Fan Film Factor – Page 49 – Exploring the world of Star Trek fan films.

Three new fan films from STARSHIP DEIMOS in seven months…and more POTEMKIN news from RANDY LANDERS!

I try to cover each new fan film from POTEMKIN PICTURES soon after it’s released. But with seven different creative groups all working simultaneously, occasionally I’ll miss one or two.

I had this somewhat embarrassing realization a couple of weeks ago when I went to watch the latest offering from the STARSHIP DEIMOS creative team, “Butterfly Effect.” It was quite good (as are nearly all of the releases from the Deimos team). And I noticed that this particular episode was written by VICTORIA AVALON, who plays Captain Gabriel of the USS Deimos. Victoria had written all but two of the first eight episodes of Deimos, but I hadn’t seen her name as writer for a while (I checked, and it’d been about two years). Victoria—who also helped write the STARSHIP FARRAGUT episode “Conspiracy of Innocence” back in 2014—writes some very strong scripts, and “Butterfly Effect” was no exception.

But when the episode ended, YouTube (as it usually does) automatically loaded up another video, and it was another episode of Starship Deimos: “Blood Crystals.” I let it play, and remembered that I’d started watching it back in February, but I’d never finished it…and I totally forgot to blog about it! Oy vey. It was also a very good episode.

Then YouTube loaded another Deimos episode for me, “The Solomon Gamble” from last October. I’d never watched that one at all! Then I went to check my blogs and discovered, much to my horror, that my last Deimos blog was last June(!!!) about their episode “Children of Eberus.” I’d missed covering THREE new episode releases. Oh, the shame!

So here they all are, in the order they were released over the past seven months…

I noted that, in the past seven months, while Deimos had just released their THIRD completed fan film, the other Potemkin creative teams were trailing:

MARIE CURIE – 2 episodes (November and March)
TRISTAN – 2 episodes (December and April)
BATTLECRUISER KUPOK – 1 episode (November)
ALEXANDER – 1 episode (February, but that was the series premiere)
TRITON – 0 episodes (most recent was May 2019)
ENDEAVOUR – 0 episodes (most recent was December 2018)

I remembered asking Potemkin show-runner RANDY LANDERS at one point about this inconsistency, but many of my current readers might not have read his original answer. So I decided to ask Randy again, this time wondering if his and his wife’s recent move from Alabama to Kentucky might have affected the schedule and perhaps have spelled the end for one or more of the above-listed fan teams (and remember, we DON’T call them fan series!).

Here was Randy’s response…

The French fan film connection: HORREUR POST ATOMIQUE made entirely during QUARANTINE! (interview)

When the global pandemic hit and the world began sheltering in place (at least in many countries), I wondered what effect the quarantining would have on Star Trek fan films. After all, most fan films involve multiple people interacting closely together. Even the distance between an actor and a camera person can’t always be six feet…and who wants to film a bridge crew who are all wearing masks? I mean, I suppose you could do a fan film that takes place entirely on board a Breen or Gorn vessel, but most races in Star Trek show their mouths and noses.

When I finally saw how one group of Trekkers from France solved that problem, their answer seemed so elegant (leave it to the French!) and so obvious that I just had to stand up and clap for their ingenuity and inspiration. At first, you don’t even realize it’s a Star Trek story, but then—well, rather than spoil it, just watch the short film first, and then read on. It’s only 7 minutes and entirely subtitled if you click on the “cc” button on the lower right corner…

The four fans were eager to talk about their efforts, and I was eager to interview my first fan filmmakers from the future homeland of Jean-Luc Picard! They’ve requested to use only their first names rather than their full names (is that a French thing, too?), and I’m fine with that. An interview’s an interview, I always say!

So e-mailed a bunch of questions to their show-runner, known as “THIERRY,” and he invited the other three friends—PAULINE, LÉONIE, and RÉMI—to respond to each question, as well, in a sort of round-robin. The result is a very fun and informative conversation that I think you’ll really enjoy.

