News – Page 81 – Fan Film Factor

STAR TREK CONTINUES revises the RELEASE DATES for its final two episodes!

Later on today, STAR TREK CONTINUES will debut its ninth full episode, “What Ships Are For” (with special guest stars John de Lancie and Anne Lockhart!) in front of a fan audience at the Florida Supercon in Ft. Lauderdale. The rest of the world will get to see the episode tomorrow! (Indiegogo donors—like me—got a special advanced screening link yesterday, so I’ve already seen it. And it was really good, folks. Definitely worth your time to check it out when it’s released…especially the second half. No spoilers, but I cried a little at the end. Very powerful performance by John de Lancie.)

Early last month, STC announced the release schedule of their final three episodes, with special previews of each episode during conventions where the STC cast would be appearing. In addition to episode XI “What Ships Are For,” the release dates for episodes X and XI were given, as well: “To Boldly Go (Part One)” would premiere at Salt Lake City Comic Con the weekend of September 21-23 and “To Boldly Go (Part Two)” would premiere two weeks later at New York City Comicon the weekend of October 5-8.

But that was before CBS announced the premiere date of Star Trek: Discovery was going to be September 24. Oh, dear. STC‘s penultimate episode would be premiering just as the world would be focused on the first new Star Trek to hit television screens in a dozen years! Obviously, the timing of the two releases within a day of each other would not be in the best interests of CBS or STC.

So VIC MIGNOGNA posted the following message to fans of STC:

When we scheduled the releases for our 2-part finale at Salt Lake Comic Con & New York Comic Con, the release date for Star Trek: Discovery had not yet been set. When it was announced that it would air on Sept 24, we decided to make some adjustments to our release dates out of respect and support for CBS and ST: Discovery. We don’t want anything to detract from the excitement and anticipation of ST: Discovery!

We will now show a sneak peek of Episode X at New York Comic Con on Sunday, October 8. and will debut it publicly on October 18. Our final episode, XI, will be released publicly on November 13, with a sneak peek of the episode to be screened at an event prior (TBD). Exclusive episode posters will be given to the first 300 fans at both events!

So a bad news/good news situation for STC fans. The bad news is that we have to a little longer for the next new episode of STC and an extra month or so for the finale. The good news is that we don’t have to face the reality of the last-ever episode of STC until November instead of October.

New fan series ENDEAVOUR releases its debut episode “The Gift”!

Okay, I know we’re not supposed to call it a “fan SERIES.” After all, the guidelines specify that there are to be no ongoing fan series. So instead, POTEMKIN PICTURES is simply producing a series of fan films, each with a different title, and each produced by a different production crew.

So the Potemkin Production Crew already finished a run of 36 fan films featuring the crew of the USS Potemkin. The Tristan Production Crew has released 8 fan films telling stories of the crew of the USS Tristan. The Deimos Production Crew has produced 5 fan films focusing on—you guessed it!—the crew of the USS Deimos. And a final team, the Kupok Prodcution Crew, has told 3 stories of the crew of the Klingon Battlecrusier Kupok.

However, for the last 15 months or so, the Potemkin Pictures website had displayed an additional production crew (for the Endeavour) with no episodes released yet. I assumed this was for a new series of fan films featuring the crew of the USS Endeavour (and it turns out I was right), but why was there such a delay?

Well, the wait finally ended last week when the Pelham, Alabama-based Endeavor Production Team released their first completed fan film, the 13-minute long “The Gift.”

I asked show-runner RANDY LANDERS about the long production schedule:

We filmed last June, and it took two extra months because of the extensive green screen work, some camera choices that had to be corrected in post, and because we were looking for fans who had an infant, who live nearby, and who would be willing to have their child on camera. Our longer productions take 9-12 months.

Still having struggles with the green screen. But getting better.

I hope y’all enjoy it. It is good family fare.

You care judge for yourself, folks. Take a look at the first effort of a new fan FILM (don’t call it a fan SERIES!) from the Endeavour Production team…

TERRY McINTOSH is officially warned by actor TONY TODD not to use his AXANAR blooper footage!

