Blog Entries – Page 56 – Fan Film Factor

SQUADRON STRIKE: AXANAR is available for purchase! (audio interview with KEN BURNSIDE)

Although it’s been a couple of months since I reported any major AXANAR news, that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening in Lawrenceville, Georgia. In fact, a LOT had been going on, including the launch of Ares Digital 3.0, preparations for the first shoot in October, bringing on a line producer and director of photography, adding the finishing touches to the bridge set, having the rent for the studio lowered so there doesn’t need to be a move, receiving all of “The Cage”-era tunics from Italy, getting the Four Years War-era uniforms into the manufacturing pipeline, and starting to cast the various roles. And all of that doesn’t even include the release of my Axanar comic book “Stardate 2245.1” or the current GoFundMe for my Axanar Universe fan film INTERLUDE.

But almost forgotten in all of that news was the release last month of the latest supplement for the SQUADRON STRIKE! board game…a supplement based entirely on Axanar! Created by KEN BURNSIDE of Ad Astra Games, this new supplement features the characters and ships seen in PRELUDE TO AXANAR, caught up in space battle action and fun gameplay.

The game is available for purchase as a core product selling for $74.95 (you can order it here) with multiple supplements available for purchase covering a wide array of sci-fi universes with different ships, characters, and storylines. The latest supplement features Axanar and sells for an additional $37.95 (order it here). And if you order on or before August 19, you can get a 10% DISCOUNT for orders of $100 or more using the code: AXANAR10OFF

Now, you might be wondering if this game is licensed, and if so, licensed from whom: CBS or Axanar Productions…or both…or neither? An excellent question! And it’s one of the many I asked Ken Burnside in the following audio interview that’s definitely worth a listen…

URGENT – Watch fan film BLADE OF HONOR (with Richard Hatch and Tim Russ) on AMAZON PRIME before the end of THIS SATURDAY!

Well, this is huge news!

A crowd-funded fan film, BLADE OF HONOR, has just made it to AMAZON PRIME! The totally original fan film (NOT based on Star Trek) is intended as a pilot for a sci-fi series and stars the late RICHARD HATCH (from Battlestar Galactica and Prelude to Axanar), who turns in a remarkable performance, along with TIM “Tuvok” RUSS from Voyager, ARON “Nog” EISENBERBERG from Deep Space Nine, and JAMES KYSON from Heroes.

This film contains a touching tribute to Richard Hatch at the end, as Blade of Honor was Richard’s final performance before he passed away in early 2017.

But you need to watch it TODAY (Friday) or Saturday at the latest…and tell all of your friends and family to, as well. It’s important because Amazon has a “rankings” system which rates how productions do and helps them with marketing if they do well. But that happens only in the first 48 HOURS…so don’t wait!!

IMPORTANT – You must watch it all the way through (39 minutes including extras after the closing credits) and then give it a five-star rating at the end if you want your viewing to count positively toward Amazon’s rankings.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can watch it for free. If not, you can rent it for $1.99 or buy it for $4.99…

CLICK HERE TO WATCH
BLADE OF HONOR WITH RICHARD HATCH

Blade of Honor was originally crowd-funded with $92,000 raised from fans in a 2016 Kickstarter and a follow-up 2017 Indiegogo to finish post-production. In addition to the actors listed above, numerous members of the fan film community were also involved, including BRANDON STACY (Star Trek: New Voyages), JULIAJ MORIZAWA (Star Trek: Hidden Frontier), RIVKAH RAVEN WOOD (Star Trek: New Voyages/Hidden Frontier), RYAN T. HUSK (Star Trek: Horizon), and several others. Axanar Post Production Supervisor and Editor, MARK EDWARD LEWIS, directed and produced it, and many Axanar production crew were involved.

In other words, this truly is a crowd-funded fan film that’s made it to the “big time”! Please help make sure it’s not the last one by viewing it yourself all the way through before the end of Saturday and giving it a 5-star rating. Even if you just play it in the background on your computer with the sound off, it’ll still count. But do yourself a favor and watch the tribute to Richard Hatch at the end (starts at 27 minutes). There won’t be a dry eye on your face.

Australian AARON VANDERKLEY releases his FINAL NX-era fan film LINE OF DUTY (interview, part 1)

When the fan film guidelines set a 15-minute limit on the runtime of Star Trek fan films, many in the community shouted, “It can’t be done!”