Allons-y…!

My son JAYDEN is really the ghost of STAN LEE!

Technically, this isn’t a blog about Star Trek or fan films. So if you’re only here for that, feel free to skip this entry because I’m indulging in the “it’s-my-blog-site-so-I-can-cover-what-I-want” option. And today, it’s a special blog about my son JAYDEN.

The quarantine has been a huge adjustment for kids—going from spending seven hours at school five days week with their teachers and friends to spending all day at home with only two hours a day of virtual classroom time in a Zoom meeting…and the rest of the day doing work independently from home. Many parents have become home-schooling “partners” to their children’s teachers…and that includes yours truly.

One of the highlights of the third grade at Jayden’s school is the annual “Living Museum” project. Many schools do this same assignment in third or fourth grade. Each student reads a biography of a famous person—from King Tut to Steve Jobs, Alexander Hamilton to Elton John, Sacajawea to Sally Ride, Roald Dahl to George Lucas. At the end of the school year, the students prepare a five-paragraph monologue about the life of their famous person. They memorize this monologue over a number of weeks, and during a special assembly at the end of the school year, they each dress up as their famous person and recite their monologue.

Sadly, the Coronavirus put the kibosh on any kind of assembly this year.

But the show must go on, so the third graders still read their biographies and prepared their monologues. However, the culmination of the process morphed from an assembly into a recorded video in costume uploaded by parents to the teachers and then compiled into a presentation to be shown to the entire class via Zoom meeting…parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins invited to attend, as well.

Jayden’s famous person was the legendary Marvel Comics publisher STAN LEE, creator of some of the most well-known superhero and villain characters in history…including Jayden’s favorite: Spider-Man.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Stan’s biography with Jayden and helping with chapter summaries. I shared some of my old comic books with Jayden (I’ve got 44,000 of them in the garage!), and I even have a poster signed by Stan “The Man” himself…along with a personalized note from Stan (shown to the right) when my brother’s and my company almost worked with Stan’s company in late 1998 . (Jayden’s jaw dropped when he saw that!)

Stan’s life and the many, many, many characters that he’d created sparked Jayden’s imagination and enthusiasm in a way that most of the other day-to-day assignments during virtual learning didn’t manage to. And so I saw a unique opportunity with the monologue video.

Finding a Stan Lee “costume” is not that hard. Turns out that all you need is a white polo, V-neck sweater, khaki pants, Keds sneakers, sunglasses, and a fake mustache. Take a look…

STARSHIP ANTYLLUS introduces the NEXT GENERATION of fan filmmaker! (audio interview with GEORGE and ANYA KAYAIAN)

It’s not unheard of to see children in Star Trek fan films. VANCE MAJOR’s toddler son ROYCE has appeared in multiple episodes of the MINARD and CONSTAR CHRONICLES fan films. Dozens of KEVIN CROXTON’s 4th and 5th grade Music Club students appeared in his 2018 fan film THE BUNNY INCIDENT. Parents occasionally shoot “home movie” fan films with their kids dressed in Starfleet uniforms or wearing alien masks…so there’s certainly a decent representation of children appearing in Star Trek fan films.

What’s more unusual, though, is finding a youngster who is actively helping to MAKE Star Trek fan films. And when I say “helping,” I don’t mean little things like keeping the costumes sorted or getting the props when needed. I’m talking about being an essential member of the production team, wearing any number of different hats, and really being a critical part of the entire filmmaking process from pre-production through production and into post production, as well.

ANYA SHIELA KAYAIAN appeared in her first episode of her father’s long-running STARSHIP ANTYLLUS fan series in 2015 when she was five years old. More recently, she began playing a recurring crew member named Sharb, wearing an alien mask to hide her age. But just this past April, I had a chance to see Anya act without a mask, and I was so impressed! It was the fifteenth episode of Antyllus, a surrealistic inner mind exploration story titled “The House on the Water.” You can check it out here (Anya comes in at the 7-minute mark)…

I’ve interviewed Antyllus show-runner and lead actor GEORGE KAYAIAN before, but I was so intrigued by the very mature and convincing performance of his daughter, that I asked George if Anya might be interested in participating in an audio interview with her dad.

