Tag: Directors Choice Awards

Announcing the WINNERS of the first annual 2021 DIRECTORS CHOICE fan film awards!

Up until now, fan films (specifically Star Trek fan films) had only one annual awards competition devoted exclusively to their sub-genre, and those were the BJO AWARDS. Now there are three. The SHOWRUNNER AWARDS will begin taking submissions next week for Star Trek fan films, with winners announced on September 8, 2022. But yesterday, the Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS announced their winners and honorable mentions.

Launched by fan filmmakers DAN REYNOLDS and GLEN L. WOLFE of WARP 66 STUDIOS in Arkansas, creators of the fan series THE FEDERATION FILES, the Directors Choice Awards were open to fan films of any genre (not just Star Trek) released during calendar year 2021. The judges were the directors of those submitted films. In order to take part, a director had to cast votes in each category for a fan film other than their own or be disqualified from winning.

Submissions were accepted during the month of February, and Dan Reynolds had this to say about their early trepidations: “We weren’t really sure how the initial response to our inaugural launch of the Fan Film Directors Choice Awards was going to turn out, but we soon realized that we struck a nerve with the fan film community. We knew we were on the right track, and within a few short weeks after our announcement, we received over 30 entries.”

Glen Wolfe echoed Dan’s sentiments: “From its inception, we wanted to fairly honor those hardworking fan film producers with recognition directly from their peers. This experience has been extremely positive, and I think that the films entered and those winning awards should show that the Fan Film Directors Choice Awards was a success and has encouraged us to continue it indefinitely.”

Dan concluded: “I’m very happy with the diversity of fan films that were included this year. We had Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bond, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones fan films entered this year, and we hope that expands in the coming years. I was also very happy that the winners were from all the represented genres.”

And speaking of winners, that’s the perfect segue into presenting the results of the very first annual Fan Film Directors Choice Awards…

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Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards submission deadline is THIS TUESDAY!

Three weeks ago, I announced that submissions were now open for the first annual Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards, organized by GLEN WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of WARP 66 STUDIOS. Any fan film (not just Star Trek) released onto the Internet during calendar year 2021 is eligible for submission. Glen Wolfe reports that participation, so far, has been encouragingly strong so far.

The deadline to enter is this Tuesday, February 22, and if you want to submit your fan film, you can do so here:

CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR THE FAN FILM DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS

Voting is done exclusively by the directors of the submitted films, and directors cannot vote their own films—otherwise, there would likely be massive ties with each fan film getting one vote! Ballots are due back no later than March 15, and any director who does not return their ballot by that deadline will have their fan film disqualified from winning anything.

When entering, the submitter can choose up to five categories for which that fan film can be considered for an award:

  • Best Actor
  • Best Actress
  • Best Director
  • Best Original Costuming
  • Best Make-up/Hairstyling
  • Best Cinematography
  • Best Original Music
  • Best F/X Make-up
  • Best Audio Mixing
  • Best Lighting
  • Best CGI FX
  • Best Green Screen
  • Best Screenplay
  • Best Parody
  • Best Foreign Fan Film
  • Best Animated Fan Film
  • Best Editing
  • Most Canon Award
  • Best Ensemble
  • Most Valuable Crew Member

After all of the ballots have been tabulated, a “Best In Fest” winner will be determined as the fan film that receives the most votes overall in all of the categories combined (so it’s advantageous to submit your film for the maximum of five categories).

Winners will be announced on April 5, and each winner will be e-mailed an award certificate. If you’ve entered or are planning to (before the end of Tuesday!), I wish you the best of luck!

Submissions now OPEN until Feb. 22 for the Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards!

Last month, I announced TWO new annual award shows for fan films debuting this year. Up util now, Star Trek fan films were honored annually by the BJO AWARDS. However, now the Bjos will be joined by the Fan Film DIRECTORS CHOICE Awards and (later this year) the Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

The two new competitions will be different in several logistical ways, with many details of the Showrunner Awards still needing to be worked out (by me and my team). In the meantime, however, coordinators GLEN L. WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of WARP 66 STUDIOS are launching the Directors Choice Awards today (February 1), with submissions being accepted for any fan film (not just Star Trek) publicly released in calendar year 2021. The YouTube/Vimeo publication date stamp will be used to verify eligibility.

