Blog Entries – Page 44 – Fan Film Factor

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…

It’s BATTLESTATIONS for the SQUADRON Indiegogo! (interview with JAKUB HOLÝ)

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

With just under two weeks left, it’s highly doubtful that the Indiegogo campaign for the Czech fan film SQUADRON will reach its $15,000 goal. That didn’t seem to be the case back in February when the campaign was launched. Of course, way back then (seven seeks ago), the world was a VERY different place, and crowd-funders for a quality fan production like this one had a decent chance of making it.

And Squadron really IS a very high quality fan film. Along with fantastic looking uniforms, Hollywood-level props, and eye-popping prosthetics and makeup, these folks actually have a full 360-degree 24th century bridge set! Just check (or Czech) out their amazing trailer…

A Star Trek fan film set during the Dominion War is a rare thing in our community. And almost unheard of is a fan film that features a Vorta and two Jem’Hadar because the make-up demands are so far beyond the capacities of most fan productions. But just take a look at this trio…!

And that’s not all. They’ll also be featuring an Andorian, a Vulcan, and an Orion. All the live action footage has already been shot, but the Squadron team needs money to complete post production…including visual FX. Unfortunately, the campaign is less than a quarter of the the way to its goal with only 13 days left.

But these folks are NOT giving up!

Once or twice each week, they release a new video in one of four categories: Behind the Scenes (including an awesome look at how they did their make-up), Movie Clips, Trailers, and Trek Talk. The latter playlist includes a really interesting close-up examination of a screen-used Voyager uniform (purchased at auction) and the following tour of their humble studio in Prague that includes the amazing bridge and ready room sets…

In other words, they’re trying really, really hard to keep folks interested and excited. Their Facebook page has new posts and photos and videos almost daily. Just yesterday, they revealed new test footage of the CGI model for their main Federation starship…

But it’s now crunch time! The Indiegogo deadline is April 20, leaving little time to reach their goal—or even just inch a little closer to it. So I was curious: what does a Central European fan production do when the world economy is collapsing around our ears, and crowd-funding dollars are harder and harder to come by? Is Squadron in jeopardy of not being able to be completed if they don’t reach their goal? Or is there a lower threshold that still makes this eagerly-anticipated fan film possible?

For answers, I reached out to Squadron executive producer JAKUB HOLÝ…

NICHELLE NICHOLS and other Trek/sci-fi celebs sign onto the virus-safe SPACE COMMAND: “RIPPLE EFFECT”!

First of all, a big congratulations to MARC ZICREE of SPACE COMMAND for raising more than $57K from nearly 700 backers in his latest Kickstarter. It’s a challenging time to be crowd-funding, and the latest campaign did struggle over the past few weeks. But for a project with a goal of $48K, surpassing that by nearly 20% is quite impressive.

This latest campaign will fund the shoot for the fourth hour of Space Command, part 2 of “Forgiveness.” Hour one (part 1 of “Redemption”) is completed and can be viewed here. Hours two and three are in post production, and hour four will go into production just as soon as society is allowed to leave our homes and come into contact with each other again…which could be weeks or it could be months.

In the meantime, actors still like to hone their craft, even if they can’t leave their homes…and Space Command creator Marc Zicree is giving them a chance to do just that! As I mentioned last week, Marc is writing a special episode of Space Command titled “Ripple Effect.” It will take place in the continuity of the Space Command universe, featuring characters from the two episodes that are being produced so far plus introducing a bunch of new ones.

The actors themselves won’t have to leave their homes. Instead, each one will be able to film themselves using their own camera. The footage will be uploaded, and Marc and his post production team will edit the pieces, add VFX, adjust sound and color balance, and turn it all into a special “free” episode (no crowd-funding) that will be posted publicly to YouTube.

Even more exciting is that Marc is planning to allow fans to watch the post production process every step of the way through completion.

When first I mentioned this last week, only a few of the actors had signed up for the project. But Marc was in the process of talking to more of them, and this past weekend he announced a growing cast confirmed to appear. These include:

NICHELLE NICHOLS (Star Trek)
ROBERT PICARDO (Star Trek: Voyager)
ETHAN PHILLIPS (Star Trek: Voyager)
MIRA FURLAN (Babylon 5, Lost)
BILL MUMY (Babylon 5, Lost in Space)
MICHAEL HARNEY (Orange is the New Black, Project Blue Book)
BRYAN McCLURE (Atlanta, Doom Patrol)
BARBARA BRAGG (Carol’s Acting Class, American Horror Story)

The full cast of Space Command is even more extensive than that, so I suspect we’ll see yet more names added to the above list. It sounds like a fun project, and I’d imagine actors are itching to act during this stay-at-home crisis (or at least read Shakespearean sonnets). So we’ll see what happens.

