On Saturday September 17th, just shy of Star Trek's 45th anniversary, Hidden Frontier will release its final filmed Star Trek episode on the Hidden Frontier website forums. www.hiddenfrontier.com/forums/ This release brings closure to two of the most anticipated shows at Hidden Frontier, Star Trek: Odyssey, and Star Trek: The Helena Chronicles. Both shows are combined in their final and third season in this 2+ hour release, the longest ever all-at-once release of any fan made Star Trek show on the internet. The forums will be setup for live discussion and commentary as the links are given out and we say farewell to our video productions. Hidden Frontier will continue to produce it's audio series, Henglaar M.D. as a spinoff/continuation of the massive Hidden Frontier Trek universe. Over the course of 11 years, HFP produced more than ten Star Trek series or specials and an original sci-fi series with the longest being the namesake, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier which ran from 2000-2007. Star Trek: Odyssey and The Helena Chronicles began in 2007. We wish to thank everyone that helped make Hidden Frontier the long running success that it became. Join us for the final hurrah!
Thanks for letting us know. I've been curious about the next, and now the last episode. I got into late, but I have to commend the Hidden Frontier folks for putting out a very ambitious and at times compelling production. With some of the storylines, characters, and action, it rivaled or bested CBS-Paramount's stuff. I thought the Archein was one of the better antagonists we've seen in a Trek setting in a long time.
Hidden Frontier Productions have put out lots of excellent shows over the years. I am looking forward to this in a bittersweet fashion. Rob Caves and cast/crew did an excellent job and they will be missed.
I think it's unfortunate the degree to which HF has transitioned to audio, and now it's even moreso with this being the last filmed release. The audio transition seriously damped my enthusiasm for Federation One; I think I tried listening to one episode but it's just much harder to pay attention and care. I still haven't tried Henglaar MD. Nothing can last forever, but I felt HF Productions was really gearing up into an interesting place a year or two ago, and now it's fizzling. Not sure what happened there.
Lindley, people have lives. I don't know any of these folk, I'm just a watcher and fan film fan, but I'm always surprised that people can set aside time and money to make EVEN ONE of these films. Given the lack of output from Paramount, I am grateful to whatever output there is. If you have a car and a way to listen to audio when in the car that will not cut off the street noises, you might want to try downloading audio Trek for long drives or regular commutes.
I began just after the 5th season watching the whole series in two weeks!! I'd found the website ages before streaming the Season 1 premiere teaser - but my bandwith did not like it!! But I did get hooked and eagerly anticipated each new episode. What is unique about Hidden Frontier is that they are the only group to make a massive 50 episodes in 7 years, but the quality did technically get better. What I believe makes it special though is the quality of storytelling, developing the characters such as Knapp, Shelby, Henglaar, Nevin etc. just as a real TV show would, paying close attention to arcs and continuity. I bet alot of HF characters popularity with fans will rival some from the series. What got me hooked was The Battle Is Joined teaser, a pleasant surprise of HF introducing gay storylines to the Trek world. Then there's the first full-blown crossover possibly in all Trek history (barring Trials and Tribble-Ations!!!) with Intrepid. It's funny that with many groups doing fanfilms in the States they choose a Scottish production, but on the bright side they fly the flag for Great Britain! Also it makes it all part of a wider Trek Universe Of course the Odyssey, Helena Chronicles and Federation One spinoffs were also great. I confess I'm not really into the audio stuff, but I eagerly await the conclusion to what's been a heck of a journey. I'm sure some characters will continue after in some form. Hidden Frontier Productions, I salute you!!
For those of us who'll be attending a meeting of a Star Trek club when the finale will initially be aired (that includes me), can you let us know when and where the rest of us can take in the episode?
Download/online viewing (YouTube and Vimeo) options will undoubtedly be made public on the Hidden Frontier website as with the other video releases.
