Potemkin Pictures – Page 6

TRISTAN Production Crew releases new episode: “BETWEEN TWO WORLDS”!

Okay, time to stop calling it STARSHIP TRISTAN. Show-runner RANDY LANDERS told me there are no series or episodes, there are only individual fan films made by the various creative teams working under the POTEMKIN PICTURES “umbrella”: Tristan, Deimos, Kupok, and Endeavour. The reason for this nominal change, of course, is the fan film guidelines that prohibit a fan film from releasing more than two 15-minute episodes of the same story “…with no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes.”

So the “elephant in the living room” (or “mugato in the cave”) question that I asked Randy was: if you’re being so careful to follow the guidelines, then why is this fan film 30 minutes long and not broken into two 15-minute parts? Randy’s answer:

It was filmed over a year ago, and it is our understanding that the guidelines probably wouldn’t apply.

Fair enough (at least as far as I’m concerned). Randy went on to tell me a little more about the making of this episode:

It was actually one of the first episodes we began filming once we moved here. Nearly all the dialogue shot at the park had to be ADRed…

[re-recorded and dubbed over later – Jonathan]

…and in some cases dubbed by a different performer. It was a challenging experience. We had folks recording their lines on phones. That’s where you can really tell. We’d’ve rather they’d returned to the studios for ADR, but that just wasn’t possible.

This is just a hobby for us, and real life and real jobs have to come first.

I always keep that last fact in mind when I watch the “low-budget” fan films. While not as slick and polished as the studio-made films and series with the professional actors and production crew, fan films like those coming from Potemkin Pictures show heart and dedication and, most of all, fans just having fun. For me, that’s extremely important.

Randy says the Tristan creative team currently has two films completely shot and now in post-production. And there’s three more films in pre-production for 2017. In the meantime, you can watch their latest release “Between Two Worlds” below or visit the website of Potemkin Pictures to catch up on all the episodes of their various series…oh, excuse me…to see all the independent fan films from the four creative teams.

The fan series formerly known as STARSHIP TRISTAN releases its fifth episode!

So far, the four previous episodes of STARSHIP TRSITAN from Potemkin Pictures have ranged in length from six-and-a-half minutes to ten-and-a-half minutes. (You can watch them all here.) Their latest episode, “Be Careful What You Wish For,” has a 15-minute run time and a much larger cast than usual. The episode was an ambitious endeavor that required a lot of on-location shooting. It’s a very impressive effort.

William C. Searcy, who plays the lovable and colorful character of the half-Vulcan Dr. Skep Anderson, wrote the episode and produces the Georgia-based series. Note that, from their second episode onward, in order to comply with the CBS/Paramount fan film guidelines, the series is no longer known officially as “Starship Tristan” and is instead just a collection of separate fan films, each with a different name (the title of the individual episode). That said, Dr. Anderson has appeared before and will (hopefully!) appear again. Will that constitute an “ongoing series” and violate guideline #1? Hard to say, but it’s such a minor quibble, one would think the studios wouldn’t bother making a big deal of it since the series complies with all other guidelines.

At this time, according to the Potemkin Pictures website, two more episodes of this series have been filmed and are currently in post production. With luck, we’ll be seeing them soon!

PROJECT: POTEMKIN is no more…and it’s “ALL IN A DAY’S WORK!”

The fan series Project: Potemkin was nearly finished with its four-season run. Thirty episodes had already been produced and released, and only three more remained. Show-runner RANDY LANDERS (read his interview with Fan Film Factor here) had announced that the series would wrap up after the end of season four, although four other series–Starship Tristan, Starship Deimos, Battlecruiser Kupok, and Starship Endeavour–would continue with new episodes.

The remaining three episodes of Project: Potemkin had already been filmed over a year ago and were simply awaiting post-production editing, sound, VFX, and musical scoring. Then the fan film guidelines were released by CBS and Paramount.

Continue reading “PROJECT: POTEMKIN is no more…and it’s “ALL IN A DAY’S WORK!””

The fan film formerly known as STARSHIP TRISTAN releases its newest episode

It’s interesting to watch the various reactions of the current Star Trek fan series to the new CBS/Paramount guidelines. In the case of Star Trek: Renegades, they dropped the name “Star Trek” from their title, took off the comm badges, and named Walter Koenig’s character “The Admiral.” Of course, we all know who they mean…don’t we? But with no “obvious” Star Trek content, the fan guidelines no longer apply to Renegades: The Series.

On the other side of the United States, Alabama-based Potemkin Pictures has taken a different approach. For the last half-decade or so, the vast majority of Potemkin Pictures’ fan films have actually followed most of the guidelines (before they even came out!): short-duration episodes, no crowd-funding, no perks, original music, home-made costumes, and store-bought props. Their only real “violation”–now that the new guidelines are in place–is “no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes.”

Continue reading “The fan film formerly known as STARSHIP TRISTAN releases its newest episode”