Now On-Line: "New Orders" - a Star Trek fan production

"New Orders"
a Star Trek fan production



After an incident, Commander Janice Rand has left the Excelsior and Captain Sulu behind. Her new orders from Commodore Eugene Alwine of Starbase 211 and the U.S.S. Triton leave her wondering what the heck is going on? Starring Shelton E. Walker as Commodore Alwine and Stephanie DeRienzo as Commander Janice Rand.

Written by Elizabeth Knauel. Triton theme and music by Steve Gallant. VFX by Ross Trowbridge and Michael Day. Directed by Jason Furman. Edited by Randall Landers. Co-Producer: Lee Drew. Associate Producer & Webmaster: Michael Day. Producer: David MacKenzie. Co-Executive Producer: Rick Foxx. Executive Producer: Randall Landers.

A new fan film from the Starship Triton creative group!

 

Great fanfilm. Nice to see Janice Rand again. I look forward to watching the adventures of the Triton and Janice Rand looks a really fanfilm series.

 

The STARSHIP TRITON Creative Team won't shoot often (1 or 2 per year), but Commodore Alwine and/or Commander Rand will have quite an impact on all our productions.

 

I have to be honest and say that production issues derailed this for me.

The set was the biggest problem in that its obvious 21st century-ness just made difficult the willing suspension of disbelief. The printer/copier/whatever at the front desk, the contemporary restroom sign, the calculator, monitors (displaying nothing, let alone anything Starfleet-y) and computer keyboards, the posters, the plastic nose (?), the printer, etc. And who was that reflected in the glass of the picture frame/mirror behind the Commodore? It was all very distracting.

I get that these are no-budget affairs, but just putting people in costumes cannot carry the day. Better a bare set than an anachronistic one. Easy to miss what's not there, but much harder to ignore what's in your face.

The continuity of Rand's position in the doorway was all over the place. Seen from inside she was standing right at the threshold, but in the reverse from outside she's clearly several feet into the room (made really obvious when she sits down without stepping further in).

 

We were just delighted to have a location outside our studio we could film at. Sorry it didn't work for you.

 

I could stand for a bit more of this.

 

I can see that you'd be happy to have a change of location. I just think it would have been more effective to have made a small effort to avoid the most obvious anachronisms, like moving the Qwerty keyboards off the desk.

 

Naw, I'm not going into a location that someone has graciously allowed us to use and rearrange their offices.

 

I thought it was a fun statement to Alwine's disposition towards modern technology.
I'll just get rid of the the line where the Orion spy tries to talk into the mouse. Better yet, I'll smack the delete key before anyone sees it.

 

Oh heaven forbid frame the shots not to feature them.

 

Did I miss something? How did Rand "screw up"? And why would so much of the crew want to bail on Sulu??

What was Rand's title again? I've listened a few times and can't catch it all. And she's the exec on a starship? Those are two very big hats to wear. Either position is a full-time job, don't see how anyone can do both. Am I to assume that the Commodore has a job on the Star Base (if so, what is it??) and is also in command of the ship, USS Triton?? Again, sounds like too much for one person.

I'll chalk it up to budget cuts: "do more with less". What the politicians fail to realize is eventually you end up doing less with less.

 

Again, it didn't matter to us. Sorry it's of such paramount importance to you, Maurice. If you'd like to send us a box of props and stuff to sit around someone's office (in addition to the Starfleet Technical Manual and Federation-labeled laptop on the commodore's desk) while we're filming, feel free to do so. We'd be glad to accept such a gift to our production.

We will learn more about that in future productions, but it's mostly going to remain backstory.

It's basically the function of the TRITON to conduct matters of diplomacy, and to investigate such matters concerning the Federation in Quadrant 9, Sector 72. I will quite readily concede it's too much for one person to do, but she has an investigatory team aboard the Triton to help out. Commodore Alwine has oversight of Quadrant 9, Sector 72. We've seen the TRITON's command crew in action in "A Gathering Storm." The commodore also appears from time to time in upcoming films to issue orders to various captains.

