music video – Fan Film Factor

STAR REKT takes MUSIC PARODY videos to the final frontier! (video interview with IAN RAMSEY)

I first discovered STAR REKT back in 2021 when someone posted to Facebook a link to a Star Trek-themed music video parodying the 1975 song by The Four Seasons, “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” But instead of “Night,” the lyric was changed to “Fight” and melodically recounted Kirk’s battle with the Gorn following the attack on Cestus III in the 1967 TOS episode “Arena.”

Now, I’d seen a whole bunch of Star Trek music videos over the years…many of them simply montages of edited clips from episodes and movies played over pop songs. (I even made one myself back in 2002 from Trek home recordings off of VHS tapes!) I’ve also watched a wide variety of Trek music PARODY videos, usually when someone writes new lyrics to an existing song. This playlist from YouTube shows a good selection of what’s out there. What you’ll notice is that these parody videos are usually either edited clips from Trek episodes/movies OR fans doing cosplay singing (or lip synching) to their own song in a series of cuts.

But what struck me about Star Rekt is that this fellow recorded himself in costume in front of a green screen and intercut those shots with clips from TOS (and eventually other TV series and movies) to create a “hybrid” of sorts. This fresh approach really stood out for me—along with his great parody lyrics, good singing, and the quality of the video editing. Take a look first at “Oh, What a Fight…”

By the time I’d found out about this guy and his videos during the summer, he’d already posted two others. The first was “I Kissed a Borg” (based on “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry)…

The other was “Trill All the Klingons Want” (parodying””Girl All the Bad Guys Want” by Bowling For Soup)…

Three awesome parody music videos in four months? This funny guy was SERIOUS! And he had already covered TOS, TNG, and DS9. What else would he come up with? I immediately subscribed to his channel and eagerly waited for his next offering. It came three months later, and we were back to TNG with a dash of DS9 and Voyager thrown in. How did he cover all three? Well, they all have a Holocek (or Holosuite), and thus we were treated to a parody of the song “Photograph” by Nickelback…

At the time I’m writing this blog, Star Rekt has now released NINE parody music videos in total. If you want to see the rest, check out this playlist for parodies that spotlight some of the Star Trek features as well as the Enterprise TV series. This guy also did an off-the-wall video of himself mixing Star Trek-themed drinks and doing trivia for an hour while getting progressively plastered. It’s worth checking out.

Anyway, I tracked down “Star Rekt” and discovered his real name is IAN RAMSEY, and he does everything from here…

Let’s find out more…

GARY GRAHAM’S “Sons of Kirk” KICKSTARTER enters its final TWO-DAY push!

It took Star Trek and sci-fi actor GARY GRAHAM just 33 hours to hit his $5,000 goal on a Kickstarter to help fund the first official studio album and music video for his rock band THE SONS OF KIRK. Gary’s band plays songs with Star Trek and sci-fi themed lyrics inspired by Gary’s own personal experiences playing various characters not only on Star Trek: Enterprise and Voyager but also in Alien Nation and in the Trek fan films Of Gods and Men, Renegades, and Prelude to Axanar.

The real goal for this Kickstarter was actually more ambitious: $15,000 to produce an extended album and multiple music videos. The $5,000 goal was set simply to make certain they reached their goal and didn’t miss out on the money entirely (as Kickstarter gives you nothing if you fail to reach your goal).

But Gary and the band needn’t have worried. Less than a day and a half after going live, they blasted past that $5,000 goal. They’d now be able to produce an album with at least six full songs. So they next set a series of stretch goals, each upping the total a little bit more in increasingly larger chunks:

$7,000 – Song #7 (unlocked)
$8,000 – Song #8 (unlocked)
$10,000 – Songs #9 and 10 (unlocked)
$13,000 – A second music video (unlocked)
$16,000 – A third music video of an unoffical bonus acoustic jam (unlocked)
$19,000 – A final video of the band rocking out live at Star Trek Las Vegas

The $16,000 stretch goal was reached late Sunday afternoon, and that leaves only the last stretch goal to achieve. The Sons of Kirk just performed as the house band at Creation’s 2018 Star Trek convention in Las Vegas a week ago. I’m guessing they shot footage. The question is: will we fans get to see it?