AARON VANDERFLEY in Australia apparently didn’t get the memo because six months earlier, he’d already released an amazingly powerful 6-minute fan film called NEEDS OF THE MANY with strong acting, impressive sets, and spot-on uniforms from the NX-era of Star Trek. Aaron was already a professional freelance filmmaker and wanted to try his hand at Trek fan films. This was only his first effort, but there was a LOT more to come!

In mid 2017, Aaron did it all over again, this time with the 12-minute THE DERELICT, an intensely dark and haunting horror/thriller (very unique for a Star Trek fan film). Again, the acting was top-notch, the uniforms amazing, and now there was even action, suspense, and a few stunts thrown in. It really felt like part of an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

By the beginning of 2018, Aaron treated fans to a third superbly-crafted NX-era film, GOOD MEN, this one only 9 minutes long. Time limit? What time limit!

Finally, last summer, Aaron flirted just 30 seconds shy of that 15-minute runtime with his most ambitious release so far, THE FALL OF STARBASE ONE. Taken as a whole, the four fan films appeared to be mostly unrelated to each other beyond their time period, which seemed to take place during the Romulan War with Earth and the Coalition of Planets.

But then I watched Aaron’s fifth and final (or so he says) Star Trek fan film and noticed that not everything was as unrelated as it seemed. More on that in a moment during my interview with him. But first, take a look at Aaron’s latest Star Trek triumph: the very unique and masterfully-produced LINE OF DUTY (finally cracking the 15-minute mark as a 20-minute two-parter)…

Below is what will, sadly, be my final interview with Aaron Vanderkley (unless he changes his mind about this being his last Star Trek fan film). If you want to read more interviews with Aaron, I’ve done two previous ones which you are welcome to check out here.

And now, let’s hear what Aaron has to say about Line of Duty…

The INTERLUDE GoFundMe tops $11,000!

Yesterday, the GoFundMe campaign for my fan film INTERLUDE crossed $11,000! Although this might not seem as significant a milestone as crossing the half-way point or crossing $10,000…it’s very exciting to me personally because it means I’m doing my job properly. (Also, most of the detractors never thought I’d raise more than $5K-$10K at the most, and now even some of them are impressed!)

Y’see, unlike many folks who make fan films, I don’t have any background or experience in filmmaking. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. While I’m a decent graphic designer and can edit as a novice with iMovie on my Mac, I’m not a director or VFX artist or lighting specialist or cameraman. I can’t compose music, build sets, create props, do make-up, or even sew uniforms and costumes. I’m not a sound FX guy, and while I’ve done a couple of fan film voice-overs, I’m not an actor and won’t even appear in my own fan film! All I did was write a script.

So why am I here at all? What’s my bag, baby?

The simple truth is that I’m here to convince people like you to give me your money. In return, I’ve assembled a very talented team who are going to make an amazing fan film for all of you to enjoy. It’s going to have the quality level of PRELUDE TO AXANAR (or as close as we can get!) and be able to stand beside its “siblings” (Prelude and the two Axanar sequels) as a proud part of the expanded “Axanar Universe.”

But in order to do that, things (some of them kinda expensive) needed to be paid for.

Believe me, I would have loved to have just written a check or charged everything to a credit card. But I simply don’t have the financial means—certainly not at the level required to match up to the other Axanar fan films. And even though the Ares bridge set is now complete (or 98% of the way there), this fan film is more than just the set.

So with essentially no skills, no experience, and no money, what the heck am I doing trying to make a fan film???

Well, let me tell you what I do have…

Read a new fan film COMIC BOOK story from THE ROMULAN WAR!

No sooner has the final page of my Axanar Universe comic book “Stardate 2245.1” come out than there’s a NEW fan film comic book in town! But this one isn’t Axanar. It’s the first comic book associated with the upcoming fan film THE ROMULAN WAR by show-runner MARK NACCARATO of Tennessee.

The Romulan War is the first Star Trek fan film since Prelude to Axanar to be presented in a “mockumentary” style to tell an epic tale from the point of view of interviews and “archival” footage. And The Romulan War has the potential to become just as epic as Axanar. Both tell the story of a significant war that helped to define the United Federation of Planets for decades and even centuries to come, and both fan projects take a look back at those seminal events from numerous perspectives. The trailers for The Romulan War—with visual FX by the “Sorcerer of CGI,” SAMUEL COCKINGS, and trained actors—look very exciting and are worth checking out (click here to view them).

