News – Page 87 – Fan Film Factor

MELBOURNE releases PART 1 of its first full episode “STORM FRONT”!

Lately, there’s been a lot of stuff coming out of STARBASE STUDIOS (all of it made before the recent move from Oklahoma City, OK to Harrison, Arkansas). This recent explosion of fan films has included: “Chain of Command”, Star Trek: The Federation Files– “His Name is Mudd”, Starship Valiant – “Crosses to Bear”, Starship Republic – “Serpent of Yesterday”, and a pair of super-short vignettes “Pen Pals” and “Pen Pals 2”.

The last two short fan films were also teasers for the latest production made at STARBASE STUDIOS…a new fan film (possibly series) called MELBORNE. And no, the word “Starship” is not in the title—unlike many other projects.

Melbourne is the brainchild of VANCE MAJOR, a filmmaker from Kansas who also plays Chief Engineer Minard on Starship Valiant. From its debut episode, it looks as though Melbourne is set somewhere between the end of Kirk’s five-year mission and the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture…featuring starship and uniform elements from both (apparently in a very purposeful way).

I’ll be featuring a full interview with Vance in a few weeks. But for now, please enjoy Part 1 of Melbourne‘s first full episode debut, “Storm Front”…

FIRST FRONTIER releases its newest trailer! (Interview with KENNY SMITH, Part 2)

Last time, I began chatting with KENNY SMITH, the show-runner behind the eagerly-anticipated fan production STAR TREK: FIRST FRONTIER. This exciting project will feature the first-ever commander of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Captain Robert April and his crew on their maiden voyage directly from dry dock.

Everything about this production looks amazing! From the costumes to the sets to the 11-foot model of the USS Enterprise constructed specifically to create amazing-looking visual effects.

In Part 1, we learned how Kenny had become a convention promoter, working with most of the main cast members from the various Star Trek series, and also how he made connections with various people in the entertainment industry. This led to finding a producer to help him bring his fan film script to life.

We continue this great interview by looking into some of the other exciting aspects of this fan film, the selection of cast and production crew members, and exploring why Kenny decided not to use donated crowd-funding to help produce this project…

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STARSHIP REPUBLIC shares plot SECRETS and announces plans for more crowd-funding!

As reported here last month, STARSHIP REPUBLIC, one of the newest fan series to come out of STARBASE STUDIOS, was trying to raise $16,000 in an Indiegogo campaign.

They didn’t make it. They took in only 15% of their goal, leaving the future of the project in doubt.

Yesterday, an update went out to donors announcing plans for a second crowd-funding campaign, but this time, the production would be sharing more details about its story line to try to increase interest.

It’s actually an intriguing move for a fan film. Most fan filmmakers wrestle with how much of their story to reveal and how much to keep “secret” to avoid spoilers and ruining surprises for the viewers. Most fan producers, when they crowd-fund, share only the barest details, despite potential donors requiring specifics before they contribute because they want to know exactly what they’re supporting. (Not all donors are so demanding, but I know of several producers who have told me of receiving messages from potential donors saying they refused to give anything unless they were told more about the plot and story.)

What makes the decision by Starship Republic‘s show-runner Ray Tesi to unveil “secrets” to donors so intriguing is the fact that the plot going forward to SO much more expansive than anything that was hinted at in their first 9-minute vignette release “Serpent of Yesterday.” Although set in the TOS era, upcoming plans for the project incorporate flashback elements from the Star Trek: Enterprise era as well as scenes which will take place in the movie-era time frame.

I actually knew most of this from my interview with Ray Tesi, but he asked me not to reveal anything, despite the details being quite exciting. However, now the Kzinti is very much out of the bag, and Ray is the one who released it. Here’s what he said…

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Axanar’s INDUSTRY STUDIOS takes in $6,000 in its FIRST TWO HOURS!

And they’re off!

As previously announced, the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for INDUSTRY STUDIOS (formerly Ares Studios) in Valencia, CA is now live…and kicking butt, it seems! With a stated goal of $60,000 to cover rent, utilities, insurance, off-site storage of sets (when not in use in order to clear the sound stage), payment processing fees, and perk production and fulfillment ONLY (no salaries), the new campaign had already taken in more than $6,0o0 (10% of their primary goal) in just the first two hours!

