Personal Stories – Fan Film Factor

Please HELP SANTA CLAUS this Christmas by buying his book…

Ho, ho, ho, everybody! I realize that this blog isn’t Star Trek or fan film related—other than “SANTA” SAL LIZARD having been the president of STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association from 2008-2011—but I’d still like to take a few moments for a special message to all of you.

In case you ween’t aware, I helped Santa Sal write a book full of his wonderful memoirs of having been a professional, real-bearded Santa Claus for (at the time) more than two decades. BEING SANTA CLAUS was first published in 2012 by Gotham Books, a division of Penguin Publishing. A few years ago, Sal and I reacquired the rights to the book and published a new expanded edition, with additional heartwarming true stories and photos, available in hardcover, paperback, kindle, and even audiobook formats. (I narrated the audio version.)

It was a happy and exciting time for both of us as the world was emerging from lockdown. But then Sal’s wife Linda passed away suddenly from brain cancer around the same time that Sal himself had a trio of mini-strokes that left his left side too weak to support children on his lap. Sal’s days of being Santa Claus were effectively over.

With the passing of Sal’s wife, whose job as a nurse administrator was their primarily source of income beyond Sal’s annual Santa gigs and the occasional Ubering, Sal has been reduced to living solely on social security, barely enough to get by. The one thing he has to look forward to are royalties on book sales…which aren’t much. The books clear about $4-5/purchase (depending on the format sold), with monthly royalties in the dozens of dollars at best. So, sadly, not too much.

But this is the one time of year when the book sells a little bit better—hence, this blog. I’m trying to help my friend-in-need by encouraging my other friends to purchase Being Santa Claus in any format. If you order now, the book will likely arrive by Christmas (or instantaneously if you order the Kindle or Audible version).

It’s a great stocking stuffer or just something to listen to in the car if you want a break from holiday music without losing the feeling of the season. If you’d like to hear a sample what the book sounds like, here is short snippet of one chapter…

Every little bit helps out this wonderful, good-natured, generous, and caring man get something nice for his daughter and granddaughter for Christmas. And even if all you can afford right now is goodwill toward men (and women and others), please consider passing along the following link to the Amazon page on your social media feeds. Merry Christmas to all…!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOU COPY AND HELP SANTA SAL

Did MATT MILLER write a SONG about LIL’ OL’ ME? I do believe he DID!

Okay, folks, this was totally NOT on my Bingo card for, like, ever!

It’s been more than two years since I last wrote a blog about Trekzone’s MATT MILLER from Australia. And honestly, I was fine not talking about him ever again (except, of course, when he appears in a fan film that I’m covering, like this one).

But, man! When Matt takes the time to not only write a song about me but to have someone professionally sing and record it and then use it to kick off the latest video for his Matt Miller Fan Film Awards show—well, how can I not return the favor and sincerely thank him for thinking of me (apparently constantly!) enough to put in all of this amazing effort?

Anyway, without further ado, this is the song that opened this year’s Trekzone Awards. It’s only 2 and a half minutes, it’s totally surreal, but it’s definitely worth a listen…

Has a kinda JONI MITCHELL vibe, don’t it?

Frankly, I’d be way too embarrassed to ever do anything like that with the annual SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, as they’re meant to celebrate the achievements of fan filmmakers, not serve to extend some silly vendetta. But Matt’s gotta be Matt, I suppose.

And I personally wouldn’t be all that thrilled to win an award for my fan film knowing that the presentation was tainted by some cringe attack song at the opening. I’d probably think twice before showing the video to friends since I’d have to explain what the darn song actually meant. (And what did it mean, by the way? Which side is the “haters” and what “truth” will they see? I have no earthy idea!)

Matt was, of course, careful not to use my actual name or the name of ALEC PETERS (whom he calls “The Producer”—I am, of course, “Fan Film Blogger Dude”), although he does reference my AXANAR-inspired fan film INTERLUDE at one point. But I’m obviously living rent-free inside of Matt’s head for him to include this weird vendetta-ballad at the start of the video (which you can watch in its entirety here; I don’t mind if Matt gets more views, as he certainly needs them).

