Fan Film Factor

In  Part , Part 2, and Part 3, we learned about how STAN WOO began to produce a Star Trek fan film called YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL, starring GEORGE TAKEI as Sulu and JAMES SHIGETA as Admiral Nogura. The majority of the footage was filmed in 1985-87, but then the project languished in suspended animation for nearly 25 years. (You can watch the completed film here.)

In Part 4 and Part 5, we saw JOHN ATKIN step in, beginning in 2010, to help Stan finally complete his fan film. The two of them worked together to expand the script, adding in new scenes and new characters in locations that wouldn’t have been possible a quarter century earlier. This included scenes with Klingons as well as sequences on the U.S.S. Yorktown bridge, corridors, and hangar bay. Between 2011 and 2013, these scenes were filmed in various cities across North America—including San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, and at Starbase Studios in Oklahoma City during a bitter cold winter storm with no central heating!

By 2013, the visual FX team had three different members. ROLAND BARON was doing outer space shots of the pre- and post-refit Yorktown, Klingon K-fighter, and the S.H.A.R.K. vessel Nagaer—the last three ships all originally designed by legendary Star Trek production designer ANDREW PROBERT. NEO f/x was doing phaser and transporter effects. And TOBIAS RICHTER provided a custom CGI model and animation of the Starbase 7 space station (a design based on the Vanguard Station from the Star Trek novel series).

THE PASSING OF JAMES SHIGETA

All was going great heading into 2014. But on July 28, sad news came to the production that actor James Shigeta had passed away at the age of 85. In a eulogy post, Stan Woo—who kept up a friendship with James after the 1980s production—shared the following memory: ” I saw him for the last time on December 19th, 2013. When I arrived at his home, he was watching a Pavarotti Special on PBS. He was in good spirits and was sharp as a tack. He asked about the family, and I shared some family photos with him. I also showed him the Yorktown website on my phone to show him some of Roland Baron’s visual effects. That was the last time I saw him. I have a stack of Christmas cards from him. He was at my wedding. When I sent him a birth announcement of my oldest daughter, he sent her a little yellow duckie. He was a true gentleman, and I’m proud to be the producer of a Star Trek fan film with him playing Admiral Nogura.”

In Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, we got to know STAN WOO, the fan behind YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL, a Star Trek fan film featuring GEORGE TAKEI as Sulu and JAMES SHIGETA as Admiral Nogura. Star Trek production designer ANDREW PROBERT, who designed both the refit U.S.S. Enterprise and the Enterprise-D, worked on this fan film, as well, providing custom sketches for the refit U.S.S. Yorktown along with other completely new space vessels.

The completed film was released in early April and can be viewed here…

Between 1985 and 1987, Stan and his team shot 160 minutes of footage over a dozen different film shoots both indoors and outdoors. By the summer of 1987, the project was even featured in a two-page article in issue #119 of Starlog Magazine…an article read by a twelve-year-old boy from Ontario, Canada who will be the focus on most of today’s blog: JOHN ATKIN.

Stan and his Yorktown project appeared to be all but unstoppable…until failing college grades in 1987 caused Stan’s father to pull the plug on the entire endeavor. Stan’s education had to come first. And although some minor work (in secret) was done by Stan here and there over the next few years, the project was essentially in suspended animation for more than two decades. Stan had gotten married in 1995, had four children, and didn’t really have the time or resources to complete a full-on fan film…until 2009, that is.

As we learned last time, Stan began thinking about completing Yorktown beginning in 2009 after seeing how prolific Star Trek fan films had become during the past six years. He asked his friend PAUL McCUDDEN, a writer in Hollywood, for help expanding and finishing the script. And a bit of progress was being made.

THE SEARCH FOR STAN

Meanwhile, north of the border in the land of moose and maple, John Atkin was now in his mid-thirties and also a devotee of Star Trek fan films. And in early 2010, he began to wonder: “Whatever happened to that Yorktown project with George Takei from the 1980s?”

