Fan Film Factor – Page 13 – Exploring the world of Star Trek fan films.

MEET THE JUDGES for the 2023 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS!

If you haven’t entered your Star Trek fan film(s) yet, the deadline is coming up in just over two weeks! Click here for the submission form page…

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2023StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

Last year, the Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS had a FANtastic panel of twelve judges (including yours truly) who reviewed and voted on 38 submitted fan films. They all did a spectacular job!

Unfortunately, not everyone was available for a second year, and a few had to step down. But as they say, whenever a captain closes a hangar bay door, somewhere he/she/they open a viewport—or something like that. As such, I was able to replace the departing judges with new judges, some of them new to the world of fan filmmaking, others experienced veterans. And all of them, of course, remain showrunners of either a Star Trek fan film or series.

A showrunner plays a special role in the production. Sometimes they are also the writer and/or director and/or producer and/or a whole slew of other positions. But the most important thing about a showrunner is that they are where the buck stops. They are the central force that inspires, manages, coordinates, and motivates the team to finish the project. Yes, others involved in the project can also make sure that things get worked on and completed, but most often, the showrunner is the main person that a production cannot live without.

As such, showrunners tend to know about all aspects of filmmaking (or, like me, they were forced to learn fast!). So even if they don’t have enough skills or expertise to tackle every task themselves, they work closely enough with those who do to make sure they have the resources they need to get their specific job(s) done. And that’s why they make such great judges for fan films.

It’s no small commitment to agree to be a judge in a film competition. One needs to watch perhaps a dozen or more hours of the work of others—and watch carefully enough to remember (or take notes on) specific strengths and weaknesses in performance, technical production, and a host of other items in what will be, this year, a total of 22 separate categories! As a reminder, each judge submits their top five choices in descending order for each category, and they cannot vote for any of their own fan films as their top three slots.

And so, in appreciation and acknowledgement of their invaluable assistance in making these awards both effective and successful, I would like to take a blog moment to spotlight these talented fans who have each worked so hard to bring the labors or themselves and their teams to your computer screen.

In alphabetical order…

Unexpected fan filmmaking happens among the California wildflower SUPERBLOOM!

Wildflower season in Southern California usually peaks during a short window from mid-March through late-April, but it isn’t always a dazzling display. Many factors can affect the bloom, the amount of winter rain being the most obvious, but there’s also temperature (too much heat will dry up the flowers quickly), highs winds (too much blows away the petals), ongoing drought conditions, too many little critters chowing down, and even whether the previous year “used up” most of the dormant seeds under the ground.

This past winter, as you probably saw on the news, was a record-breaker for most of the West Coast and especially California…and MUCH needed! And despite the flooding and mudslides and people in the mountains having to climb out their their second story windows just to escape their homes under 25 feet of snow, all that water is precious after half a decade of way-below-average rainfall and severe drought.

And obviously, the wildflowers LOVE all that water!

As such, many folks in and around Southern California were crossing our fingers, hoping for a decent bloom and perhaps even one of those rare treats: a SUPERbloom. The last one of those we had was back in 2019, and it was a doozy! I myself got photos that year that looked like this…

Oh, did I mention I’m a nature photographer in addition to being a Trekkie? And I’m just as obsessed with both! During some superbloom years, I’ve driven literally thousands of miles in a matter of a few weeks, criss-crossing the map of Southern California going to all sorts of secret and not-so-secret places to photograph these beauties. All of the above images were taken in the Antelope Valley, part of the Mojave Desert near the town of Lancaster.

As it happens, a fan filmmaker named MATTHEW BLACKBURN, the creator the SURVIVOR series of Trek fan films, lives in the Antelope Valley. And back in 2019 while I was taking the above photos, he and his wife Katie were driving along Highway 138 when they saw the most magnificent field of orange poppies and another field of yellow coreopsis carpeting a grove of Joshua trees. Always thinking like a filmmaker, Matt stopped the car and changed into a Deep Space Nine jacket and tunic that was in his trunk (’cause we all have a Starfleet uniform in our trunk, right?). Katie was used to being Matt’s camera person, and they shot footage of him walking through the two fields, looking around, and falling backwards into the wildflowers. At the time, Matt had no idea what the footage would be used for, but at least he’d have it.

Ultimately, those clips made their way into LOST AND FOUND, a Star Trek fan film that Matt released two and a half years later in late 2021. The wildflower scenes appear during a hallucinogenic mind-scape sequence as Matt’s captain character battles a psychic entity trying to take control of him. You can see those shots beginning at 5:33 in the video below…

Could the WGA WRITERS STRIKE spell TROUBLE for the future of live-action STAR TREK??? (editorial)

Two things happened last week that could potentially affect the future of live-action Star Trek…and not in a good way. The first is that, at 12:01am on May 2, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) labor union, representing 11,500 writers, went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The last such strike happened in 2007-2008 and lasted 100 days.

