Tag: Showrunner Awards

A week and a half ago, I announced the 27 Star Trek fan films competing in the 2024 SHOWRUNNER AWARDS. And we certainly have some heavy-hitters this year! In fact, as I was assembling the online ballot form for our 12-judge panel, I was marveling at how many amazing actors and actresses (40 in all!) would be vying for our best leading and supporting categories. This is gonna be super-tough to judge this year, and those fan films that win in each our our 23 categories should feel like they’ve really earned something special. And as I’ve said before, I only wish that more fan films could win—but in the end, there’s only three award levels in each category.

Speaking of categories, this might end up being the final year for the Best Short Scene category. I’ll need to discuss it with the judges, of course, but unlike most of our other categories, Best Short Scene has been somewhat anemic when it comes to submissions. Last year, only five entrants included short scenes as part of their submissions. And this year, that number has decreased to four, each of which you can view below.

Initially, I thought the idea of choosing one particularly engrossing and dramatic scene (of 2 minutes or less) from a fan film was a unique and exciting concept for a category. I got the idea from watching an Academy Awards broadcast a couple of years ago with a similar collection of short scenes from each of the ten nominees for Best Picture. I figured the same kind of thing might be cool to do for the Showrunner Awards, and so I suggested it to the judges, and they agreed.

However, your typical Hollywood motion picture is 2+ hours long, so there’s a lot to choose from. Your typical Star Trek fan film is 15-30 minutes long, and doesn’t have as many dramatic scenes of 2 minutes or less. And that’s why I don’t think we’ve seen many submissions in this category.

Also, now that we have the new TREKS IN 90 SECS contest going on, the Best Short Scene has become somewhat redundant as well as potentially confusing. As such, this could be the last year for this particular category.

That said, Best Short Scene is still very much a part of the Showrunner Awards, and we’ve got four excellent submissions this year. So please take a look, and good luck to each of our entrants…

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CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS (AVALON UNIVERSE)

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FALLEN HEROES (TREK SHORTS)

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KNIGHTS OF THE VOID (AVALON UNIVERSE)

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THE LOST STARSHIP (TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE)

Submissions for the 2024 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS are now complete. The window of eligibility to enter this year was January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023—a five-year range—although the majority of our submissions were released last year. Next time around, we’re going to shrink that window down to three years, as the judges and felt that five years is fine for a long-term starship mission but might be a little much for fan films.

This year, we have a very impressive 27 entries combining for a total of just under 9 hours of viewing for our 12 showrunner judges (including yours truly). Last year we had 21 entries with a combined runtime 5 and 2/3 hours. So once again, anyone saying that Star Trek fan films are “dead” is full of caca!

As we’ve done for the previous two years, the winners will be announced on Star Trek‘s anniversary of September 8, 2024. There are 23 categories this year, with three winners in each category: Admiral, Captain, and Commander level. I salute all of our 27 entrants for 2024, and I wish each of them the best of luck. (Honestly, I wish they ALL could win!)

I realize that I say this every year, but once again, we have some really amazing Star Trek fan films this time—of all different run times—that cover the gamut from comedic to dramatic to suspenseful to thoughtful to parody/farce and even a music video! Some are episodes of ongoing fan or fanthology series, others are stand-alone releases. There are fan films shot on sets, on location, on green screens, some with heavy VFX, some light on VFX, a few with elaborate make-up and costuming, cool props, and several really standout acting performances and even original music. We truly have some of the best of the best that the world of Star Trek fan films has to offer this year!

So I strongly encourage you to watch as many of these marvelous productions as you can. Here are all of our entries for 2024 alphabetically by title…

Continue reading “The 2024 SHOWRUNNER AWARDS now have their final 27 entries!”

Earlier this month, the winners of this year’s DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS were announced. Now it’s time for the other major award competition dedicated exclusively to fan films to kick off: the annual SHOWRUNNER AWARDS.

Unlike the Directors Choice Awards, which are open to fan films from any genre, the Showrunner Awards focus EXCLUSIVELY on Star Trek fan films…allowing our little niche of a niche of a niche both to shine as well as providing a friendly venue for Star Trek fan filmmakers to compete directly against each other.

