUGHT DOMINION fan series. Last year, Project: Runabout debuted with their pilot episode, the 5-minute vignette PILOT, featuring the pilot of a small TOS-era runabout-class shuttlecraft getting ambushed by a Klingon warship. And it was all a music video! But what really got fans’ attention was that showrunner GARY DAVIS constructed the elaborate runabout cockpit set in his basement. Talk about a man-cave, er, cockpit!

This year, Gary and Dominion/Runabout co-showrunner RANDY WRENN tackled a much more ambitious half-hour fan film. But it was even more ambitious than that! For the first time that I’m aware of, a fan production filmed nearly a third of its scenes on board an actual American aircraft carrier from World War II.

That aircraft carrier was the U.S.S. Yorktown (hence, the name of this second episode), which is a proud part of a naval and maritime museum located on Patriots Point in the Charlestown Harbor in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. And it wasn’t just a short scene or two. Gary and Randy shot in nearly a dozen different locations throughout the naval ship, including the engine room, mess hall, briefing room, and even up on the flight deck!

It was quite an undertaking with very impressive results. Take a look…

Obviously, there’s a lot of questions to ask about the making of this fan film…both the scenes on board the Yorktown as well as those in Gary’s basement and the expansion of his sets into an even more elaborate cockpit along with a brand new briefing room and transporter.

So I roped Gary and Randy into a Zoom call, and then the fun started…

R.I.P – NICHELLE NICHOLS, our elegant Lady of Communications – 1932 to 2022

We all loved her. We all admired her. And we all knew this day would come.

NICHELLE NICHOLS, the amazing actor and person who helped raise women and people of color to new heights of recognition and self-confidence at a critical time in American history, has passed away at the age of 89 from natural causes.

As happens with many people as they approach their tenth decade of life, Nichelle had grown frail and was losing her memory. Her voice was no longer able to serenade us with the melodies of the stars as it did for most of her career. She had recently completed her “farewell tour” of conventions and public appearances with her fans and was living her final years with her son and his family in New Mexico.

But we still loved her.

And it was a love that had been there, for many of us, over the course of decades. She was always Lieutenant (and later Commander and, in fan films like OF GODS AND MEN and RENEGADES, Captain and even Admiral) Nyota Uhura.

*Nichelle Nichols as Uhura through the years: in TOS, in the Trek movies, and in the fan films STAR TREK: OF GODS AND MEN and RENEGADES: THE REQUIEM.*

In the TOS episode “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” it is revealed that the name Uhura means “freedom.” Indeed, it is the Swahili word “Uhuru” that means freedom, and according to Nichelle’s 1994 autobiographical Beyond Uhura, she was carrying the 1962 book Uhuru by Robert Ruark when she read for the part in Star Trek. Later, producer ROBERT JUSTMAN reportedly told GENE RODDENBERRY what Uhuru meant, and Gene decided to name his African communications officer Uhura right then and there.

The character’s first name, Nyota, came years later in 1982, following the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Author WILLIAM ROSTLER was writing the licensed paperback Star Trek II: Biographies telling the personal histories of the seven main TOS characters, including Uhura. Rostler contacted Gene and Nichelle directly asking both for permission to give Uhura the first name Nyota, which means “star” in Swahili. They both approved, and since it was a licensed book, Nyota became as official as anything not shown on film. Indeed, a few years later, the 1985 Star Trek novel Uhura’s Song by JANET KAGAN (still one of the best!), became the second licensed product to use that first name for Uhura. However, it wouldn’t be until 2009 and the release of the first rebooted Star Trek film with ZOE SALDANA taking on the iconic role, that Nyota officially became “canon” when Spock calls Uhura by her first name during the movie.

I remember seeing Nichelle during countless conventions, always talking about how moved and excited she was to learn that Nyota meant “star” and that Nyota Uhura meant “Freedom Star” or “Star of Freedom,” guiding those suffering under prejudice, discrimination, and persecution to a brighter future. And goodness knows, Nichelle did just that!