Remember that number, because it’s important, and I will discuss it shortly.

The following morning, Paramount Global—which owns CBS, Nickelodeon, and the Paramount movie studio…and holds the rights to Star Trek—announced its earnings to shareholders for the first quarter of 2023. The news wasn’t good. By the close of the NASDAQ on that same Wednesday afternoon, Paramount share prices had dropped more than $6 (or upwards of 28%) from the previous day…which is a huge loss for investors and in market capitalization for the company.

Now, before anyone jumps up and starts blaming ALEX KURTZMAN for this, the bad earnings statement is not his fault. In fact, Paramount+ added 4.1 million new streaming subscribers during the first quarter, reaching a total of 60 million worldwide. While that’s certainly less than the 160 million subscribers internationally for Disney+, the latter has just experienced a slight drop in the most recent quarter while Paramount+‘s subscriber base has continued a steady growth. The issue for Paramount isn’t viewership. Instead, there’s what CEO BOB BAKISH called a perfect storm of “peak streaming investment intersect(ing) with fiscal ad softness.” In other words, there’s a scramble at the moment to load up on content for Paramount+ (spending a LOT of money to produce new streaming shows), while at the same time, advertisers aren’t exactly diving in yet to purchase ad time on the streaming service (less revenue).

There are also other systemic problems that Paramount had long before Alex Kurtzman ever got involved with Star Trek, and the movie studio along with CBS have both struggled financially for decades. Most recently, Paramount had only one major theatrical blockbuster hit in 2022 (Top Gun: Maverick) with $718 million gross ticket sales, three movies in the $100 million range, and the rest only in the the tens of millions. (See the full list here.) Granted, all of the Hollywood film studios are struggling at the moment as movie box office revenue is declining worldwide with the rise of streaming services—which is why so many studios like Paramount have been throwing money into launching new projects.

Indeed, that is the main reason that ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) inked a jaw-dropping $160 million 5-year contract extension with Alex Kurtzman and his Secret Hideout production company. The idea was that Kurtzman would continue bringing out new Star Trek shows through at least 2026. Other streaming services like Disney+, Netflix, AmazonPrime, Apple+, and HBOMax were likewise spending like drunken sailors on content development, and announcements of new series and new seasons of returning series seemed to come almost weekly!

Then a harsh reality set in…

This year’s SHOWRUNNER AWARDS feature FOUR new categories!

Today’s blog post is brought to you be the number FOUR. There are just over four weeks left to enter fan films in the 2023 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, four fan films have already been submitted, and this year, we are featuring four new categories.

But before I tell you about those new categories, just a few quick reminders…

First, here is the link to submit a Star Trek fan film for consideration in year’s competition:

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2023StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

Any Star Trek fan film released onto YouTube and/or social media between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022 is eligible for entry. There will be three tiers of winner in each category: Admiral (first place), Captain (second place), and Commander (third place).

The deadline for submission is May 31, 2023. The entry fee is $10 for consideration as Best Fan Film and then $1 additional for each category beyond that. Here are the categories that we featured last year (and will have again this year):

Best Fan Film
Best Director
Best Writer
Best Lead Actor (submitter may enter up to three actors)
Best Lead Actress (submitter may enter up to three actresses)
Best Supporting Actor (submitter may enter up to three actors)
Best Supporting Actress (submitter may enter up to three actresses)
Best Cinematography
Best Film Editing
Best Sound Design/Mixing
Best Visual Effects (CGI)
Best Special Effects (non-CGI)
Best Musical Score
Best Costuming
Best Hair & Makeup
Best Original Character
Best Scene (up to 2 minutes)
Best Micro-Budget Fan Film (total production cost $1,000 or less, not including set construction)

Going into this year’s launch, I reached out to our twelve showrunner judges (including myself) for ideas of new categories we might want to introduce based on feedback from last year. In some cases, fan filmmakers themselves had suggestions. For example, Australian writer/director/producer AARAON VANDERKLEY suggested a category for Best Original Set Design (something he and his team work very hard building), and the judges really liked that idea.

Of course, for a category like that, we needed to figure out some guidelines. For example, what should we do about sets like the TOS ones at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS? Not only would fan films that were shot on those particular sets be tough to beat, but multiple fan films shoot on those same sets…meaning it would be difficult to choose between two or more entries that were filmed there.