By the way, I do not typically cover the Trekzone Awards because one of Matt’s requirements for eligibility is that he doesn’t hate you, and he hates a LOT of people in the fan film community (including at least a couple dozen of my close friends—along with me, of course). So each year, there end up being many very deserving fan films that are capriciously excluded from even being considered for a Trekzone Award, as Matt selects all entrants himself and has only two judges: Matt and one other fellow from Australia.

R.I.P. JENNIFER COLE (1967-2024) of STAR TREK: HIDDEN FRONTIER

The year was 1998, and the concept of a “fan film” was still unknown, even to most fans. At the time, ROB CAVES was a member of the U.S.S. Angeles chapter of the STARFLEET INTERNATIONAL fan club, and he invited his fellow members to be a part of a new fan series he was calling VOYAGES OF THE U.S.S. ANGELES. It lasted for one full-length feature and five additional short episodes before Rob evolved the series into STAR TREK: HIDDEN FRONTIER, which lasted for seven seasons, releasing FIFTY episodes of about a half hour each in addition to spawning no less than FIVE spin-off series.

And in the center of all of this—both literally and figuratively, as her character often sat in the command chair on the “bridge” (shot against a green screen)—was JENNIFER COLE. She appeared in a total of 23 of those 50 episodes, plus 6 episodes of spin-off series STAR TREK: ODYSSEY, 2 of spin-off series STAR TREK: HENGLAAR, M.D., and the crossover fan film (with STAR TREK: INTREPID) OPERATION BETA SHIELD. Jennifer also directed that crossover fan film as well as directing 17 episodes of HF! And all told, on her IMBd page, Jennifer has producer credits on nearly FIVE DOZEN Star Trek fan films from HF and various spin-off series!

What’s most notable about all of this is that Jennifer wasn’t particularly interested in filmmaking before all of this began. Although she lived in Los Angeles, CA, she wasn’t really involved with Hollywood (she worked in a local F.B.I. office, of all things!). She had never taken an acting class or a filmmaking class, and she seldom dealt with the technical aspects of video production like camera lenses or the minutiae of green screen compositing. That was always Rob Caves’ department.

Additionally, Jennifer didn’t exactly have what one might call a “Starfleet” body type. Indeed, she struggled with obesity (as many fans do, including myself). But she never shied away from appearing in front of the camera, and that inspired many other fans to do the same, regardless of their appearance. Jenn was proof for any fan who needed it that Star Trek fan films could be made for the fun of it—even though it was often hard work—and that “anyone could make a fan film.” The trick was simply in having the confidence, determination, and organization to just go for it and make it happen.

And Jenn was amazingly organized! Over the years, after co-founding the U.S.S. Angeles in 1995, Jenn served as first officer, commanding officer, and second officer of the club at various points from then onward. Until her health started deteriorating a few years ago, Jenn found a way to attend nearly every chapter event, regardless of how far she had to drive or fly. One of her favorite places to visit was Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas, and I snapped many of photo of her there enjoying herself…

How I used A.I. technology to bring the voices of SPOCK AND McCOY back to life in “AN ABSENT FRIEND” (part 3: legal and moral questions)…

In part 1, I discussed how I used Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to turn a Star Trek inspired fan script that I wrote back in 2010 into an audio drama featuring the voices of Spock and McCoy. I utilized ElevenLabs‘ voice synthesis algorithm to convert sound clips captured from a variety of sources into a series of back-and-forth dialog between the two characters. Ultimately, I wound up with an approximately 15-minute long audio drama.

Part 2 covered how I managed to take the audio drama and turn it into an animated fan film with the help of an amazing illustrator by the name of MATT SLADE, music composer MATT MILNE, and my longtime childhood friend MOJO. Indeed, in the end, I was the only person involved in this production whose named didn’t start with the letter M! The finished product came out looking like this…

And now the moment that I am certain many of you have been waiting for: the legal and moral questions of “Can Jonathan legally do this?” and “Should Jonathan ethically do this?” These are both complex subjects to tackle. But let’s dive in…!

