Farragut 2024 – Fan Film Factor

Four bridge sets, three shooting days, two centuries, and two fan films… (Blog Feature #2: AVALON – GHOST CRYSTAL)

Yesterday in Part 1, we covered the first two days of a three-day shoot on the bridge set of what director JOSHUA IRWIN has dubbed FARRAGUT STUDIO 3 (as Studios 1 and 2 were located in southeastern Georgia…with Studio 2 ultimately becoming NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS many years later).

What made this particular three-day shoot so significant is that it was one of the few times in the history of Star Trek fan films that the same sets were used during the same weekend to film scenes for two unrelated fan SERIES. While multiple fan FILMS has been shot in the same studio or location in a single weekend, those are typically associated with a single fan series, using the same actors playing the same characters for separate episodes.

But this weekend featured two separate casts utilizing mostly the same production crew and and set, but with significant changes to flip a series of 23rd century TOS movie-era starship bridges on Friday and Saturday for the upcoming FARRAGUT 2024 into a TNG season 2 era starship bridge for GHOST CRYSTAL, the first of three new AVALON UNIVERSE fan films set in the 24th and 25th centuries.

Josh Irwin is directing both fan films and is the showrunner for Avalon. JOHN BROUGHTON is the showrunner and star of Farragut 2024. And together, the two men ran not just one smooth ship but four over a three-day weekend. The first three ships were the USS Farragut, USS Constitution, and USS Decatur. But Sunday was reserved for a trip to the Avalon Universe and the bridge of the USS Excalibur NCC-1705-B.

The Avalon Universe fan series has been going strong since late 2018, having released more than a dozen fan films ranging in length from short to full-length two-parters. You can view them all here. Each of these takes place in the 23rd century, and that series of fan films will conclude later on this year with THE ONCE AND FUTURE CAPTAIN.

Ghost Crystal feature a number of both set-based and outdoor on-location scenes that will be filmed in Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. But Josh saw an opportunity to utilize the Farragut Films bridge to create a 24th-style starship. This required some customizing, of course, and included a fourth command chair (in addition to the three constructed for the three Farragut 2024 starships), this one built by RODNEY GARRETT, who was still sanding it down and putting the finishing touches on the set piece outside on Saturday in 90+ degree heat. But the extra effort was worth it, as the chair came out looking awesome…

Four bridge sets, three shooting days, two centuries, and two fan films… (Blog Feature #1: FARRAGUT 2024)

During the second-to-last weekend of June, the town of Frederick, Maryland was the site of a complex and challenging shoot of not just one Star Trek fan film but TWO! The location was a facility that has been dubbed by some FARRAGUT STUDIO 3, and the fan films were FARRAGUT 2024 (a 23rd century TOS movie-era fan film and sequel to last year’s FARRAGUT FORWARD) and GHOST CRYSTAL (the first of three new AVALON UNIVERSE episodes episodes set in the 24th and, eventually, 25th centuries).

But before I continue, let me briefly mention that both productions have active crowd-funding campaigns that, while having met their original goals, are still in stretch goal mode…

To donate click to Farragut 2024, click here.

To donate to Avalon Universe, click here.

And now, let’s talk about this amazing fan film shoot!

Many of you may have seen photos posted online by various members of the cast and crews of both productions. But what you probably don’t know is everything that went into making this 3-day shoot happen and what went on behind-the-scenes to make it all come together.

Let’s start with the two men behind these projects: Farragut showrunner JOHN BROUGHTON and Avalon showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN. Josh serves as director for both of these fan films, and John, in addition to starring in Farragut as Captain (Admiral?) Jack Carter, also specializes in meticulous costume-making and set construction…and he will be moving forward to direct the upcoming FARRAGUT FINALE.

Some fan films require minimal preparation and planning. Farragut 2024 is NOT one of those. Other productions require moderate preparation and planning. Farragut ain’t one of those either! Nope, Team Farragut has been meeting weekly for more than a year and half, with the various department heads gathering virtually via Microsoft Teams to discuss every aspect of this project: make-up, CGI, costumes, sets, direction, line production…everyone was expected to attend these weekly meetings, hosted by John (who runs a pretty tight ship both in the 23rd century and also in the 21st!).

You might be thinking that having weekly meetings for over a year for a Star Trek fan film is overdoing it a bit, but the fact remains that most of these folks have known each other as friends and colleagues for years or even decades, and many of them come from community theater backgrounds where regular production meetings are pretty standard.

Fast forward to this past April, and Farragut had an outdoor location shoot planned. Unfortunately, the weather made other plans, and rain was forecast throughout Washington, DC and the surrounding areas. But that was okay. A studio shoot had already been planned two months later for the weekend of June 20-22 (Friday-Sunday), so the team could simply tack on a short Thursday afternoon shoot and film the two outdoor scenes within walking distance of the studio, as neither scene required recognizable scenery—unlike their previous location scenes, which were shot in and around famous DC landmarks.