There was a question whether fans and donors would stay loyal to AXANAR (which will be filmed in Industry Studios) after the difficult year of 2016 was filled with legal proceedings and a parade of accusations and vitriol directed by detractors at Alec Peters, the man behind both Axanar and Industry Studios. In fact, one detractor has recommended on Facebook that those wishing to “spread the truth” donate $1 so they can post critical comments to the campaign. I don’t have confirmation that such a thing has happened yet, but it wouldn’t be particularly surprising…sadly.

So far, the momentum appears to be on the side of the donors and supporters. The campaign has stated that the money raised will go toward helping to fund a facility that can be used for multiple fan, independent, and student films at little-to-no cost for the production itself.

It’s a very cool idea, and one that apparently already has the interest of one local Los Angeles film school. Also, the campaign has finally revealed which non-Axanar production will be the first to use the studio. For months, Alec Peters has been stating that’s he was in discussions with producers eager to use the studio…and both supporters and detractors were wondering who. Now it’s been announced that this production will be Personal Space, which had starred the late Richard Hatch in its soon-to-be released first season. Season two will be crowd-funding soon and be co-produced by Axanar Productions.

Keep in mind that none of the money raised in this campaign will go to fund the filming of the Axanar fan film (a stipulation of the legal settlement with CBS and Paramount). Therefore, none of the perks offered have any Axanar anything (sorry if you wanted more patches, folks)…with one exception. A special “Origins: Behind the Scenes of Axanar” documentary will be released on Blu-ray with footage and commentary on the making of Prelude, the “Vulcan Scene,” and the never-released Heroes vignette…as well as background info on the Four Years War.

It looks to be an exciting month! You can find out more about the campaign and make a donation if you’d like by clicking this link:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/industry-studios-the-first-fan-funded-movie-studio-film

And you can watch the donor informational video below:

FIRST FRONTIER releases its newest trailer! (Interview with KENNY SMITH, Part 1)

Can you feel it? Things just got a whole lot more exciting in the fan film world when STAR TREK: FIRST FRONTIER released its latest trailer earlier on today.

What makes this new fan production so exciting? Where do I begin???

It’s a fan film about the very first commander of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Captain Robert April, and his crew on their maiden voyage of exploration.
It’s a fan film that has custom-built sets in the finest traditions of fan series like Star Trek: New Voyages and Star Trek Continues.
Likewise, the costumes look amazing. They are very similar to Pike-era uniforms, and the attention to detail and continuity is wonderfully impressive.
It’s using actual Screen Actors Guild actors (not that fan films without professional actors can’t be exciting, too, mind you!).
It’s being self-funded by ONE GUY who decided that he wanted to build an actual 11-FOOT MODEL of the original USS Enterprise (like, from the first two Star Trek pilots…the one with the larger bridge deck and pointy needle/antenna thingies on the front of the nacelles) to film the visual effects the “old fashioned way.”

Here, watch this video (it’s not the official trailer…scroll to the end for that) and tell me you’re not excited, too:

And who is this self-financing super-fan with the meticulous attention to detail? Born in Florida and still living there today, KENNY SMITH is a convention promoter who is also a U.S. Army veteran who fought in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. But how did those long roads lead him from there to here, making one of the most intriguing, costliest, and intricately produced fan films to come along in quite a while?

By now, you’ve probably figured out that I interviewed Kenny and asked that very thing, right?

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The CONTINUING MISSION podcast is back…with special guest: ME!

These days, there seem to be an almost infinite number of Star Trek-themed podcasts….and many of them fall under the branded umbrella of TREK.FM, including “Mission Log,” “Star Trek Rewatch,” “Literary Treks,” “Standard Orbit,” “To the Journey,” “Meta Treks,” and so many others.

Up until recently, however, one of my personal favorite of the Trek.fm podcasts was missing in action: “Continuing Mission.” This particular blog focused on the ever-expanding world of Star Trek fan films, interviewing a different creator or creative team each week. Throughout 2014, Trek.fm founder and overachiever, CHRISTOPHER JONES, would host every episode, twenty-five in total during that year. He also hosted a bunch of other Trek.fm podcasts at the same time. So it’s probably not surprising that “Continuing Mission” dropped from twenty-five episodes in 2014 to only two (yes, two) total podcasts in all of 2015.