After yesterday’s blog about the troubling behavior of TERRY McINTOSH, I’d really hoped to get back to fan films today. Yeah, I thought I was out, but Terry pulled me back in. However, this WILL be my last Terry McIntosh blog for the foreseeable future. I don’t want to keep giving him all this attention, even if it is completely negative. But I felt it was necessary to follow-up on yesterday’s blog because of something that happened later on last evening.

Quick recap: Terry McIntosh, who worked with Axanar Productions for years before flying off in a huff has all the footage from Prelude to Axanar…including outtakes. Even though Terry signed a non-disclosure agreement agreeing to keep all Axanar-related materials confidential, he already leaked an early version of the full Axanar script, and now he’s announced plans to release a Prelude to Axanar blooper reel…even though he doesn’t own the footage or have permission to do so.

Terry’s stated intention is to use the blooper reel to embarrass Alec Peters, who apparently worked through numerous bad takes to get his performance as Garth to a point where it would be strong enough to feature in the fan film alongside the professional actors (who obviously didn’t flub their lines as much as Alec did…since he’s not a trained actor).

Terry contacted the other actors (with the exception of the late Richard Hatch and his estate) to ask “permission” to use their blooper footage (failing to mention that he was no longer with Axanar Productions and was doing this “rogue” in an attempt to embarrass Alec Peters). Although Kate Vernon said okay, Gary Graham and J.G. Hertzler said no.

Then Terry said this:

In other words, Terry asked for permission, was not given that permission, and is now considering ignoring this actor’s wishes and using the footage anyway.

What I wrote in yesterday’s blog was NOT pretty. But at least, I thought, this can’t get any worse. There’s no way for Terry to possibly sink any lower.

Man, was I wrong…

Continue reading “TERRY McINTOSH is officially warned by actor TONY TODD not to use his AXANAR blooper footage!”

DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK: What happens next? (Part 3)

Feel free to read Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t already. This time, we’re going to look at is the state of the Dr. Seuss/Star Trek “mash-up” lawsuit as it stands right now.

Initially , there were three legal complaints filed by the plaintiffs, Dr. Seuss Enterprises:

Copyright infringement
Trademark infringement
Unfair competition

Judge Janis L. Sammartino of the Ninth Circuit Federal Court dismissed the second and third complaints, leaving only the copyright infringement claim as the lawsuit…and that one was “nearly perfectly balanced” based on the “fair use” defense.

But the judge did give the plaintiff a “second chance” to get those two dismissed claims back. She gave them two weeks to file an amended complaint that might change her mind about dismissing trademark infringement and unfair competition.

The plaintiff did, indeed, re-file an Amended Complaint. Not surprisingly, the defendants then filed a new Motion to Dismiss.

The plaintiff wants their two dismissed claims back. The defendant would like to keep those two claims dismissed and, if possible, dismiss the final copyright claim and end the lawsuit completely.

Will either side succeed? Let’s take a closer look…

Continue reading “DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK: What happens next? (Part 3)”

DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK: A “near-perfect balancing” of FAIR USE factors! (Part 2)

Last time, we began looking at the intriguing case of the Dr. Seuss/Star Trek “mash-up” book Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! by DAVID GERROLD and TY TEMPLETON. Last November, they got sued by Dr. Seuss Enterprises for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition. The defense quickly filed a motion to dismiss the case. After a brief extension, the judge issued a ruling last month. (For more details, read yesterday’s blog.)

The motion to dismiss centered around the “mash-up” being protected as “fair use.” And while judges do not usually rule on fair use this early in a case, the Honorable Janis L. Sammartino of the 9th Circuit Federal Court did (again for reasons explained in yesterday’s blog).

So did the fair use defense work or not? What did the judge say???

In short, it’s a tie. She called it a “near-perfect balancing of the factors” of fair use. And what does that mean? Get comfy, folks, ’cause Jonny’s gonna do his best to break this down into layperson’s English for you all…

Continue reading “DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK: A “near-perfect balancing” of FAIR USE factors! (Part 2)”

DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK “Mash-Up” files new MOTION TO DISMISS! (Part 1)

Last week, I wrote a blog about what is rapidly becoming the second biggest copyright infringement lawsuit involving Star Trek in the last year. But this time it isn’t CBS and Paramount doing the suing, it’s Dr. Seuss Enterprises. And the target isn’t a fan film but rather a “mash-up” book that takes the characters, settings, and concepts of Star Trek and presents them in a style inspired by (the plaintiffs say “slavishly copied from”) the classics of Dr. Seuss.