The film will be the "last" release, although there will be one more HFP video release (unless things have changed dramatically and no one told me) - a "remastering" of the original Voyages of the USS Angeles film was underway around the same time filming was wrapping on this project. The two releases would "bookend" the video saga. As for audio ongoing and the "fizzling" of video...I'll give you my particular perspective as an "outsider" to the video team but who has taken lead roles in support of HFP's wiki, forums and its longest-running audio series. Barb put it pretty well, I think - people have lives. If you factor in Angeles, some people, Rob included, have volunteered well over a dozen years to these series. As a long-time volunteer myself, people change, they burn out, they want to move on to other projects or interests, particularly after that much time doing the same thing. Heck, I picked up producing audio dramas after a dozen years as an international volunteer event producer. New challenges and such. Also, while these series are free to view, they were not free to make by any means, even with the contributions of money and materiel that the fans made over the years. Given how the economy soured over the latter phase of HFP's video productions...I have no doubt that had an impact on how things developed. FED has had its share of difficulties, not the least of which was its transition to audio. Having worked on the last two audio releases of that particular series, I am aware that there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that went on. But I'm not going there. I will say that FED was originally planned to be something of a "mini-series" in video which was to have been expanded upon being moved over to audio. That part of it didn't exactly come to fruition as planned (only four episodes in the first audio/second season - I believe the plan was originally around twice that number). There are enough story arcs and such to permit a third season should FED's showrunner opt to do so. Right now, the show is on "hiatus". As with all such efforts, there's always another generation to pick up the proverbial torch. With the HF props and costumes are now pretty much spread to the four winds, audio is the logical continuation of the stories we started telling, at least in my mind. It is far cheaper to produce and permits a broader selection of actors and potential environments than the video "model" did. Since I started producing Henglaar, M.D. in 2009, the only money I've spent has been optional (picking up a copy of Final Draft 8 and upgrading my computer to better handle Audition CS5.5). As for casting, I'm not limited, as the video productions were, to people in the L.A. area or those willing/able to travel for the shoots. I've got actors in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom working on the show. We're also not limited in terms of where we can set our scenes. While HMD tends to being a "bottle show", as we'll be proving in our season finale and subsequent two-part season opener, we can go to other worlds, possibly more convincingly than could have been done with green screen. Personally, I'd like to see HFP audio grow. Aside from FED and HMD, we've had audio episodes of Angeles and Odyssey. I think that's just a taste of the possibilities. There's ten years of HF/Intrepid canon out there (on top of the original canon), a lot of plot points that could be synthesized into new stories, not to mention just new stories that could be told. As has been noted here, the interest in audio is less than that for video. I would hope, however, that if we tell a good story, video or not, we'll eventually reach our intended audience. Will someone pick up the video "torch"? I don't know. Pulling together the necessary equipment, props and costumes would be an undertaking to say the least and that's before you get to writing solid scripts and casting solid actors. Intrepid, to me, is the logical successor/continuation of the HF legacy, especially given its roots. Could there be more than that? I hope so. Trust me, I know enough people (myself included), who would try to reassemble things were we to win the lottery tomorrow. Otherwise...we'll see.
Can you give me any guesstimate as to when the feature will be posted? I only ask because I review independent productions in my "Fan Film Friday" column, and if I know it will be available next week, I'd definitely review it. On the other hand, if it's not coming out for a short while, knowing that would be helpful, too.
You mean this: >>On Saturday September 17th, just shy of Star Trek's 45th anniversary, Hidden Frontier will release its final filmed Star Trek episode on the Hidden Frontier website forums.<<And this: >>The exact release time, as noted in the forums, is 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.<< So the episode will only be available once in the forum section of the Hidden Frontier Website? I've seen several fan films have a big debut and then not get their epics posted for the rest of us for several days and even weeks. I'm particularly interested in reviewing the episode, which sometimes takes me a couple of times viewing to be sure I have it right. Any further information on the availability for viewing at other times?
Call me crazy but don't the Hidden Frontier people host their own films on their site? Is it not reasonable to assume that "release on the forums" is the same thing? Or will this first release be a "members only" release kind of thing as they used to do with Hidden Frontier episodes?
To everyone involved in the making of any of the Hidden Frontier Productions, I just want to say: thank you.
The Hidden Frontier group has done some amazing work in the face of incredible obstacles. I hope they are able to keep their vision intact through the audio work. There's an old joke in radio that radio beats TV because the pictures are better! Keep going HF!
Per Rob, the initial release will be on YouTube (streaming), so that link will be public. It also won't go away once the "event" is over. Vimeo will undoubtedly follow, as will the download option via the HFP website, but no details have been made available as yet.
Rob has indicated that there will not be a second season of Frontier Guard, at least not for now. Part of the event tomorrow will be an announcement about where HFP will go from here - it's sounding like Rob has something cooking, but I have no idea what it is (and even if I did, I wouldn't spoil it).