In the first half of 2016, “Continuing Mission” had a brief, six-episode resurrection under the hosting guidance of my friend DENNIS CASTELLO. In fact, I recorded a podcast for Dennis along with co-guest TOMMY KRAFT (of Star Trek: Horizon) shortly after the fan film guidelines came out. Alas, that two-hour and twenty minute impassioned discussion never made it to upload, as Dennis found himself unable to keep producing quality episodes consistently.

And so, “Continuing Mission” had been languishing in podcast limbo for ten months until a few weeks ago when new host TONY ROBINSON was talked into resurrecting it yet again by the ever-convincing and always-charming Christopher Jones. Tony still isn’t quite sure how he got roped into it, but he’s an ardent Trekkie from the U.K. currently living in Ireland, and he was willing to give it his best shot.

Tony’s first podcast debuted on February 25, featuring show-runner RAY TESI of Starship Republic (click here to donate to their Indiegogo). And to follow that up, well, Tony’s latest guest has the initials J.L. and he just typed the words “Tony’s latest guest has the initials J.L.” Yep, I was podcast guest number two (I’ve been called worse) on the new “Continuing Mission,” and my episode just went live yesterday!

So if you just can’t get enough of me rambling on and on here in print, feel free to listen to me ramble on and on through your speakers! Discover the not-so-secret origin of Fan Film Factor, learn how I got a job working for Paramount licensing, and find out where I go to get all the latest news on Star Trek fan films to feature here on this blog.

This link will take you directly to my podcast interview. Enjoy!

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION – AXANAR PRODUCTIONS and INDUSTRY STUDIOS

On Wednesday evening, I posted an update about AXANAR PRODUCTIONS‘ plans for the future, and I included some information about Industry Studios operating as a non-profit entity and being entirely separate from Axanar Productions. I then received a number of posted comments correcting me that the DONOR MEMO issued by ALEC PETERS stated that it was Axanar Productions and not Industry Studios that was going to be the non-profit entity.

Not wanting to have incorrect information on my blog site, I reached out to Axanar PR Director MIKE BAWDEN yesterday and asked him to clarify for me which entity was going to be the non-profit one and how they would interact with each other. Understand that I’ve been talking to Alec and Mike about their plans for the past several weeks, but not in great detail. And in fact, some things were still in flux until very recently (such as the timing of the launch of the Kickstarter). So I’d gotten a few things stuck in my head in the wrong way that I’d subsequently reported incorrectly in my previous blog, and now it’s time to make sure I get everything right!

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AXANAR FINANCIALS and FUTURE PLANS…plus YOUR chance to ASK ALEC PETERS!

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for! (Well, at least some of you were probably waiting for it.) AXANAR PRODUCTIONS is finally answering that oft-asked question: what the heck did you spend $1.4 million on??? Obviously, it wasn’t all tires and sushi! But did it really all go to turning a warehouse into a studio, building some sets, fulfilling a few (thousand) perks, and filming a 4-minute Vulcan scene plus 15 minutes of other visual effects? Well, now you can finally find out for yourself.

Axanar has also released an update on its plans for the future–what the now 30-minute Axanar movie will look like, how the full Axanar story will manage to get told, what’s going to happen to Industry Studios, and whether Axanar Productions will be producing other Star Trek fan films after Axanar (and will they be following the guidelines…well, of course they will!).

There’s a full DONOR MEMO that’s been published on the Axanar website with the headline “Lay in a course for the future.” I encourage you to read it in its entirety. Here on Fan Film Factor, I am just going to present some of my own insights on those announcement plus a screen cap of the financials themselves at the end.

I have also been approved by ALEC PETERS to open up the blog comments section to collecting QUESTIONS FOR ALEC for him to answer. But there are a few ground rules before you start feverishly typing:

Questions must pertain to the contents of the donor memo: the Axanar financials and the plans for the future. Questions about the lawsuit and what happened in the past just aren’t relevant to the topic(s) at hand.
Not every question will be selected to give to Alec. Rest assured that I’m not just going to cherry pick the “easy” ones, but I am going to pick the best ones that I think will give us all the most important information and clarifications.
Don’t be a jerk. Your question has a MUCH better chance of making it into the “finals” if you’re polite and don’t treat Alec like a swindler, con-man, liar, and rogue.

Post your question(s) in the comments section below, and in a few weeks, I’ll publish Alec’s answers to the questions that I select.

And now, here’s my take on the plans for Axanar Productions (from the memo) and the financial report…

Continue reading “AXANAR FINANCIALS and FUTURE PLANS…plus YOUR chance to ASK ALEC PETERS!”

