Fan Film Factor – Fan Film Factor

Meet this year’s JUDGES for the 2025 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS…

The submission window for the 2025 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS is now open and will remain so until midnight Pacific Time on May 31, 2025. Any Star Trek fan film released publicly between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2024 is eligible for entry regardless of the person or team producing it. Note that this time we are trimming our eligibility window from our previous 5 years down to just 3 years. Few if any entries were typically submitted from fan films over 3-years old, so the reduction seemed like a reasonable decision.

The online entry form is located here…

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2025StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

As usual, our judging panel remains at twelve, made up of people who have, themselves, served as showrunners on one or more fan films or series. This provides each judge a unique and personal perspective on what goes into making a fan production in our nearly two-dozen categories. In other words, our judges are knowledgeable and experienced in filmmaking which, I truly believe, brings a high level of expertise to our competition—along with our sister contest, the DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS, which just wrapped up earlier this month.

And it is for this reason that, each year, I publish a blog spotlighting our judging panel and what they have accomplished in the world of Star Trek fan films specifically. Ten of our twelve judges are returning from last year, so their write-ups (see below) will probably look familiar to you. The two judges who decided to leave the panel this year both departed on good terms. GREG LOCK, who began working on STAR TREK: AMBUSH back in 2014 and finally released it in 2022, felt that he should have a more recent fan film project under his belt before returning as a showrunner judge. The other judge to leave us is more of a “swap.” GLEN L. WOLFE and DAN REYNOLDS are the co-owners of WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas and the co-showrunners of THE FEDERATION FILES fanthology series. Each year, one of the two of them “tags out” to give the other a turn. So in 2025, Dan will be taking over Glen’s spot, who in turn took over Dan’s spot in last year’s competition.

Our one brand new judge this year brings an international perspective, joining SAMUEL COCKINGS as one of two non-U.S.-based judges. I am referring to German wunderkind BENJAMIN SCHULZ of the fan series LORELEY. More on Benjamin (and everybody else) below…

Where did JONATHAN go?

Don’t look now, but my last published Fan Film Factor blog was on January 9th! And for a guy who prides himself on posting at least one or two new blogs a week, that’s almost an eternity of radio silence! Indeed, it had gotten so noticeable that one fan filmmaker actually IM’d me recently to ask if I’d survived the recent Los Angeles wildfires. (I was tempted to respond, “No, I died in a smoldering inferno last month. I’m writing to you from the Great Beyond…and they have Star Trek reruns!”)

So what did happen?

Well, as I mentioned in my final blog of 2024, I had been spending quite a bit of time finishing the writing of a new book on day trading. (Don’t laugh! I’ve gotten quite good at it, folks. And something has to pay for my next fan film!) But the book came out in late January, so that doesn’t explain my lack of blogger productivity for much of January and all of February.

I could, of course, blame the wildfires that devastates L.A. and left a number of our friends effectively homeless. But fortunately for myself and the Lane family, homes on the west side of Los Angeles were spared from the fiery maelstrom. I did volunteer at an organization called Project Angel Food (mostly chopping vegetables), but that didn’t take away too much blogging time.

No, the two reasons for my lack of new fan film blogs these past two months were twofold: the DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS and robots.

Usually, I simply report on the annual Directors Choice fan film awards. But this year, due to my entering of my own fan film, AN ABSENT FRIEND, into the competition, I am also a judge. And as it turns out, there were FIFTY-FIVE different entries this time out!!!! Some of them I’ve already seen, as they are Star Trek fan films. But others are superhero, Alien, Nightmare on Elm Street, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, The Last of Us, Power Rangers, Narnia, and a host of other sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres. And many of them are truly excellent and worth watching (for example, this one and this one). But while some of them are fairly short, others have run times of thirty minutes to over an hour…and there’s quite a few of those! So I’ve been spending a LOT of time just watching dozens and dozens of different fan films so I can cast an informed ballot before the March voting deadline.