The authors of the mash-up, entitled Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!, include Star Trek “The Trouble with Tribbles” writer DAVID GERROLD and award-winning comic book artist TY TEMPLETON. Together with their publisher, ComicMix, they were sued last November for both copyright and trademark infringement, along with unfair competition, by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the owners of all the works of Dr. Seuss. This lawsuit is seeking $150,000 in damages per infringement (of which there were multiple instances provided in the filing), for a potential judgment in the MILLIONS! And all of this for a small, grass-roots book project that took in only $30,000 in a Kickstarter last September (pledged money that is now being held by Kickstarter pending the outcome of this case) and has never been published.

(If you’re wondering how the non-publication of a book could cost the copyright owners millions of dollars in damages, well, sit tight. We’ll get to that in part 2.)

Anyway, last month, the judge in the case, the Honorable Janis L. Sammartino of the 9th Circuit Federal Court (yeah, the same court where the Axanar case was filed—but a totally different judge), made a series of significant pre-trial rulings. Among these were the dismissal of the trademark infringement and unfair competition portions of the complaint and declaring that the fair use defense was valid but still “too close to call” (my words, not hers) due to a lack of evidence of financial harm.

Many thought the case was pretty much over, but it wasn’t. So what happens now?

If you’re thinking this is gonna be another one of Jonathan’s long legal blogs, you’re probably right. But I’ll be walking you through it in helpful layperson’s English…and I guarantee you’ll come out of it much better informed. Ready?

Continue reading “DR. SEUSS/STAR TREK “Mash-Up” files new MOTION TO DISMISS! (Part 1)”

RENEGADES hosts a North Hollywood THEATER PREMIERE of “THE REQUIEM”!

Over a half million dollars. Multiple crowd-funding campaigns. Walter Koenig. Nichelle Nichols. Tim Russ. Elaborately constructed sets. Props. Art design. Lighting. Make-up. Broken air-conditioning in the studios. Countless aliens in hot rubber masks. A year in post-production. Amazing visual FX. Incredible music. And those damn guidelines from CBS and Paramount that forced Star Trek: Renegades to evolve into RENEGADES: THE SERIES.

And then last night, at 7:30 in the Laemlee Theater in North Hollywood, CA, the moment we’d all been waiting for. “The Requiem” was shown for the first time as a full-hour fan film on the big screen in front of an audience of hundreds of fans, actors, production crew, family, friends, and donors…and at least one blogger who crawled through L.A. rush hour traffic for 75 minutes to get there!

The inside of the theater looked like this…

Before the screening, actors posed for photos with fans who’d donated a little extra…

Aron Eisenberg, Tim Russ, Nichelle Nichols, Jason Quinell (donor), Walter Koenig, and Manu Intiraymi

And then it was time to start the film. Things were running a little late, so producer SKY CONWAY’s opening introduction was simply, “Let’s start this thing!”

Continue reading “RENEGADES hosts a North Hollywood THEATER PREMIERE of “THE REQUIEM”!”

Star Trek/Dr. Seuss “Mash-Up” creators received a CEASE & DESIST letter from CBS!

Is CBS switching back from copyright infringement lawsuits to cease & desist letters? It’s hard to read the tea leaves when it comes to a multi-billion dollar corporation, but we may have just gotten a clue.

The year 2016 was a turbulent and uncertain time for the world of Star Trek fan films. It began with a copyright infringement lawsuit against Alec Peters and AXANAR, and then by the summer, fans were presented with a series of fan film guidelines listing the things fans were and were not allowed to do if they wanted to avoid legal action on the part of CBS and Paramount.

But were lawsuits now the “new normal”? Would fan films that violated the guidelines find themselves dragged into court for expensive litigation? The studios weren’t saying. For many years, most fan film producers had (perhaps naively) assumed that the worst that would happen would be they’d get a call (or letter or e-mail) from the studios saying, “Stop what you’re doing.” Even Alec Peters himself figured he’d probably get a call long before ever being served with a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Man, was he wrong!