STAR TREK: HORIZON creator TOMMY KRAFT releases his short film RUNAWAY!

TOMMY KRAFT became the first Star Trek fan filmmaker to be “shut down” in the period after CBS and Paramount filed their lawsuit against Axanar. In February of 2016, Tommy released the amazing STAR TREK: HORIZON, a 104-minute Star Trek fan film produced quite literally in Tommy’s parents’ basement for a production budget of only $28,000. The film was set in the era of Star Trek: Enterprise during the Romulan War and featured the crew of the USS Discovery NX-04.

Although Tommy initially said there would be no Horizon sequel, the exuberant fan response led him to reconsider, and by April, Tommy was planning to launch a new Kickstarter to fund Federation Rising, once again featuring the crew of the USS Discovery NX-04. In hindsight, we now know that Tommy had unknowingly chosen a Starfleet vessel with the same name as the upcoming new Star Trek television series. But all we knew back then was that Tommy was contacted by CBS days before the launch of his Kickstarter campaign and told in no uncertain terms that they would strongly advise him against moving forward in any way with his project. They weren’t belligerent or threatening; they were simply reaching out proactively…in much the same way they did NOT do with Axanar. Hoping to avoid the same fate as that other fan film project that he had worked on (yep, Tommy was on the production team for Prelude to Axanar), Tommy opted to shut down his project before it could even get to the launch pad. You can read Tommy’s statement here.

Instead, Tommy and his production partner, Ryan Webber, decided to create an original non-Star Trek production titled PROJECT DISCOVERY, examining mankind’s earliest forays into manned interplanetary spaceflight in the mid-21st century. Tommy and Ryan launched a Kickstarter campaign in late April with a 2-month time frame and an ambitious goal of $250,000. Although they got off to a strong start, just short of a month into the campaign, pledges had stalled in the $17,000 range. Reluctantly, Tommy and Ryan canceled the Kickstarter and decided to pursue other projects.

Tommy moved onto a new non-Trek film production called RUNAWAY. And this time, not only was he successful with his Kickstarter, he has knocked the project out of the ballpark!

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STAR TREK CONTINUES answers some questions from fans about their FINAL EPISODES!

As reported a week ago, STAR TREK CONTINUES has announced a release date for its eighth episode, “Still Treads the Shadow,” of April 1 at Fan Expo Dallas. STC also confirmed that they will release three additional episodes after that, completing their run with eleven episodes total (two fewer than their originally-planned thirteen episodes).

These announcements led to some major speculation among fans (especially here on FAN FILM FACTOR and on the SMALL ACCESS Facebook page) wondering how long the episode will be, how are they getting around the guidelines, have they been in contact with CBS and gotten any kind of permission, etc.

Yesterday, STC sent out a newsletter to donors (yep, I got mine!) that included a spotlight on STC guest star Rekha Sharma (of the new Battlestar Galactica, who will be appearing in this upcoming STC episode) as well as some frequently asked questions and answers about their remaining episodes.

Before I publish the STC Q&A, I want to warn any Axanar supporters reading this that, yes, they include a bit of a dig in their fifth answer. As many fans are aware, there is no love lost between Vic Mignogna of STC and Alec Peters of Axanar (total understatement!). And in the “I hit Krako, Krako hits Teppo, Teppo hits me…” traditions of fine fan film feuding, we have yet another hit.

As a proud backer of both series who loves watching Vic play Kirk and Alec play Garth, I personally find the mutual animosity distasteful (whichever of them it comes from). And as a donor to STC, I could have done without the inclusion of the Axa-negativity in the statements. It wasn’t necessary to say it like they did and just serves to prolong the feud another day/week/month. But it’s their production, their newsletter, and their chip on the shoulder.

I do dream of a day when we can all just get along and celebrate each others’ successes. Maybe someday. But I will stop editorializing now. Just know that, yes, the dig is in there. Yes, you’re all welcome to light up my comments section with yet another flame war (they’re kinda like tribbles, aren’t they?). But no, I’m not going to participate. I love BOTH productions, and I’m ROOTING for both productions. I invite those of you who can get past the resentment and anger to join me in not exploding yet again. It requires a LOT less energy and doesn’t raise your blood pressure nearly as much.

All right, getting down from my soapbox now and handling the mic over to STC…

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