And for people who are geo-blocked (and why the heck would they do that?)…
Thoughts?
Category: News
If we missed something, e-mail us at [email protected].
New TRAILER posted for THE ROMULAN WAR!
For the past three weeks, I’ve been spotlighting the Indiegogo campaign for THE ROMULAN WAR. I published a text interview with show-runner MARK NACCARATO shortly after the campaign launched, and later an audio chat with Mark discussing the current state of crowd-funding campaigns in general and his in particular.
The reason I’m pushing this project so much is not only because I’m really excited by it and want to see it completed, but also because I think this is a really critical time for Star Trek fan films.
Fan donors have gotten used to the flash and sizzle of the quality productions like Star Trek Continues, New Voyages, Prelude to Axanar, Horizon, and Renegades. And for a while, it seemed like there were simply two “extremes” of Trek fan films: the six-figure professional-quality productions that were nearly as good as “the real thing” (some arguably better)…and the low-budget, bargain basement fan films with amateur actors, rubenesque fans doing cosplay, cheap costumes, bad lighting, horrible sound, mediocre VFX, slow pacing, etc. While I believe many of these less ambitious projects are still worth checking out, a lot of them don’t attract much in donations through crowd-funding campaigns (and few of them even ask for money).
With the advent of the guidelines, fans lamented that the days of the six-figure “blockbusters” were over, and I think that’s one of the reasons that donations to recent Kickstarters and Indiegogos have been so anemic.
But while the top-level “professional” fan productions might mostly be history, and the low-budget fan films not really justifying more than modest donations, to quote Yoda: “There is another…”
TEMPORAL ANOMALY concludes talks with CBS, gets small guideline EXEMPTION and release plans!
Well, folks, there’s some good news, some bad news, and some rather shocking news involving the fan production STAR TREK: TEMPORAL ANOMALY. As you might recall from this blog update that I posted last month, CBS had contacted show-runner SAMUEL COCKINGS with some concerns over his soon-to-launch fan film. Weeks earlier, Samuel had released this trailer that raised a few red flags with the corporate Star Trek copyright owners.
Specifically, there were four concerns. The first was easy to fix. The fan film guidelines don’t allow for the name “Star Trek” to be part of the title. No problem there:”Temporal Anomaly – A Star Trek Fan Film” it is!
The second problem was length, about 50 minutes long. The guidelines specify a maximum of two 15-minute separate fan films. Of course, Star Trek Continues released five full-hour episodes after the guidelines were announced (four of them having been filmed and produced after the announcement), and STC was never stopped by CBS.
The third problem was that the trailer included footage taken from actual TNG movies with Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, and Troi on the bridge. Using existing Trek footage is a no-no. Granted, Samuel only needed it for a brief intro sequence at the beginning and a short epilogue at the end, but still…not kosher with the suits at CBS.
And finally, there was the music, nearly all of which is existing copyrighted scores from various Star Trek TV series. Although many other fan films liberally use existing Trek background music, Temporal Anomaly had gotten on CBS’s radar, and the studio wasn’t going to ignore the obvious.
So what’s the good, bad, and shocking news?
STONE TREK is now available on YOUTUBE!
One of my all-time favorite fan series is the mash-up parody STONE TREK. From 2000-2007, BRIAN MATTHEWS, the creator of Stone Trek, and WALLY FIELDS, who did the voices, released nine hilarious episodes (eight of them 2-parters), masterfully combining the modern stone age of The Flintstones with the final frontier of Star Trek. You just have to see those episodes to appreciate their comedic perfection, and I’ve enthusiastically rated it as a MUST SEE fan film.
There was only one small problem. These nine episodes were all created in Adobe’s Flash application and never exported to YouTube. The original flash files weren’t even viewable from many smart devices because of the Flash format.
I interviewed Brian and Wally a few years ago (click here to read the interview), and after we finished up and were just shooting the breeze, I asked if he ever thought of maybe exporting the episodes in video format and uploading them to YouTube. Brian told me that he’d think about it, but in the years since then, all I ever saw were a few of the episodes posted to YouTube by other fans, in varying states of quality. But the majority of these nine comedy mashup classics remained absent from YouTube.
Until now, that is…
New video for THE ROMULAN WAR spotlights the ACTORS!
One of the most anticipated Star Trek fan films at the moment, THE ROMULAN WAR, is currently seeking $10,000 in donations from fans with an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign. As of today, with 19 days left, they’ve advanced more than 42% of the way toward their goal, which is awesome news.
