Category: Blog Entries

So where’s that darn DEEP SPACE NINE documentary??? (update revisited)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. So there’s this fan film project that’s going to feature veteran Star Trek actors and production crew, and it’s going to be presented in documentary format. Although people are excited about the project even before the crowd-funding campaign begins, the show-runners are nevertheless blown away when donations blast through the initial goal and reach nearly $650,000.

Emboldened by this unexpected abundance of production funding, the show-runners decide to expand the scope of the project far beyond what was initially planned, and a year later, they go back to the donors and fans to ask for even more money.

But then stuff happens, and the release date gets delayed…and then delayed again.

Nope, not Axanar. This same sequence of events happened with the ambitious Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND, directed by ADAM NIMOY. Crowd-funded in early 2017 with more than $647,000, the original release date was estimated as February 2018. But by April, with no documentary in sight, show-runner IRA BEHR updated fans with a written message that I featured in a blog titled “So where’s that darn DEEP SPACE NINE documentary???“

Ira didn’t make excuses so much as provide reasons why things were taking so long…including the fact that there were over 100 hours of new interviews with cast and crew to go through, plus fan submissions, archival materials, animations, audition tapes, convention footage and more than 170 broadcast episodes…all of which needed to fit into a final documentary that was no longer than a few hours! Plus, they were remastering some of the original standard definition footage into beautiful high definition footage.

By September, there was still no completed documentary, and Ira posted yet another update…this time as a video and asking for even MORE money! Why would he “tap the well” again so late in the game?

Continue reading “So where’s that darn DEEP SPACE NINE documentary??? (update revisited)”

Did peer pressure make MATTHEW MILLER openly LIE about AXANAR?

During our marathon 3-hour “Blogger Battle of Axanar,” Australian Trekzone.org blogger MATTHEW MILLER and I discussed many things, including telling the truth about Axanar…something that I noted the detractors seldom do. It’s one of the reasons I spend so much time correcting the record here on Fan Film Factor, because if I don’t, and the lies get told over and over without challenge, they can insidiously supplant the truth.

One such example came early in Part One of our podcast debate when Matthew asked me about “most” of the main cast and crew leaving after PRELUDE TO AXANAR when ALEC PETERS decided to build a studio. I challenged Matthew’s choice of the word “most,” as that’s one of those lies that’s been told and retold so many times it’s taken on urban legend status. So I counted the people who left and those who didn’t. The final score: 5 people left and 15 stayed. So “most” actually stayed. Matthew admitted in the discussion that I had “schooled” him. But really, I just stated the truth and backed it up with facts.

Which brings us to this past Wednesday, and the latest Axanar lie…this time directly from the mouth of Matthew Miller himself. It came at the end of an re-edit of our 3-hour discussion, awkwardly trimmed down to 26 minutes of “best of” clips taken mostly out of context. This was followed by a two-minute editorial wrap-up where Matt ended with a massive false statement regarding Axanar and Alec Peters. It was such an obvious lie that I had to rewind and listen a second time to make sure I hadn’t misheard…

“Irrefutable fact,” huh? In what alternate universe? Did Matthew not watch this video tour of Industry Studios…?

Did he not see the Vulcan Scene…?

But according to Matthew, the $1.5 million went towards neither [the studio nor the film]. Really, Matt? None of it??? It was WTF time…!

Continue reading “Did peer pressure make MATTHEW MILLER openly LIE about AXANAR?”

The four days of Christmas…POTEMKIN PICTURES style!

POTEMKIN PICTURES, run by RANDY LANDERS out of Pelham, Alabama, is a juggernaut of low-budget, from-the-heart Star Trek fan films. With six different fan “series” (actually, they don’t like to call them “series” since the guidelines don’t allow that) currently in production and another about to debut soon, Randy’s goal is to release an average of one new fan film a month. And so far this year, they’ve been on par to hit that mark, having released a total of 11 completed fan films prior to December. At one point, they even posted five fan films in five consecutive weeks!

But would they be able to, before the end of the year, make it an even DOZEN within twelve months? Well, kinda.

Yes, Potemkin Pictures did manage to release their 12th fan film before the end of the year…and their 13th…and their 14th…and their 15th!!!

Four fan films from three different series were posted to Youtube in just FOUR DAYS! (You can watch them all at the bottom of this blog entry.) The new productions included a two-part fan film from the STARSHIP ENDEAVOUR creative team (since its total runtime of 19 minutes was over the 15-minute guideline limit), a pivotal addition to the STARSHIP DEIMOS storyline, and the first new release from the BATTLECRUISER KUPOK creative team since August of 2017.