An Indiegogo campaign last summer took in $13K for the project, and the finished fan film was supposed to be ready about now. However, an illness and passing of a close family member took precedence for Mark earlier this year, and things are still being worked on. Mark gave me a progress report:

Sam is wrapping up effects shots for Part 1, but we still have to lock in the score, there’s some 3D maps we are working on, and we’re re-tracking some audio. We also went back into the studio two weeks ago to shoot two NEW scenes that were added last-minute. I am hoping that we get it out by the end of August, but I continue to be plagued by delays that are not really under my control.

But while fans were waiting for this eagerly-anticipated production, Mark helped to quench our thirst by releasing five (so far) very well-crafted and dramatically intense “enhanced audio dramas” called WAR STORIES. Each of these short vignettes focuses on the logs of someone involved in the war (including me!!—I voiced Lt. Cmdr. Geoffrey Christopher who designed and tested the Warp 7 engine), presented as voice-overs but with graphical animations (hence, the “enhanced”). They are also REALLY worth checking out (click here to access them all).

Mark reports that two additional “enhanced” audio dramas will be released within the next month or two to help expand the epic of the upcoming 2-part fan film. One of the audio dramas was just recorded two weeks ago.

But Mark isn’t stopping there!

CONTINUING CONSTAR GoFundMe gets 50% of the way to its goal in just 19 hours!

There’s just something about VANCE MAJOR that makes fans want to give him money! Maybe it’s his adorable son Royce, Maybe it’s the three dozen Minard fan films he’s made. Maybe it’s the photos from his shoots that he posts almost daily to the Fan Film Forum Facebook group. And maybe it’s because he knows you can see the cord in the doorway of his scene and he just doesn’t care because he’s more interested in having fun and telling a good story.

Whatever the reason, Vance has won the hearts and minds of scores of fans, and his crowd-funding campaigns quickly reach their goals. Granted, these goals are usually in the mid-hundreds of dollars and not difficult to achieve. But whenever Vance launches a campaign, it’s always completely funded before I even have a chance to mention it here on Fan Film Factor.

Not this time, though!

I’m in Colorado this week and next visiting my family…while the rest of fandom is in Las Vegas enjoying Star Trek celebrities and the eighth plague suffered by the Egyptians in the Old Testament’s book of Exodus. But that means a brief pause in fan film blogs till I get back. So I have the opportunity to slot in this quick shout-out to tell you all about Vance’s new campaign before it gets fully funded in a few more hours (or less!).

Vance isn’t offering any perks, and his CONSTAR CHRONICLES fan series won’t premiere until December (read more here). But he already wants to shoot additional episodes in 2020, and he needs to buy more uniform tunics and props. The goal this time is $1,100 (his first foray into four-figure funding), and in the first 19 hours, he’s already halfway there.

So if you want to be part of this Major movement, part of Vance’s victorious vision for Constar contributions, just click over to the following link and make a donation…

https://www.gofundme.com/f/continuing-constar

A ‘Death Howl’ for Kur’Den (guest blog by DON GAFFNEY)

Before I turn the blog over to me friend DON GAFFNEY, I’d like to say few quick words myself.

DENZIL MIRACLE was a die-hard Trekker, a Klingon kosplayer, an avid Axanar supporter, and a truly awesome guy. I only met him once, briefly, at Axacon last November, but he was just this big bundle of warmth and happiness and excitement…the best that we fans have to offer.

In these days when so many of us are quick to show our worst devils to each other, it’s important to honor those who present the best angels of their natures.

Denzil had been stricken too early in life with brain cancer and passed away a couple of weeks ago surrounded by family. While I knew of his terminal condition, I wasn’t aware of his actual passing until I read yesterday’s eulogy from his good friend (and fellow Axanerd) Don Gaffney. It’s a beautiful remembrance, and I humbly ask you to consider taking a moment to read it and perhaps even give a quiet Klingon death howl to the warriors of Sto’Vo’Kor, where I have no doubt Denzil is currently having an awesome time.

And now, my friends, Don Gaffney remembers his friend, Denzil Miracle…

Just posted: PAGE 7 of the INTERLUDE comic “STARDATE 2245.1”!