As for the robots…

2024 Star Trek Fan Film YEAR IN REVIEW

First, my friends, I must apologize for being a bit less diligent in my coverage of Star Trek fan films this past year. Granted, I’ve still published over 65 blogs since January 1, 2024, but that’s compared with 90 blogs in 2023 and 114 in 2022.

The reason behind my diminished output is that I’ve been spending much of this past year co-authoring a book, which I’ve only just completed (it will be out early next year). It was a paying gig, so it needed to take priority. It’s actually my third co-authored book, my first being Starship Spotter (with ADAM “MOJO” LEBOWITZ, ROB BONCHUNE, and ALEX ROSENZWEIG) and my second, Being Santa Claus, still available for purchase in various formats here on Amazon.

But enough about me!

Let’s get started looking at what’s been happening in world of Star Trek fan films for the last twelve months. As usual, I won’t have enough time or space to get to everything, but here are the biggest stories of the year…

IS CROWD-FUNDING STILL A THING?

Sadly, the year kicked off on a bit of a sour note as a debate began to rage on social media whether Trek fan films should continue crowd-funding. It began when RANDY LANDERS announced that POTEMKIN PICTURES would no longer do any public crowd-funding. But then he added (somewhat forcefully) that he felt that other fan productions shouldn’t crowd-fund either. Things got heated from there. And sadly, in part because I didn’t agree, Randy told me to no longer cover any of his Potemkin releases on Fan Film Factor…and I have, of course, complied with his wishes, albeit regrettably.

Perhaps ironically, not many fan productions chose to crowd-fund this year. In fact, I only counted four during all of 2024 (well, technically five, since FARRAGUT FILMS ended one campaign and began another shortly thereafter), and those were for:

FARRAGUT FORWARD/FARRAGUT 2024
NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS (to fund their move from Georgia to Ohio)
TREK SHORTS
STALLED TREK: THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE

In previous years, crowd-funding campaigns were much more prolific. Now, it seems they are diminishing in frequency and, in general, bringing in less money (although FARRAGUT FORWARD did reach $47.5K before wrapping). Will 2025 continue to see this phasing out of crowdfunding? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.

Announcing the WINNERS of the first-ever TREKS IN 90 SECS contest!

Well, that didn’t take long! What I mean is that the first-ever TREKS IN 90 SECS contest is now completed, and we have our winners. In the end, nearly 250 votes were cast within a 3-week period—with each voter being allowed to choose up to three favorite ultra-short Star Trek fan films with runtimes between 90 and 120 seconds.

The whole idea behind Treks in 90 Secs was to challenge the assumption that it was impossible to make a decent Star Trek fan film 15 minutes or less in length (a limit set by CBS and Paramount’s fan film guidelines). Not only did fans quickly prove that it was possible, fan films have thrived these past eight years despite this limit. So if fans were clever enough to cut things down to 15 minutes, could they be even more clever enough to cut things down to just 90 seconds???

Apparently, the answer was a resounding yes! Nine groups of fans and fan filmmakers took up the gauntlet to submit ultra-short films to our inaugural contest. Submissions were due at the end of July, and voting was open on Fan Film Factor from August 4th through 25th.

Awards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place have now been given to the top three vote-getting fan films who now get to brag and copy-paste their “certificate” graphics onto their YouTube, Facebook, and social media pages. But all of the nine submissions are winners in my book—for taking up the challenge in the first place and finishing their super-mini-fan films! And that’s why I’m including all nine submissions on this page, along with their final vote totals (as everyone got at least some votes), so fans can see each of the submitted films…

1st Place – RED SHIRT IRREGULARS (67 votes)

2nd Place – THE GROUNDING (52 votes)

3rd Place – NEW DATA CARD (31 votes)

COOPER (21 votes)

A ROOSTER ONE DAY, A FEATHER DUSTER THE NEXT (18 votes)

WRATH REDUX (17 votes)

HARRY KIM’S NIGHTMARE (14 votes)

MISSION POSSIBLE: TASK FORCE 78 (13 votes)

BLUE STUFF? (12 votes)

Remember to VOTE for your favorite TREKS IN 90 SECS fan film…and other updates!