If you'll recall, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, one of the admirals was concerned that Starfleet was scaling back its operations, so I think you're probably correct in this regard.

 

I always enjoy your work, great job.

 

^^^

I'm not here to quarrel. But for the record I said "Better a bare set than an anachronistic one" and that one could have framed the shots so as to omit the anachronistic elements, so testily suggesting I send you a box of props is just a patellar reflex that misrepresents my comments.

As you said, "it didn't matter to us." Fine. That's a choice. But every decision in a creative work may or may not work to its benefit, and it's not any audience's fault if it does or doesn't work for them. The audience is always right about what they do and don't like.

 

We all get it. You didn't like it. Fine. You're just beating a dead horse, Maurice. If you want to continue, feel free to do so. I'm moving on.

 

Wait. What? You mischaracterize my criticism and when I call you on it I'm supposedly beating a dead horse?

Honestly, and I mean this sincerely, do you want actual feedback or just kudos?

 

In Maurice's defense, and this is a bit of honest feedback (for this I apologize)

I stopped paying attention to Potemkin's films long ago because they felt like people playing dress up, none of the stories seemed "Star Trek" to me, they were just people hanging out in costume. Lets hang out in a Bar in costume episode, lets hang out in a park in costume episode. When you film in an environment that does not match the era of the story you are telling it takes away from the immersive experience. Having 21st century objects in a 23rd century production where it is emulating a specific universe where 23rd century devices look nothing like 21st century devices, it takes away the credibility of the story. The longer 30-45 minute episodes showed potential, but then it seemed that the production turned to 4-5 minute stories format that seem to get rushed from concept to released, and don't really have much (if any of a story). But they do seem to fit with-in the CBS guidelines where no story can relate to anything previously made. If these short episodes were more serialized, and time was more spent on production making every detail seem as close to trek as possible, this production would have more value.

If money and space is an issue, consider doing a green screen production, it's relatively easy to do today, and there are even open source free application ways of doing it. A CGI set could be built, from there it would be a matter of math, figuring out your camera angles and applying to a 3d scene, then rendering out some still images. (Hidden frontier did this for about 10 years before they shut down.) With some compositing trickery you could get a very good looking product (Look at what ST: Horizon did with 100% green screen). Additionally doing animation based fan films is getting easier and easier to do each year, new applications such as Adobe Character Animator make it incredibly easy to do 2d character animation. Or you could even do 3d using open source with Blender, and make a basic motion capture studio under $100 using a Kinect.

That being said, I do think it is admirable that Potemkin has released a large amount of content over a relatively small time, they seem to release new content every single month. And Randy is very passionate with what they do. Potemkin seems to be the only active fan film at this time.

 

Are you only happy with “thank you sir, may I have another?” Not everyone considers you the last word on what does or doesn’t work. I find your critiques interesting and informative. I do not consider them above discussion.

 

Again, my objection was the mischaracterization (buy us a box of props when that wasn't what I was saying at all) of my fairly mild comment about what knocked me out of the story and the subsequent bald attempt to make me seem unreasonable for actually pointing out said mischaracterization (beating a dead horse). I said why something did not work for me. If the 20th century office did not knock you out of the story, then feel free to comment on that as a counter.

And my question was an honest one. If people only want rose petals thrown in their path and not feedback, they ought to say so.

 

May I suggest that people take a step back from their keyboards. It seems to me that folks are reading a far more aggressive tone into posts than is actually there. If you were having these discussions in a bar, or over dinner, it would never be like this, and I doubt anyone would be getting their feelings bruised.

As someone who knows Maurice very well, I can attest that he is not someone who believes himself the final arbiter on anything, and to suggest otherwise is unfair. Is he blunt? Yes, but malicious? Not at all.

Look, I know how much criticism smarts, I’ve had more than my share of it, usually deservedly, over the years. But right or wrong, there’s nothing to be gained by getting into an argument. Please everyone, just agree to disagree and move on.