Has it been six weeks already? Wow, this summer is flying by! When I posted page 1 of this comic on June 18, the GoFundMe campaign for INTERLUDE had been up for a week, and we’d just crossed the $3K mark with 53 donors. Now we’re at $10,415 with 144 donors (plus a few more via Paypal)!

That is so awesome, and I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to have so many people supporting me and sharing this crazy dream of making a fan film. But we’re still not quite there yet, so once again, here’s the link to the GoFundMe campaign for Interlude.

https://www.gofundme.com/interlude

Please donate or at least share. And now, let’s wrap up the comic…

SPOILER ALERT!

Yep, one last time, here’s your warning. The “Stardate 2245.1” comic book short story is pretty much the same plot you’ll see in the fan film Interlude. So if you don’t want to know what’s going to happen, for the love of Garth(!) don’t read the 7-page (plus cover) comic below. So say we all.

Okay, let’s discuss the last page…

And the INTERLUDE GoFundMe “POINT OF NO RETURN” is…

The typical “life cycle” for most crowd-funding campaigns (especially for Star Trek fan films) is a burst of excitement and donations at the beginning, then a slowdown in the middle, and (if you’re lucky) a smaller burst at the end just before the deadline. I’ve seen it dozens of times.

The problem for my Axanar Universe fan film INTERLUDE, however, is that I decided to use GoFundMe instead of Kickstarter or Indiegogo. The latter two have built-in deadlines—usually 30 or 60 days—before the campaign must either reach its goal or fail.

But GoFundMe is open-ended. Conceivably, I could still be raising money for Interlude when Earth makes first contact with the Vulcans 44 years from now! Of course, I don’t plan to do that. At some point, I will need to shut this campaign down and deliver a completed fan film to you all. The question is…when?

We had a FANtastic first month, taking in nearly half of our goal from more than 100 backers ranging from $5 and $10 and $20 donors to donations in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars! But in the past couple of weeks, although donations are still coming in, the pace has slowed considerably…which is consistent with the crowd-funding “life cycle.”

Unfortunately, without a specific deadline, it’s unlikely that we’ll get that final boost. And even if I do set an artificial deadline (which I am about to do in this blog), it’s not likely that we’ll reach or exceed the $19,500 goal that our budget calls for.

However, as I mentioned last week, my budget blog back in June mentioned that my numbers purposefully erred on the high side in order to provide flexibility for trimming and cutting various items just in case we didn’t make our goal.

So this past week, I sat down with my directors, VICTORIA FOX and JOSHUA IRWIN, and went through every line item with a fine-toothed comb. We sliced, we diced, we cropped and capped. And in the end, we came up with a minimum that we’ll need to commit to making this fan film…as well as the date we’ll need to have those funds by in order to be ready to shoot the first weekend of November.

So what’s our “point of no return”?

WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND creates the best-named DS9 poster EVER!

What’s in a name? Actually, a better question might be: What’s in a poster? If you’re talking about the image of Captain Benjamin Sisko featured above on the new poster for the magnificent DS9 documentary WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND, the answer is…names. Thousands and thousands and thousands of names!

Back in March of 2017, nearly 10,000 backers donated a staggering $647,000 to an Indiegogo campaign for a look back at STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE made by the people who made the series itself (because neither Paramount nor CBS was interested in ta tackling such a project). Over the next two years, the number of backers grew and the donated total reached all the way to a million dollars!

Now the perks are being packed up and mailed out. And along with DVDs/Blu-rays of the documentary itself and the standard movie poster, the Niner folks have created a special, limited edition poster (shown above) with the names of every backer listed in alphabetical order. Don’t believe me? Let’s do a quick zoom-in…

Wait, let’s see if we can get even closer…

And there it is!

If you donated, then you can order one of these nifty posters for $25. But the deadline is this week, so hurry! Click here to order.

And if you didn’t donate, don’t have $25, or simply aren’t interested in a high quality 24×36” print of Ben Sisko made up of 10,000-plus names…but you still want to take a closer look and see if your name or the names of people you know are on it, just click here. The Niners have uploaded a super-high resolution, 1,742 x 2,606 pixel, 84MB PDF file for you to zoom into or download. How considerate!

And speaking of considerate, here’s IRA STEVEN BEHR, Executive Producer, prepping what probably feels like an endless pile of DVD/Blu-ray perks…