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CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

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My mistake, I thought AP said that; thank-you Carlos for the clarification. It's obvious why that didn't happen; there was no money TO put into escrow. The money part seems so simple; he made 1.4 million and blew it without producing the movie which was what the money was for.
 
feek61 said:
My mistake, I thought AP said that; thank-you Carlos for the clarification. It's obvious why that didn't happen; there was no money TO put into escrow. The money part seems so simple; he made 1.4 million and blew it without producing the movie which was what the money was for.
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I think it's good to remember that the end goal for crowdfunding Axanar wasn't just the $1.4 million. The total budget for the feature film was pegged at nearly $2 million.

By Peters' own admission, at the end of 2015 they had something like $267,000 in the bank, with — reportedly — principal photography only a month away. Studio build-out costs, rent, utilities and salaries ate up a lot of that.
C1cF-m4UUAA-KSI.jpg
 
RE: Lane's latest blog.

It sounds an awful lot like they're trying to get their excuses in early: "the Judge is hostile", "our lawyers might not play their A-game", stuff like that.

It almost seems as though the narrative has switched suddenly from "Yeah, we're gonna fight until the bitter end! Supreme Court, baby!" to "OK, we're totally going to lose, but it's not Alec's fault, honest, it's because the judge was biased and his lawyer was slacking off."

Maybe the penny is finally starting to drop that they're on a hiding to nothing here?

Oh, and LOL at the following:

1) A legal "expert" who totally has a secret plan but he's not telling you what it is. But he definitely has a plan, oh yes. And although he's not actually a lawyer himself, he managed to come up with this plan but the actual trained lawyers didn't. OK then.

2) Lane's plan: show the Jury an episode of another fan film that's closer to official Trek than Axanar is. WTF?!? "We didn't infringe as much as these other guys so let us off, please!" What kind of defence is that?! It's like saying "Well, officer, I was only 5mph over the limit, that other guy was 10mph over the limit." Ok, but how does that mean you're still not in the wrong yourself?

3) The legal "expert" saying Axanar will only get a $750 fine. Which it won't. And then concluding that, given such a low penalty, other fan films will just do the same and simply pay the $750. Okay, so firstly that assumes all these other fan films will get pro bono representation too, which they won't. Also, doesn't the loser have to pay all the court fees, on top of any award? Furthermore, if another fan film tries it, there's no way they could get off on the non-wilful argument. Peters can try to claim ignorance because he's the first fan film to get sued. But no subsequent operation could argue the same, because thanks to Axanar the whole world now knows CBS/P mean business, not to mention the fact that we have these new fan film rules that have come into force.

It's almost laughably stupid.
 
carlosp said:
I think it's good to remember that the end goal for crowdfunding Axanar wasn't just the $1.4 million. The total budget for the feature film was pegged at nearly $2 million.

By Peters' own admission, at the end of 2015 they had something like $267,000 in the bank, with — reportedly — principal photography only a month away. Studio build-out costs, rent, utilities and salaries ate up a lot of that.
C1cF-m4UUAA-KSI.jpg
Click to expand...

So he spent $ 1.15 million of the 1.4 million prior to the end of 2015; well that assumes that you believe what he says. We all know that you can't believe a word he says because he will change what he says when need be anyway. I truly believe that he thought he could continue to raise money for as long as he wanted to and just continue spend like a drunken sailor. There is no justification for spending that kind of money on his fully professional independent Star Trek film, errr, I mean fan film and not producing it. Obviously if there was nothing to hide he would not be making such an effort to keep everything financial hidden. It's mind-boggling that with his continuing changing stories and never producing what he says (even the easiest thing: perks) that people still support this con man.
 
It's my understanding there is no court imposed injunction prohibiting LFIM from making Axanar. Or rather the first half of it, since he hoped to crowdfund the second half later. 2015 breezes by, then 2016 with no professionally produced full feature length independent Star Trek film made by professionals who know what they are doing (lol). Um, fan fan. Er, hobby film. Two years now. If you're sitting on the money to make Axanar, how do you explain no film in the can, Alec? No one as yet is stopping you.
 
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Red Shirt said:
It's my understanding there is no court imposed injunction prohibiting LFIM from making Axanar. Or rather the first half of it, since he hoped to crowdfund the second half later. 2015 breezes by, then 2016 with no professionally produced full feature length independent Star Trek film made by professionals who know what they are doing (lol). Um, fan fan. Er, hobby film. Two years now. If you're sitting on the money to make Axanar, how do you explain no film in the can, Alec? No one as yet is stopping you.
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You're correct; there's no injunction at this time. Also, Peters had less than he needed to make even one of the four "episodes" that would make up Axanar. Don't even get me started on how his plan to make it in that format would have made costs balloon even more than they had to date.

I think he naively hoped that, like Prelude and the "Vulcan scene," each episode would drive fundraising for the subsequent installment of Axanar.
 
carlosp said:
You're correct; there's no injunction at this time. Also, Peters had less than he needed to make even one of the four "episodes" that would make up Axanar. Don't even get me started on how his plan to make it in that format would have made costs balloon even more than they had to date.