I asked Randy why the rush to release four fan films in just four days? I understand releasing the two-parter on consecutive days, but why not hold the other two and spread things out a little? Randy replied…

We don’t sit on any production. When it’s done, it’s released. Not everyone loves every creative group. There are Deimos fans, Endeavour fans, Kupok fans. Each of them got a Christmas present…so to speak.

Speaking of Kupok, “Spirit in the Star” features an absolutely gorgeous CGI model of a K’t’inga-class Klingon battlecruiser, created and supplied by ROB BONCHIUNE (who used to do the VFX for DS9 and Voyager). The honourable warrior of Trekyards, SAMUEL COCKINGS, rendered some gorgeous VFX shots featuring this digital model that are truly stunning (or maybe I should say “disrupting”).

You can access the nearly-70 previous Potemkin Pictures fan films from their website. And here are the latest four releases…

Continue reading “The four days of Christmas…POTEMKIN PICTURES style!”

THE ROMULAN WAR: WAR STORIES – new release “FINAL FLIGHT” starring…me!

Hey, guess who developed the Warp Seven engine?  Me, that’s who!

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I had help (will have help?) from my NX-Zeta project team, and from MARK NACARRATO, the show-runner of the upcoming fan production THE ROMULAN WAR.  Oh, and it wasn’t really me; it was Lieutenant Geoffrey Christopher of the United Earth Space Probe Agency.  But he looks and sounds a lot like me.

I suppose I should back up a few steps and explain what the heck I’m talking about…

For those of you unfamiliar with The Romulan War, it’s going to be an amazing Trek fan film picking up where Star Trek: Enterprise left off…at the beginning of the war between the Coalition of Planets and the Romulan Empire.  Filming on the production is all but completed, and now the finishing touches of post production—editing, VFX, sound, music, etc.—are being applied.  Release is planned for 2019.

Of course, with the limitations of the fan film guidelines, it would be nearly impossible to recount the entire war…despite using a “mock” documentary style similar to Prelude to Axanar.  So Mark came up with an interesting idea to push the envelope a bit—WAR STORIES.  These are short vignettes that are essentially audio dramas…just with a little something “extra” added: images with simple animations.  These “enhanced” audio dramas are presented as the logs of various Starfleet officers who served during the war, and the logs are accompanied by computer readouts and archival photos with some short video clips.  Less than a full fan film but more than a simple audio drama.

Last August, Mark released the first War Stories, the two-part “Sleep Is Hard to Find.”  If you go to that blog page, you’ll see that yours truly provided some of the Photoshop work to get the actors’ faces onto NX-era uniforms.  A month later, Mark released the second War Stories, “They Want Us Dead.”  That one didn’t require my Photoshop services, but the third release, “Final Flight,” did.

It also required my face…

Continue reading “THE ROMULAN WAR: WAR STORIES – new release “FINAL FLIGHT” starring…me!”

The BLOGGER-BATTLE OF AXANAR! (part 3 of 3)

Congratulations, folks, you’ve made it to Part 3!  I’m assuming you’ve already sat through Part 1 and Part 2 of the debate about all things AXANAR between myself and Australian blogger MATTHEW MILLER of Trekzone.org.  The first two parts have received a few hundred views each, with lots of comments made on both sides of the Axanar controversy.  But now it’s time to wrap things up with some of our most controversial discussions yet…

We begin by shifting our focus from CARLOS PEDRAZA and Axamonitor to Matt’s own Trekzone.org blog?  Is he providing fair coverage, or does Trekzone suffer from the same skewed “telling only half the story” that Axamonitor (and some would say Fan Film Factor) suffer from?

Then we move onto one of the most controversial hot-button questions: have the Axanar detractors gone too far in their stalking and cyberbullying?  How far is too far?  And is the behavior just as bad on the supporter side, or is that sinply the false equivalency of “what aboutism”?  And what does coffee have to do with anything?

Of course, we spend a little time debating whether ALEC PETERS paid himself a salary or just reimbursed himself for out-of-pocket expenses.  And did other folks like VIC MIGNOGAM or JAMES CAWLEY ever earn anything personally from money paid by donors?

Moving on to the future of Axanar, we discuss the USS Ares bridge set.  After hundreds of thousands of dollars in fan donations and out-of-pocket payments by Alec himself, and after thousands of man-hours in labor…will the bridge ever be used to film any scenes of the Axanar story?

And finally, even if Axanar never gets made, does Alec still deserve credit for making it as far as he did…despite all of the headwinds, a year-long lawsuit from two billion-dollar corporations, a move across country, and the almost constant attacks by dozens of detractors?

And what if Axanar does get made?  What will it take to get a positive comment out of a detractor like Matthew Miller or Carlos Pedraza?

