Too soon.
Mark R. Gaebler
- Thread starter Mark R. Gaebler
- Start date
I would pay to see this!
To the OP, this isn't how you go about getting a pitch meeting with Paramount/CBS. You claim you want a hearing, but that's for legal proceedings. What you really want is a pitch meeting. I don't work in the industry, but in my own studies of how the industry works, I've come to realize that they aren't going to buy unsolicited pitches from people off the street. Have you worked in Hollywood? If so, there's no listings for you on IMDB. You're going to have to know someone in the industry working at Paramount/CBS creative and you'll probably need the experience of working on the writing staff of another show before they'll even take a look at you.
You should consider taking what you've come up with, and producing it as a fan production. If you go that route, please make sure you stay within the guidelines for making a fan film. Another option would be to see if you can take out the Star Trek related content, and see if your story still holds up. If it does, then make something original with it. It looks like you've put in alot of time on your concept. and you might do far better making it as it's own independent sci-fi feature.
You should consider taking what you've come up with, and producing it as a fan production. If you go that route, please make sure you stay within the guidelines for making a fan film. Another option would be to see if you can take out the Star Trek related content, and see if your story still holds up. If it does, then make something original with it. It looks like you've put in alot of time on your concept. and you might do far better making it as it's own independent sci-fi feature.
Star Wars came about because George Lucas wanted to do Flash Gordon. The Orville because Seth McFarlane wanted to do Star Trek. Rebel Moon because Zack Snyder wanted to do Star Wars.
If your story can't stand without the Star Trek branding and specifics, it's not worth making.
If your story can't stand without the Star Trek branding and specifics, it's not worth making.
Studio's rarely, in fact almost never solicit or accept pitches from outsiders. If you want a pitch meeting with any studio, you need to have credentials and experience.
How do you build experience? You start as a staff writer on a show; and in order to get hired to work on a show you need to be able to demonstrate the ability to write a script to an agency.
Few places would rep you or hire you if you have not done at least a couple of semester of film school in your desired field, although that's about all the knowledge I have on the subject.
To be honest, if you haven't done any formal academic training or practical experience in TV/Movie production, your chances of getting someone to buy your pitch is non existent.
If you've already got the academic training and perquisite experience to have people listen to you or at least hire you for their production, then you've got no business asking these kinds of questions on a BBS board since you'd be able to find the right answers more readily from your peers.
Just remember that the script is the easiest and cheapest part of the process. Hiring actors, building the sets, putting together the film crew (cameras, lighting, sound, foley, ADR, post, VFX, music, editing, etc) will cost a fortune.
Even the fan film route ain't cheap, assuming you've got the actors and crew for free, you still need to buy or rent the film equipment, buy the raw materials that are built into the sets, get the computer hardware for post production, editing - etc.
Sometimes you can pull it off, like Star Trek New Voyages and Star Trek Continues (and a few others), but a lot of the crew on both shows had some film background.
Or look at Axanar, which despite receiving well over $1 million in contributions and having some really gorgeous sets, has failed produce any film (aside from the 2 minute Vulcan scene and Prelude which was produced and directed by a different crew) because the guy in charge doesn't know how to make a film.
My advice?
Write a fan fic, post it to AOO and be happy you got something written.
How do you build experience? You start as a staff writer on a show; and in order to get hired to work on a show you need to be able to demonstrate the ability to write a script to an agency.
Few places would rep you or hire you if you have not done at least a couple of semester of film school in your desired field, although that's about all the knowledge I have on the subject.
To be honest, if you haven't done any formal academic training or practical experience in TV/Movie production, your chances of getting someone to buy your pitch is non existent.
If you've already got the academic training and perquisite experience to have people listen to you or at least hire you for their production, then you've got no business asking these kinds of questions on a BBS board since you'd be able to find the right answers more readily from your peers.
Just remember that the script is the easiest and cheapest part of the process. Hiring actors, building the sets, putting together the film crew (cameras, lighting, sound, foley, ADR, post, VFX, music, editing, etc) will cost a fortune.
Even the fan film route ain't cheap, assuming you've got the actors and crew for free, you still need to buy or rent the film equipment, buy the raw materials that are built into the sets, get the computer hardware for post production, editing - etc.
Sometimes you can pull it off, like Star Trek New Voyages and Star Trek Continues (and a few others), but a lot of the crew on both shows had some film background.
