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Star Trek: Axanar

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Terry -- have guys you hired a line producer?

According to imdb, Prelude To Axanar and Renegades share the same line producer (though the Axanar feature doesn't have one credited yet). So Tom should be able to chip in as well.
 
On top of a $23 million pilot (1995 dollars), Voyager was spending $3,500,000/ep in 2002 (IMDB again), or $4,642,800 (round).

1) Voyager concluded its production in April, 2001.

2) It's important to remember that "Caretaker" was overbudget due to several mitigating factors. The production lost a day when Winrich Kolbe became ill. And another two days after Bujold quit and Mulgrew was hired, having to re-shoot the scenes Bujold had completed.

Mulgrew's hair and makeup was a cause of major concern by the studio, network and executives. Michael Piller is quoted saying on the Season One DVD special features: "We had to go back and reshoot major footage. I can honestly say this is probably the only Star Trek pilot in which the hairdressing cost more than the special effects." :lol:

That $23,000,000 final budget also included converting the TNG sets to the new Voyager sets, major reshoots of some scenes featuring Janeway and her previous hair/makeup, which then had to be re-shot two months after being completed and requiring the re-construction of sets that had been dismantled, extensive visual effects and multiple location shoots. According to Memory Alpha it became the most expensive episode in the entire franchise.


Couldn't find a good number for "Broken Bow" either, but in 2001 Enterprise was costing ~$5 million/per ($6,737,400 rounded), again per IMDB

Memory Alpha mentions that "Broken Bow" cost less than half what "Caretaker" did.

Wasn't Enterprise budget quiet a bit lower than that? We know it got slashed later on, but I could have sworn that I'd read the actual number was something like 2-3million. With inflation, that would put it around the same ballpark as TNG.

The only place I can find sourcing 5 mill is IMDB, so that's why I'm so cynical about it.

There's some reports that Broken Bow cost around 10-15 mill. That number may or may not include the building the longstanding sets.
http://www.trektoday.com/news/261201_01.shtml
 
I would be curious to see an actual production budget for Axanar showing where the $1.3 million (plus what's already been spent and raised) is going, but I'm not a contributor to the production, so it's really their prerogative to release that publicly or not.

A production budget would be, I think, a fascinating document to read. I'd love to see one myself. Terry -- have guys you hired a line producer?

Aye, our Line Producer is Mike DeMeritt, who, coincidentally (due to this conversation on canon budgets) was an LP and the SAD (second assistant director) on both Voyager and Enterprise. =)
 
Terry -- have guys you hired a line producer?

According to imdb, Prelude To Axanar and Renegades share the same line producer (though the Axanar feature doesn't have one credited yet). So Tom should be able to chip in as well.

Frank Zanca was the LP on Renegades and Prelude to Axanar, 'tis true, however to my knowledge he is no longer involved with Axanar. Our new LP is Mike DeMerritt from VOY and ENT.

We've been lax in updating the IMDb page... in fact I don't even know whose responsibility that is at the moment, but I've added that to the to-do list.
 
1) Voyager concluded its production in April, 2001.

Voyager's last season was the 2001-2002 season (7 years after it's debut in fall 1995.

Just to be thorough, using 2001 dollars as a start would be $4,716,200 (rounded).

2) It's important to remember that "Caretaker" was overbudget due to several mitigating factors. The production lost a day when Winrich Kolbe became ill. And another two days after Bujold quit and Mulgrew was hired, having to re-shoot the scenes Bujold had completed.

Mulgrew's hair and makeup was a cause of major concern by the studio, network and executives. Michael Piller is quoted saying on the Season One DVD special features: "We had to go back and reshoot major footage. I can honestly say this is probably the only Star Trek pilot in which the hairdressing cost more than the special effects." :lol:

That $23,000,000 final budget also included converting the TNG sets to the new Voyager sets, major reshoots of some scenes featuring Janeway and her previous hair/makeup, which then had to be re-shot two months after being completed and requiring the re-construction of sets that had been dismantled, extensive visual effects and multiple location shoots. According to Memory Alpha it became the most expensive episode in the entire franchise.
Fair enough. What do you propose as a good adjustment? 30%? More?


Couldn't find a good number for "Broken Bow" either, but in 2001 Enterprise was costing ~$5 million/per ($6,737,400 rounded), again per IMDB
Memory Alpha mentions that "Broken Bow" cost less than half what "Caretaker" did.

Ok, using half of "Caretaker" as an upper limit, or $11.5 million, that would be $15,496,000 (figured out how to get around the limit of my calculator).
 
Ok, putting it all in one place for clarity sake, here are the pilots in 2015 dollars:

The Cage $4,740,300
Encounter at Farpoint U/A ($3,401,800/ep)
Emissary $19,817,688
Caretaker $37,035,600 (including cost overruns)
Broken Bow $18,517,800 (upper limit)
 
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I assume that is in '66 dollars?

That would be$4,535,500 (rounded) today.

Out of curiosity, how did you find that #? My Google-Fu utterly failed me.

1964 dollars.

I pulled the figure from the original production budget at UCLA. Not sure if it's online.

$4,740,300

That's interesting as far as it goes, but like I said before, comparing the cost of producing a fan film to the cost of producing a for-profit network television pilot is like comparing apples and oranges.

Going back to that $201k budget for Adonais, there's just short of $46k allocated to post-production costs. That includes $18k for lab processing fees. Elsewhere in the budget, an additional $12k was allocated to 35mm film and processing. That's a total of $30k (about 15% of the total budget) that Axanar won't have to deal with, since it will be digital and the comparable charges will be a fraction of that.