Is there ANY common ground to be had?  Find out as the Blogger-Battle of the Axanar concludes…

https://youtu.be/WcRKdyDT02A

The BLOGGER-BATTLE OF AXANAR! (part 2 of 3)

Last Wednesday, we debuted Part 1 of a three-hour discussion and debate about all things AXANAR between myself and Australia-based Star Trek blogger MATTHEW MILLER.  We both have very strong feelings about the Axanar project and its show-runner ALEC PETERS, and we’ve never been particularly shy about sharing those feelings and opinions in various public forums.

But now we’re doing in it the same forum at the same time, voicing our disagreements directly to each other to see if there’s any common ground…or if the two sides of this controversy are destined to simply never come together.

Last time, we primarily discussed the building of Ares Studio, followed by some brief commentary about the fan film guidelines.  And just before ending Part 1, we left off having just scratched the surface of our next (BIG!) topic: the copyright infringement lawsuit.

In Part 2, we’ll be discussing the lawsuit in much greater depth, including…

  • Should Alec have fought the lawsuit as intensely as he did, or should he have just settled and moved on?
  • Did CBS and Paramount offer a settlement when the lawsuit was first filed?  If not, when did they first make a settlement offer…and what were their terms?
  • Why did Alec and CBS/Paramount finally decide to settle the lawsuit two weeks before trial?
  • Were the final settlement terms more favorable to Alec, to CBS/Paramount, or pretty much even?
  • What would have happened if Renegades, New Voyages, or Star Trek Continues had been sued instead of Axanar?

Then we shift gears to the Axanar supporter/detractor conflict…

  • Why have things escalated so much over the years?
  • What role have CARLOS PEDRAZA and his Axamonitor blog site played in exacerbating the tensions?  (Carlos tells us himself!)
  • Are Carlos’ blogs telling only half the story and thereby reinforcing pre-existing detractor biases?
  • Does Carlos rush to publish negative blogs and purposefully avoid reporting positive Axanar news like Axacon (which still hasn’t been covered on Axamonitor after six weeks)?
  • And what about Fan Film Factor?  Am I telling only half the story, too?

And now the Blogger-Battle of Axanar continues…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuOniU8wpB8&feature=youtu.be

And check back Wednesday at 2:00pm Pacific Time for Part 3!

The BLOGGER-BATTLE OF AXANAR! (part 1 of 3)

Okay, folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for!  (Well, maybe not ALL of you…but at least a few hundred, I’m sure.)  Earlier this week, I revealed the “origin story” of this two-way interview where blogger MATTHEW MILLER from Trekzone.org and I discuss and debate all things AXANAR.  Now it’s time to put our money where our mouths are (Australia  and Los Angeles, respectively).

Today in Part 1, after a friendly introduction and a brief discussion of some of what we both feel are the inherent strengths of the 2014 fan film Prelude to Axanar, we jump right into some of the most controversial questions regarding this polarizing fan production, starting with the creation of Ares Studios with donor money…

  • Did “most” of the principal cast and crew abandon the project after ALEC PETERS decided to use crowd-funded money to build a “for profit” studio?  Or is that just a rumor-turned-urban-myth?
  • What exactly is a “for profit” studio anyway?  Is someone gonna go out and buy a 60-foot yacht with all the cash that comes in?
  • Was the decision to try to turn a Valencia warehouse into a soundstage a mistake in the first place?
  • Did CBS ever tell Alec (before the lawsuit) not to create a studio or not to make more Axanar?
  • Did the Axanar donors know (back in 2014) that they were donating to build a soundstage, or were they misled to believe they were donating only to produce a fan film?

And we finish up Part 1 with a couple of other hotly-debated topics…

  • Was Alec Peter sued by CBS and Paramount because Axanar was “too good?”
  • Were there “unpublished” guidelines for fan films before June of 2016?
  • Were the guidelines, once they were announced, intended to stop Axanar…or were they targeted on Renegades and the other “arms race” fan productions?

Sound intriguing?  Well, strap in for Part 1 of the Blogger-Battle of Axanar…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdWeaPQiolE&feature=youtu.be

Come back for Part 2 on Monday and Part 3 next Wednesday.

HOLY CORE! This is gonna be an AWESOME-LOOKING fan film!

One of the best TNG-era fan films I’ve seen is Chance Encounter, co-written and directed by GARY O’BRIEN out of Great Britain.  It was crowd-funded in mid-2016 for a measly $2,500 (£1,700) and released in February of 2017.  Since then, it’s piled up nearly 85K views and was a finalist in three different categories in this past year’s BJO Awards.

So what is Gary doing for an encore?