Have you donated yet? Have you at least helped to spread the Indiegogo link? How it is, by the way:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-romulan-war
Last week, I featured an 2-part interview with show-runner MARK NACCARATO, and it sure got fans talking! One of the most interesting comments I saw was a person who wanted to donate but wasn’t sure he was going to like the acting. After all, many Star Trek fan films can’t or don’t use trained actors, and for $10,000—well—I guess this guy really wanted trained actors.
And as it turns out, Mark’s got ’em! (Remember that the guidelines don’t preclude using trained actors. You simply can’t pay them as professionals.)
In fact, Mark has just released a new update video featuring interviews with four members of his cast along with brief clips of their performances (and reveals of their character names). As Mark mentioned in his interview, 75% of the green-screen scenes for this project have already been filmed, and the $10,000 is intended primarily for post-production (sound, editing, VFX, music, etc.) as well as filming that last 25% of the scenes.
The latest video appears below. Buckle up…
THE ROMULAN WAR fan film launches a $10,000 INDIEGOGO! (interview with MARK NACCARATO, part 2)
Yesterday in Part 1, I began chatting with MARK NACCARATO, the show-runner behind the upcoming fan film project THE ROMULAN WAR. People have gotten really excited about this new production…and with good reason! The brutal interstellar war between the Romulan Star Empire and Earth and its allies has fascinated fans since it was first referred to during the TOS episode “Balance of Terror.” But before the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise could really sink its teeth into the conflict, the show was canceled. So frustrating!
But now an ambitious new fan production will give Trekkers a unique look inside this fascinating struggle…not simply as a scripted drama but in a mock documentary format similar to that presented in the fan film hit PRELUDE TO AXANAR. Mark revealed in part 1 of his interview how his project actually predates the creation of Axanar by over a decade, as he began working on The Romulan War as far back as 2000.
The production just launched a $10,000 Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign last week, and yesterday alone, they took in more than $800…bringing them nearly 21% of the way to their goal. And because this is Indiegogo and not Kickstarter, they don’t have to reach that goal to actually collect their contributions. Every dollar donated WILL go to their project, which has already filmed about three-quarters of their scenes and will soon be entering post-production.
If you haven’t watched it yet, they’ve created a very engaging promotional video about their project and crowd-funding campaign:
And now, let’s dive right into the conclusion of our 2-part interview with Mark Naccarato…
THE ROMULAN WAR fan film launches a $10,000 INDIEGOGO! (interview with MARK NACCARATO, part 1)
As any long-time Trekker will tell you, the founding of the United Federation of Planets happened just after the end of the Romulan War with Earth and the Coalition of Planets. In fact, Star Trek: Enterprise was just beginning to explore the origins of that war when it was ignominiously canceled after only four seasons.
Thanks to the Pocket Books Trek novels, fans have gotten a better glimpse into the Romulan War. But what if you want to WATCH the war unfold? Star Trek fan films have offered fans a couple of options. The long-running, low budget fan series THE ROMULAN WARS (based in Arkansas) produced ten episodes over the span of a decade. Then in 2016, TOMMY KRAFT released the super-impressive STAR TREK: HORIZON, also based during the Romulan War and featuring the crew of the starship Discovery NX-04.
And now, lightning is about to strike THRICE with a brand new fan series titled THE ROMULAN WAR (no ‘s’ at the end) that’s going to take a very unique look at this significant piece of Star Trek history. Creator MARK NACCARATO (from Nashville, Tennessee), has created a mockumentary-style production looking back at the Romulan War as a 24th century historical documentary. Trekkers haven’t seen a fan film approach like this since the wildly popular PRELUDE TO AXANAR with featured a mockumentary-style look back at the Federation’s Four Years War with the Klingon Empire from the point of view of a decade later.
The Romulan War just launched a $10,000 Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign last week, and a lot of people are getting very excited. Already, fans have donated over $1,200. Why are they so excited? Watch this video and see if you get excited, too…
Unlike last month’s Kickstarter campaign for The Holy Core, which only made it halfway to their $12K goal and, therefore, received nothing, Indiegogo doesn’t require that campaigns reach their published goal to turn pledges into actual donations. So every dollar donated to The Romulan War will go toward funding the project.
Also, most the scenes have already been filmed! So the question isn’t whether this fan film will be completed but simply how awesome will it look when it’s done.
I chatted with show-runner Mark Naccarato about his project and campaign…
LEAKED scripted scene from the season two premiere of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY!
BIG, HUGE, ENORMOUS, GIGANTIC SPOILER ALERT!!!
Now THIS is exciting! I don’t know whether the producers of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY
intentionally leaked this snippet of the script for the first episode of season two or if it just “sneaked” out the door somehow. But it provides an intriguing look at the direction the creative team will be taking going into the second season.
