Project: Potemkin, a Star Trek Fan Film

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

What's going on now...

1) We're continuing work on our website, including a download page which will allow you to access the files to create your own DVD for personal use. We'll also be including the DVD cover in PDF format and a PDF of the movie poster as well. We're very pleased with the new design of the website, and hope that you'll let us know what you think of it once it's finished.

2) Thursday, December 16th - Saturday, December 18th, and Monday, December 20th, the remaining scenes for "The Void" will be shot at our bridge and ready room sets in Albany, Georgia. All cast members are expected to be there for much of the time. We're hoping that we can wrap production by the end of that weekend. If you would like to visit the set during filming, please contact Ricky Thompson to make the necessary arrangements.

3) Last month, November 18th - 22nd, the teaser, most of Act I and much of Act II were shot at our bridge set in Albany, Georgia. All cast members were present, and the footage looks excellent! My thanks to the cast and crew for their outstanding work! We'll be reposting a webpage on "Filming 'The Void." Editor Tom Scott now has the footage and will begin the process of assembling it over the next few months.

4) Sunday evening, November 14th 2010, the first Project: Potemkin vignette, "The Old Guys," was posted to YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook, and linked to on this website, the TrekBBS, StarshipFarragut.com, StarTrekPhase2.com, FanFilms.net and TrekUnited.com (who have created a forum for Project: Potemkin). We hope that everyone will enjoy this comic little film as much as we did putting it together for you. My thanks to the cast and production crew for their invaluable contributions to this episode. To date, over 600 viewers have seen it. You can view the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWU1b171n4s and http://vimeo.com/16837307

5) Bill Walker is still hard at work on our second vignette, "Care for a Lift?" which we still believe will make its debut before Christmas 2010. Bill is presently working on the special effects for the episode. Tony Lunn will be providing the music for this production.

6) We're announcing our first ten productions which will comprise our first season: seven short vignettes, three full-length episodes. You can review the details here: Planned Vignettes & Episodes. Believe it or not, we may add a few more vignettes to the production schedule and rearrange the production order, depending upon the availability of the cast.

7) Casting is now almost complete (well, at least for the time being--we expect cast members to come and go to a degree because of their school/work schedules). Updates to the cast page have been posted to the revised website. Randy Landers and Linda Marcusky are expecting to meet with a potential cast member in the coming weeks, and an announcement is expected to be made shortly thereafter

8) We've gotten seven special effects sequences from Jon Carling for the upcoming episode, "The Void." These SPFX actually take up 12 of the 167 storyboard blocks for that episode. We also finished the Klingon second-unit filming already, so an additional 6 storyboard blocks are actually already "in the can," so to speak.






What's coming up...

1) We're expecting to complete the filming of "The Void" on December 16th - 18th in about two weeks. We may also shoot some footage for an upcoming vignette or two, time permitting.

2) We'll also be shooting a several vignettes over the course of the next few months. Stay tuned for details!

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Project: Potemkin is pleased to announce the addition of Renda Carr to our cast. She will be appearing as Doctor Maura Drake, the chief medical officer of the starship Potemkin. We look forward to shooting her introductory vignette in the coming months!

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Filming for "The Void" recommences tomorrow evening, Friday evening and all afternoon Saturday. Of course, it's like 40 on the set right now. Experimenting with running the dryer to raise the temp.

 

[USS Jack Riley]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

How about space heaters we can turn on and off as needed? I know you used fans over the summer when filming "The Old Guys." I can bring one if need be. It is small, but can crank out some heat (at least in small, directed areas).

At least it won't be as cold as it was earlier this week. For some reason I think we would have had a problem with seeing our breath on camera at those temps.

Looking forward to the shoot.

Doug

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Doug, bring the space heater for sure!

Just remember too that those three lights put out quite a bit of heat, and we'd rather be too cool than too hot and sweaty. During this summer's shoot, when those lights came on, the air conditioning unit couldn't keep up. Pity it doesn't have a heat mode or we'd use it.

May head over to the rental place and see if I can rent a big ol' space heater, too.

Funny, the line "It's very cold in space" keeps running through my head this morning....

 

[Melonpool]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

If you can see your breath, you should do a quick vignette about a malfunction with the ship's life support system.

 

[Tom Hendricks]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

When we shot most of Return to Doomsday, it was in a garage during the winter. We found out that's the preferred shooting time. After the lights were put on, it was toasty warm and had no issues what so ever.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Right now it's 60F outside and on the set, and yeah, Tom, we're looking forward to turning on the lights.

No, can't see your breath. Yet. That's probably our problem tomorrow evening or Saturday.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

^^^Heat wave, dude! It's 24F here!

Sir Rhosis

 

[lennier1]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

In other words: The actors are in the living room, drinking coffee and rehearsing their lines while the rest of the crew is doing lighting tests and heating up the stage at the same time?

And during the day it's 18°F over here.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

LOL @ Lennier1: They were in the living room, eating Subway sandwiches & Doritos, watching the blow-out of a football game while the director, director of photography and gopher (that's, uh, me--foley, gaffer, grip and boom mike operator) stayed out there the whole time, calling them onto the set as needed.

Actually, we accomplished a lot more this time. J.T. had copied our deck plan and drawn where I was to put the lights, set up the mike, and help position the camera. Worked a whole lot faster than before. We're all in agreement that we will quite probably finish filming Saturday.

