Jonathan Lane – Fan Film Factor

Please HELP SANTA CLAUS this Christmas by buying his book…

Ho, ho, ho, everybody! I realize that this blog isn’t Star Trek or fan film related—other than “SANTA” SAL LIZARD having been the president of STARFLEET, The International Star Trek Fan Association from 2008-2011—but I’d still like to take a few moments for a special message to all of you.

In case you ween’t aware, I helped Santa Sal write a book full of his wonderful memoirs of having been a professional, real-bearded Santa Claus for (at the time) more than two decades. BEING SANTA CLAUS was first published in 2012 by Gotham Books, a division of Penguin Publishing. A few years ago, Sal and I reacquired the rights to the book and published a new expanded edition, with additional heartwarming true stories and photos, available in hardcover, paperback, kindle, and even audiobook formats. (I narrated the audio version.)

It was a happy and exciting time for both of us as the world was emerging from lockdown. But then Sal’s wife Linda passed away suddenly from brain cancer around the same time that Sal himself had a trio of mini-strokes that left his left side too weak to support children on his lap. Sal’s days of being Santa Claus were effectively over.

With the passing of Sal’s wife, whose job as a nurse administrator was their primarily source of income beyond Sal’s annual Santa gigs and the occasional Ubering, Sal has been reduced to living solely on social security, barely enough to get by. The one thing he has to look forward to are royalties on book sales…which aren’t much. The books clear about $4-5/purchase (depending on the format sold), with monthly royalties in the dozens of dollars at best. So, sadly, not too much.

But this is the one time of year when the book sells a little bit better—hence, this blog. I’m trying to help my friend-in-need by encouraging my other friends to purchase Being Santa Claus in any format. If you order now, the book will likely arrive by Christmas (or instantaneously if you order the Kindle or Audible version).

It’s a great stocking stuffer or just something to listen to in the car if you want a break from holiday music without losing the feeling of the season. If you’d like to hear a sample what the book sounds like, here is short snippet of one chapter…

Every little bit helps out this wonderful, good-natured, generous, and caring man get something nice for his daughter and granddaughter for Christmas. And even if all you can afford right now is goodwill toward men (and women and others), please consider passing along the following link to the Amazon page on your social media feeds. Merry Christmas to all…!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOU COPY AND HELP SANTA SAL

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.

Did MATT MILLER write a SONG about LIL’ OL’ ME? I do believe he DID!

Okay, folks, this was totally NOT on my Bingo card for, like, ever!

It’s been more than two years since I last wrote a blog about Trekzone’s MATT MILLER from Australia. And honestly, I was fine not talking about him ever again (except, of course, when he appears in a fan film that I’m covering, like this one).

But, man! When Matt takes the time to not only write a song about me but to have someone professionally sing and record it and then use it to kick off the latest video for his Matt Miller Fan Film Awards show—well, how can I not return the favor and sincerely thank him for thinking of me (apparently constantly!) enough to put in all of this amazing effort?

Anyway, without further ado, this is the song that opened this year’s Trekzone Awards. It’s only 2 and a half minutes, it’s totally surreal, but it’s definitely worth a listen…

Has a kinda JONI MITCHELL vibe, don’t it?

Frankly, I’d be way too embarrassed to ever do anything like that with the annual SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, as they’re meant to celebrate the achievements of fan filmmakers, not serve to extend some silly vendetta. But Matt’s gotta be Matt, I suppose.

And I personally wouldn’t be all that thrilled to win an award for my fan film knowing that the presentation was tainted by some cringe attack song at the opening. I’d probably think twice before showing the video to friends since I’d have to explain what the darn song actually meant. (And what did it mean, by the way? Which side is the “haters” and what “truth” will they see? I have no earthy idea!)

Matt was, of course, careful not to use my actual name or the name of ALEC PETERS (whom he calls “The Producer”—I am, of course, “Fan Film Blogger Dude”), although he does reference my AXANAR-inspired fan film INTERLUDE at one point. But I’m obviously living rent-free inside of Matt’s head for him to include this weird vendetta-ballad at the start of the video (which you can watch in its entirety here; I don’t mind if Matt gets more views, as he certainly needs them).

By the way, I do not typically cover the Trekzone Awards because one of Matt’s requirements for eligibility is that he doesn’t hate you, and he hates a LOT of people in the fan film community (including at least a couple dozen of my close friends—along with me, of course). So each year, there end up being many very deserving fan films that are capriciously excluded from even being considered for a Trekzone Award, as Matt selects all entrants himself and has only two judges: Matt and one other fellow from Australia.

TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE releases “LA MORT DE LA GUERRE” (“The Death of War”) featuring AVALON characters in the PRIME universe! (video interview with JOSH IRWIN, CAITLYN BAILEY, and others)

NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA (at least for now, the studio will be relocating soon) has provided TOS sets for countless Star Trek fan films and series, including STARSHIP FARRAGUT, STAR TREK CONTINUES, DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, THE AVALON UNIVERSE, and so many more. And not to be outdone, the studio itself has its own fanthology series: TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE. Beginning in 2019, NZS has released seven fan films:

“THE LOOKING GLASS”
“ENDOSYMBIOSYS”
“DOOMSDAY”
“WHEN DUTY CALLS”
“THE TEST OF TIME”
“THE LOST STARSHIP”

And the seventh, which was premiered on May 23, is titled “LA MORT DE LA GUERRE” (“The Death of War”), written by JOSHUA IRWIN and directed by Josh along with TYLER DUNIVAN. It came out extremely well; take a look…

The film features the crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur, but not the starship in the Avalon Universe that Josh’s films usually spotlight. No, this time it’s the ship and crew from Star Trek‘s Prime Universe, most recently seen in last year’s CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS.

This fan film also represents a somewhat unique pairing of resources, as not only was Neutral Zone Studios involved in the production, but so was the other major fan film studio featuring TOS sets, WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas. Co-owner of WARP 66, GLEN L. WOLFE, traveled down to Georgia, bringing along a plethora of TOS tunics and uniforms for both actors and extras to wear. Also joining the production team were FRANK PARKER, JR. from CROSSROADS: THE GEMINI PROJECT (this time playing a Romulan) as well as VANCE MAJOR playing Eric Minard from CONSTAR. Even GARY DAVIS from DOMINION MEDIA got into the act by providing a last-minute photo of a “Sulu scope” for a close up shot of the tactical readout at the helm station.

Heck, even I worked on this fan film as a creative consultant. That meant that I provided Josh feedback and suggestions at various points during the months-long post-production and editing process. That might seem like an easy-peasy way to sneak into the credits, but I’ve actually watched through different iterations of this film more than a dozen times(!!!), marking down time-code and making extensive notes. Combined with the 50 to 70 people who worked on this project during the two days of shooting on the sets, this was truly a group effort of the many.

In the spirit of that sense of camaraderie and collaboration, my fellow fan film fanatic, JEFFERSON KELLEY of BEYOND TREK PODCAST, organized a group discussion of this excellent fan film, inviting a number of people from the production as well as myself, as well as CHEETO and ZAM from the NERD TUBE podcast. So rather than just doing one of my typical Fan Film Factor video interviews, Jefferson has offered to make his group podcast available for me to post here. It was a very fun, lively, and enlightening discussion. Enjoy…

How I used A.I. technology to bring the voices of SPOCK AND McCOY back to life in “AN ABSENT FRIEND” (part 3: legal and moral questions)…

In part 1, I discussed how I used Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to turn a Star Trek inspired fan script that I wrote back in 2010 into an audio drama featuring the voices of Spock and McCoy. I utilized ElevenLabs‘ voice synthesis algorithm to convert sound clips captured from a variety of sources into a series of back-and-forth dialog between the two characters. Ultimately, I wound up with an approximately 15-minute long audio drama.

Part 2 covered how I managed to take the audio drama and turn it into an animated fan film with the help of an amazing illustrator by the name of MATT SLADE, music composer MATT MILNE, and my longtime childhood friend MOJO. Indeed, in the end, I was the only person involved in this production whose named didn’t start with the letter M! The finished product came out looking like this…

And now the moment that I am certain many of you have been waiting for: the legal and moral questions of “Can Jonathan legally do this?” and “Should Jonathan ethically do this?” These are both complex subjects to tackle. But let’s dive in…!

How I used A.I. technology to bring the voices of SPOCK AND McCOY back to life in “AN ABSENT FRIEND” (part 2: the art, animation, and music)…

In part 1, I explained how I had used Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to synthesize the voices of Spock and McCoy to speak the words of a script I originally wrote as a short story back in 2010. In it, Captain Kirk has just “died” saving the U.S.S. Enterprise-B (in the feature film Star Trek Generations), and Bones is getting angry-drunk mourning the untimely passing of his longtime friend. Spock finds McCoy sitting alone in an unnamed bar and offers to join him. It’s the last thing the doctor wants—a Vulcan with no emotions—but, ironically, the thing he most needs. And Spock needs McCoy, as well, even though the Vulcan would never openly admit it.

The story was always intended to be a sort of a two-actor stage play, simple but poignant, giving a glimpse into how these two longtime friends and colleagues deal with the loss of AN ABSENT FRIEND. But the story/script sat quietly on my hard-drive for more than a decade, unused and mostly unpublished, waiting for its “moment.”

That moment came when I discovered the ElevenLabs website (thank you, RAY MYERS!), which can generate synthesized speech from any decent voice sample of a minute or two. Assembling verbal snippets from LEONARD NIMOY and DeFOREST KELLEY from various sources, I set out to create an audio drama of my script. The project took me a couple of months, and I explained the nuances of how I did it in part 1.