AVALON UNIVERSE takes on Pon Farr in THE NEEDS OF THE ONE… (part 1: video interview with ALEXANDRA REXFORD)

THE AVALON UNIVERSE first emerged onto the Star Trek fan film scene back in 2018 with the release of GHOST SHIP, one of the only fan films to ever infest a starship with zombies! This new fan series featured both TOS Prime and Kelvin-timeline uniforms shot on TOS sets (originally at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Georgia and later at WARP 66 STUDIOS in Arkansas). Having their own alternate universe to “play” in allowed showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN and his team tell stories with a distinct Star Trek “feel” while not locking themselves into five decades of existing canon.

Since that premiere less than four years ago, Avalon Universe has been a veritable fan production machine, releasing what has now reached ten completed films (you can view them all on this play list)—seven major projects ranging from 15 to just over 30 minutes each plus three shorter vignettes. That’s two and a half fan films per year, folks…with more on the way!

Speaking of which, this latest release includes a bumper at the beginning announcing the launch of a new Indiegogo campaign, attempting to raise $8K to crowd-fund their most ambitious production to date, CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS. If you’re able to donate, there’s some really nice perks (some of which I designed for the team). Here’s the link…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/crisis-on-infinite-excaliburs-a-star-trek-fan-film

One of the things that sets Avalon apart from many other fan series is the level of quality of the lighting, sound, music, overall cinematography, VFX, make-up, editing, and of course, the acting in each new release. Much of this can be traced back to Josh Irwin himself and the fans he manages to get on his team. Josh works professionally in the film industry in Arkansas, as do many of his cast and crew. This allows Avalon fan films to achieve a polished look and feel beyond what your typical Star Trek fan film.

Their latest release, THE NEEDS OF THE ONE, has a runtime of just under a half-hour and tells the story of a female Vulcan crew member undergoing pon farr while on board. And while we’ve certainly seen that before in both TOS and Enterprise, this tale tackles the concept in a new and unique way (not easy to do with nearly 1,000 hours of filmed Star Trek episodes and movies out there!). Along the way, The Needs of the One introduces fans to a bunch of fascinating and engaging new characters along with recasting the role of first officer Mikaela Allenby, played in the previous release, AGENT OF NEW WORLDS, by ILLIA “PIXI” NEREID and in this new film by ALEXANDRA REXFORD.

The Needs of the One had already generated over 1,100 views on YouTube in the first six hours. Check it out here…

Pretty impressive, huh?

Production assistant on THE FEDERATION FILES makes an awesome BEHIND-THE-SCENES video about the experience!

CHALEN (pronounced SHAY-len) EVERTS was taking community college classes at North Arkansas College in Harrison when she heard from one of her friends about someone nearby looking for people to help out on, of all things, a Star Trek fan film!

“I’d never seen Star Trek all the way through,” says Chalen. “I still haven’t. Actually I am a Star Wars fan…lol. But I was very interested in acting in film, and it was the closest opportunity to me.” So she decided to take up the offer to help out. The only problem was that she had no idea how to get in touch with showrunner GLEN WOLFE!

“At the time, I didn’t have Facebook,” Chalen continues, “so I created an account just to get in contact with someone I didn’t know. So now it’s a running joke that I got on Facebook just to talk to Glen Wolfe.”

Glen has nothing but praise for Chalen: “She’s been with us since VOICES FROM THE PAST and fit in perfectly from day one. She volunteered to do ‘anything we needed,’ and we took her up on it. She has helped me in every facet of producing all of the subsequent episodes.”

Even though it’s over an hour’s drive each way for her to get to the TOS sets at WARP 66 STUDIOS, Chalen has become an essential part of THE FEDERATION FILES fanthology series…on both sides of the camera! She played one of the three Vulcans on the moon base in NO GOOD DEED. And for their latest episode, MUDD’S MISSION (premiering next month), Chalen actually brought four of her friends (all the way from Wisconsin, where she’s originally from) to be extras!

