BREAKING: Official Fan Film Guidelines Issued
- Thread starter Danlav05
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Where can one see A Can of Paint? I can't find any sort of release of it anywhere.
There you go. . fan films about watching Star Trek. Also, remember that Road Runner and Bugs Bunny were typically about 5 minutes - a perfect running time for today's shorter attention spans. At least something positive is coming out of this.
Exactly. I work as a sports videographer. It took me a while, but I finally convinced the people above me that you simply cannot do long videos profile pieces on our athletes and expect people to stay to the end. Anything over 5 minutes is too much in today's internet audience and our fans are VERY passionate about our athletes. I understand a lot of people are unhappy about this...but how many fan films were actually pushing into more then 30 minutes an episode...I can really only think of a couple.
Well, to be honest, our longer productions (The Night the Stars Fell from the Sky, The Void, The Last Child) average far more viewers than our vignettes.
Yes
Although it's not an original one. We do a kickstarter and buy controlling shares in Viacom
It's always nice to flex our talent muscle a bit every 18 months or so just because we are that good.
That could be an interesting idea to use for a one-off fan film come to think of it. Even reverse the view point to be the a crew's and the viewers being seen and heard on their view screen ... watching the ship side crew as the TV show. Then a camera pull back to a Twilight Zone-esque reveal that it is the crew that is a futuristic AI like program that's been invented. Although the Portlandia production use of the short film format to produce quality filmed interesting story content was my intended example.Huh. Sounded more like lots of actual episodes to me. Now I haven't followed or watch tons of fan films outside of Intrepid, NV, Continues, & Red Shirt Diaries of course, and I don't notice that to be typical with them. Maybe Horizon would come close to that for me. So I will have to defer to your wider knowledge of the typical fan video using shoot 'em ups.
Sure. I get that preference.
And what I wrote:
A story can even be told without exposition once in a while.
-Two ships in space, one is the familiar crew the other a mystery
-Our crew trying to engage with the unknown ship sitting or approaching menacingly
-No responses, tension mounts.
-The silent ship's weapons are armed. Our shields are raised, our weapons armed!
-The bulk of the episode is then filled with 10 minutes of an awesome cat and mouse cg space battle! -With only momentary cuts showing our crew as they frantically maneuver to survive this.
-battle battle battle
-The unknown ship is mortally wounded. Or something like in Enterprise where it just goes away.
-Questions as to why left completely unanswered
Well, it does sound to me to be an appealing unique one-off total space battle story intended to fit among the character driven stories of a particular production grouping.
And here again, I defer to wiser insight dismissing it as unappealing.
Huh. Sounded more like lots of actual episodes to me. Now I haven't followed or watch tons of fan films outside of Intrepid, NV, Continues, & Red Shirt Diaries of course, and I don't notice that to be typical with them. Maybe Horizon would come close to that for me. So I will have to defer to your wider knowledge of the typical fan video using shoot 'em ups.
Sure. I get that preference.
And what I wrote:
A story can even be told without exposition once in a while.
-Two ships in space, one is the familiar crew the other a mystery
-Our crew trying to engage with the unknown ship sitting or approaching menacingly
-No responses, tension mounts.
-The silent ship's weapons are armed. Our shields are raised, our weapons armed!
-The bulk of the episode is then filled with 10 minutes of an awesome cat and mouse cg space battle! -With only momentary cuts showing our crew as they frantically maneuver to survive this.
-battle battle battle
-The unknown ship is mortally wounded. Or something like in Enterprise where it just goes away.
-Questions as to why left completely unanswered
Well, it does sound to me to be an appealing unique one-off total space battle story intended to fit among the character driven stories of a particular production grouping.
And here again, I defer to wiser insight dismissing it as unappealing.
Actually I got it and yeah it could be done in a dramatic fashion without any bam bam shoot'em ups.
There is another rule that sort of goes, "Don't post good ideas on a public forum" it makes them mostly avoidable for production.