Or look at Axanar, which despite receiving well over $1 million in contributions and having some really gorgeous sets, has failed produce any film (aside from the 2 minute Vulcan scene and Prelude which was produced and directed by a different crew) because the guy in charge doesn't know how to make a film.
My advice?
Write a fan fic, post it to AOO and be happy you got something written.
Those "guidelines" are absolutely asinine. CBS and Paramount have the astonishing arrogance to begin by lying about being "big believers in reasonable fan fiction and fan creativity" only to immediately insist that fan productions be no longer than fifteen minutes each and have no more than a single sequel, which obviously precludes any possibility of episode- or movie-length stories and ongoing narratives.
They go on to insist that no professionals appear in front of nor behind the camera, which means no more stories like "Yorktown: A Time to Heal," "World Enough and Time," Of Gods and Men, and "The Pilgrim of Eternity;" that fundraising can't exceed $50,000, including fees (whether for one segment or two); and that titles can't include "Star Trek." This is a transparent attempt to marginalize fan films about as much as possible while still being able to lie about supporting them.
(Amusingly, they also overbroadly prohibit "profanity, nudity, obscenity, pornography, depictions of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or any harmful or illegal activity, or any material that is offensive, fraudulent, defamatory, libelous, disparaging, sexually explicit, threatening, hateful, or any other inappropriate content" despite all such content appearing in official Star Trek productions.)
Fortunately, these guidelines are—like EULAs—not legally binding, which is why numerous fan productions which exceed fifteen or even thirty minutes, some using "Star Trek" in their titles and featuring professional actors and crew, continue to be made and released without being challenged.
Even "Axanar" will still be released sometime after its final shoot next month, albeit as a half-hour short in two fifteen-minute segments rather than a feature film as originally envisioned.
If not for the ludicrously lengthy extensions corporate lawyers and lobbyists hammered through in the late twentieth century, The Original Series would already be at least partly in the public domain and we wouldn't even need to have these discussions for the original series. Had the original 1790 duration never been increased, the liberation of The Next Generation would have recently completed while Deep Space Nine and Voyager would be beginning theirs, with Enterprise to follow in the next decade, instead of at the end of the century. Even the new series would all join the public domain before The Original Series now will. Still, it will be liberated, and at a time when many current fans will still be alive (possibly including a few centenarians and maybe even a very few supercentenarians who saw the original broadcasts as children).
"Turnabout Intruder" (June 3, 1969) in the Public Domain
Copyright Act of 1790 (28 years): June 3, 1997
Copyright Act of 1831 (42 years): June 3, 2011
Copyright Act of 1909 (56 years): June 3, 2025
Copyright Act of 1976 (75 years): January 1, 2045
Copyright Act of 1998 (95 years): January 1, 2065
I look forward to The Original Series entering irrevocably into the public domain in the early 2060s (1x01-15 on January 1, 2062, 1x16-2x15 on January 1, 2063, 2x16-3x13 on January 1, 2064, and 3x14-24 on January 1, 2065) according to the 95-year rule established in 1998 for corporate works (with the expiration date being the first day of the 96th calendar year from first publication year, rather than exactly 95 years from first publication date as it was until 1976).
The technology of the 2060s will enable low-budget amateur productions to exceed the technical quality of the most expensive professional productions of the 2020s, and anyone will also then be legally free to make a commercial series or movie costing tens or even hundreds of millions without needing anyone's approval. I expect CBS and Paramount to try to play games regarding their perpetual trademarks, but they won't be able to stop the seismic shift which the entry of TOS into the public domain will undoubtedly trigger. Rather than being limited to the official CBS/Paramount ideas of limited supply and scope, those of us still alive then (I'll be in my early seventies if I am) will finally be able to see Kirk's original five-year-mission completed and much, much more as we choose to imagine it—beginning just in time for first contact.
Fascinating.
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No it won't. Never gonna happen
Correct. The guidelines are suggestions from Paramount/CBS, who currently own the IP for Star Trek, in order to not be sued for copyright infringement (Fan films are generally not covered under Fair Use) or subject to DMCA takedown notices. It's a safe harbor in which Paramount chooses to ignore violations but also establishes grounds for pursuing violations if they so choose.