Anya was thrilled at the opportunity, and so was I. While I enjoy interviewing a wide variety of fan filmmakers, I almost never get a chance to interview kids. And as a father of a 9-year-old myself, I looked forward to chatting with 10-year-old Anya, as that is a really great age (they’re not quite teenagers yet!).

Of course, when you’re dealing with younglings, you never know what to expect. Some kids are comfortable talking to adults while others can be quite nervous and shy. But what I got from Anya simply blew me away! Until my own son Jayden has his next birthday in September, Anya is absolutely, positively my favorite 10-year-old. She’s smart, upbeat, fun, precocious, well-spoken, and throughly impressive on all levels. I’d say she’ll make a great filmmaker someday, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s already there!

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to one of my most favorite audio interviews that I’ve done so far…

Click here to view all episodes of Starship Antyllus.

ARES STUDIOS poster Kickstarter winds up with nearly $10K! (interview with ALEC PETERS)

It took just two weeks, but 258 AXANAR fans and supporters just donated $9,690 to fund a series of Master Display Posters and also, of course, ARES STUDIOS in Lawrenceville, GA. The monthly expenses run about $4,200 ($3,750 of that is rent, the rest utilities). A Patreon brings in about $2,600 a month from an average of 260-270 donors…so the remaining $1,600 is coming out of the pocket of ALEC PETERS himself.

To help make up at least some of the shortfall, Alec launched a new Kickstarter on May 16, offering fans a snazzy full color poster of the USS ARES—a side-view cutaway designed by Axanar graphic designer extraordinaire ALEXANDER RICHARDSON. The original goal was a pretty humble $1,200…with a stretch goal of $3,000 that would unlock a second full-color cutaway poster of the USS Geronimo class and a mystery poster stretch goal at $5,000.

Donations began pouring in almost immediately. The $1,200 goal was passed in less than one hour, the first stretch goal a few hours later, and the second stretch goal within the first week! When the campaign closed yesterday evening, the final total was nearly $10,000! Even I wasn’t expecting such a large amount.

A few folks wondered if this Kickstarter campaign was a violation of the agreement that Alec Peters and Axanar Productions signed with CBS and Paramount to settle their infringement lawsuit and allow Alec to finish Axanar as two 15-minute fan film segments. As I wrote in this blog from a couple of weeks ago, the answer is no. The agreement not to publicly crowd-fund using services like Kickstarter applies only to Axanar Productions and the completion of the Axanar fan film, not to the studio that houses the bridge and captain’s quarters set. In fact, Ares Studios did not even exist at the time the agreement was signed in January of 2017, and so Ares Studios (a not-for-profit corporation in Georgia) cannot legally be considered a signatory to the settlement agreement (barring the existence of time-travel).

I texted Alec last night to congratulate him on his surprising achievement of nearly $10,000 in just two weeks, and our back-and-forth turned into a mini-interview of sorts…

First-time fan film writer/director/editor GREG OGLES discusses STARSHIP TRISTAN’s “RECLAMATION” (interview, part 2)

Last time, we met GREG OGLES of Birmingham, Alabama, who wrote, directed, starred in, and produced the two-part 17th and 18th episodes of STARSHIP TRISTAN from POTEMKIN PICTURES. You can watch the other 16 episodes of Tristan, plus nearly 70 other episodes from a total of eight different creative teams on the Potemkin Pictures website.

Greg’s two-parter is titled “Reclamation” and includes a storyline based on his own personal family history, a family that includes Native American blood and ancestors who managed to escape from the infamous “Trail of Tears” and had to claim their race as “black dutch” to keep from being rounded up and sent to Oklahoma.