As the name implies, the judging panel for the Showrunner Awards is made up of a dozen fan film showrunners, and I’ll spotlight them in an upcoming blog. Another unique aspect of the Showrunner Awards is that each of our nearly two-dozen categories recognizes THREE winners, with the top film in that category earning an Admiral Award, the second-place finisher receiving a Captain Award, and the third highest judged film winning a Commander Award. Each award is personalized for that fan film and sent to the entrant as a digital printable certificate.

A final element that distinguishes the Showrunner Awards is that the eligibility window for submission is more than just a single year. In fact, it is currently 5 years (anything released between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023), giving a fan film that may not have won in a previous year because of strong competition additional chances to earn an award (no film is allowed to win twice in the same category).

That said, it’s been recommended that we shorten the window from 5 years to a less expansive 3 years, and that will happen for next year’s awards. I was going to do it this year, but one of our judges rightly pointed out that such a major change should be announced beforehand just in case a filmmaker was waiting to enter an older fan film. So next year the window will shrink from 5 to 3 years, but we’re still at 5 years this go around.

As always, the cost is $10 per entry plus $1 for each category beyond Best Fan Film that the submitter wishes to enter—things like best director, best actor/actress, best VFX, best music, etc. This year, we’re adding a new category for Best Green Screen Compositing, bringing the total number of categories to 23.

The submission period is now open through May 31, 2023. After that, judges will have until the middle of August to view and vote for their top five fan films in each category, with the most points going to each judge’s top choices. (A showrunner judge is not allowed to vote for any of their own fan films in any of their top three slots.) Winners will be announced, as usual, on September 8, the anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek on NBC back in 1966.

Anyone can submit a nomination using the following form page:

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

Good luck!

Happy 57th Star Trek Anniversary, everyone! And just as I did exactly one year ago today, I am announcing the winners of this year’s SHOWRUNNER AWARDS!!

But first, I would like to thank the judges (each a showrunner himself) for once again doing an amazing job, watching five hours and 42 minutes of Star Trek fan films, and getting all of their ballots in before the August 15 deadline. We did have one judge reluctantly bow out due to time commitments—MARK LARGENT is working hard to finish the next (and last? I hope not!) STALLED TREK animated puppet parody THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE by later this year. And he wasn’t certain he’d have the time to watch and judge all 21 entries.

The remaining ten judges (in addition to yours truly) were…

• JOHN ATKIN – YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL
• SAMUEL COCKINGS – TREK SHORTS and TEMPORAL ANOMALY
• GARY DAVIS and RANDY WRENN – DREADNOUGHT DOMINION (and more!)
• JOSHUA IRWIN – THE AVALON UNIVERSE
• PAUL JACQUES – RAINCROSS
• GREG LOCK – AMBUSH
• JEFF NORD – COMMANDERS OF STARFLEET
• IAN RAMSEY – STAR REKT parody music videos
• DAN REYNOLDS – THE FEDERATION FILES and WARP 66 STUDIOS

As we did last year, the scoring worked in the following way. For each of the 22 categories (four of them brand new this year), every judge would vote for his top five choices in descending order (his own fan film(s) could NOT be in the top three slots). In the final tally, each top choice would get 10 points. The second choice would get 7 points. The third would get 5 points, then 3, and finally 1 for the last choice. Then I would add up the total number of points in each category, determining a first place (Admiral Award), second place (Captain Award), and third place (Commander Award) winner.

This year’s voting produced some unexpected results. In some categories, the three winners were far, far ahead of the rest of the pack, having banked many of the top two or three spots from a majority of judges. (Those 10 and 7 scores stack up quickly!) In some other categories, things were a bit closer, with only a few points keeping nominees out of the top-level award tiers. And for Best Fan Film, there was only a ONE POINT difference separating the first and second place winners. Exciting!!!

Continue reading “Announcing the 2023 Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARD WINNERS!”