In the end, after some discussion, we decided to include on the submission form “for sets constructed for this specific fan film and/or the fan series it is a part of.” Since Neutral Zone‘s sets were constructed for STAR TREK CONTINUES, which is no longer eligible to enter (their last episode debuted on YouTube in late 2017), nothing else shot there would be eligible.

A FAN FOURSOME of friends discuss and debate STAR TREK:PICARD’s pros and cons… (video)

Remember the days when friends would get together and talk about Star Trek for hours WITHOUT hating on it…or each other? It’s not like we gushed over everything. We could discuss good episodes and bad ones, awesome movies and clunkers. And we were always nice to each other because…well…that’s the way the world used to be!

These days, it’s all about the echo-chambers, and the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” approach to critical thinking. Even with sci-fi (maybe especially with sci-fi), you either love a show or hate it…with almost no middle ground allowed. You see the vitriol all over social media, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, etc. and you know what? I miss those friendly disagreements, dammit!

About halfway through the run of the final season of STAR TREK: PICARD, I was texting with my longtime friend, DAVID KEKST, about the show. I think “The Bounty” has just aired, and I was so stroked about that total fan service episode with the Starfleet museum, all those starships, Geordi, Moriarty, and the discovery of Data. I assumed that David, a lifelong Trekkie like myself, would be just as stoked at all the nostalgia and was probably loving the series as much as I was.

Apparently not.

David had a lot of critical things to say about the final season, complaining about most of the things I was praising. But this wasn’t the first time he and I disagreed on something. He’s a conservative, and I’m a liberal. He’s very religious while I don’t actively practice any traditional theology. We’re best friends, but we oh-so-often don’t agree with each other…often passionately! The e-mail exchanges and late-into-the-night debates and even frenetic back-and-forth texts frequently seem to stretch on and on—often with little ground gained by either side despite massive amounts of research and what each of us feels are valid and logical arguments.

But it’s never once hurt our friendship.

In a world where families are being torn apart over political disagreements, David and I have continued to be friends despite sitting on opposite side of the aisle. We’re always respectful of each other and usually “agree to disagree.” And hey, sometimes we actually DO agree…but not terribly often. But it’s kinda fun to debate in a safe environment like that.

And so, as David and I traded dueling analyses of the pros and cons of Picard, I had a thought: wouldn’t it be fun and interesting to have two fans passionately disagreeing about Star Trek WITHOUT being nasty to each other? It would be just like the old days!

Two ST: DISCOVERY cosplayers get “drafted” into the NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS fan film “WHEN DUTY CALLS” (interview with LISA LAKE and RACHEL KAYS)

“Your revered Admiral Nogura invoked a little-known, seldom-used ‘reserve activation clause.’ In simpler language, Captain, they DRAFTED me!” Dr. McCoy uttered that line back in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And in 2023, it happened again…this time at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, Georgia.

As most of you know, NZS is the location of the gorgeous TOS sets that were originally constructed for the fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT and later for STAR TREK CONTINUES. In 2019, after STC wrapped filming and Farragut Films had long since departed the studio, set owner and STC show-runner VIC MIGNOGNA sold the now-unused sets to Florida resident RAY TESI, who used a portion of his retirement savings to not only purchase the sets but to pay the lion’s share of the four-figure monthly rent with some help from fan donors on Patreon.

Ray decided to open the sets up to fan filmmakers who wanted TOS sets to shoot on, and the list is now quite impressive—including such fan series as AVALON UNIVERSE, DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, and CONSTAR CHRONICLES, along with individual fan films like LET OLD WRINKLES COME and TO HAVE BOLDLY GONE. In addition, NZS has its own fan series that has released a number of one-off fan films including THE LOOKING GLASS, ENDOSYMBIOSIS, and the very popular recent release DOOMSDAY. That’s one busy studio!

But it doesn’t end there.

Ray periodically opens the sets up to the general public for what he calls Fan Appreciation Weekends where people can visit Neutral Zone Studios, walk around those amazing sets, and take photos to their hearts’ content. Fan visitors often attend in costume, and that brings us to today’s blog. Ray Tesi tells the story…

One of the things that The Neutral Zone likes to offer fans is the opportunity to work on a fan film, either in front of or behind the camera. In November 2021, two women came to our Fan Appreciation Weekend in cosplay and were doppelgängers for Michael Burnham and Sylvia Tilly from STAR TREK: DISCOVERY!

My first reaction upon seeing them was: “I have to put you in a fan film!” Within four weeks, I had written the story (a TOS/Discovery crossover), and we filmed in March 2022. These women had never acted before, but they knew their lines and hit every mark as if they were seasoned professionals.

