BREAKING: Official Fan Film Guidelines Issued

[Shaka Zulu]

CBS and Paramount were forced into this by the actions of Alec Peters. There's nothing ridiculous about their guidelines. They're actually very generous when you consider the conduct of Axanar. C/P could've killed fan films altogether. Instead, they released guidelines that are far less restrictive than those put out by Disney for Star Wars.

Am I happy about this? Hell no. It's terrible that STC and NV will be forced to close up shop. But I have zero ill will toward CBS/Paramount in all of this.

So do I. And the person to blame for this is Alec Peters, but most people will be blaming CBS and Paramount anyway, and are now threatening a boycott of the new movie and upcoming TV show because they feel they 'have a right' to make fan films as before.

 

[Avon]

some fan film makers could take this as a sign to move off into their own universes. make some indie scifi stuff. be able to monetize it legit.

realise this isn't doable or interesting for everyone, and a lot of the appeal is that its star trek, but this doesn't seem like a complete disaster to me.

 

[Indysolo]

And the person to blame for this is Alec Peters, but most people will be blaming CBS and Paramount anyway, and are now threatening a boycott of the new movie and upcoming TV show because they feel they 'have a right' to make fan films as before.

Neil

 

[Shaka Zulu]

CBS and Paramount must be pissed that most Fan Productions are infinitely better than the last two Trek films

According to who? You and a few fans on the Internet vs. the millions of fans and casual moviegoers worldwide?

Neil

 

[QuantumMechanic]

I know it's wishful thinking, but maybe after the Axanar case is officially completed, CBS/P could be willing to revisit the guidelines a bit for productions willing to jump through more hoops and red tape to make sure they don't make any money off the IP.

For example, maybe CBS could add something like "If you are an IRS-approved 501(c)(3), pay zero compensation to anyone on your board of directors, and make available to us at our request at any time copies of all payments of over $500 to anyone, you may release up to two films of at most 45 minutes each per year. Each film must have its own story. However, you may have continuing characters from film to film and year to year."

The idea being that (a) this would make it hard for anyone to actually make money off it, (b) that amount of red tape would make it too much trouble for anyone who's not really serious about it so CBS would not have to keep tabs on lots of productions, and (c) would prevent any movie-like thing from being made.

Though again, I'm sure it's wishful thinking that CBS/P would do that. But a man can dream!

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

This isn't the Trekpocalypse. Our reaction to these guidelines are because we've been spoiled by this Golden Age of Fan Productions. Or is the Third Age of Mankind? (I get those confused a lot.)

It had to end sometime.

But instead of looking at these guidelines as a noose, see them as an opportunity. Constraints are wonderful things for creatives. It's liberating and forces you to think even more outside the box. Take a page for Nicholas Meyer and embrace the limitations, as he did in TWOK (limited budget, confined to pre-built sets, etc.).

Wonderful stories can be created, as been pointed out in this very thread, in 15 minutes or less. And fan creators really have 30 minutes to play with, broken into two chunks of 15 minutes. As Doug Drexler said, you can tell a compelling tale in less than that.

This is also a chance for those who've toiled in fan productions to take what they've learned and create new projects. Original projects. Stories of their own divorced from anything STAR TREK.

This isn't the end. It's just the next era of fan productions.

Haven't they succeeded at creating their commercial studio? Industry Studios, principle owner Robert Meyer Burnett (who brought the lease for an undisclosed sum from Axanar Productions), is open for business and already has been rented for Star Thieves. I think they already have what they really want from all this.

Has that actually been confirmed that RMB is now the principle Ares-cum-Valkyrie-cum-Industry Studios? Is there a paper trail? @carlosp, have you seen anything?

 

[mos6507]

I know I'm beating a dead horse here with some people but I think the combination of running-time and no-series restrictions as worded are not going to result in some creative explosion of compact art-house fare "La Jettee meets Trek" but rather stuff like this.

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When you don't have any time to establish characters, you go for the humor and nothing else. (and this kind of stuff is arguably already fair-use as parody).

It will be fans "having fun" with Trek--at a wading-pool level.

 

[Timewalker]

He typed 6 : 48 and it's obvious he meant 6 minutes 48 seconds.

It wasn't "obvious" to me. Your snark is unwarranted.

 

[Tom Servo]

I know I'm beating a dead horse here with some people but I think the combination of running-time and no-series restrictions as worded are not going to result in some creative explosion of compact art-house fare "La Jettee meets Trek" but rather stuff like this.

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When you don't have any time to establish characters, you go for the humor and nothing else. (and this kind of stuff is arguably already fair-use as parody).

It will be fans "having fun" with Trek--at a wading-pool level.