Hey there, folks! Jonathan has returned from a very nice (and hot!) summer vacation with extended family, and I’m ready to dive back into Star Trek fan films (instead of diving into the pool)!

First up, I wanted to remind you all to please vote for your favorite (up to three favorites) TREKS IN 90 SECS ultra-short Star Trek fan film(s). Click here to cast your ballot! We have nine entries for our inaugural contest, and since each one is between 90 and 120 seconds, you can watch all nine of them in less than 15 minutes! And there are some real gems in the mix. It looks like about 60 people have voted so far (assuming each person voted for the maximum of three films), but there’s still two weeks left to register your preference(s)—voting closes at midnight Pacific Time on Sunday, August 25.

And speaking of voting, I’m excited to say that ten of the twelve SHOWRUNNER AWARDS judges have now submitted their completed ballots, leaving only two whom I still have to nag. That means that everything is on schedule to announce this year’s winners on September 8.

Meanwhile, it’s a good thing I’m rested, because fan filmmakers have certainly been busy lately! I’m currently setting up interviews with the creators behind the latest PROJECT: RUNABOUT fan film “IT’S ALL DONE WITH MIRRORS,”and I’ll be covering SAM COCKINGS’ latest opus, PRODIGY RECKONING (episode 3 just premiered this weekend with some stellar acting performances along with Sam’s usual awesome CGI effects) once a few more episodes are released.

Also on short-range scanners are a new release, BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, from JOSHUA IRWIN and a brand new fan filmmaker due out in a few weeks, as well as the highly-anticipated FARRAGUT FORWARD, set to debut extremely soon. FARRAGUT FILMS showrunner JOHN BROUGHTON says it will be a “game-changer,” and from what has been shared by him and director JOHNNY K. so far, I truly believe John is making a serious understatement!

And finally, I’m working hard to set up a pair of video interviews with two different groups of German fan filmmakers. The first group, EUDERION – INFINITY, has been releasing Star Trek fan films for more than 16 years! The other group, LORELEY, are relative newcomers who have quickly leapfrogged to doing some of the most advanced fan filmmaking currently in active production.

And of course, I am certain that there will be more…LOTS more! This is truly the golden age of Star Trek fan films, my friends, with so much to watch and enjoy. And I’m here to cover as much of it as I can.

Remember to vote for Treks in 90 Secs, and I’ll be blogging again soon!

An APOLOGY to KASEY SHAFSKY from JOSH IRWIN and MYSELF…

I had been planning to publish part 2 of the interview with JOSHUA IRWIN about the final shoot at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS two weekends ago. However, that will have to wait until tomorrow, as I need to print a retraction and an apology to KASEY SHAFSKY for something that was inadvertently included in the interview that should not have been.

Josh, in commenting about Kasey (who has been hyper-critical of Neutral Zone Studios for quite a while), included the following remark: “Kasey Shafsky was a part of the first two or three STC episodes ten years ago and was not invited back.”

Kasey responded indignantly on social media with the following two posts…

Josh has asked me to publish the following response, verbatim, to Fan Film Factor…

I want to offer a public apology to Kasey Shafsky. While talking on the phone with Jonathan for the interview a few days ago, I made a comment regarding a rumor about Kasey Shafsky’s involvement in the making of Star Trek Continues. It was an offhand remark during a part of the interview that I thought was off the record. I did not believe that what I said at that point would be either printed or connected to a previous answer.

I don’t know Kasey, I’ve never met him. I have nothing against him, nor do I seek conflict with him. I have no idea what his involvement with STC was because I wasn’t there. I was asked questions about the studio, and I answered them. IMDB does in fact list him as a producer for all 11 episodes. My remark was hearsay, and should be treated as such.

I feel it is important to clarify this because I believe strongly that only the confirmed truth should be reported in the public square, not rumor. If I’m going to stick up for others when rumor is thrown out there, I need to hold myself to that same standard.