And of course, once Marc starts offering fans a look at how the project is progressing, I’ll be sure to keep you all in the loop!

My final verdict on SEASON ONE of STAR TREK: PICARD…good, bad, both, neither? (editorial review)

Star Trek unites us. It binds us. It holds our universe together. No wait…that’s the Force. But like the Force, Star Trek fandom is fractured into a light side filled with positivity, patience, and tolerance…and a dark side of anger, resentment, and even hatred—at least when it comes to the newest Star Trek TV series.

I remember when The Next Generation premiered in 1987. While I wasn’t one of those who boycotted the show because it dared NOT feature Kirk, Spock, and the rest, I still wasn’t all that thrilled about what I saw at first. Here’s a few actual snippets of an early review I wrote partway through the first season for my fan club’s newsletter (yeah, I was even reviewing Trek 33 years ago!)…

So there’s this unknown British actor playing a French captain with a British accent? But even harder to accept: he’s bald! Starship captains need to have toupees!
Wait, the blind guy is steering the ship?
They’re all wearing pajamas. I mean, the uniforms look all science-fictiony, but going to the bathroom must be a ridiculous experience! Hey, where is the bathroom?
Why is the ship’s counselor on the bridge all the time instead of seeing patients?
If that kid Wesley saves the ship one more time, I amm going to throw something at the TV!
I do NOT like that starship design at all. The top is a clam, the bottom is a duck, and when they separate, it sticks its tongue out at you.
Pick a chief engineer already!
“Captain, the ship is going to blow up in ten seconds, what do we do?” “Conference!”
If I never see Lwaxana Troi again, it’ll be too soon…same with Q!
Stop surrendering, dammit!

I still watched the show every week. I even recorded them all on the highest quality SP speed on my VCR (two episodes per VHS tape, with commercials paused out!). I didn’t love the show, but I didn’t hate it either. It wasn’t “my” original Star Trek, but I was willing to give it a chance—even if it was oh-so-easy to make fun of. Part of me hoped I’d get used to it, or it would get better…and eventually, that’s exactly what happened.

Similar things happened with the launch of Deep Space Nine (“how can you “boldly go” anywhere if you’re stuck on a space station?”), Voyager (“shouldn’t the ship be trying to get home rather that stopping every episode to be attacked by the Kazon?”), and don’t even get me started on Enterprise and Discovery!

Each time, however, I made certain to give the shows a chance to grow on me—even Discovery—and find their way. It’s not easy to create and produce any regular TV show, and even more so if that show is the latest iteration of a multi-decade billion dollar franchise!

So with that preamble-ramble out of that way, let’s take a look at the first season of STAR TREK: PICARD…

The future of AXANAR! (audio interview with ALEC PETERS & PAUL JENKINS)

A lot was happening in the world of AXANAR just three short weeks ago. After raising $50K to cover 2/3 of the cost of the first two shoots at Ares Studios (ALEC PETERS covered the rest personally), an additional $5K was raised in a new private crowdfunding campaign in February. That allowed a third one-day shoot to happen on March 15, just as fears of the pandemic were beginning to take hold in many states.

This led Alec to announce via Axanar Confidential that the fourth shoot, a major two-day green screen excursion to Los Angeles to film nearly half a dozen aliens in full prosthetics and makeup, would be delayed and no longer happen in April as planned. And the premiere of Axanar itself would likely no longer occur at San Diego Comic Con, as it was possible that the huge gathering of hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans might itself be canceled.

This didn’t stop Axanar completely, however. The first full trailer was released online the night of March 15, and you can see it here if you haven’t already…

This followed the release a few weeks earlier of some rough cut footage of actor JAMIE RENELL doing some background ad-lib for his on-screen interview as USS Ares Chief Engineer Alexei Leonov…

And of course, on March 15 Axanar also launched its third private fundraiser on Ares Digital, this one with a goal of $30K to cover the major “alien shoot” in L.A. Some people asked if this was an appropriate time to raise money for a Star Trek fan film with people being furloughed and losing their jobs and the economy in a tailspin. Alec answered that question in a blog on the Axanar.com website. At the time, the campaign had already taken in about 25% of its goal in less than a week. In the two weeks since then, donations have slowed considerably, although they’re still trickling in steadily…

If you’re interested in donating (and are able to), you can do so by clicking here:

https://aresdigital.axanar.com