As has been reported elsewhere, the writing team for Discovery re-assembled at the beginning of last month to begin breaking down season two. Co-creator Alex Kurtzman, who will be directing the first episode of season two, recently explained, “Breaking story is, in some ways, the easier and faster thing; it’s the ability to execute on it that’s much harder. We want to take the right amount of time and don’t want to rush.”
But with production on the first episode set to kick off later this month, the first script needed to be completed quickly. Jonathan Frakes, who just confirmed that he will be directing an episode later in season two, commented, “I just read the first script of the second season and the outline for the second script and it’s on fire now.”
Indeed! And from this leaked scene, I think he’s right.
Granted, there’s no guarantee that the following snippet from the season two premiere script will make it into the actual episode exactly as initially written. Dialog can get changed, segments added and cut, etc. But if this leaked scene does make it into the finished episode, I think we’ll all be very surprised and even enthusiastic about the new direction of the series now that the Klingon War is over.
Naturally, the most exciting thing about this leaked snippet is that fans get a glimpse into how the series will be handing the character of Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise who, like Sarek, Amanda, and Harry Mudd, has already been seen in canonical Star Trek history. Will Captain Pike hew closely to his original version (like Sarek does), or will he be a radical departure (like Harry Mudd)?
Wonder no more!
I’m not sure if I’m even allowed to post this, so read it fast before I get an e-mail on Monday morning from someone with the initials of “C.B.S.” telling me to immediately take it down.
Enjoy this sneak peek into season two…
Continue reading “LEAKED scripted scene from the season two premiere of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY!”
CBS contacts and delays the STAR TREK: TEMPORAL ANOMALY fan film!
Okay, no one panic! CBS isn’t going all lawsuit-happy again. In fact, it’s possible that their experience in the Axanar lawsuit has resulted in a new approach to dealing with Star Trek fan films that concern them: Ask questions first, shoot later.
The first time post-lawsuit that CBS contacted a fan filmmaker with concerns was early in 2016 when Tommy Kraft was trying to raise $250,000 for Star Trek: Federation Rising, his sequel to Star Trek: Horizon. CBS requested strongly (but politely) that Tommy shut down the project, and he complied.
CBS has been pretty quiet since then when it comes to fan films, until now. SAMUEL COCKINGS recently released his trailer for STAR TREK: TEMPORAL ANOMALY, a fan production he has been working on for five years. I interviewed him about that project here. For reasons that will likely become super-obvious when you view the trailer, this planned fan film raised some red flags with CBS for not following a few of the announced guidelines.
Star Trek: Temporal Anomaly was supposed to premiere today on YouTube. Instead, apparently CBS has asked for (apparently, again, politely) for some changes before it gets released. Samuel Cockings just posted this announcement to the Temporal Anomaly Facebook page:
Hello Everyone,
While the intent was to release Temporal Anomaly today we were contacted by CBS and are now delaying release of the film until those discussions are concluded and resolved. These have been polite communications and we thank CBS for their approach in dealing with these concerns.
We had hoped to release the project in its pre-guideline state as Temporal Anomaly was written in 2013 and filmed in 2013/2014 however a public release of this now dubbed “Directors Cut” is no longer possible.
A public altered edit of the film may be able to be produced but we are in the early stages of that.
Thank you for the support and interest you have shown, there will be an update on Kickstarter for our backers shortly.
Samuel Cockings
More news as it becomes available…
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’S “Secret Scene”! (editorial)
Over this past weekend, at WonderCon in Anaheim, CA, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY show-runner AARON HARBERTS released what he referred to as a “secret scene. ” He told the audience, in what I thought was a strange comment, that they decided to cut the scene out of the season one finale because it would be “…more exciting to bring it to a place like [WonderCon].”
Um, yeah.
By now, many of you have probably viewed the two and a half-minute “secret scene” (complete with a full minute and a half of credits…which seemed odd and unnecessary to me). If you’re in the U.S., you can view the clip below…
And in a case of international legalistic inconvenience, those folks in Canada can only watch it here, and the rest of the world can see it here.
Almost immediately, fans started talking excitedly about this “new” scene and what it means for season two. And not surprisingly, a whole bunch of folks e-mailed and/or IM’d me to ask what I thought about it. I guess all those Discovery blogs I’ve written have marked me as some kind of fan barometer or something…or maybe they were just hoping I had some interesting insight or that maybe I’d find some fun way to trash the scene. Who knows?
But since I’ve had a bunch of people ask for my opinion, I thought it best to just write it once. Obviously, I’m not going to put any spoiler warnings here, as the season ended last month and the “secret scene” is right here on this blog.
So here we go…
Continue reading “STAR TREK: DISCOVERY’S “Secret Scene”! (editorial)”