21 mins We're delighted to announce the release of..."The Beast" On its maiden voyage, the Hospital Ship Marie Curie finds a unique lifeform needing its medical services, and a foe who promises to be quite difficult. Starring Lillian Cole as Captain Gaia Starr, Veronica Dashell as Security Chief Jackson, Clayton Davis as Helm Officer Jones, Michael Hadden as Tactical Officer Burroughs, Staci Marshay as Science Officer Veena Hafen, Elisha McCartha as Comm Officer Kate Arson, Jakob McCartha as Cadet McKenna, and Zack Vice as Chief Engineer Robert Callahan. Guest starring Tilcia Furman as Captain Mona. With Amanda McGaha as a Science Officer. Written by Zack Vice. Directed by Terrell Manasco. Edited by Terrell Manasco and Randall Landers. VFX by Mark Berge. Music by Steve Gallant. Assistant: Producer Lee Drew. Associate Producer/Webmaster: Michael Day. Producer: David MacKenzie. Co-Executive Producer: Rick Foxx. Executive Producer: Randall Landers. Produced by Potemkin Pictures in 2018. From the Marie Curie Creative Group.
I appreciate the attempt to get away from the usual armed starship. If there are future installments I hope they'll not feel so obligated to use the ship-under-attack topos, which is the one thing that made this segment feel less fresh than it might have been otherwise.
On that and The Orion I agree. It's a new class of ship and should come with new challenges to overcome in the allotted time limit. Potemkin's mission is to include new and many times younger talented fans into the world of fan films and to quote Mr Spock "For everything, there is a first time."
I really liked this fanfilm helping out a an alien creature, I like the fact it takes place during the TOS movie era. I thought was well acted and enjoyed watching it.
I wish I were close enough to offer to help out on a shoot. I think I could show them how to get around their most persistent technical problems: notably sound (it's really bad in this one) and shot framing (there's a tendency to have people with lines half out of the frame or do what we call "Montana" aka "Big sky" shots where the actors heads are at the center of the frame and there's all this empty space above them (like here at 3:50, where the characters at the helm are barely peeking up into the shot and there's just wall taking up the upper part of the frame). It would also help if they could shoot with a wider angle lens because it would make the set feel less cramped, but they may not be shooting with a camera that has changeable lenses. I like the whip pan at 3:43. More stuff like that would add energy to the action. 2:02. Someone left their script in shot.
I'm not a studio production guy but I have four decades of experience in factory production. I'm adept to hundreds of components flying around the factory and magically becoming finished product to ship off to the customer. It's a function of insuring all goes smoothly, checking for weakest links, solving bottlenecks and ensuring each employee has the proper training and conditions to succeed. I'd probably drive everyone nuts because it would be my nature to look at a little fan film studio and quickly switch into the question, "How do we film in the morning and release a finished product at the end of the day?" That's my art, it's the art of the process but from two thousand miles away, I can tell you more about a CnC or the back pressure required to shoot propylene then about the lighting required for the perfect shot. We have done some positive things like incorporating monitors over rotorscoping in post production. I've had ways of raising funds for the easy no brainier improvements. When it comes to solving sound and filming issues, I'm blind to what it would take to do that. It's really not my place to tell the studio how to operate, I've been content as long as the crew has a place to be creative and enjoy doing so.
I don't want to clutter up a thread about a specific film with general comments about fanfilm production, so I'm taking thoughts related to this over to the Fanfilm Maker's Primer (link).
Having worked both pro and amateur shoots I can tell you the big difference with the latter is that everyone there is doing it for fun or because they have been cajoled into doing it. As such, you oft have to walk on eggshells because if you offend or irritate someone they might not come back. So you have to figure out how to crack the whip in a way that seems like you're throwing flowers instead. In-camera is almost always best. There are lot of things you can do to improve the sound. The first is to make sure you're using the right kind of mic or mic setting for the shot (there are places for a cardioid mic and places you don't want one). The second is to make sure you are recording second sound in multi-channel and have the levels different on each, so you can clearly hear a whisper or not have a yell peg the meters. Third have sound/moving blankets draped on everything possible just off camera to deaden echoes.
The only experience I've had was back in the 7th grade with a few classmates, one of whose father worked in a local news room. It wasn't exactly Tarzan but I got to swing from tree to tree and chase cows around. From time to time I've been compelled to write stories. Not exactly Star Trek but a good story can be told in multiple settings. Once venues like You tube or Facebook came around and you're running into people that produce home studio films, a guy starts to wonder if his stories would make a good film. You can shop your stories around but most people don't go through the trouble of building sets and buying a camera to do other peoples stuff. This is true in Audio Drama as well. You can write a couple episodes of Galaxy Quest, One gets play on NPR, the other takes a Parsec but it's not the Galaxy Quest they intended to produce. I'm just terribly thankful to anyone that given my stories a chance. I understand exactly where you're coming from because I take it as you know your camera and sound work forward and back. It's either wrong or it's right. I do the same thing as a storyteller and now with the guidelines, well what if they said you can only film with a two megapixel camera, record in mono and download in 320?
The absence of limitations is the enemy of art. You can do plenty under rather severe restrictions, provided you're willing to embrace the constraints as opportunities as opposed to obstacles. I've worked on a half-dozen 48 Hour Film Project shorts, and let me tell you, that'll larn ya how to make something from nothing... if you're willing to push the envelope.