Once in a while this section has a bit of life, apart from the sad obsession with all things Alec Peters-related...Some recent films have been interesting, but there are others I still await with some interest, such as John Atkin's Yorktown film with George Takei, Michael King's Valiant films, the last Farragut episode announced many years ago...England's Star Trek Ambush that looked so promising...I can't really find any substantial news from most of these, sadly, apart from the occasional picture update by John Atkin... Apart from that, it's been at least 1 year since James Cawley has been offering his film academy at his Star Trek sets in Northern New York, but nothing about it that I can find... So any updates?
It is very sad to me that the entire fan film factor has almost come to a full stop - and this at a time where CGI and camera equipment became so affordable that the films would have been amazing. I also miss the last installment(s) of NV, the only info I have found so far is that at least one episode is still being worked on but in a slow paste due to the new restrictions for fan films. The latter is obviously to blame for taking the fun out of making fan films for many makers. Nobody is looking forward to spend personal money, talent and time just to get an s&d halfway into the works or being sued by CBSs lawyers. I am not saying they are targeting the fan film community just because they can - but the risk for the makers of the fan films is just to present to actually invest themselves into it. I guess as it now stands we will have to wait until interest in Star Trek is plummiting again and the PTB do not care about fan films being made as long nobody makes it his personel cash-cow.
Fan films haven’t come to an “almost full stop.” There’s still plenty of companies making and releasing films, they just don’t have the resources or budgets that Continues or NV had at their disposal to produce and promote.
I would say fan films have gone back to their roots: groups of amateurs getting together to have fun with the final product being shared among friends and like-minded fans. I would say CBS/Paramount's strategy for dealing with fan films has been successful. They haven't crushed anyone (yet) for breaking the guidelines and LFIM has gone so far off the reservation that he's exposed himself (in a manner of speaking) as a hoser to all but a hard core group of sycophants and nutcases. Now that the CBS ownership dispute is pretty much settled there's nothing to say that they won't take a much harder line with a much heavier hand across the board, but for now they've done pretty well in walking the line between defending their intellectual property without alienating huge groups of fans.
I hadn't heard of this one. Their last video update on YouTube was December 2016, but there's a Facebook page, last update there, although brief, was August of 2018. https://m.facebook.com/startrekambush
the m.facebook link indicates a mobile page, which is often configured slightly differently to work with mobile browsers and their formatting.
There are a lot of great fan productions picking up steam right now. Avalon Universe just released parts 1 and 2 of Demons. Dreadnought Dominion just released a new film "The Heist" and Federation Files has two projects on the way. Heres a link to Demons:
Update from the First Frontier fan production: "The release is now tentatively set for April 2020. Apologies for the delay, we were able to find a pro at VFX and we're working as fast as possible to update the visuals, substantially."
Thanks for the info Philip... You also Joshua, I went to watch the newest Dreadnaught dominion webisode...The good news is, they have drastically reduced their ensemble for this installment and the people there actually seem to know how to act, at least better than the ones from their first 2 clips from a few years ago. And though they seem to be using the Star Trek Continues sets (I think? or were those the ones from Oklahoma?), they decided to set their story mostly off-ship, so thankfully we were spared yet another starship dogfight repeat...Good on them for trying something different! Less good? There is way too much pointless talking in this and their last installment. I know this started during the days of TNG and so much of today`s television, but what was so great about OG Trek was that there was always a purpose for every line of dialogue. Even the jokes, the writers would have a purpose behind them, and that was usually as a payoff from some other situation, or as a transition to a new situation... So this episode was an undercover sting at an interplanetary auction... I praise them for trying something different. They still need some effort in their script department, but they have vastly improved from their first episode. I will keep watching to see where they go
Hello Bixby, I wanted to tell you that we have completed filming on our next film, "ANIMALS," and are in the post-production stage right now with VFX and a final edit. Our VFX person has been experiencing personal issues and an increased workload and we have fallen behind but the film is still coming but not sure when. Hopefully within a few months at most. Thank you for the thread and take care of yourself, - Michael L. King.
Thank you Michael, looking forward to it...I guess no update on your other episode ''The Ties that Bind''? (yes I am a greedy little cuss)… Here is your released teaser for those of us who missed out (love the colour orange in this clip) Please keep on doing some world-building in your little sector of the galaxy, we don`t need yet another retread of the Klingons, the Romulans and Harry Mudd that so many fanfilmmakers keep going back to...
@Phantasm, If you're still in post on this, it jumps out to me that the lighting on that planet and moon in the sky is backwards to the live action. You might want to fix that.
Well, here's another fan film...this one partly photographed by Vic Mignona(‽) on the Georgia sets. It's...not good. There's no story. Stuff just happens and the end. The female lead is constantly put in danger. Ugh. Spoiler: stuff that happens Nice Mugato costume...but apparently it forgets how to bite. Fighting it, Kirk fires once, misses by a mile, and when he gets a second shot he just stands there. Likewise on the ship the female lead shoots an alien intruder on the stun setting, and when that doesn't work, she never thinks to fire again...even though the intruder appears to have been somewhat set back by the blast. Kirk's sideburns change from planet to ship.
Thanks Maurice, I just looked at it... Spoiler: review Visually it`s nice, good FX shots, good cinematography and lighting. They had some sort of budget and they made good use of it.If I`m not mistaken the alien female was played by the lead actress from the original Renegades fan film. The acting was very decent... But I agree with you about the story...I really don`t understand, they put in a lot of effort...why reuse Kirk & McCoy and the Enterprise at all? Why reuse so much established Trek lore when you can just create new characters with zero baggage? Even the toast between Kirk and Bones was totally lifted from Pike and his Doctor from the Cage... It was watchable, but I cringed bigtime whenever a repeat happened...
I watched Farragut`s to date last episode The CROSSING a couple days ago... It really could have been so much better, but I was glad to see Paul Sieber with his original crew again. I did a double take at the end when they mentioned their still-to-be-released final episode, Homecoming. The Crossing came out in 2016. What`s up wid dat?
@Bixby I donated to their final film project Homecoming. I was surprised to get an email a few weeks back about it. I can't speak for the Farragut folks, but judging by the donor email, there's been issues with post-production. There's someone new in charge of post-production now, and they hope to have it out in 2021.