A handful of times they have asked fan films to adjust things slightly to bring them more in line with guidelines, and occasionally have asked for something to be taken down entirely or ignored entirely.
But yes, there is no legal right to make a fan film.
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Oh, man, I need to have my bags of special coffee ready for the day it happens!
How dare CBS protect their property!
Paramount/CBS have been eminently fair and reasonable about fan productions since the first Star Trek fanzines appeared in the 1960s. They've generally only stepped in when someone produced something that could be confused with an official product, like when Janet Walker published The Reckoning 30-odd years ago as a trade paperback rather than a copy shop coil-bound production, and she wasn't stomped on or sued, she was told to stop doing it and go back to the conventional fanzine format, which she did.
Alec Peters proudly proclaimed that Axanar was not a fan film, it was an unofficial professional production. Yes, literally, it was on the official Axanar website for quite a while. He also said on occasion that Axanar was the true continuation of Star Trek. Of course CBS stomped on him, just as the Tolkien estate just stomped on the guy claiming to have the right to do official Lord of the Rings sequel novels. Paramount/CBS had every right to do so, and no requirement whatsoever to say that Peters could carry on with a few reasonable constraints. But they gave him an opportunity to continue. They didn't have to. Gosh, what an evil corporation.
Alec Peters proudly proclaimed that Axanar was not a fan film, it was an unofficial professional production. Yes, literally, it was on the official Axanar website for quite a while. He also said on occasion that Axanar was the true continuation of Star Trek. Of course CBS stomped on him, just as the Tolkien estate just stomped on the guy claiming to have the right to do official Lord of the Rings sequel novels. Paramount/CBS had every right to do so, and no requirement whatsoever to say that Peters could carry on with a few reasonable constraints. But they gave him an opportunity to continue. They didn't have to. Gosh, what an evil corporation.
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There most certainly is. As the Organization for Transformative Works explains, "most fanworks are fair use."
Which is what it was: an unofficial professional production with a million-dollar crowdfunded budget covered by all relevant fair use criteria as a nonprofit, transformative (as it met the definition as defined by the United States Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994): "adds something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the [underlying work] with new expression, meaning or message") work which did not merely substantially reuse existing content and which could not be shown to negatively impact the market for official productions (as it was to be distributed for free, was made in a different style and setting from official productions, and was made to appeal to fans who either had no interest in current official productions or who were interested in both).
The ruling against Axanar was a miscarriage of justice.
If not for the lengthy copyright extensions aggressively pushed through by narrow interests late in the preceding century, The Original Series would currently be transitioning into the public domain.
The Copyright Act of 1790 established a term of 28 years so as to balance enabling creators to profit from their works with the continued existence of a healthy public domain. 41 years later, this was extended to 42 years, and then to 56 years 78 years after that. Thus, when TOS was made, the law said it would become public property from 2022 to 2025, 56 years after its episodes were first released from 1966 to 1969.
Only because Disney and other powerful lobbies intensely pressured the government in 1976 were the dates for TOS' entry into the public domain absurdly pushed back to the 2040s, and then even more absurdly to the 2060s in 1998. This is far from the original intent of copyright, which, again, was to afford creators the ability to reasonably profit from their works before they inevitably entered into the public domain in a timely manner. Corporations and estates continuing to reap profits from works made a century or more ago was decidedly not a goal of copyright legislation until it was turned against the public interest in 1976 and 1998. The interest groups behind the 1976 and 1998 extensions would prefer perpetual copyright—a world in which the works of Shakespeare (who would have been sued for plagiarism today), Hans Christian Andersen, Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and perhaps even Homer, Aristophanes, Plato, Virgil, and Ovid are forever controlled by rent-seeking schemes—but they cannot have it. Further extensions after 1998 were mooted but refused.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's estate was notoriously litigious and has tried to sue people for portraying Sherlock Holmes (a public domain character) as happy, based on the fanciful notion that because Sherlock was gruff in earlier stories then in the public domain and became happier only in later stories then still under copyright, they were entitled to limit the emotions displayed by unlicensed depictions of Sherlock. Though they failed in these frivolous lawsuits and were forced to pay their would-be victims' legal fees, their legal chicanery created a chilling effect which pressured artists into either paying the Doyle estate money for nothing despite having no legal obligation to do so, or else not creating their own interpretations of Sherlock at all despite being legally free to use the character. This nonsense came to a complete and final end on January 1, 2023, when everything ever written and published by Doyle irrevocably entered the public domain. This is good for everyone on Earth except for the handful who reaped undeserved profits from stories written by a man who has been dead for nearly a century now, and it would have happened decades earlier if not for the shameful perversion of copyright's original intent in 1976 and 1998.