But once again, fate and the weather weren’t cooperating…

FARRAGUT 2024 blasts past its $15K Indiegogo finish line at the last moment!

It wasn’t looking good there for a while! I mean, it wasn’t looking awful either. With 26 hours left until their crowd-funding deadline, I went to sleep on Tuesday night noticing that the Indiegogo campaign for the upcoming FARRAGUT 2024 fan film had only just barely crossed the one-third mark with $5,180 from 44 backers. When I woke up the next morning, the total was over $15K from 45 backers!

Yep, a $10K donation had come in overnight, shooting the Indiegogo over the top and making it eligible—at the last moment!—for “InDemand” status, where the campaign can continue collecting contributions indefinitely. My congratulations to show-runner JOHN BROUGHTON and the entire Farragut 2024 team!

This current campaign was actually billed as “Take 2” due to the fact that the initial attempt to raise funding back in late 2024 struggled as it competed with the holiday season and money spent on presents and travel. So a second Indiegogo kicked off two months ago endeavoring to raise the remaining $15K.

Despite the Indiegogo for last year’s FARRAGUT FORWARD easily clearing its $30K goal and ultimately being retired as it reached the $50K level (the maximum crowd-funding limit specified in the fan film guidelines), the sequel campaign definitely hit some headwinds.

And Farragut wasn’t the only recent crowd-funder to struggle. The Indiegogo for Tales from the Neutral Zone this past month came up significantly short of its $11.5K goal, raising only $4.2K (about 36%). However, it should be noted that this campaign wasn’t two months long like Farragut‘s and, in fact, lasted less than a month. Personally, I don’t think crowd-funders for Star Trek fan films can get to a five-figure goal in under two months anymore unless they are truly well-known with an existing donor base from previous projects. And indeed, Neutral Zone‘s RAY TESI acknowledged that “there were many familiar names” among their 25 backers.

Also, the Neutral Zone Indiegogo launched DURING the Farragut Indiegogo, and that probably impacted both campaigns in a negative way, as Star Trek fan films tend to draw from the same well of donors. I strongly recommend that if there’s another crowd-funder already going on that you wait until it’s complete before launching yours—for the benefit of both projects.

And remember: no matter how exciting your project is or how enthusiastic your existing fan base, crowd-funding campaigns require a LOT of work! You can’t just post one, sit back, and wait for the money to roll in. You need to get the word out on Facebook, via e-mails, and with YouTube videos, photos, and interviews, trailers…whatever you can do to attract eyeballs and open wallets.

I’ll conclude by reiterating that the Farragut 2024 Indegogo is now in “InDemand” mode, so you can still contribute to help make the final fan film even better and potentially to help start the funding for their next project FARRAGUT FINALE. Here’s the link and the video…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-2024-take-2#

FARRAGUT releases BLOOPER REEL as their INDIEGOGO moves fast forward toward FARRAGUT 2024! (interview with JOHN BROUGHTON and JOSH IRWIN)

I love bloopers. And it’s not just because they’re (usually) funny. No, what a blooper reel often shows is the side of filmmaking that fans don’t often see: how much fun the people making the project actually have on set!

In the case of FARRAGUT FILMS and their recent FARRAGUT FORWARD hit fan film (currently topping 150K views on YouTube), their just-released blooper reels shows what a wonderful group of people they are, including director JOHNNY K. who assembled and posted the reel a couple of weeks ago…

The blooper reel release comes during a two-month Iniegogo campaign attempting to raise the remaining $15K needed to finance their next project, FARRAGUT 2024. The previous campaign feel short of its goal, in part because of the Christmas season (launching crowd-funders during the last two months of the calendar year often runs into holiday headwinds as people put their money into gifts and travel). But this current campaign is nearly a quarter of the way to its goal with just under three weeks left.

Back during the TOS movie-era (which is when the new Farragut releases take place), there was a generally-accepted paradigm that the even-numbered Star Trek feature films were the best ones. As such, Farragut Forward felt much like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, offering a villain from Captain Jack Carter’s past obsessed with having his revenge. In a similar vein, their next project, FARRAGUT 2024, features a time-travel story back to modern-day Earth with a noticeable comedic undertone—although this time it’s the 21st century and the city is Washington, DC (where John Broughton lives) and not San Francisco of the 20th century.

Their crowd-funding video features a good amount of completed footage to give fans a flavor of the feel and production quality of this project, and it is definitely worth taking a look at…

And of course, donations are always welcome at this URL:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-2024-take-2

I had a chance to chat with both John and his director for Farragut 2024, JOSHUA IRWIN, whose AVALON UNIVERSE Star Trek fan films are among the best out there….