She also worked with JOSHUA IRWIN on the AVALON UNIVERSE fan film AGENT OF NEW WORLDS. According to Josh, Chalen came through for him in creating the cave interior set when Glen was sick and couldn’t do the build. “She saved our shoot!” recalls Josh. “Normally, I call Glen the superhero of the fan film world. But Chalen was the superhero for us that day.”

“From my point of view,” says Glen’s filmmaking partner DAN REYNOLDS, “Chalen has been a steady rock as a production assistant for several Federation Files episodes. She shirks at no menial tasks that we ask of her and is ready at a moment’s notice to help with anything we need.”

Bright and cheery, Chalen posted a video last week of footage she shot behind-the-scenes during two of the filming days for Mudd’s Mission. I already reported on one of those shooting days, as a late June heat-wave turned one of the non-air-conditioned WARP 66 studio buildings into a veritable oven baking both cast and crew. Chalen was there, doing her usual production assistant tasks, but also shooting a bit of her own footage of what was going on both on set and off (and even in her car!).

AVALON UNIVERSE releases a trailer for THE NEEDS OF THE ONE…just THREE DAYS before the premiere!

The AVALON UNIVERSE is a very unique Star Trek fan series. Some viewers see the uniforms and mistakenly think these stories take place in the Kelvin timeline. They don’t. But they don’t take place in the Prime timeline either. The Avalon Universe has its own continuity and mythos. Yes, many (not all) of the uniforms are from JJ Trek, but the sets are all straight TOS (shot at both WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas and NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA). And the U.S.S. Excalibur looks mostly like TOS but with some intriguing upgrades and refinements.

Having your own alternate universe to play around in has given showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN intriguing opportunities to tell stories that retain the heart of Star Trek without being “trapped” by 56 years of canon. It’s led to the release of nine superb fan films since 2018 (you can view them all here) with a tenth, THE NEEDS OF THE ONE, debuting this Thursday at 7pm Central Time.

In anticipation of that premiere, earlier today Josh posted a 60-second trailer for the new episode…

I asked Josh what fans can expect from this latest film (beyond what’s shown in the trailer)…

“We’re going to get to know more characters on the Excalibur, all while following Commander Allenby’s journey. She’s just become first officer, and Commodore Jakande is giving her a chance to prove herself under really difficult circumstances. But that’s what commanding a starship is all about, right? How she handles the challenges in this film will take her out of her comfort zone. ALEXANDRA REXFORD, who just joined our cast, has added so many incredible layers to this wonderful character. Fans are definitely going to want to see more of Alex in future films.”

Josh also discussed another new addition to the cast, CORA WILSON…

“Speaking of characters fans are going to want to see again, Cora just knocks it out of the park as Nurse T’Prin! She was originally going to be just a one-off character for this specific story of a Vulcan female going through pon farr and watching what it does to her both physically and emotionally. Playing a Vulcan is challenging enough, but playing one trying to maintain control and failing is really hard. LEONARD NIMOY did it the best, of course, but Cora’s performance is amazing. I can’t wait for people to see it!

“Anyway, now that this episode is completed, I can’t imagine not revisiting this character in a future story or two, and I suspect the fans will want to see her again, as well.”

5 reasons why TREKKIE GRIEVANCE is just plain DUMB! (editorial)

“Tellarites do not argue for reasons. They simply argue.”