Written in 2017, the script to “Reclamation” was submitted to Potemkin show-runner RANDY LANDERS in 2018 and filmed primarily in 2019. Chapter 1 was released last December and chapter 2 this past April. You can view both films below:

And now the conclusion of our interview with Greg…

First-time fan film writer/director/editor GREG OGLES discusses STARSHIP TRISTAN’s “RECLAMATION” (interview, part 1)

When most fans think of POTEMKIN PICTURES (at least the fans who know about Potemkin Pictures), the person who usually comes to mind is show-runner RANDY LANDERS. And that makes perfect sense. Randy has kept Potemkin going for a decade across three different U.S. states with eight different creative teams producing an average of about 10-12 fan films a year. If you want, you can view SEVEN DOZEN different fan films on the Potemkin Pictures website.

But Randy doesn’t do it all by himself. In fact, he’ll be the first to give credit where it’s due. And so when I asked him to provide a few quick quotes about the newest 2-part release from the STARSHIP TRISTAN Creative Group, Randy told me that the person I really needed to talk to was GREG OGLES.

One of the best things about Potemkin Pictures is that they are about as inclusive as can be when it comes to opening their doors to fans to come play in the sandbox. And this isn’t simply for folks wanting to show up, put on a shirt, and say a few lines in front of the camera. Randy offers ample opportunities for folks to work on Potemkin projects at all levels—from acting to writing to directing to producing. And in fact, Greg Ogles has just had a chance to do all of the above at the same time!

The two-part “Reclamation” has a total run-time of 35 minutes (pretty close the the 30-minute time limit set by the fan film guidelines). It’s the second two-parter that the Tristan Creative Group has released, being the 17th and 18th overall episodes of the (don’t call it a “series!”) fan undertaking. Before we get to the interview, take a look at what Greg and I will be talking about…

And now, a little chat with Greg Ogles…

INTERLUDE Confidential #10 – I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling…

You can’t please all the Trekkies all the time.

I wrote that sentence at the beginning of yesterday’s blog featuring the new YouTube music video from GARY DAVIS of DREADNOUGHT DOMINION. In it, Gary featured a compilation of many of the viewer comments that have come in through social media over the past five years both praising and scorching their fan film efforts.

The video—set to the popular song “I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again” (the actual title is “Tubthumping” by the band Chumbawamba)—reflects Gary and his team’s positive and “bring it on” attitude about their hobby. They know they aren’t the giants of fan films, but they’re having FUN…and that’s really all that matters.

After writing that blog yesterday, I began thinking about the fan reaction to the trailer I released last Wednesday for my own fan film INTERLUDE. Man, did that one light a match! And it all came from a fun and silly little idea I had to do an homage to the opening credits of one of my favorite sci-fi series from the mid-1970s, Space: 1999. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, or you’d like to check it out again, here it is…

Actually, lots of people liked it. It’s had about 2.1K views so far on YouTube, with 85% of the reactions being thumbs up. Of the 15% that were thumbs down, the main complaint seemed to be my choice of music—likened by some to 70’s porn, and called by one Facebook poster “ear-raping” (whatever that means…although I’m guessing it’s not a good thing).

Others didn’t like the quick cuts, the over-use of the CGI shots, and one fellow thought I had too many clips of people spinning around in their chairs! ALEC PETERS said he liked the trailer but added that it’s not what he would have done. One of my oldest friends, ADAM “MOJO” LEBOWITZ, took time from his busy schedule to write on my Facebook post: “That’s the kind of trailer a fan makes after the movie came out. A mash up. It was cute and cool but I know nothing about your movie other than battle CGI.” Heck, even one of the members of my Interlude production team told me didn’t like the trailer. (Hey, at least he was honest.)

Such a fuss over a 1-minute trailer that I threw together in iMovie on a lark! Honestly, folks, I didn’t make the trailer for Alec or Mojo or for ear-raping guy. I made it for me…as a way to provide a sneak peek to supporters and friends and family members of what this fan film that they’ve been hearing about for a year was going to look like. It was fun to edit together, and I like the way it came out. Sure some people didn’t like it. So what? The world didn’t end (at least, not because of one Star Trek fan trailer).