We’ll know in just about 58 hours (as I type this). Right now, they’re at $16,288 from 213 backers. If you haven’t donated yet, or if you want to up your donation to send them over the top, click here.

YOU could appear in GARY GRAHAM’S new MUSIC VIDEO!

GARY GRAHAM is no stranger to Star Trek and sci-fi…and he’s also been a friend to Trek fan films for over a decade. Known as Ambassador Soval from Star Trek: Enterprise (he was in an episode of Voyager, too) and Detective Matt Sikes from the TV series Alien Nation, Gary also appeared in the Trek fan films Of Gods and Men, Renegades, and Prelude to Axanar.

But did you know that Gary also has a rock band that plays original songs with Star Trek-themed lyrics? It’s true! Heck, he’ll even perform at your wedding or birthday party with his group, THE SONS OF KIRK. (Seriously, how cool would it be to have a Star Trek veteran actor come to your house and sing Star Trek songs???)

According Gary, “All of [my] insider experiences are infused into the songs and lyrics! Every single song is Star Trek-themed, with hilarious, cool, and sexy lyrics to make even the most casual fan crack a Vulcan Smile. No filler, No additives; just #NerdCool.”

Gary and his band have just launched a KICKSTARTER campaign with a $5,000 goal. Their hope is raise enough to record their first studio album and then create a music video for one of the songs. If they surpass their goal (which is looking likely, as nearly a third of that $5K has been raised in the first 12 hours!), they will have stretch goals for additional songs and potentially more music videos.

Perks include the expected—copies of the finished album, autographed photos, merchandise, listings in the credits at various producer levels—plus a a couple of unique options. With as little as a $15 donation, your name will be mentioned in a special “Thank You” song (not on the album, but released to the public). And all contributors of $200 or more get to be in the music video (travel and lodging not included).

You can follow The Sons of Kirk on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

To donate, visit their Kickstarter page.

“ENTERPRISE – LADY” tribute music video

For over a year, this music video has been sitting in a menu area of Fan Film Factor called “THE CARGO BAY.” When I began this blog site, I imagined that section would be a good place to drop miscellaneous content that didn’t fit in anywhere else. But in the upcoming weeks, I’ll be doing a bit of top menu reorganization, and “THE CARGO WAY” will be jettisoned. So I’m pulling out this video from its previous blog and creating a new blog for it so it can live elsewhere on the site.

So what the heck is Jonathan’s “ENTERPRISE – LADY” tribute music video? Well, back in 2002, I edited together my own Star Trek music video montage, a “love letter” to all the wonderful starships called Enterprise.

This music video was inspired by a similarly-themed montage that I saw at a convention in Cleveland, OH back in 1988. That video also used The Little River Band’s “Lady” as a musical score (and I do love that song!). But back then, there were only the TOS and TAS episodes, four movies, and one season of TNG. Footage of the USS Enterprise in 1988 was limited to the original, the refit, and the 1701-D…no bloody A, B, C, E or NX-01. (Well, technically there was a bit of the 1701-A at the end of Trek IV.)

By 2002, I now had nine feature films, seven seasons of TNG (plus DS9 and Voyager), and the first two seasons of Enterprise. There weren’t remastered VFX back then, and I didn’t have own DVD collections yet, so I worked off the VHS tapes I’d recorded from TV broadcasts of episodes (and that’s why you can see the UPN logo on all the NX-01 shots!).

I added a lot of little touches—the cuts match up to the beats of the music and, in many cases, the images match to the words of the song. It was a labor of love that took me a few months to complete (and it eventually won a fan Star Trek music video contest at a Los Angeles Creation convention).

I invite you all to enjoy my little effort below…