BREAKING: Official Fan Film Guidelines Issued
- Thread starter Danlav05
- Start date
There are fans who don't like the JJ movies. BFD. There are fans who only like TOS and the TOS movies, fans who only like TNG and the later TV series, fans who think TOS and DS9 were the best Trek ever and TNG is a bit overrated and Voyager and Enterprise were both disappointing (naming no names), and I could go on. What the hell is it about the JJ movies that gives certain fanbois such an overblown sense of entitlement, demanding the world kiss their hurt little feefees better? Plenty of fans like only parts of the franchise. That's life.
And a second, at least, who has also made fan films and help to create original science fiction projects.
Maybe it can be suggested or suggested to "Honest Trailers."
BREAKING: Outrage and sarcasm conflated on Internet Bulletin Board! News at 11!
My point is that fan films probably wouldn't get nearly the attention they have been since 2009, if not for the fact certain segments of Trek fandom feel alienated by the JJverse, and have turned to the fan films as an alternative outlet. Also, by cutting a lot of ties to previous actors, producers, and set/ship designers, at least the first two movies have alienated former Star Trek employees. That created a perfect storm, and it was probably inevitable something like Axanar was going to happen. IF it wasn't Alec Peters, it would have been someone else doing the same thing.
Oh, dear. I'd like to support my hometown con, but if these commenters are the kind of folks who will be showing up, I think I'll be finding other things to do that weekend.
Alright, if I wasn't clear enough before, here's a response.
Maurice (or Dennis, or Zoom, or BillyJ) telling fan film producers that the fan film guidelines are no big deal is like Boris Johnson telling Scottish voters that Brexit is no big deal. He may truly believe it. He may even have arguments for it! But his arguments depend on core values and assumptions that his audience simply does not share, and so they are of zero persuasive value to any of the people he claims to be addressing.
To Maurice, it is simply a minor detail that fan filmmakers will no longer be able to try to replicate the feel and scope of a Star Trek series. To every single one of the fan producers with whom I am well acquainted, and to nearly all of the fan film fans I know, that's the whole ballgame; if that's lost, the thing they love is dead, its heart ripped out.
Presumably, that's why the overwhelming majority of actual fan film producers -- rather than retirees, assistants, and the peanut gallery -- are looking at this as the end of the world, rather than as a "new beginning"... a beginning that exists primarily in the heads of people who never liked fan films to begin with!
If you don't like fan films, that's fine. I respect it. There's plenty of reasons to dislike fan films, and Maurice has always been extremely articulate (and nearly always correct) in pointing them out. So have others on this board The fan film community needs more ability to accept and absorb and learn from criticism, and it is never going to be everybody's cup of tea. But that kind of valuable, constructive, often incisive criticism is a long way away from the new genre of TrekBBS post, in which people who never really cared for the Trek fan film ecosystem insist that people who are gutted by the possible destruction of that ecosystem are either bad filmmakers or Axanar apologists or worse.
A thing that many people loved may be going away forever. You can look forward to the new world that may emerge, but if you could all stop dancing on the grave of the old one for a few minutes (at least until it's actually buried), that'd be great.
Now that is a post that is unlikely to get me many attaboys around here, but, like Maurice said, I never cared much about Likes.
It isn't dancing on the grave to acknowledge things are changing, and looking forward to how those changes are going to play. Many of these fan film producers acknowledged that CBS could pull the plug at any time. They knew they were playing with someone else's toys.
So now they either need to look forward to how to work under the new guidelines or move onto other projects.
Life slows down for no one.
Can I stop you right here? Who here doesn't like fan films? I would like to know specific folks because this feels like a very broad generalization to be making.
As I have said before, I like fan films and have made fan films. I have looked at different props, costs, speced scripts with friends among other things.
Who's dancing on a grave? Seriously?
There are new guidelines out there, and the productions out there will make adjustments, I have no doubt. That's their perogative. You'll forgive for me for not mourning something that isn't techinically gone yet, and when the guidelines are barely a week old.