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I immediately thought of Murray Leinster's "First Contact" published in 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Contact_(novelette)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Contact_(novelette)
Huh. Okay, got it!
I dont know if you can do a fan film based on Treks First Contact, given that we already saw that, and examples of humanity interacting with aliens before then, with Time Travel being a part of the plot.
Enterprise also has a variety of episode dealing with First Contact.
For what its worth you could tell the story of First Contact with humans, totally from the POV of another Star Trek race.
One aspect of modern sci-fi blockbusters that I absolutely love is how they get right to the story. Gravity and The Martian being the best examples. Not a lot of set up or exposition or backstory on why the crew where they are. Just the usual chatter and BAM, action.
Do more of that. Not 2 minute sfx-wank establishing shots or Sorkinesque walk and talk showing off how well you've remembered you lines about that mission you just completed.
Fan films are an extension of fanfic lit and thus not canon. So I see no reason why you can't branch off and do a first contact story of your choice or anything else.
Think of all the novels and fanfic and fan films depicting stories from TOS' fourth and fifth year of the 5-year mission--it's enough to take up several 5-year missions.
Tell the story you want to tell and don't worry about canon.
Think of all the novels and fanfic and fan films depicting stories from TOS' fourth and fifth year of the 5-year mission--it's enough to take up several 5-year missions.
Tell the story you want to tell and don't worry about canon.
Phase II, Continues, otehr fan projects, The 2 90s videogames, The Animated Series, novels, comics, New Visions, Power Records, various other bits and pieces - maybe there WAS a 10 year gap between Turnabout Intruder and The Motion Picture!!
And the 5 year mission continues...
I don't think so. I think that the only thing that can be done is one be closed and the other left open.
I see a lot of fan scripts of various kinds. Can't imagine why.
One thing I have noticed is that most fan scripts, especially first timer scripts, follow the tropes and basic template of a Voyager episode. That includes the pre-action chitter-chatter, the wild zigs and zags of the plot as successive premises run out of steam (but are replaced by other, ideally better new premises), the "character" B-plot focused on one regular's issues that is only thinly related to the "action" A-plot, and -- as Maurice complains -- a resolution that involves a lot of shouting about shields being down to X percent.
None of that is necessarily bad, and all of it can be used to good effect. But, given that Voyager is perhaps the least-popular Trek, it is weird, especially when so many projects are set in the TOS milieu. TOS rarely had any chatter before the action started -- indeed, the Captain's Log was invented partly to allow you to skip all that (Captain's Log. The ship is dying of Rigellian Fever. We need a ryetalyn. This planet has ryetalyn. Opening shot with the Big Three beaming down to Flint's planet). Often you'd get one or two lines and then Nomad opens fire out of nowhere. TOS didn't really do a lot of B-plots, except romances and stories vital to the A-plot. TOS only uses the "[system] at [number] percent" construction twice in its whole run -- and both times more effectively than in your standard Voyager episode. Your standard TOS episode, in short, is very different from your standard VOY episode (and we could also write a page about how VOY episodes are structured differently from TNG, or DS9, or latter-seasons ENT), yet a disproportionate number of fan scripts resemble VOY episodes.
Which, again, is not an insult. I love Voyager. But I would like to see more scripts that follow Squiggy's TOS-style advice, too.
(Tooting-my-own-horn aside: Excelsior banned the phrase "Shields are down to [x]%" after our third episode. It makes battles a little trickier to write, especially if you have a really long fight, but it's infinitely more dramatic when you have to actually show rather than tell your damage.)
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In how many episodes of Voyager did the pre-credit scene have absolutely nothing to do with the next 37-40 minutes of television?
Tom and Harry talk about Harry not getting any and something about a truck. B'Lanna is mad at a pastry.
CREDITS
Episode about Chakotay. Womp womp.
Tom and Harry talk about Harry not getting any and something about a truck. B'Lanna is mad at a pastry.
CREDITS
Episode about Chakotay. Womp womp.