He was determined to find out…

In Part 1 and Part 2, we met STAN WOO, who back in 1985 convinced GEORGE TAKEI to star as Sulu and JAMES SHIGETA to appear as Admiral Nogura in Stan’s Star Trek fan film YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL. If you haven’t seen it yet, here is the completed film (released on April 5, 2022)…

Also working on the project was legendary Star Trek production artist ANDREW PROBERT, who designed both the refit U.S.S. Enterprise from ST:TMP and also the Enterprise-D from ST:TNG. Andrew custom-designed a “hybrid” TOS/TMP U.S.S. Yorktown that could appear in the film to help establish the time-frame as during the Enterprise‘s refit. Also appearing in the movie was Leonard Nimoy’s assistant, TERESA VICTOR, along with a few other notable names from fandom and even from professional Star Trek.

Between April of 1985 and March of 1987, more than a dozen separate film shoots at both outdoor and indoor locations produced about 160 minutes of footage which was now ready to be edited. By that point, Stan estimates that probably north of $10,000 was spent—mainly by his father, JEM ONG WOO, who will be credited as Executive Producer when Yorktown is finally released this Christmas of 2020 (fingers crossed!). “When you include the post production equipment purchased, like the Video Toaster Flyer (NLE), yeah, it was probably around that much,” Stan explains. “I also purchased Super Beta and Super VHS editing systems that didn’t quite pan out, but that was still money spent, as I didn’t need the equipment if not for the film.”

In fact, the editing equipment was purchased after Stan visited Stephen J. Cannell Productions (which produced The Greatest American Hero and The A-Team) and spoke with Post Production Supervisor KEN SWEET. “I was inspired to change our post production workflow after Ken told me that 21 Jump Street was going to be shot on film and cut on video. So we had to scan all of the Super 8 Reversal Film on a Rank Cintel Flying Scanner to ¾-inch Umatic SP.” (I have absolutely no idea what that means, but the short version is they took two large canisters of 400-ft-long film reels and transferred them to a fairly high quality—at the time—Sony video tape format in order to be able to edit the fan film.)

Meanwhile, word had spread about this exciting project through an article in the June 1987 issue of Starlog Magazine (#119)…

But shortly before the article came out, trouble was brewing for young Stan, who was at that time a student at California State University – Los Angeles while trying to complete his dream fan project in his spare time. And the trouble very nearly spelled the end for Yorktown—at least for another 22 years…

Last week in Part 1, we began looking back (waaaaaaay back!) to the 1980s and the birth of the long-awaited Star Trek fan film YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL…with GEORGE TAKEI appearing as Sulu. It was released on April 5, and here it is if you haven’t seen it yet…

In our previous blog, we learned how, in 1985, 21-year-old showrunner STAN WOO was able to convince George to appear in a Trekkie fan film thanks to a decade or so of friendly stalking and a well-timed offer of a glass of bungundy.

Filming began in April of 1985 and continued in earnest through that November. During that time, ten different shoots in various outdoor and indoor locations were completed, including on July 14 at the Chilao Flats campground in the Angeles National Forest…just four miles away from Charlton Flats, where portions of Star Trek: First Contact would be filmed a decade later.

For those who weren’t around in the 1980s, there was no such thing yet as digital video. Movies were shot on film reels and/or recorded to video cassette tapes. Oh, and there was also New Coke. Yes, folks, the debut of one of the biggest beverage blunders in modern history was just four days before Yorktown‘s July 14 shoot, and Stan’s dad picked up a case of the new soft drink at a local supermarket. According to Stan, “George Takei may have had his first sip of New Coke on our set…” and supplied me with the photo at the top of this blog entry to prove it!

By the time November 1985 came along, filming had now been completed on nearly every major scene but one. The segment involved three different admirals in an office on Starbase 7—nothing too complicated, right? But it turned out that this one “simple” scene would delay the production more than half a year…