There's also a $9k charge for cutting and editing with Adonais as well. I would hope that it doesn't take 4.5% of the Axanar budget to cover RMB's editing fee.

To do any kind of useful analysis, you'd have to have two actual production budgets, know what % of the crews were union, and probably a whole host of other factors.
 
1) Voyager concluded its production in April, 2001.

Voyager's last season was the 2001-2002 season (7 years after it's debut in fall 1995.

No, it wasn't. You are 1000% incorrect.

For the first, Voyager did not debut in the fall of 1995. Its truncated 16-episode season began with the broadcast of "Caretaker" January 16, 1995. I remember, because I watched it live as it was broadcast for the first time. I was a Freshman in high school.

Secondly, I vividly recall watching the final season of Voyager as it aired, beginning in the fall of 2000, and concluding with the broadcast of its final episode "Endgame," on May 23, 2001.

Four months later, Enterprise premiered.

Your attention to factual detail is sorely lacking.
 
right but it sounds to me that a lot of that 23M should of been amortized ( distributed out over the life of the project) -yes it is a captial cost, but you need dem sets people
 
Terry -- have guys you hired a line producer?

According to imdb, Prelude To Axanar and Renegades share the same line producer (though the Axanar feature doesn't have one credited yet). So Tom should be able to chip in as well.

Frank Zanca was the LP on Renegades and Prelude to Axanar, 'tis true, however to my knowledge he is no longer involved with Axanar. Our new LP is Mike DeMerritt from VOY and ENT.

We've been lax in updating the IMDb page... in fact I don't even know whose responsibility that is at the moment, but I've added that to the to-do list.

Yes, Frank was our line producer for STR, not only is he a true professional but so are the people he brought in to organize the production. He is also our line producer on another sci-fi production we are working on.

As for IMDB, that can be a pain to manage, sometimes you see people's names listed on you page that should not be there. It's a lot like Wikipedia where almost anyone can add things.
 
1) Voyager concluded its production in April, 2001.

Voyager's last season was the 2001-2002 season (7 years after it's debut in fall 1995.

No, it wasn't. You are 1000% incorrect.

For the first, Voyager did not debut in the fall of 1995. Its truncated 16-episode season began with the broadcast of "Caretaker" January 16, 1995. I remember, because I watched it live as it was broadcast for the first time. I was a Freshman in high school.

Secondly, I vividly recall watching the final season of Voyager as it aired, beginning in the fall of 2000, and concluding with the broadcast of its final episode "Endgame," on May 23, 2001.

Four months later, Enterprise premiered.

Your attention to factual detail is sorely lacking.

Either way, it didn't change the cost calculation that much, which is the only reason I was trying to pin that date down that specifically.

Now stop trolling me.

1964 dollars.

I pulled the figure from the original production budget at UCLA. Not sure if it's online.

$4,740,300

That's interesting as far as it goes, but like I said before, comparing the cost of producing a fan film to the cost of producing a for-profit network television pilot is like comparing apples and oranges.

Going back to that $201k budget for Adonais, there's just short of $46k allocated to post-production costs. That includes $18k for lab processing fees. Elsewhere in the budget, an additional $12k was allocated to 35mm film and processing. That's a total of $30k (about 15% of the total budget) that Axanar won't have to deal with, since it will be digital and the comparable charges will be a fraction of that.

There's also a $9k charge for cutting and editing with Adonais as well. I would hope that it doesn't take 4.5% of the Axanar budget to cover RMB's editing fee.

To do any kind of useful analysis, you'd have to have two actual production budgets, know what % of the crews were union, and probably a whole host of other factors.

And your point is what? That a pilot/fim with lots of volunteer labor is going to be produced cheaper than a Big Hollywood job? That's a given. Never suggested otherwise.

People were asking about/debating pilot costs to establish a baseline to compare Axanar against. I spent several hours over 2 days digging out the data as best I could.

I really don't understand this incessant need of some people to find ways to diminish or explain away the extraordinarily fine quality of Axanar.

Whatever the budgeting issues are, however they managed it, they have turned in so far product that is every bit as good as the BH efforts, and far superior to several.

They deserve to be praised for the accomplishment, not have it dismissed/excused out from under them.
 
Voyager's last season was the 2001-2002 season (7 years after it's debut in fall 1995.

No, it wasn't. You are 1000% incorrect.

For the first, Voyager did not debut in the fall of 1995. Its truncated 16-episode season began with the broadcast of "Caretaker" January 16, 1995. I remember, because I watched it live as it was broadcast for the first time. I was a Freshman in high school.

Secondly, I vividly recall watching the final season of Voyager as it aired, beginning in the fall of 2000, and concluding with the broadcast of its final episode "Endgame," on May 23, 2001.

Four months later, Enterprise premiered.

Your attention to factual detail is sorely lacking.

Either way, it didn't change the cost calculation that much, which is the only reason I was trying to pin that date down that specifically.

Do you understand though, how that really doesn't matter given that you were entirely wrong about the date?

Moreover, are you at least self-aware enough to recognize that in other threads you have championed yourself as being interested only in proven facts, and now you're fudging dates and brushing it off as irrelevant when someone dares to correct you when you get those dates wrong?

Where's the attention to factual detail now?

Now stop trolling me.

I wasn't trolling you, friend. I was pointing out that you were incorrect in your statement. Hardly a trolling offense.
 
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I really don't understand this incessant need of some people to find ways to diminish or explain away the extraordinarily fine quality of Axanar.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder. But quality shouldn't even be mentioned yet, because we haven't seen the fucking movie! :scream:
 
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