How I used A.I. technology to bring the voices of SPOCK AND McCOY back to life in “AN ABSENT FRIEND” (part 2: the art, animation, and music)…

In part 1, I explained how I had used Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to synthesize the voices of Spock and McCoy to speak the words of a script I originally wrote as a short story back in 2010. In it, Captain Kirk has just “died” saving the U.S.S. Enterprise-B (in the feature film Star Trek Generations), and Bones is getting angry-drunk mourning the untimely passing of his longtime friend. Spock finds McCoy sitting alone in an unnamed bar and offers to join him. It’s the last thing the doctor wants—a Vulcan with no emotions—but, ironically, the thing he most needs. And Spock needs McCoy, as well, even though the Vulcan would never openly admit it.

The story was always intended to be a sort of a two-actor stage play, simple but poignant, giving a glimpse into how these two longtime friends and colleagues deal with the loss of AN ABSENT FRIEND. But the story/script sat quietly on my hard-drive for more than a decade, unused and mostly unpublished, waiting for its “moment.”

That moment came when I discovered the ElevenLabs website (thank you, RAY MYERS!), which can generate synthesized speech from any decent voice sample of a minute or two. Assembling verbal snippets from LEONARD NIMOY and DeFOREST KELLEY from various sources, I set out to create an audio drama of my script. The project took me a couple of months, and I explained the nuances of how I did it in part 1.

Now in part 2, I’ll explain how I got from that audio drama to this completely animated Star Trek fan film…

As I mentioned in part 1, after I completed the audio drama, I was frustrated by the subtle inconsistencies between sentences (especially for McCoy) due to my generating the voices in short segments. This was a necessary evil due to the limitations of the early A.I. technology, but it still bothered me.

Then I had an idea…

How I used A.I. technology to bring the voices of SPOCK and McCOY back to life in “AN ABSENT FRIEND” (part 1: the audio)…

While some Star Trek fan films have begun to Artificial Intelligence ( A.I.) in limited ways to age and de-age characters and also to create brief visuals and short bits of dialog, my new animated fan film AN ABSENT FRIEND is the first time that A.I. speech synthesis has been used to generate ALL of the voices. And what’s more, two of those voices are sampled from the late LEONARD NIMOY and DeFOREST KELLEY, allowing the beloved characters of Spock and McCoy to live on.

The obvious question that might come to mind for some people would be: Is this legal? The short answer is “yes…at least for now.” That could change in the not-too-distant future, but no law governing or restricting the A.I. generation of a deceased actor’s voice in a fan film exists at the moment. I will dive more deeply into the legal status of voice A.I. in Part 3 of this blog series (along with the ethical considerations). However, right now in Part 1, I would like to discuss how I managed to digitally recreate the voices of these two deeply-missed actors, and in Part 2, I’ll be covering how I and my illustrator, MATT SLADE, turned an audio drama into a full animated Star Trek fan film.

First, though, let’s take a look at this groundbreaking project…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TAKING OVER THE WORLD?

A.I. has exploded across the planet in the last year and a half, and it’s certainly become a bit of a mixed bag. The term itself is an umbrella for a wide range of digital breakthroughs whereby computers are doing some incredible—and occasionally worrisome—things. A.I. is being used for everything from generating business presentations and news articles to writing millions of lines of computer code in seconds. A.I. digitally de-aged an 80-year-old HARRISON FORD in the fifth and final Indiana Jones feature film last year and also completed an unfinished Beatles song despite two of the original band members having died decades ago.

Law enforcement is using intuitive software to sift through endless social media postings to track down wanted suspects and potential terrorists. On the other side of the moral spectrum, however, some students are using A.I. software to write their school essays for them, while a few political campaigns have begun to generate false images and articles to spread realistic-looking fake news to unsuspecting voters. Earlier this year, a New Hampshire robocall seemingly from Joe Biden that told Democrats not to “waste their vote” in the primary was actually faked by a supporter of one of the other primary candidates. And of course, the recent Hollywood writers and actors strikes worried that A.I. would make many of their jobs all but irrelevant.

My own mind was blown last year when I saw A.I. used to create an actual Star Trek fan film! THE RODDENBERRY ARCHIVE released the following short fan film featuring a deepfaked face of Leonard Nimoy as Spock put onto the body of actor LAWRENCE SELLECK…

The curious case of Jonathan’s YouTube channel “SURGE”…

It was recently brought to my attention that a false rumor has begun circulating that I purchased views for my YouTube channel last summer to boost my numbers for some strange reason. (See the above screen cap.)