While all of the fan film award competitions feature categories that are common to every contest—like best fan film, best director, best actor, best music, etc.—what makes life extra interesting are categories that are unique to each competition. For example, the DIRECTORS CHOICE AWARDS have categories for Best Ensemble Cast and Best Portrayal of an Existing Character…categories that other fan film contests don’t offer.

In the case of the SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, we just added four new categories this year for Best Props, Best Original Set Design, Funniest Fan Film, and Most Clever Easter Egg. But returning from last year is one of our most unique categories—and one of my personal favorites!—Best Short Scene. This award is for a single sequence from a fan film that is two minutes or shorter, a sequence that is particularly exciting or gripping or dramatic or memorable. The standout elements can be the acting, writing, directing, editing, VFX, music, or any combination. The question is: which short scene does a judge find to be most impactful?

Last year, we had ten fan films that entered submissions into this category. This year, only five submissions came in for Best Scene, but they are each excellent! And best of all, each has a 60% chance of winning an award because we present an Admiral Award, Captain Award, and Commander Award in each category. (Remember that for next year, fan filmmakers: enter a short scene for a good chance at winning!)

I’ve just started creating the online ballot for the judges to record their votes in each of our 22 categories (that is a lot of work for both me to make the form and them to watch everything and fill it out!). And I need a convenient place for them to access all the short scenes in one place. What could be more convenient than a blog page, right?

If you’d like to view all of this year’s 23 fan film entries in their entirety, click here. But now net’s take a look at the five submissions for this year’s Best Short Scene, in alphabetical order by fan film…

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From DOOMSDAY…

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From THE NEEDS OF THE ONE…

From OUTBREAK…

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From RESISTANCE…

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From YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL…

Submissions for this year’s Star Trek Fan Film SHOWRUNNER AWARDS are now complete. It feels like only yesterday when I announced the entrants for last year’s inaugural competition! (Well, maybe not yesterday…but certainly not a full year ago!!!) For our previous running, we had a whopping 38 Star Trek fan films submitted, totaling just a smidge under 13 hours of viewing time for our twelve judges.

This year, our number of entrants is a smidge below two-thirds of that: 21 fan films. That lower total isn’t too surprising to me. Last year, a quarter of our submissions came from one person, VANVE MAJOR, who decided to enter TEN of his CONSTAR saga fan films! Vance, who announced his final retirement from Star Trek fan filmmaking last year, has decided to sit it out this time, which is fine.

Other fan films like SQUADRON, THE HOLY CORE, BEYOND THE SUN, AGENT OF NEW WORLDS, PACIFIC 201, INTERLUDE, STAR TREK: FIRST FRONTIER, and CHANCE ENCOUNTER won enough awards last year that their creators didn’t feel the need to enter again, as a fan film is only allowed to win once in any specific category. One fan films has returned this year for a second chance at the winners’ circle, but most haven’t, resulting in fewer entries.

And speaking of entering the same film multiple times, I’m considering shortening the window of eligibility from 5 years to something less, like only 2 or 3 years. I still feel strongly that fan films should get at least one extra chance to compete, rather than being eligible in only a single year. But while the first year’s submissions spanned the full five years of eligibility (2017-2021), all but 3 of our 21 submissions for this year were for fan films released during the previous calendar year of 2022. It’s certainly something for the judges and me to discuss going into 2024’s contest, but feel free to chime in with a blog comment or e-mail to me your thoughts.

In the meantime, I am very excited about this year’s entrants because there will be ample more widely-competitive categories this time. Last year cleared out many of the “giants” (from a whole bunch of years) that were, admittedly, extremely hard to compete against. But that leaves this year with a significantly more level playing field.

So while the judges have only about 60% as many films to watch and judge this year (and only 5 and 2/3 hours needed to view them all), I suspect that judging those submissions is going to be MUCH harder. We shall see.

Like last year, the winners will be announced on Star Trek‘s anniversary of September 8, 2023. There are 22 categories this year, with three winners in each category: Admiral, Captain, and Commander level. I salute all of our 21 entrants for 2023, and I wish each of them the best of luck and encourage you, the reader, to watch as many as you can…

Continue reading “The 2023 SHOWRUNNER AWARDS now have their final 21 entries!”