Submissions are open from February 1 through February 22, 2022. Anyone can enter any fan film with a submission fee of $10 by filling out the form on this web page, but only a maximum of three films by the same director can be entered.

Voting is done exclusively by the directors of the submitted films. (So for INTERLUDE, for example, even though I am the one submitting and paying the entry fee, I won’t be the one voting since I wasn’t the director.) Directors cannot vote for their own films—otherwise, there would likely be massive ties with each fan film getting one vote! Ballots are due back no later than March 15, and any director who does not return their ballot by that deadline will have their fan film disqualified from winning anything.

When entering, the submitter can choose up to five categories for which that fan film can considered for an award:

  • Best Actor
  • Best Actress
  • Best Director
  • Best Original Costuming
  • Best Make-up/Hairstyling
  • Best Cinematography
  • Best Original Music
  • Best F/X Make-up
  • Best Audio Mixing
  • Best Lighting
  • Best CGI FX
  • Best Green Screen
  • Best Screenplay
  • Best Parody
  • Best Foreign Fan Film
  • Best Animated Fan Film
  • Best Editing
  • Most Canon Award
  • Best Ensemble
  • Most Valuable Crew Member

After all of the ballots have been tabulated, a “Best In Fest” winner will be determined as the fan film that receives the most votes overall in all of the categories combined (so it’s advantageous to submit your film for the maximum of five categories).

Winners will be announced on April 5, and each winner will be e-mailed an award certificate. To all the fan filmmakers who choose to enter (and hopefully, there will be many), I wish you the best of luck!

Click here to enter your fan film.

Announcing TWO new FAN FILM AWARD SHOWS coming in 2022!

File this under: “Great minds think alike…” or perhaps under, “This is what you get for missing staff meetings, Doctor.” Either way, GLEN WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS of THE FEDERATION FILES and I had the same idea at the same time, and now there are going to be TWO new fan film awards shows coming your way in 2022!

In my case, the idea of hosting an annual awards show for Star Trek fan films has been percolating in the back of my mind for a few years…not as a way of competing with the annual BJO AWARDS but as simply an additional opportunity for Star Trek fan filmmakers and their productions to shine.

As the new year dawned a few days ago, I was able to finally enjoy a break from the blogging “sprint” that took up much of my December. And I decided that, if I was really serious about creating some Fan Film Factor awards show, now might be a good time to do some thinkin’…

At first, I tried to come up with a name—and you know how much I like things that abbreviate to “FFF.” The Fan Film Festival Awards? Nah. Fan Film Faves? Cheesy. Fan Film Friends? Family? Flamingos? Jeez, I had nothing decent!

Okay, time to try a different approach vector…

So I shifted to thinking about judging. I mean, I suppose it could just be me deciding the winners and losers, but no one fan should possess such power! And, sheesh, what a way to completely piss off almost all of my friends, right? Nope, I needed a panel, but whom? When I finally answered that question, the name for the awards show fell easily into place: THE SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

I’ve always felt there should be a fan film awards competition where members of the community judge each other’s work…and who knows more about what it takes to make a fan film than a showrunner? But I didn’t want too many judges, so I decided to limit my invitations to showrunners who had successfully released at least four or five completed Star Trek fan films.

Of course, the next concern was making sure there weren’t too many entries. Goodness knows that VANCE MAJOR alone (one of the judges) could enter dozens—maybe hundreds!—of fan films all by himself! So I decided that, unlike the Bjo Awards, the Showrunner Awards will feature a nominal entry fee (maybe $10) plus an additional $1 for each special category like Best VFX, Best Music, Best Film Editing, etc. As I’m learning from entering my fan film INTERLUDE in various film festivals, this is how most of them work with application fees.

Speaking of Vance, or any of the judges, how do we make certain that all of them don’t simply vote for their own fan film, and we wind up with a 6-way or 10-way tie each year? Glad you asked…

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