PACIFIC 201 - A Star Trek Film
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Final total is $26,187. That's comfortabley above their goal, should leave them with $20,000 even after defaults and paying Kickstarter fees.
Just learning about this project now. The attention to detail and pre-production development has been fascinating to follow! It looks great and I'm looking forward to seeing it develop and eventually be produced.
Since suggestions were requested, I just have one:
Diversity, please.
Since suggestions were requested, I just have one:
Diversity, please.
As a theatre performer, I know lots of talented local actors, and as such, I have several actors in mind, actually.
Here we see my candidates for first officer, science officer, and chief engineer.
Just learning about this project now. The attention to detail and pre-production development has been fascinating to follow! It looks great and I'm looking forward to seeing it develop and eventually be produced.
Since suggestions were requested, I just have one:
Diversity, please.
As a theatre performer, I know lots of talented local actors, and as such, I have several actors in mind, actually.
Here we see my candidates for first officer, science officer, and chief engineer.
Well-written compelling story, please. I couldn't care less about the race/gender/sexuality/weight/religion (insert pet protected class here) of the cast.
Establishing believability IS part of good writing and telling a compelling story.
There are pages here devoted to rigorous practical analysis of ship construction, design, layout, uniforms, weapons, whether there should be a trigger guard on the phaser, etc... yet you bristle at a SINGLE suggestion that the production be mindful of casting diversity in a series set in a future where there is full integration Earth's ethnicities, as well as a move towards intermingling of alien species?
Diversity IS part of the Star Trek story. It is part of what makes it compelling.
It always has been to me, and I agree it should be.
Diversity is big on our mind, but since we're trying first to make a well-acted and well-written story, we're not going to sacrifice acting talent for a diverse cast. It's unfortunate, but since we have a limited budget and a limited scope, the reality is that most of our casting will come down to who auditioned and who was good enough to play the part - regardless of what ethnicity they happen to be.
We do, however, have ethnicities in mind for certain characters. For example, we have a Turkish captain, and it's very important to us to cast an appropriate ethnicity to represent him. We want to make sure that the choices aren't just cherry-picked ethnicities simply to meet a diversity quota. In other words, we didn't randomly decide that our captain was Turkish. It's important to his character and his interactions with other characters (for instance, his first officer is Dutch, and there's a slight ethnic subtext in our film about islamophobia in general, and a little bit about racial discrimination against Turkish people in the Netherlands). Diversity for diversity's sake wasn't what made Star Trek special in the 60's. It was that the specific ethnicities that were represented spoke to that generation. The message that conveys is much more important to us than the veneer of diversity.
We do, however, have ethnicities in mind for certain characters. For example, we have a Turkish captain, and it's very important to us to cast an appropriate ethnicity to represent him. We want to make sure that the choices aren't just cherry-picked ethnicities simply to meet a diversity quota. In other words, we didn't randomly decide that our captain was Turkish. It's important to his character and his interactions with other characters (for instance, his first officer is Dutch, and there's a slight ethnic subtext in our film about islamophobia in general, and a little bit about racial discrimination against Turkish people in the Netherlands). Diversity for diversity's sake wasn't what made Star Trek special in the 60's. It was that the specific ethnicities that were represented spoke to that generation. The message that conveys is much more important to us than the veneer of diversity.
Diversity doesn't have to be about skin color. A crew could have all light skinned people and still be incredibly diverse. There are light skinned people all over the world. There are even Africans who are light skinned.
It also seems pretty fake when you have diverse skin colors but no diverse ethnicity or culture. Spock, Scotty, and Chekov were the most culturally diverse out of the original crew and they were all light skinned. They did try and give Uhura a different cultural background, but it comes across as an American who is proud of their ancestry, than actually having an African culture. Ok, so for the sake of not getting trampled to death I'll say the most culturally diverse original characters were Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov.
What cultural diversity did Sulu bring? Botany and fencing don't really count.
Insisting that actors of color only be cast in characters that reflect the culture of their decent is pretty hacky.
What was brilliant about Star Trek was Roddenberry's realization that Sulu and Uhura didn't HAVE to have stereotypical cultural traits. It's the 23rd century. Sulu is from San Francisco, for heaven's sake. They're just people of Earth.
Sticking a katana in Sulu's hand instead of a rapier isn't diversity, it's stereotype. Making him a fan of Dumas and the Three Musketeers, enjoying botany, and old Huey helicopters - that's brilliant.
Diversity isn't a punishment, guys. It's not about filling quotas, or arbitrarily adding a "veneer" of diversity, it's about adequately reflecting the universe in which you're telling your story. The effort you put into creating that diversity in your cast should at least equal the effort put into ship textures, or getting a uniform tailoring just right.
I agree with you completely. You helped articulate the point. You CAN have an all light skinned cast and still be incredibly diverse. Because, as you pointed out, having characters become stereo types of the culture traditionally associated with their skin color is hacky.
No, we're really not in agreement.
I only said that I agree with you. I didn't say you had to agree with me.
You seem to support the idea that diversity can manifest itself in many forms. Humans have a variety of ways diversity is expressed; height, weight, skin color, hair color, eye color, sex, interests, religions, political views, etc.
Therefore it is logical to conclude that having any number of those things in variety would constitute diversity while not necessarily requiring all of them.
As you pointed out, setting out to fill a quota, or arbitrarily add a "veneer" of diversity is not the goal. Ticking a check box of cultural background is just a fake as ticking a check box of skin colors.
So I reassert my view that creating a check list of skin colors, just so that you can claim the crew is not all "whities," is still a form of filling a quota. If you took a sampling of people with light colored skin from around the world you would find a lot of diversity. Likewise if you took a sampling of people with dark colored skin form around the world there would be a lot of diversity.
Now, is it likely that in a cosmopolitan future that a crew would be composed of "all whites"? Based on current population numbers a crew would probably be mostly Chinese, Indian, with a smattering of Arabs.
But it is well withing the realm of possibility for a crew of all light skinned people to serve together (even more possible would be a crew of all Chinese). And in a future where people have learned to get along regardless of skin color, if there just happened to be an "all white" crew, nobody would care. Because they aren't trying to check off a diversity checklist.
If I'm missing your point please tell me.
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It would be nice to see more ethnicities and a variety of skin tones represented in these fan productions, because quite frankly they are overwhelmingly white.
The hard reality is a lot of these fan productions are actually pretty small-town, with local, small-town actors. And small towns tend to be ethnically homogeneous. Fortunately, Pacific 201 is based close to several cities, so we might see a reasonably diverse turnout to our auditions.
As far as a "Documentary style", what does this actually mean? Interviews like in Prelude to Axanar, or actors playing to a "documentary" film crew?
Neither, really. The idea is that the movie will be shot as though there's a film crew aboard the starship, but the actors will behave as though there isn't. Just a shooting style, rather than part of the narrative.