I think he naively hoped that, like Prelude and the "Vulcan scene," each episode would drive fundraising for the subsequent installment of Axanar.
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Seems to me to be another hopeful ploy on LFIM's part with the installments to wring as much cash out of people as possible whilst he rides the gravy train of a "producer" lifestyle he imagines for himself as his due from CBS/P's IP.
 
jespah said:
Far as I am aware, all they did was unfollow everyone they were following. Which they did not have to do – they could have accomplished the same thing (getting rid of too many email notifications, so far as I am aware, was the motivation) by simply adjusting their preferences.

But of course if you want to cherry pick out the 'haters' then you can delete everyone you're following.

As for deleting everything and starting from scratch, it looks like you need a tool like this: http://deletealltweets.com/connect.php?hl=en (I have never used that tool and never heard of it until Googling it just now, so I can't comment on its effectiveness).

They are currently (as of the writing of this post) following 88 accounts and are followed by 109k.
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Thanks for this information
 
JD said:
The fun thing about situations like this is you can find experts who will say anything. Plenty of trials have had testimony from experts on both sides, who say the exact opposite things from each other,
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Agree. And the art of each expert in expressing their opposite expert opinions as well as the art of each, is it 'litigator', in presenting the expert opinions so each juror will be swayed toward one expert over the other. As well as each juror's life experiences that will be influencing each of their perceptions of what they're hearing and who is saying it.

Plus among the jurors there will be those who will be inclined to sway other jurors to their way of thinking when the verdict is being decided. As well as on those dollar amount decisions.



I feel that it's currently even money on whether what I believe to be justice regarding this matter will prevail or fail.
 
carlosp said:
I think it's good to remember that the end goal for crowdfunding Axanar wasn't just the $1.4 million. The total budget for the feature film was pegged at nearly $2 million.

By Peters' own admission, at the end of 2015 they had something like $267,000 in the bank, with — reportedly — principal photography only a month away. Studio build-out costs, rent, utilities and salaries ate up a lot of that.
C1cF-m4UUAA-KSI.jpg
Click to expand...
I think most of that statement is nonsense anyway. It suggests that the money has been used to complete the warehouse as a soundstage when, allegedly, the electrics aren't up to standard. It suggests that the money has been used to complete the sets when photographic evidence shows they aren't complete and there aren't enough of them. It suggests that the money has been used to make costumes and all we've seen, I think, are some Klingon shin-pads. I'll give him that the VFX is mostly done though.
 
This puts me in mind of something I've been thinking of. In the latest Axanar podcast RMB claims about people complaining about the incomplete sets etc. He points out that most of the sets were effectively complete, needing only set dressing as they'd already done some colour tests on camera and, as is often pointed out, they were only a month away from shooting.

Now my question is really to the posters who have experiences in film making but how likely is this? I can certainly appreciate that the main construction of the sets was complete, and they'd mentioned sourcing monitors for the bridge and did a blog post about doing the colour tests. We know a casting sheet went out although from the lack of information I have to assume no auditions took place (surely this would've been mentioned either on Facebook or the web site?).

As a layman, it does still seem like an awful lot needed to happen. Sets wired up with monitors, painted, any various static displays put in place, casting, completing costuming (I'd assume main cast members would get a degree of tailoring on their costumes). While this could maybe all be done in the space of a month (or partially completed even - get all the Fed stuff shot and then do the Klingon scenes?), but to me it seems like an awful lot to get through.

I also can't really understand the lack of progress generally prior to the lawsuit. Colour tests on the bridge happened a long time after its construction was "complete". Is that normal?

I'm just curious as to what other people in the industry actually made of all this stuff, even before the lawsuit hit. The month just seems unrealistic given where we saw things were at.
 
Peter's 'independant'
Squiggy said:
I'm still waiting for that big casting news about the new lead.
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Alec has cast his newly discovered twin brother, Alex "The Actor" Peters for the roll of Garth! So excited, how much do I right the check out for!. ;)
 
feek61 said:
So he spent $ 1.15 million of the 1.4 million prior to the end of 2015; well that assumes that you believe what he says. We all know that you can't believe a word he says because he will change what he says when need be anyway. I truly believe that he thought he could continue to raise money for as long as he wanted to and just continue spend like a drunken sailor. There is no justification for spending that kind of money on his fully professional independent Star Trek film, errr, I mean fan film and not producing it. Obviously if there was nothing to hide he would not be making such an effort to keep everything financial hidden. It's mind-boggling that with his continuing changing stories and never producing what he says (even the easiest thing: perks) that people still support this con man.
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OtherGene said:
I think most of that statement is nonsense anyway. It suggests that the money has been used to complete the warehouse as a soundstage when, allegedly, the electrics aren't up to standard. It suggests that the money has been used to complete the sets when photographic evidence shows they aren't complete and there aren't enough of them. It suggests that the money has been used to make costumes and all we've seen, I think, are some Klingon shin-pads. I'll give him that the VFX is mostly done though.
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I wonder whether the data received by the studios shows the books square up wrt/ income/expenses taken as a whole. Alec seems to be going to some trouble to avoid having the whole picture examined by independent people.
 
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