I likewise need to apologize to Kasey for publishing that portion of Josh’s interview. I listened again, and it wasn’t clear whether Josh meant for that part to be off the record, but I should have double-checked with him. My apologies to both Kasey and Josh for that oversight.

I will say that others have mentioned to me in passing that Kasey was not directly involved with the production of STC episodes nor was he in attendance during shoots beyond the third episode of the series, although he did reportedly visit the sets from time to time. It was for this reason that I felt comfortable in including Josh’s comment in the interview.

However, no one has agreed to go on record in confirming (or denying) any of those above statements, so I cannot officially confirm nor deny them other than to say, “I was told off the record.” If anyone wishes to comment on the record, please feel free to post something in the comments or contact me directly. Otherwise, my apology to Kasey stands.

Part 2 of Josh’s interview will appear tomorrow.

The TIME has come to submit your ULTRA-SHORT Star Trek fan films to TREKS IN 90 SECS!

Back in February, I announced a fun little challenge for Star Trek fan filmmakers: TREKS IN 90 SECS. With the guidelines limiting the run-time of a Trek fan film to no more than 15 minutes (30 minutes if you make it two parts), it was suggested to me that we take that limit WAY DOWN to just a minute and a half! Could a Star Trek fan film tell a decent story in just 90 seconds???

A number of fan filmmakers eagerly and proudly picked up the gauntlet and did exactly that! They created ultra-short fan film vignettes and posted them to YouTube.

And now it is time for those folks to submit their mini-projects for judging by…well…YOU! I am going to post whatever Treks in 90 Secs links that are sent to me and let the readers of Fan Film Factor decide who gets bragging rights.

Here’s how this is all gonna work…

Anyone who wants to enter their ultra-short fan film MUST-MUST-MUST send me the YouTube link on or before July 31, 2024.

You can either IM me the YouTube link via Facebook if you’ve already friended me (or want to) or you can e-mail he link to me at news (at) fanfilmfactor (dot) com. If I don’t confirm receiving the link, you ain’t entered.

I will then post all entries to a fresh blog page during the first week of August and let folks vote for their favorite video. Readers will be able to vote for up to three videos. Polls will be open until August 25, and then I will announce the top three winners the following week. After that, they can brag.

And these are the official rules:

The fan film doesn’t need to be “exactly” 90 seconds. It can be less or even a little more. But if you run over two minutes, it’s not gettin’ entered.
The fan film needs to be Star Trek related in some way.
The fan film must be a complete “story” (however you want to define that term). It can be funny, dramatic, sad, exciting, all dialogue, no dialogue, whatever you’d like. But what it can’t be is a segment from an existing fan film. It needs to be 100% new.
A maximum of three fan film submissions per entrant.
Deadline to enter is midnight Pacific Time, July 31, 2024.

And there ya go! Good luck, everyone. Let’s have FUN!

A new category added to the 2024 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER Awards…

There’s less than two and a half weeks left to enter you fan film into this year’s Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS. We’ve already had more than a baker’s dozen submissions covering the eligibility period of January 1, 2019 – December 31, 2023. Next year, the 5-year window of eligibility will decrease to 3 years, so if there’s an older Star Trek fan film you’d still like to enter, now is your chance. And hey, if there’s a more recent Trek fan film you want to enter, now is also your chance! Here’s a link to the submission form…

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2024StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

Three weeks ago, I posted a blog spotlighting the twelve judges for this year’s awards. Today, I’d like to discuss our newest category (just added for 2024): BEST GREEN SCREEN COMPOSITING. The name pretty much speaks for itself, but I personally feel that compositing actors who were filmed in front of green screens against sci-fi backgrounds has become much more of a fine art form in recent years.

I’ve recently begun watching a long-running fan series that began in 2008 that has always presented a majority of its scenes as green-screen composites. And comparing those early releases to their later work really illustrates how far both the technical and artistic aspects of chroma-keying have come over the years.

Today’s fan filmmakers are currently doing some truly impressive and in some cases groundbreaking (at least for fan films) things with compositing—from generating realistic 3D backgrounds that move and pan with the actors, to getting actors to interact with animated elements of their backgrounds, to matching the lighting on the actor perfectly to the lighting of the background…and quite a bit more than even that! I’m very excited to see which of this year’s films the judges select as the best three in this category.