We premiered WHEN DUTY CALLS as an online event with an interactive Zoom call that followed. Whether you’re a fan of ST:Disco or not, these women deserve your undivided attention…

And now that you’ve seen this fan film, let’s chat with “Michael Burnham” and “Sylvia Tilly” themselves, LISA LAKE and RACHEL KAYS…

“SIREN’S SONG” is VICTORIA AVALON’s swan song from STARSHIP DEIMOS… (interview with VICTORIA AVALON)

There are certain people in fan films who are, for want of a better word, prolific. They seem to pop up nearly everywhere in multiple fan productions. Sometimes they play a minor role or background character. And occasionally, they play major characters in one or more fan films or series.

VICTORIA AVALON is definitely one of these prolific people!

About a year and a half ago, I featured a Zoom interview with Victoria along with GARY DAVIS and RAANDY WRENN of the fan series DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, where Victoria has played their Chief Medical Officer Maurine Farrell for many years. Later this year, she will take over as the commanding officer of that starship, replacing Gary’s character of Captain Jason Brusseau, as Gary transitions to more behind-the-scenes tasks on Dominion.

But for the longest time, I had been wanting to interview Victoria about her OTHER gig as a commanding officer: portraying Captain Siân Gabriel of the STARSHIP DEIMOS, one of the multiple ongoing fan projects produced by one of POTEMKIN PICTURES‘ many creative groups. (You can view all of their hundred-plus releases here.).

Unfortunately, as they say: “every time God opens a window, He closes a door…” (or something like that). And so it came to pass that Victoria is departing Deimos with the release of their latest release “Siren’s Song”…

I asked both Victoria and Potemkin showrunner RANDY LANDERS what led to Victoria and her character leaving Starship Deimos, but neither wished to discuss the matter, and I didn’t want to pry.

According to Randy, Victoria’s Captain Gabriel will be replaced in the center seat by TUCK STEVENS, who previously played the chief engineer, Commander Timothy Harper. I’ll have more information from Randy about the cast changes when Deimos releases its next episode later this year.

But right now, since this is my final opportunity to interview Victoria about her time with Potemkin Pictures and Starship Deimos, let’s do just that…

The Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS return for 2023…submissions are now OPEN through MAY 31!

With the conclusion of the DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS two weeks ago (click here to view the winners), it is time to enter the next big award show devoted exclusively to fan films: The Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS!

As the name implies—and unlike the Directors Choice Awards—the Showrunner Awards are open exclusively to ONLY Star Trek themed fan films. Also as the name implies, our judging panel is made up of Showrunners from Star Trek films and series (as opposed to just directors). Like last year, we have a panel of twelve judges, although a few stepped down and a few new judges were added. I’ll be doing a blog spotlighting all of our judges in the next couple of weeks.

For me personally, I think one of the most interesting aspects of the Showrunner Awards is that they cover a period of FIVE YEARS of eligibility. Most fan film award shows are open to fan films released solely within the previous year. But this year, for example, any Star Trek fan film released between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2022 qualifies for entry should someone wish to submit it. In this way, a fan film gets “a second chance” (or a third or even fourth chance) to win. And since no film is allowed to win in the same category more than once, the field is cleared somewhat each year, and a fan film doesn’t suffer from “bad timing” because it happened to come out the same year as a really strong and dazzling fan film.

Another unique aspect of the Showrunner Awards is that each category has THREE winners: Admiral (1st place), Captain (2nd place), and Commander (3rd place). This increases the number of happy faces by 50% over award shows that feature only a single winner and single runner up.

The submission period is now open through May 31, 2023. After that, judges will have until the end of August to view and vote for their top five fan films in each category, with the most points going to each judge’s top choices. A showrunner judge is not allowed to vote for any of their own fan films in any of their top three slots.

Anyone can submit a nomination using the following form page:

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2023StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

The cost is $10 per submission to enter for Best Fan Film, and then any other specific category—like best director, best music, or best scene—is an additional $1. (This is how entries are structured in independent film festivals…they just have much higher prices!) This year, we are adding FOUR new categories, which I will spotlight in an upcoming blog.

Winners for 2023 will be announced on September 8, 2023…the anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek. Good luck to all entrants!

A look back at the final season of PICARD…and proof that it was WELL-WRITTEN! (editorial review)

ONE LAST TIME…INTO THE SPOILER ZONE!