Again, I look forward to the many new and fresh interpretations of The Original Series that will suddenly be possible without restrictions when it finally enters the public domain in the early and mid 2060s, long after it was originally intended to.
Better late than never.
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I don't know who that is and have never been a member of this forum before.
This is not really fair to the OP. Don't we have an Axanar thread to litigate this...again?
Axanar arguments were not convincing when I first signed up here. They're not really now.
Axanar arguments were not convincing when I first signed up here. They're not really now.
Limiting fan productions to no more than two fifteen-minute segments ever (less than a single episode) is not even remotely fair and reasonable.
The OP's question has already been answered many times over, but he is delusional and refuses to accept the certain reality that his amateur story bible will never be used for official productions. He also can't spell simple words ("don't make lite," "cannon timeline"), so I'm sure he can't even write good fanfiction.
I'm not trying to convince anyone since I've already seen how irrational people are about it. I simply stated the fact that fanworks have a legal right to exist and Axanar's no exception as it was nonprofit and transformative, didn't substantially reuse existing content verbatim, and was not a threat to official productions. It even had major defenders in J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin, who helmed some of the biggest productions it was accused of harming but actually wasn't in any way, shape, or form. Fortunately, "Axanar arguments" won't be necessary forever. Beginning January 1, 2062, The Original Series will begin its permanent entry into the public domain. That's a very long time away, but I may live to see it. Another 38 years of exclusivity, and then TOS will belong to us all. It should already be in the public domain, of course, but as I said... better late than never.
Hi, little aside here. Alec Peters used Axanar fan donations to pay for a trip to a BDSM store, a trip to England to play Warhammer, various props and costumes for his own enjoyment (none Star Trek related) and not a lot relating to the making of a film. The Axanar Productions bank statements are now online now for all to see.
https://www.youtube.com/live/Jo2bSxAxweA?si=ma4j5tPkWpomX4qi
Paramount stopped a disgusting misuse of funds raised using their name and you've been sadly fooled if you believe otherwise.
I didn't know those details, but I have known for years that Peters misused donations in some capacity. I don't like him on a personal level and never have, but Paramount didn't go after him for doing that and they wouldn't've left him alone if he hadn't done that. The executives just didn't like the idea of a fan film with a million-dollar budget billing itself as unofficial but professionally made, as something not licensed but also head and shoulders above a typical fan film.
The "Prelude to Axanar" has amazing production values and a stellar cast. After watching it, I was excited to see the feature film which now will never be. It met all the criteria for fair use as a nonprofit, noncompeting, transformative work, and it had the support of J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin, as well as all of the professional actors and crew who worked on it. All those creatives wouldn't've supported it if they thought it was damaging to their industry and craft.
So, Alec Peters' serious personal indiscretions are unfortunate and inexcusable but also a distraction from the right of fan productions to exist, even if they do raise a million in crowdfunding. After his misconduct began, he should have been forced out by his partners and made to repay what he stole, with full and immediate public disclosure. Then Axanar could have proceeded without any further association with him beyond a screenplay credit. Inappropriate behavior from one individual, even one of the principals, doesn't delegitimize the entire project as long as the offending individual is removed. Many other projects have replaced their original creator and moved on.
Unfortunately everyone behind the scenes save for Alec left after Prelude, over misuse of fan funds. The other way around would have been preferable. If Axanar ever releases anything, it will likely be American Mystery School cult propaganda, as they are the current backers and their leader had a cameo in recent filming.
According to court depositions (which are all in the files section of the Axamonitor FB page, but you need to dig somewhat), neither JJ Abrams nor Justin Lin had seen Prelude to Axanar, but they'd seen brief clips. Their comments were made with no knowledge of why the lawsuit with CBS/Paramount was actually happening.
Cryogenator, have you read this?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3251437-Trek-Ruling.html
Judge Klausner disagreed with your take on Axanar as fair use.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3251437-Trek-Ruling.html
Judge Klausner disagreed with your take on Axanar as fair use.