And for anyone with is curious, here are the other 22 categories for this year’s Showrunner Awards…

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 Set Design
Best Props
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)
Funniest Fan Film
Most Clever Easter Egg

And remember that the deadline to enter for this year is May 31 at midnight Pacific Time. Here’s the submission form link once again…

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2024StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

Meet this year’s JUDGES for the 2024 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS…

The submission window for the 2024 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS is now open and will remain so until midnight Pacific Time on May 31, 2024. Any Star Trek fan film released publicly between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023 is eligible for entry regardless of the person or team producing it. (Why would anyone do it differently, right?)

The online entry form is located here…

https://www.cognitoforms.com/JonathanLane1/_2024StarTrekFanFilmSHOWRUNNERAWARDS

They say that two heads are better than one, and if so, then our judging panel is six times better than that, as we once again have a panel of twelve judges, each one a showrunner of either a Star Trek fan film or series. We have seven judges returning from last year, two returning from the year before, and three “rookies” whom we welcome to the Council of the Twelve. (That’s not the official name, but it does sound pretty cool in a Battlestar Galactica kinda way. That said, we’re still exclusively Star Trek, although we do all love a wide variety of sci-fi.)

The departing judges all left amicably for different reasons usually involving time commitments. One of them is actually writing a book! I would like to take a moment to sincerely thank all of them and remind them that their chairs at the table will be kept open for them should they ever wish to return. (There’s no rule against the Council of the Twelve becoming the Council of the Fifteen or some other number!)

Anyway, as I did last year, I’d like to dedicate a blog to introducing this year’s panel of judges and what they’ve done in the world of Star Trek fan films…

The curious case of Jonathan’s YouTube channel “SURGE”…

It was recently brought to my attention that a false rumor has begun circulating that I purchased views for my YouTube channel last summer to boost my numbers for some strange reason. (See the above screen cap.)

Of course, this doesn’t address the most obvious question of I why would do this and then never even mention it. I mean, you buy 300,000+ views to…what? Brag? I completely forgot to brag, folks…d’oh!

In fact, I never even noticed it, let alone talked about it. And apparently, it boosted my subscribers by a couple of thousand, as well, and I never mentioned that either until earlier this past week—and even then it was buried deep inside this response (paragraph 3) in the comments under a blog. I mean, if you’re gonna buy that many views, then shout it from the rafters, right?

The other thing I wondered after hearing about this crazy, stupid rumor was: how much exactly do 300,000+ YouTube views cost to buy? I mean, haven’t YOU ever wondered that? Well, you probably haven’t—but I bet you’re curious now, aren’t you? And that’s why I looked it up…

The price varies depending on the service you choose and the number of views you’re looking for. Packages start at just $3.99 for 500 views all the way up to $1,499.99 for 250,000 viewers, with numerous packages in between.

Wait…what??

Buying 300K would have cost me more than FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS?!?!?!? Holy second mortgage, Batman! I would be kicked out of the house at warp speed if I did that!

Anyway, I was still kinda curious where this surge came from. I mean, SOMETHING happened last summer! A bump like that doesn’t materialize out of nowhere, and I doubted that anyone else out there liked me enough to drop over a grand and a half buying views for my channel. So where did those views come from?

Turns out the answer was: STONE TREK!

Huh?

Back in 2016, one of my first-year’s blogs was about the hilarious fan series Stone Trek, a brilliant mash-up of Star Trek and The Flintstones. At the time, their episodes appeared on this Angelfire web page using the Adobe Flash player to animate (which is how the episodes were created in the first place).

A couple of years later, a convention organizer from San Diego where I’d be a guest wanted to show Stone Trek along with other shorter fan films as part of a continuous program in one of the smaller panel rooms. So I did a video capture from the Flash player of the five completed Stone Trek episodes and provided them as mp4 files for the convention.

And thank goodness I did!!!