Of course, this doesn’t address the most obvious question of I why would do this and then never even mention it. I mean, you buy 300,000+ views to…what? Brag? I completely forgot to brag, folks…d’oh!

In fact, I never even noticed it, let alone talked about it. And apparently, it boosted my subscribers by a couple of thousand, as well, and I never mentioned that either until earlier this past week—and even then it was buried deep inside this response (paragraph 3) in the comments under a blog. I mean, if you’re gonna buy that many views, then shout it from the rafters, right?

The other thing I wondered after hearing about this crazy, stupid rumor was: how much exactly do 300,000+ YouTube views cost to buy? I mean, haven’t YOU ever wondered that? Well, you probably haven’t—but I bet you’re curious now, aren’t you? And that’s why I looked it up…

The price varies depending on the service you choose and the number of views you’re looking for. Packages start at just $3.99 for 500 views all the way up to $1,499.99 for 250,000 viewers, with numerous packages in between.

Wait…what??

Buying 300K would have cost me more than FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS?!?!?!? Holy second mortgage, Batman! I would be kicked out of the house at warp speed if I did that!

Anyway, I was still kinda curious where this surge came from. I mean, SOMETHING happened last summer! A bump like that doesn’t materialize out of nowhere, and I doubted that anyone else out there liked me enough to drop over a grand and a half buying views for my channel. So where did those views come from?

Turns out the answer was: STONE TREK!

Huh?

Back in 2016, one of my first-year’s blogs was about the hilarious fan series Stone Trek, a brilliant mash-up of Star Trek and The Flintstones. At the time, their episodes appeared on this Angelfire web page using the Adobe Flash player to animate (which is how the episodes were created in the first place).

A couple of years later, a convention organizer from San Diego where I’d be a guest wanted to show Stone Trek along with other shorter fan films as part of a continuous program in one of the smaller panel rooms. So I did a video capture from the Flash player of the five completed Stone Trek episodes and provided them as mp4 files for the convention.

And thank goodness I did!!!

A public APOLOGY and sincere THANK YOU to C.W. THOMPSON from myself and JOSH IRWIN…

It’s never easy to admit that you screwed up. But that happened in December, and now is the time and place to acknowledge and try to correct it.

To understand what happened, we need to leapfrog back to last October and a crisis that happened with CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS. After working on the project for over two years and putting several thousand dollars of his own money into it (along with several thousand dollars that were crowd-funded from fan donors), AVALON UNIVERSE showrunner JOSH IRWIN was in a serious bind. A final shoot had been scheduled for the upcoming weekend with an actress who needed to travel from Oklahoma to Arkansas, and expenses for gas, food, and lodging for the weekend were promised to be covered. But a last minute unrelated emergency put Josh in a bind of quite literally being too broke to afford reimbursement for this person, nor did she have the financial means to make the trip without it.

Usually when something like this happens, I can come through with a loan or donation. I’ve never advertised this fact, as I didn’t want to become known as an ATM for fan filmmakers. Unfortunately, the Lane family had our own emergency in late September requiring unexpected and significant construction/repair costs, and my days of donating left and right to crowd-funding campaigns are done for now. So I couldn’t help Josh personally.

Over the years, CLARENCE W. THOMPSON has been a very generous donor to many fan film crowd-funders, including my own fan film INTERLUDE. Without even telling Josh I was doing so, I reached out to C.W. and asked if he could come through with a donation to help Josh. Without hesitation, C.W. offered a very nice amount that would cover the weekend expenses for this actress and allow her to make the trip. The money was Paypal’d to Josh within minutes. Josh was immensely thankful (as was I!) and promised to include C.W. in the credits as a full producer. C.W. was happy to accept the offer.

Guess what Josh totally forgot to do.

Finishing Crisis on Infinite Excaliburs drained Josh not only financially but also mentally, physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. By the time of the last few weeks before the December release, Josh was essentially running the last half-mile of a full marathon, sprinting the entire way. But that’s only a reason for forgetting to include C.W. as a producer in the credits, NOT an excuse.