DREADNOUGHT DOMINION honors viewer comments (good and bad!) in “I Get Knocked Down”…

You can’t please all the Trekkies all the time.

Whether you’re talking about Star Trek on television, in the movie theaters, or fan made projects on YouTube, you’re ultimately gonna see somebody complain about sumthin’…often a LOT of somebodies!

That’s one of the main reasons why I refuse to ever criticize any Star Trek fan film. It’s way too easy to do so because no fan film is perfect, and many of them fall far short. But at least they TRY.

Creating anything from nothing takes effort, determination, persistence, and—to be honest—a fair amount of courage. Whether you create just for yourself, for friends and loved ones, or for total strangers, you put a part of yourself out there for judgment.

And as hard as it is to create something from nothing just by yourself, doing it with an entire team of people is even more difficult. In a recent interview, actor J.G. HERTZLER said that there’s nothing harder than making a movie. Now that I’ve produced one—even a short 10-minute one—I know exactly what J.G. means…and he’s not that far off.

Hopefully, people will like what you’ve created and will shower you with praise. But there’s no guarantee of that (except maybe making a clay ash-tray at summer camp for your mom even though she doesn’t smoke…moms tend to be very generous art critics).

But Trekkies, man, some of them will cut you down to the quick if you let them…and even if you don’t let them! I never want to be that guy. So I praise all fan efforts because I feel that their determination and bravery should be respected and acknowledged. You made a frickin’ fan film…good for you!!!

And that’s why I cheered when I saw the latest offering from GARY DAVIS, show-runner of the fan series DREADNOUGHT DOMINION. Over the past half-decade of releasing fan films, Dominion has produced everything from the serious (like the recent “Redemption at Red Medusa”) to light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek romps (like “Reality Check”—which broke the 4th wall—“Technical Difficulties” and the just-released “A Barrel Full of Qunicys.”

Through it all, Dominion has always kept a positive and healthy attitude, acknowledging what they are and aren’t. Gary’s latest upload to YouTube sums up that outlook perfectly…

A fun look at some of the comments Dreadnought Dominion has had over the years… Scenes from our shows set against the song “I Get Knocked Down.” This song has always been a favorite of mine. It meant no matter who hard you get knocked down, GET BACK UP and move forward. I love the comments we get on our shows…even the bad ones! It just makes us strive to do better. WE KNOW we aren’t up to the same level as “giants” of fan films, but we don’t pretend to be, and don’t aspire to be. We are just a group of folks—some older and some of us “not slim”—having fun telling a story.

Bravo, Dominion…!

INTERLUDE Confidential #9 – We have a RELEASE DATE…and a TRAILER!

Hmmmm, let’s see…should I show you the new INTERLUDE trailer first and then talk about it—or talk about it first and then show it? Aw heck, I know you all really wanna see the new trailer…!

Pretty cool, huh? For those of you unfamiliar with the 1970s sci-fi TV series Space 1999, that trailer is an homage to the way they used to start their episodes (take a look at this video to see an example). The opening credits for that series would include rapid-fire quick cuts from various scenes of “this episode” followed by a slower musical bridge where they would show some of the names behind the production. Then the date would flash: September 13th, 1999—the day the moon supposedly would have been blasted out of earth’s orbit to begin its odyssey through deep space.

Cheesy? Yeah…it was 1975, for gosh sakes! But back then, with Star Trek and Lost in Space in reruns, Doctor Who hidden on weird channels at weird times, and Star Wars still two years away, Space 1999 was one of the only first-run sci-fi games in town. And let’s face it, those eagle transport spacecraft were friggin’ cool! I loved that show, and I loved the opening credits sequences.

So what does any of this have to do with my Axanar Universe fan film Interlude, you ask? Well, technically nothing. That’s not even the actual music I’ll be using (composer KEVIN CROXTON is creating an original score for Interlude).

But I did have this dream a few weeks ago…