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BREAKING: Official Fan Film Guidelines Issued

Still, within the boundaries of this rule on content, I think there is room for fan films to turn the tables by dealing with controversial and provocative socio-political issues that official Trek never ever deals with. Do any fan film producers out there want to be bold and push forward in this direction?

Kor

It's not your table to turn.

If you want to deal with controversial subjects in a science fiction setting: create your own universe. Then you are free of all restrictions.
 
I'm worried these rules will prevent STC from releasing the episode at all, because of the involvement of Beau Billingslea, who was in STID, and likely the episode length was around 42-50 minutes. The latter could be dealt with by some drastic editing, but what do you do with the guest star?

Worry a little less. There's a thing called 'grandfathering' when it comes to rules like this. Stuff that already exists or is in CURRENT production will likely be fine ... but any NEW or UNPRODUCED material will have to follow these rules - or contact CBS/Paramount for a license or waiver.
 
I think it's fine to blame Alec Peters for being the straw that broke the camel's back, but if we're honest a lot of fanfilms were piling bushels on that camel for a while. AP does not exist in a vacuum. Renegades pushed the boundaries too far, and all these shows going for 6-figure fundraisers (Tommy Kraft included) further forced CBS/Paramount's hand. Too many shows violating the Trademarks, too many shows recruiting professional casts and crews. Many of them contributed to this, each one pushing the boundaries a little further, then AP just pushed and pushed and pushed.

I've been expecting this since Takei and Koenig showed up on New Voyages. It's just taken a lot longer for the hammer to fall.

I think Horizon was 5 figures and was done for less or around the same amount that Alec Peters paid himself in salary. That said, I felt that crowd funding was risky back when it started happening a few years back. I remember when the only thing that was supposedly allowed was sending gift cards to help with lumber etc. Things did start to ramp up with crowd funding, but CBS probably ignored it because nobody was paying themselves a wage, building studios, selling things in the guise of a perk etc. I think this would have happened eventually. It just happened to be Axanar that did it before anybody else.
 
CBS and Paramount must be pissed that most Fan Productions are infinitely better than the last two Trek films

Nope. :thumbdown:

While certainly labors of love and quite enjoyable, no fan production has ever been at the level of something that can be commercially released to theaters internationally, in terms of writing, acting, technical aspects of production and post-production, etc., etc.

It's not your table to turn.

If you want to deal with controversial subjects in a science fiction setting: create your own universe. Then you are free of all restrictions.

I really don't see what the problem would be, if it meets their "family friendly" guidelines. Having a strong message, without depicting profanity, sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, etc., is most definitely within the letter of the law on this particular guideline. :shrug:

Kor
 
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CBS and Paramount must be pissed that most Fan Productions are infinitely better than the last two Trek films
:guffaw:Sorry, what? With all due respect to the fan filmmakers, a number of whom are friends, most fan films are bad.

I think Horizon was 5 figures and was done for less or around the same amount that Alec Peters paid himself in salary.
My reference to Kraft was re his 6-figure budget follow-up movie, which he was told "don't".
 
Worry a little less. There's a thing called 'grandfathering' when it comes to rules like this. Stuff that already exists or is in CURRENT production will likely be fine ... but any NEW or UNPRODUCED material will have to follow these rules - or contact CBS/Paramount for a license or waiver.
Says who? CBS/Paramount is not obliged to grandfather anyone.
 
Says who? CBS/Paramount is not obliged to grandfather anyone.

"Will likely"..

It's a pain in the ass to go back to every single existing thing and make sure it follows the new rules. Oh, they COULD, of course, but there's no gain in it, realistically, unless someone starts selling compilation DVDs...
 
Well, some fans will now declare a boycott of CBS/Paramount...

Boycott? You mean the buzzword that people use who think that not watching the show or the movies will have any meaningful effect on their production? ;)
 
To me, #4 looks like it's saying that if you go and buy pre-made uniforms, then they must be officially licensed. You can't pay for third-party knockoffs. But I don't think it precludes making your own from scratch. I could be misreading it, though.

The props and costume thing looks to me like a "we had to say that" kind of thing, as it is in practicality unenforcible. Only the most extremely prop-minded among us (and thus no one in CBS legal) could look at a shot and ID a manufacturer (and that would have to be a extreme closeup!). CBS will not be able to watch a fanfilm and make a judgement of what prop was made by whom.

What, they're going to send prop and costume police to the set to check garment tags and inspect the prop table?
"If this is an Art Asylum phaser, where are the screw holes?"
"I filled them in and repainted, is there a law against that?"

As just one example, at least four different manufacturers have legally sold phasers through Lincoln Enterprises/Roddenberry.com over the years. There's just no way they're going to be able to police this one.
 
CBS is saying that if you don't deviate from these, they won't bug you.

They're not promising to pursue anyone who violates one or more of these to the ends of the Earth in every circumstance.

In future, however, when they feel it's necessary to snap someone back they need only point to these and explain "You broke rule #3, which we made entirely clear and published back in June of 2016."
 
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