Again, the idea that the guidelines are good is a subjective argument depending on your point of view. But, the hyperbole, on all sides, makes for no meaningful discussion.
This is Star Trek-isn't their supposed to be optimism?
This troubles me to say, but I think David Gerrold has lost his mind that or he is so far down the Axanar rabbit hole he can't see reality anymore....Axanar just put up his facebook post on their donors facebook (which I am still a very quiet member :-) )....
Just a couple of his bullet points.
1) Fan filmmakers have got to stop blaming Axanar. This was inevitable. CBS and Paramount have been concerned about the proliferation of fan films for a long time.
Originally, they did not object to New Voyages/Phase II -- and for a while, there were people at CBS who wanted to create a deal where CBS Home Video could distribute the New Voyages episodes. (But Les Moonves had no interest.)
2) There's a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about Axanar. Of all the fan productions, Axanar has been most transparent about its funding and expenses. They have not done anything different than any other production -- they've just been a lot more honest about it. (Other productions have paid their talent too.)
Now this one is the clincher...
10) Please do not attempt to lecture me on Intellectual Property. I've been around the track on that one. I've said more than once that the studios need to protect their intellectual property. But Star Trek is a unique phenomenon and that requires a unique adjustment for the fans who have made Star Trek into that unique phenomenon. Anything else is simply not fair to those who have given their hearts to this show for so long.
So according to Mister Gerrold....Axanar is the special snowflake that should be allowed to use someone else's property to make money.
Shaking my head.
Just a couple of his bullet points.
1) Fan filmmakers have got to stop blaming Axanar. This was inevitable. CBS and Paramount have been concerned about the proliferation of fan films for a long time.
Originally, they did not object to New Voyages/Phase II -- and for a while, there were people at CBS who wanted to create a deal where CBS Home Video could distribute the New Voyages episodes. (But Les Moonves had no interest.)
2) There's a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about Axanar. Of all the fan productions, Axanar has been most transparent about its funding and expenses. They have not done anything different than any other production -- they've just been a lot more honest about it. (Other productions have paid their talent too.)
Now this one is the clincher...
10) Please do not attempt to lecture me on Intellectual Property. I've been around the track on that one. I've said more than once that the studios need to protect their intellectual property. But Star Trek is a unique phenomenon and that requires a unique adjustment for the fans who have made Star Trek into that unique phenomenon. Anything else is simply not fair to those who have given their hearts to this show for so long.
So according to Mister Gerrold....Axanar is the special snowflake that should be allowed to use someone else's property to make money.
Shaking my head.
If I may be permitted to disagree with my long-time friend, Maurice, with whom I spent many a day and night during those magnificent times of 1200-baud connections and character-based games where the =E= was the hero and the >K< was the villain:
As you may recall (or may not, it's been so long and that's my fault), Maurice, I grew up in an art studio. One learns to paint oil paintings by copying the masters. We're not attempting to produce forgeries, but we're adopting techniques and styles. From a copyright perspective, lord knows the legal and moral ground we stomp on. And the quality of our early work... yea, sure. Rubbish. Thumbs down, if we leave it up to democracy.
The greatest thing that the Star Trek fan productions has accomplished over the past two decades is giving veterans the opportunity to teach young people, as well as people more like you and me, the craft of producing television. Which is a dying art, I must say. Undeniably, and this argument I must concede, in an era where it becomes more and more possible through technology and advanced craftsmanship to mimic the work of professionals and distribute that work, even when it is amateur work to begin with, the rights holder is unjustly threatened. And as an author, I would be a hypocrite if I did not believe in copyright.
Back in the pre-Atari days, the first microcomputer programmers learned their craft almost solely as a means of producing games called Star Trek. And when we made games with =E= for Enterprise that got shipped in Ziploc bags to mail-order customers, that didn't matter too much until the packaging got better and the artwork got better and the games became more enthralling. That's when we started learning to make the hero ship =V= for Vanguard, and calling the enemies the Krylons or the Zaxxons or the Guarblons (actual examples). That's why the greatest 8-bit game in history is called "Star Raiders."