Ironically, had the studios simply sent Alec a cease & desist letter instead of suing, they could have saved themselves nearly a million dollars in attorneys fees and 12 months of polarizing publicity with likely a similar result of a scaled-down Axanar. But that’s a “what if” scenario that we’ll never see played out in this universe.

But here’s a question: did CBS’s and Paramount’s experience with the year-long Axanar lawsuit leave a bad enough taste in the studio execs’ mouths that they’ve decided to dial things back from battlestations to just yellow alert? Are the studios ready to return to good ol’ fashioned cease & desist letters to get the job done?

The answer to this question might come from another copyright infringement lawsuit going on right now involving Star Trek…and Dr. Seuss!

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AXANAR Comic Book NOW AVAILABLE!

Last month, I presented an interview with uber-AXANAR fan TREY McELWAIN, who was planning to release a 4-page (including cover) Axanar comic book. The cover itself was already completed, and Trey told me that his artist (and personal friend) DANIEL FU was working feverishly on the artwork.

Apparently, “feverishly” was indeed the adverb to use, as it is less than a month later and the comic book is now finished! It debuted earlier today in various places on the Internet (it’s a free comic, after all), and I’ve been allowed to feature it here on Fan Film Factor, as well.

Trey greatly enjoyed the creative process, and he told me that he’d really like to produce more comic stories and adaptations of Axanar:

I am not sure what the future holds for “Trey’s AxaComics.” My hope, my dream, is to continue on, and get the Parts 1 and 2 out.

“Trial By Fire,” which I’ve just released, would actually be Part 3, with the Ares going up against the D6. Parts 1 and 2 are going to cover the Klingon Invasion, and the construction of the Ares.

And then when we all get to see Episodes 4 and 5 from Alec, I’d like to follow suit and continue on with the adaptation process! One thing is for sure though, this entire experience has been a blast, and I am thrilled to share it with everyone!

I’ve included lower-resolution images of the pages below. But if you’d like to see the artwork in beautiful higher resolution, feel free to download and view this Axanar Comic PDF file.

Otherwise, take a look right here…

Continue reading “AXANAR Comic Book NOW AVAILABLE!”

2-YEAR-OLD version of full AXANAR movie script purposefully LEAKED! (news and editorial)

This morning I face a bit of a dilemma. There’s an 800-pound mugato in the cave (a more appropriate metaphor than “elephant in the living room”), and I needed to decide how to deal with it.

On the one hand, it’s fan film news…major fan film news, in fact. A version of the 90-minute AXANAR script that was “locked” prior to the lawsuit (meaning it would be used to determine line item costs) was leaked yesterday by disgruntled (man, is that an understatement!) former CTO and Marketing Director for Axanar Productions, TERRY McINTOSH. It was actually an earlier version than the one used for the lawsuit (Terry released version 7.3, but the version submitted in the legal filings was 7.7—and the latest version that exists now actually goes to 11). But the fact is that a version of the Axanar script is now out there…and that’s news.

On the other hand, Terry violated a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in doing so. The thing about NDA’s is that, for a project like Axanar, they are unlikely to be enforced because ALEC PETERS would have to prove financial damages and injury. Since Alec is unlikely to lose any money from the release of an outdated script that’s been rewritten multiple times since 2015, there’s little reason to bother taking legal action. (But hey, who knows?)

That said, despite the lack of legal “teeth,” signing an NDA is like making a promise…saying that you’re trustworthy and able to keep a secret. I’ve signed an NDA with Axanar Productions, as well. The things I know could potentially explode my page views. But I don’t share them because I gave my word—and at least for me, that means something.

So, yes, there’s an outdated Axanar script out there now, and you’ll probably be able to find it fairly easily if you look. But I am not going to post it here. Nor am I going to link to any of the numerous detractor sites that have sprung up in the last 24 hours to tear the script apart.

Have I read the script myself? Not yet. I’ve been too busy reading through Alec’s new scripts for the two 15-minute Axanar films and preparing my feedback for him, and I didn’t want to get distracted. I might read the leaked script eventually…maybe not. I haven’t decided yet.

But what I have decided is to honor my own signing of an NDA and not facilitate access to the outdated script, even though it is now public. Unlike some people, when I give my word, I keep it.