Now in part 2, I’ll explain how I got from that audio drama to this completely animated Star Trek fan film…

As I mentioned in part 1, after I completed the audio drama, I was frustrated by the subtle inconsistencies between sentences (especially for McCoy) due to my generating the voices in short segments. This was a necessary evil due to the limitations of the early A.I. technology, but it still bothered me.

Then I had an idea…

How I used A.I. technology to bring the voices of SPOCK and McCOY back to life in “AN ABSENT FRIEND” (part 1: the audio)…

While some Star Trek fan films have begun to Artificial Intelligence ( A.I.) in limited ways to age and de-age characters and also to create brief visuals and short bits of dialog, my new animated fan film AN ABSENT FRIEND is the first time that A.I. speech synthesis has been used to generate ALL of the voices. And what’s more, two of those voices are sampled from the late LEONARD NIMOY and DeFOREST KELLEY, allowing the beloved characters of Spock and McCoy to live on.

The obvious question that might come to mind for some people would be: Is this legal? The short answer is “yes…at least for now.” That could change in the not-too-distant future, but no law governing or restricting the A.I. generation of a deceased actor’s voice in a fan film exists at the moment. I will dive more deeply into the legal status of voice A.I. in Part 3 of this blog series (along with the ethical considerations). However, right now in Part 1, I would like to discuss how I managed to digitally recreate the voices of these two deeply-missed actors, and in Part 2, I’ll be covering how I and my illustrator, MATT SLADE, turned an audio drama into a full animated Star Trek fan film.

First, though, let’s take a look at this groundbreaking project…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TAKING OVER THE WORLD?

A.I. has exploded across the planet in the last year and a half, and it’s certainly become a bit of a mixed bag. The term itself is an umbrella for a wide range of digital breakthroughs whereby computers are doing some incredible—and occasionally worrisome—things. A.I. is being used for everything from generating business presentations and news articles to writing millions of lines of computer code in seconds. A.I. digitally de-aged an 80-year-old HARRISON FORD in the fifth and final Indiana Jones feature film last year and also completed an unfinished Beatles song despite two of the original band members having died decades ago.

Law enforcement is using intuitive software to sift through endless social media postings to track down wanted suspects and potential terrorists. On the other side of the moral spectrum, however, some students are using A.I. software to write their school essays for them, while a few political campaigns have begun to generate false images and articles to spread realistic-looking fake news to unsuspecting voters. Earlier this year, a New Hampshire robocall seemingly from Joe Biden that told Democrats not to “waste their vote” in the primary was actually faked by a supporter of one of the other primary candidates. And of course, the recent Hollywood writers and actors strikes worried that A.I. would make many of their jobs all but irrelevant.

My own mind was blown last year when I saw A.I. used to create an actual Star Trek fan film! THE RODDENBERRY ARCHIVE released the following short fan film featuring a deepfaked face of Leonard Nimoy as Spock put onto the body of actor LAWRENCE SELLECK…

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!!!

RANDY LANDERS tells me to no longer provide coverage of POTEMKIN PICTURES releases on FAN FILM FACTOR… (editorial)

The new year didn’t start off well for Star Trek fan films…or for me.

On the FAN FILM FORUM Facebook group, 2024 began with an early morning post (well, early for me waking up in Palm Desert, California) from RANDY LANDERS of POTEMKIN PICTURES. Over the past eight years, I’ve published a staggering 90-plus blogs on the numerous fan film releases from Potemkin‘s many, many creative groups. And I still wasn’t quite caught up! Their two most recent releases, “EMPYREAN” from STARSHIP CALIBORN and “HONOR AND TREACHERY” from SCOUTSHIP QAB’ELTH were both on deck for early 2024 coverage. In fact, Randy had just given me the names of the team members from Caliborn whom I should reach out to for the blog about “Empyrean.”

Randy’s post to the Fan Film Forum Facebook group started with him proudly announcing that Potemkin Pictures would NOT be crowd-funding in 2024. They had all of their expenses covered. Yay! A year ago, I had helped promote their previous campaign and even tossed in a few bucks myself. Granted, announcing that you’re not going to crowd-fund seemed, to me at least, like announcing that you’re not going to plant tomatoes in your garden this year. I mean, it’s good to know that you’re covered on tomatoes…is that the right reaction?

But then Randy also said something a little odd…and rather controversial, as it turned out. He suggested (somewhat forcefully and resentfully) that other fan productions shouldn’t crowd-fund either. In other words, “I’m not going to plant tomatoes in MY garden, so no one else should plant tomatoes in THEIR garden either!”

This was, to say the least, a bit shocking to some people. And not just people doing crowd-funding campaigns. As the day went on, folks from all over the fan community were IMing me with variations of “WTF?” and suggesting/demanding that I remove Randy’s post from the Fan Film Forum Facebook page.

Meet the new year…same as the old year?