I thought about that Sarek quote from the TOS episode “Journey to Babel” as I pondered what I like to call TREKKIE GRIEVANCE SYNDROME. Those who suffer from TGS (or make the rest of us have to suffer THEM having it) say things like:

Star Trek is dead! CBS/Alex Kurtzman killed it!
The crap that CBS is putting out is NOT Star Trek!
I’d rather there be NO Star Trek than what’s on Paramount+!
Alex Kurtzman/CBS/JJ Abrams/Bad Robot doesn’t care about us longtime fans; they just want to destroy real Star Trek and replace it with Star Wars!
Anyone who likes these new shows is living in denial and not a true fan!
The ratings/viewership for Star Trek is way down, which is why Alex Kurtzman was/is about to be/has been/is being fired!
We fans have been loyal to Star Trek through these many decades, and we deserve better than this drivel they have the gall to make us pay for!

It’s that last item that led me to dub this Trekkie GRIEVANCE, as the fans complaining seem to take it quite personally that new Star Trek isn’t living up to their expectations. Fan “deserve” better! And maybe we do—but I gotta say, some of us are not acting very deserving!!!

Y’see, there’s a difference between critiquing, criticizing, and just plain bashing. Critiquing is what I do in many of my blog review editorials. There are things I don’t personally like in some Trek series and certain episodes, and so I analyze why something isn’t working—whether it’s STAR TREK: DISCOVERY‘s storytelling pace being too fast and not giving the characters a chance to breathe and develop or PICARD’s plot dealing with the suicide of Jean-Luc’s mother not feeling particularly compelling to me. I critique in a mature, measured way…nothing wrong with that.

I also criticize. Discovery‘s new Klingon make-up was a total misfire, and even the show’s creators realized it by season two. The last two episodes of STAR TREK: PICARD‘s first season were a rushed mess with a Federation fleet made up forty of the same class of starship and Romulan bad guys who would have twirled their mustaches with an evil cackle if they actually had mustaches to twirl. Some creative choices are atrocious enough that you don’t need to “analyze” in a mature and measured way. If there’s something you don’t like, you can certainly gripe about it. That’s fine, too. Fans have been doing that since TOS was first airing in the 1960s.

But there’s a difference between griping/criticizing and outright bashing. Bashing looks like this…

Star Trek in the 1930s??? Take a look at COMMANDERS OF STARFLEET! (video interview with JEFF NORD)

One of the reasons that I love Star Trek fan films so much is because there are literally no rules! Okay, there are guidelines, but within those guidelines, there are no limits beyond the imagination and capabilities of the fan filmmakers themselves.

One of those filmmakers is a fellow by the name of JEFF NORD, who lives in Los Angeles and dabbles in amateur filmmaking. And he got a crazy idea: Star Trek done as a 1930s-style Flash Gordon serial episode! Those old black-and-white adventures used to premiere each week, shown at movie matinees before the main feature. They were cheap, cheesy, a bit childish, but oh-so-charming when we look back at them now. And in their own way, they pushed the limits of what Hollywood could imagine and inexpensively produce in that emerging genre known as “science fiction.”

In many ways, the original Star Trek stood on the shoulders of those 1930s and 1940s serials (GENE RODDENBERRY himself was a 15-year-old when Flash Gordon premiered in theaters during 1936) as much as it did the sci-fi “blockbuster” classics of the 1950s like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Forbidden Planet (1956). So indeed, honoring those early sci-fi pioneers with a campy, black-and-white Star Trek fan film seems most appropriate!

Released back in April, COMMANDERS OF STARFLEET has generated a fairly impressive 6.4K+ views on YouTube so far, and it’s definitely worth checking out…

What’s particularly intriguing is how much this short fan film FEELS like one of those 1930s serial episodes. And while classics like Flash Gordon did, at the time, push the limits of what Hollywood could accomplish with limited technology and relatively small budgets, 2022 offers opportunities for the average Joe or Josephine to easily surpass what Hollywood could only dream of 86 years ago.

But what if you’re NOT trying to surpass those efforts? What if you’re simply trying to reproduce them really closely? How challenging is it to make a modern film that looks like something from nine decades ago?

In a fun and informative interview, I chatted with Jeff Nord about his very creative and unique new Star Trek fan film…