And why am I apologizing, too? Because Josh asked me to copy-proof his credits. He said, “I always forget someone or something!” He wanted a second pair of eyes to double-check him. And while I did catch several mistakes, I didn’t even notice the omission of C.W.’s name. And so I share a portion of the blame.

SANTA needs a new KIDNEY…

As some of you know, back in 2012, I helped a professional, real-bearded Santa Claus write his memoirs in a book titled BEING SANTA CLAUS, which is available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, kindle, and audiobook versions. It recounts the heartwarming stories of Santa Sal’s then-20-year career wearing the red suit–from his first clueless mistakes to becoming one of the most believable and effective Santas you could ever meet.

Last year, Sal lost his beloved wife of 35 years, Linda, and this past November, Sal was placed on the kidney transplant list. He now lives with his daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky, and they struggle to make ends meet. You can help make Christmas for Sal and his family a little merrier in two ways:

1) You can buy a copy of the book in any version, and royalties from the sale go to Sal and his family. You can also spread the Amazon link to your friends and family and loved ones.

2) You can donate to the following GoFundMe campaign…
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sal-lizard-aka-santa-aka-the-vampire-santa

I know that at at least one person out there in the Star Trek fan community has generated more than $18K crowd-funding his legal bills/debts for an upcoming lawsuit. Right now, Santa Sal (a Trekkie and former president of STARFLEET: the International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc.) has generated just $707 to help himself and his family survive a very challenging Christmas.

Whether or not you gave to that other campaign, please consider donating a little to help Santa Sal and his daughter and granddaughter. Or maybe buy a copy of the book. Sal’s stories are wonderful and will make you laugh, cry, cheer, and always smile. My friend Sal has given so much over the years, and I hope people can see their way to giving back at least a little.

Thank you and Merry Christmas.

My SON the FAN FILMMAKER!

Two weeks ago I blogged about, among other things, how VANCE MAJOR retired from fan films only to discover that his 7-year-old son ROYCE MAJOR wanted to make fan films! In fact, here’s one of Royce’s first projects.

Over the years, Vance and I have swapped “dad” stories and compared notes, as my 13-year-old son Jayden is very similar to Royce: Star Trek and sci-fi fans, very into computers, very creative, adorable, and way smarter than their dads (both Vance and I both are totally out of our league when it comes to our kids completely lapping us!). And as I was giving Vance some compliments on Royce’s latest efforts and praising his involvement as a father in encouraging Royce’s passions, I told Vance a little about what Jayden was up to these days.

“Y’know, Jonathan, I’d really like to read a blog about that,” Vance said to me. “I mean, it’s great reading about all these other fan filmmakers and their projects, but Jayden is the ‘next generation,’ and finding out what he’s been doing would be really interesting…to me, at least. You really should write a blog about Jayden and his latest projects.”

Okay, Vance, because you asked for it…!

Like many kids, Jayden has a lot of hobbies and interests. He builds competitive robots and takes karate. We watch Star Trek, Stargate, and other sci-fi together. He spends waaaaaaay too much time viewing YouTube videos, but welcome to Generation Alpha (the next one after Gen Z). He hangs out on Discord in a bunch of special interest group servers (he even has a server of his own), he has his own YouTube Channel, and has friends and followers all over the world (he says that people from other countries are nicer than Americans). And yes, Mommy and I feel completely overwhelmed trying to keep track of and monitor all of this online activity…heaven help us!

Fortunately, Jayden is at his core a “good kid”—kind, empathetic to others, and a bit of a prude. We’ve discussed online privacy and safety with him, and he gets it. Like many parents, we’re crossing our fingers that the genie doesn’t get too far out of the bottle, but eventually you just have to trust that you’ve raised your kid right.

One of the things that completely blows our minds—in addition to the robot-building—is Jayden’s ability to code video games. He creates his projects using the Scratch game engine (developed at MIT for kids) at a level that, frankly, most 13-year-olds aren’t even close to being able to do.

You’ve obviously heard of fan films, but did you know there are also fan GAMES? Jayden, along with possibly hundreds of others, has taken to creating video games based on a 2D online game released in 2015 called Undertale (read more about it here).

Here’s a short segment of one of literally dozens of fan games that Jayden was created based on Undertale…