It leaves me scratching my head that people are still complaining about STAR TREK:PICARD…even after an extremely satisfying conclusion. Did the season have some shortcomings? A few here and there. But on the whole, this was a solid piece of television entertainment aimed squarely at longtime fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

My friend ADAM “MOJO” LEBOWITZ (who worked on DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise…along with Babylon 5 and the Battlestar Galactica reboot)), summed up his feelings about Picard’s final season in this way…

My point is the overall story and plot were just not that great. After ep 9, pretty much everything that happened prior was meaningless. If the show didn’t feature the TNG cast and had every easter egg you can think of, no one would be raving about the show. In fact, the ONLY thing anyone talks about is seeing the old cast, the old ship, and all the easter eggs.

That doesn’t make a it a good show.

I told Mojo that I thought he was totally missing the point. The whole reason for doing this final season was to celebrate the seven seasons and four feature films of Star Trek‘s longest-running television series (in terms of number of episodes produced)…and to honor the actors and actresses who portrayed the seven main characters (as well as a few unexpected guest appearances) with one final, heroic adventure together.

Mojo and I went back-and-forth, as people on Facebook do (I wish I could provide a link to the discussion, but it’s not accessible publicly), but it got me thinking enough that I decided to dedicate my final review to this question:

ARE SOME FANS SETTING THE BAR TOO HIGH FOR STAR TREK: PICARD ?

I mean, what were people’s expectations for this final season? I think those who found things to complain about were coming in already primed for disappointment. In Mojo’s case, he went on to say this…

From my point of view, the writing just wasn’t that good. If the words had been spoken by a different cast, no one would care. NO ONE is talking about the story or amazing new characters – just the nostalgia factor. That’s not a sign of a great show.

Personally, I’ve seen people talking about the story and new characters. Heck, I was lobbying for STAR TREK: SHAW until they killed TODD STASHWICK’s incredible character. I loved AMANDA PLUMMER’s portrayal of Vadic. And I certainly had a lot of things to say about the story (more than 30,000 words as of this blog!).

But putting all of that aside, in my opinion, this finale season was written specifically to be about the nostalgia factor! Picard never needed to be Hamlet (SIR PATRICK has done that to death anyway, as has Star Trek) nor even “the best Star Trek ever.” It needed to tell a decent story that allowed our seven characters to be the heroes and have an uplifting send-off, saving the Federation/Galaxy/Universe one last time. It needed to be Star Trek…pure and simple. And gosh darn it, it was!

Assuming no one RUINED THE SURPRISE, you probably loved the penultimate episode of STAR TREK: PICARD! (editorial review)

SPOILER WARNINGS PROTECT EVERYONE!

I had already been told by a close friend that he’d seen some photos from the set of STAR TREK: PICARD‘s second-to-last episode, “Võx,” but if I saw them, it would give away a huge surprise. “NO!” I texted back. “No spoilers!” I had my day all planned. NO FACEBOOK until after I had watched the episode! No e-mails, no phone calls, I wasn’t even going to check texts!

But something in me knew, the night before, that a big surprise would be ruined for me…despite my bests efforts to be careful. Yes, I could have stayed up late to watch after midnight, but I was going to be visiting a friend in the hospital the next morning, and I wanted to be rested.

My alarm went off twice, and the second time, I dragged my sleepy butt out of bed, groggily grabbed the iPhone, and headed for the bathroom. I wasn’t really thinking yet. Taking a seat, I glanced at the phone to use facial recognition to turn it on. The phone immediately showed me a Facebook IM received just after midnight…

Oh, FFS!

I had no idea (yet) exactly what the IM meant, but I obviously couldn’t unsee it. And from the time stamp, the person who sent it (I’m not sharing his last name) hadn’t even possessed the consideration to give me the benefit of watching it as soon as it was available. Had I been awake, I would have had 11 minutes to watch a 47-minute episode!

Several hours later, after watching the episode and knowing, as the shuttle entered that Starfleet Museum Spacedock, what I would next see inside before I saw it, I told my friend that he’d effectively ruined the surprise for me. Dave apologized, saying it was “an accident” and “I got caught up in the moment.” I responded, “Well, at least one of us did.”

The more I thought about it, the more angry I became at what was such a selfish thing to do to a friend or, really, to any fan. Whatever the excuse, the same surprise reveal that had gotten my friend so giddy and ecstatic had now forever been taken away from me. I would never experience the shocked joy and jubilation that he had felt…ever…because he decided to ruin it for me.

I’m not going to end the friendship over it. Mistakes happen and people do stupid, inconsiderate things sometimes. But I’ve seen so many people on Facebook doing this same thing, STEALING that magic moment from others—even in the first 24 hours after the episode dropped—that I wanted to share my own story and the stinging sense of loss that I feel because of the thoughtless and selfish actions of another. With luck, this will NOT happen again next week to anyone (but sadly, I doubt it).

And now I will move on…