That doesn't mean that at all. At all. You should certainly be able to tell a story with compelling characters in the time allowed. We see it in quality short films all the time. If someone cannot, then that speaks more to their qualities as a writer then anything about what TPTB have done. Some of the greatest films ever made were made under extreme restrictions, and a lot of the time those restrictions help more then they hurt, even if the filmmaker doesn't see it at the time. Frankly, the problem with a lot of fan writing and productions are bloated stories and plotlines, and these restrictions may help that.

 

[mos6507]

That doesn't mean that at all. At all. You should certainly be able to tell a story with compelling characters in the time allowed.

But will they? The Klingon video has 5 million hits and counting (over twice of Prelude to Axanar). Doing the humorous mashups and vignettes is the easy road out and it gets the most attention. The appeal of doing a fan-film, playing in someone else's sandbox, is it helps give your work attention it never would have as an original. Attention is a big draw, and you get the most attention either by claiming to be able to recreate something like TOS (on the high end) or doing the silly clips in the hopes they'll go viral. One-off artsy type things will get no hits.

 

[BillJ]

Attention is a big draw, and you get the most attention either by claiming to be able to recreate something like TOS (on the high end)...

Just mimicking TOS is not anymore creative than a five-minute music video.

 

[Noname Given]

.

axanar poked the bear. The bear got mad

Axanar did a bit more than just "Poke the Bear" per se:
They poked the Bear, then continued to try and skin the Bear and sell the Bear's meat while the Bear was still active and alive. The Bear was finally and effectively forced to take action and slap Axanar down hard. Unfortunately there were others stinging the Bear just a bit and they got caught in the Bear's 'slap' to a much lesser degree but are now affected going forward.

 

[Firebird]

CBS was still willing to look the other way, but it has to be telling when YouTube pulled STC's "White Iris" on their own for copyright infringement.

It was found out that the video was pulled on a false alarm, and CBS actually helped STC to get the video back on YouTube. I think that's a bit more telling about their relationship.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

@jespah and any other attorneys here...

Do the guidelines create any sort of enforceable reliance interest (using the term generally)? If someone makes a public statement "If you do X I won't sue you" and you do X and they sue you anyway, do you have any sort of detrimental reliance-ish defense?

 

[montalban]

Just mimicking TOS is not anymore creative than a five-minute music video.

But it is providing a level of nostalgia that is appealing to a great number of fans.

And really, that's the ultimate goal with most of Star Trek fandom, whether it's a group of fans meticulously trying to recreate an old tv series or a Hollywood director promising to take audiences back to what they loved about said tv series in the first place.

 

[BillJ]

But it is providing a level of nostalgia that is appealing to a great number of fans.

Nostalgia leads us to non-sense like "Make America Great Again". If one can't add something unique to the Star Trek universe, I honestly don't see the point.

 

[T'Arwen]

It will be interesting to see if the new Star Trek series also conforms to CBS’s own high standards in this regards. Directors are already commenting that one of the advantages of having Star Trek on a streaming service, and not on TV, is that they can push the boundaries.

Judging from JJTrek and ENT, I doubt it. ENT had profanity on a NETWORK. If the new show is going on streaming, which doesn't have any kind of decency restrictions, why would they follow their own rules? I know many people have said CBS/Paramount doesn't have to be fair but it's completely hypocritical. As your video from a few pages back says, it might not be the smartest thing to do in terms of fan relations.

So do I. And the person to blame for this is Alec Peters, but most people will be blaming CBS and Paramount anyway, and are now threatening a boycott of the new movie and upcoming TV show because they feel they 'have a right' to make fan films as before.

It's more of a response to RCAM, whose post I can't find. But I was under the impression that Disney's guidelines for Star Wars were just for the contest (which was the only thing I could find when I googled it). Trek guidelines are a lot broader, for everything on Youtube. He (or she?) was talking apples and oranges. FYI, many in the pro-Axanar camp call Disney the good guy for sanctioning fan films.

 

[drt]

It was found out that the video was pulled on a false alarm, and CBS actually helped STC to get the video back on YouTube. I think that's a bit more telling about their relationship.

Agreed regarding the relationship, my point was that YouTube pulled it thinking it violated Trek copyright, which means it was close enough to cause confusion.

 

[BillJ]

Agreed regarding the relationship, my point was that YouTube pulled it thinking it violated Trek copyright, which means it was close enough to cause confusion.

You do realize that they probably looked at 15 seconds of the episode before making their decision. They are policing millions of videos.

 

[trynda1701]

For every Vic or James Cawley willing to be respectful, there is a hundred APs who just don't care about the rules.

Unfortunately!