The answer to that was almost a very disappointing “nothing,” as a Kickstarter campaign at the beginning of this year for THE HOLY CORE resulted in pledges that didn’t even reach half-way to Gary’s $11,000 (£8,700) goal…and with Kickstarters, if you don’t make it to your goal, you get zero.  But then, a month later on May 7, Gary announced that an angel investor had given him the full amount necessary to complete the entire Holy Core production…!

As you can see from the above Twitter video, there were quite a number of ambitious sets planned for this project, all of them shown with exciting-looking virtual CGI animations.  But could Gary pull off building all of these sets for real…?

Continue reading “HOLY CORE! This is gonna be an AWESOME-LOOKING fan film!”

Coming in 3 days: the BLOGGER-BATTLE OF AXANAR!

These days, I don’t typically engage directly with the AXANAR detractors.  There’s no point.  I’m not gonna change their minds, and they’re certainly not gonna change mine.  Any “discussion” we get into quickly breaks down into all the old beating-dead-horse accusations and rumors and criticisms—often with a generous helping of vitriol and vulgarity—and frankly, it’s just a waste of my time.

And yet, in just three days time, I’ll be posting (in conjunction with Trekzone.org) an epic 3-part discussion and debate between myself and noted Axanar detractor MATTHEW MILLER…and I do mean epic!  Take a listen to the teaser that Matthew just posted…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PyhOL7prx8&feature=youtu.be

When we set out to have our across-the-globe (Matt’s in Australia) audio “smackdown,” we had no idea how long the discussion would last or how heated it would get.  There were no rules and only a loose outline of topics/questions to guide us.   Our intention was to keep things civil, and for the most part, we did…although not completely.

When all was said and done, we’d managed to go at it for nearly three hours over the course of two days of Skype calls!  On the second day, I’d caught my son’s cold, and if you listen carefully, you’ll probably hear from my voice the exact point when the day one conversation ended and day two began.

What makes this interaction between me and Matthew so interesting and enlightening (and dare I say “fun”?) is that we actually interview EACH OTHER.  Matt’s done scores of interviews with notable Trek people, as have I.  So rather than simply having one of us interview the other, we ask questions back and forth…and tough questions at that!  And best of all, unlike the recent pay-per-view Michael Hinman/Carlos Pedraza podcast on Alpha Waves Radio, this one is not only presenting BOTH sides of the controversial topic (rather than a simple echo-chamber), but it’s also absolutely FREE to listen to!

So how did this whole “Blogger Battle of Axanar” come to be?

Continue reading “Coming in 3 days: the BLOGGER-BATTLE OF AXANAR!”

Star Trek STUNT DOUBLES doubles its offerings!

Ah, how do I describe STAR TREK STUNT DOUBLES to the uninitiated?  The words wacky, zany, low-budget, irreverent, unpredictable, funny, low-budget, inspired, creative, one-man show, clever, did I mention low-budget?, wild, crazy, thr0w-caution-to-the-wind, Star Trek fan film parody vignette series all seem to get close…but not quite there yet.

Star Trek Stunt Doubles is a “I’m doing it my way, marching to the beat of my own drummer, if you don’t like it then don’t watch it” labor of love that, to me, is what fan films are all about.

And you may very well not like it.  That’s okay.  Personally, I love it because I never know what’s coming next.  Most of the time, it’s word-for-word recreations of scenes from classic TOS Star Trek episodes, lovingly crafted and redone by one guy in front of a green screen wearing uniforms, costumes, make-up, wigs, fake mustaches, and lord knows what else!  Then, just when you least expect it, a character will say something that leaves your head spinning in the What-The-Frak??? moment of weirdness and humor.  As I said, I never know what’s coming and when.

And hey, if you don’t like what you see, nearly all the episodes have runtimes of only  between 2 and 5 minutes.  So Stunt Doubles is hardly much of a time investment.  But if you look closely, you’ll realize just how much time and effort its creator, who goes only by the name MrBonk85, has to put in even to get this ultra-low budget fan production done.  After all, HE is playing every part!  And where does he find all those costumes???

I chatted with MrBonk85 back in May of this year (you can click here for the blog).  It’s a short audio interview if you’d like to listen now…

At the time, there were seven Stunt Doubles episodes that had been released: vignette parodies of “The Enemy Within,” “Spectre of the Gun,” “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” “This Side of Paradise,” and “Charlie X”…plus two original shorts not based on specific TOS episodes.

MrBonk85 ended our interview saying he wasn’t sure if he’d be making any more parody vignettes in the future.  Well, guess who has released SIX more episodes since then…!

Continue reading “Star Trek STUNT DOUBLES doubles its offerings!”