But believe me, it was Star Trek that inspired us all to start. And it was Star Trek that inspired the fan film producers to start. Student work, amateur plays, weekend actors and actresses -- yea, rubbish. At first. And then it starts getting better. Followed by, hmm, damn good. And then, "Come Not Between the Dragons," which beat the tee-total tar out of most of TOS' third season. Had NBC shown that episode during a "fourth season" in 1970, we would live in a very different world today.
Copying the masters is how you learn to be an artist. Now, that's not an argument in and of itself for why a successful rights holder, just because it becomes very successful, should lay down its defenses and let everyone copy its work freely. But this is an era of very plentiful technology, and very adaptable means. To suggest that there is no way to enable, say, Tim Russ to teach people how to direct a film while he's wearing Tuvok's ears, simply because it is possible that Russ might do something stupid like go out and sell coffee with Tuvok's picture on it and keep the profits as fundraising, is to close the door on opportunity, and to lose a valuable connection with people who are already inspired.
Yes, copying the likeness of a major franchise and enabling that likeness to generate financial compensation and perhaps market merchandise, is dangerous and injurious to the rights holder. But we live in an Internet era, and as my colleagues who earn paychecks marked "CBS Interactive" will attest, they work for a huge institution with the capability, if not always the will, to make things happen. If, for instance, the final product was only permitted to be distributed through a CBS site, such as All Access, then the chances for damage can be blunted.
Maurice, you talk about playing in sandboxes as though that's the only way people can build castles outside the confines of empires. If CBS and Paramount want Star Trek to continue to inspire filmmakers, art directors, CGI creators, artists, musicians, cinematographers, costume designers, set directors, and scriptwriters, then it is within its power to do for them on a scale of what Star Trek Online has done for contributors to the Trek BBS' own art forum: provide a limited, controlled, safe means to learn the craft of television. Before there's no one alive to teach it.
DF "Would Give the World to Watch My Mother Produce Just One More Van Gogh" Scott
And how many paid the "executive producer"????
I just don't know how he could believe this rubbish...he completely ignores what Axanar was doing or that it was things like the donor store and the EP getting a salary that brought the lawyers down on their heads.
You sort of lose me when you compare fanfilms to geopolitics, something that actually is important, rather than a hobby.
I hear you. You're upset. You don't like that it's changing. Maybe this is a mourning period for a lot of people.
And yeah, I'm not gonna miss this era of fan films. I don't understand spending 150 thousand dollars trying to recreate someone else's work. I get the love of Star Trek, I get wanting to play in it, but... The rest? Not so much.
There's no joy in it for me either. But, this handwringing, I don't get. It comes off as entitled. The party was good while it lasted, but, the lights are coming on...
Why is change a bad thing?
This. A thousand times this.
I shake my head at the idea that a 52 or 43 minute running time is so damned important. It's only important if you want to simulate a complete episode of one the series. It's neither important or an impediment to telling a good story.
Let me use the 48 Hour Film Project contests as an example, which put all kinds of restrictions on you. You got a character's name an occupation handed to you, and a prop and a line of dialog you have to incorporate. You draw a genre out of a hat. You have to do all the creative and production work in two days. You have to have a finished short subject submitted in 48 hours or you're disqualified. 10 seconds late? Too bad.
Certainly, most of what gets turned in is rubbish. Many play like skits. The camera work and editing is typically shoddy. Some people think it's impossible to make anything good under such restrictions but I've seen that proven wrong many times. I've been amazed at the quality of some of the films I've seen come out from under such tight restrictions.
The only thing preventing a 30 minute film made up of two segments from being brilliant would be lack of talent.
re DFSCOTT's reply. Of course people learn by copying. My first attempt at writing a screenplay at age 13 was shamelessly derivative. I certainly was not arguing that there's no value is "rolling your own" as part of a learning process. In fact, that's a completely separate topic from what I wrote.