Tomorrow's high is 61 with a low of 33. That should be comfortable on the set. Funny lying on the floor with the mike, I'm underneath the actors and noticed our Vulcan navigator had on a pair of black Keds sneakers.

We had a good time tonight; some of the cast couldn't make it, but we're expecting them tomorrow. Did a lot of close-ups and two-fers.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

While we're filming, Bob Reed's been very busy on the website. Be sure and take a look at the EPISODES page which now has an added feature. If you click on the drive icon (next to the Facebook and Vimeo icos), it'll open up a window and all the files available for the episode can be downloaded, including AVI, WMV, MPG, ISO of the episode, and PDFs of the Cover Art, Movie Poster, and Script. He's done a wonderful job with the site, and continues to work to restore all the material from the original site in the new form.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Whew! Just finished our third day of filming on our bridge set, and we've finished everything except the epilogue for "The Void" which will be filmed on Wednesday evening at our rec deck set a few miles away. And then it'll be a wrap!

Bill Walker is finalizing "Care for a Lift?" The current version looks really good, and Tony Lunn has access to it for composing the music. We're still hoping for a Christmas release!

Lastly, we're looking for a new security chief. If you're interested in the position, let me know!

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

We'll be filming in the ready room set tonight for the epilogue for "The Void." We'll also be re-recording some dialogue by Stephanie Burke for looping a line because our initial guest star cancelled on us after we'd already filmed the scene. C'est la vie... That will leave only one more scene to be shot, featuring David Eversole as Admiral Jason Hunter and we'll be done with shooting. Tom Scott will be editing it, and expects to begin work on it after Christmas. We're all excited about this film which will be a true vision of what direction our series will take.

We've added an RSS feed capability to the site (click on the appropriate icon at the bottom of the index page). The site's nearly complete, with a LINKS page to be added along with the FILMING page. We're excited by all the hard work by Bob Reed to get our website completely overhauled.

Lastly, we're still hoping to release "Care for a Lift?" by the end of this week, or perhaps next week at the latest. Tony Lunn is scoring the film, and Bill Walker is finishing up the special effects. Bill served in virtually every position for this vignette (from spfx to producer, from voice actor to editor), and he's done a great job with the test footage we took using our turbolift backdrop.

We also would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Joyous Holiday Season, and a Happy New Year!

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

We've posted 20 pictures from this past weekend's shoot on our FaceBook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=144864755532468

Hope you enjoy the candids....

The photos were taken by Mario Pagan, our Engineering Officer Yilmaz, and one of three film/drama students from Georgia Southwestern who are appearing in "The Void."

 

[Sir Rhosis]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Looks great! Good behind the scenes stuff to maybe include on the DVD...

Sir Rhosis

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Thanks!

We could probably do a nine hour blooper reel....

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

From Bill Walker, Producer of "Care for a Lift?"

Not a whole lot of status. I thought I was sick before, but what I have now has knocked me for a loop. And wouldn't you know -- the two times this season I have a break from work, I'm sick as a dog... I should have known better than to go without a flu shot this year...

Nevertheless, two things to report. First, modeling for the first animation is nearly complete, and I should be able to start the render passes tomorrow. The second one is so similar that once the first one is finished, all I have to do is move a couple of things around and start rendering it. If rendering goes quickly, I may still make the year-end deadline.

Second, Tony is nearly done with his first rendition of the music. I should be getting something to listen to in the next couple of days.

We're still hoping to release this episode this week.

 

[lennier1]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Hope he's taking good care of himself. Bill has also already put a lot of work into elements for The Void.
The length of the script for that one also seems like a big step forward.


In the meantime, here's a little teaser to show how the other sets Randy, Bill and I are working on will be different yet still familiar:

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Re: New Star Trek Fan Film

Pretty sneaky, Lennier. And the actual work will knock everyone's socks off.

Actually, Jon Carling is doing the ship/space SPFX for "The Void." Bill Walker will be animating the sets as he did for "The Old Guys" and "Care for a Lift?" Tom Scott will be doing the green-screen work.

Right now, we're working on scheduling to shoot a vignette in January, possibly the weekend of the 17th, entitled, "Doctor's Orders" wherein we meet our laser-sharp CMO, Dr. Maura Drake, as portrayed by Renda Carr. This vignette will feature Dr. Drake, Mike Delaney (Doug Harper), Mtume (Stephanie Burke) and T'Nabi (Bethany Carver). If we can assemble the cast, we should be able to shoot it within a couple of hours' time. Right now, I'm working on securing a decent camera, microphone, and some lights.

We're hoping that we'll be able to release "Care for a Lift?" this week, and we're hoping Bill gets to feeling better. Tony Lunn is already at work scoring the piece, and we can't wait to hear it.

Tom has received all the DV tapes in good condition, and at last report was uploading their contents for editing. This will be a monumental task for Tom, and we're looking forward to the results. His work on "The Old Guys" was simply phenomenal!

David Eversole and I spent much of this past weekend reworking a few scripts, fleshing out a few others, and completely reworking "Doctor's Orders." While we have ten scripts (three episodes, seven vignettes) for "Season 1", we're already at work on a few vignettes for "Season 2"

Lastly, we're looking for a new security chief. Ours for "The Void" only showed for one day of filming, meaning that a lot of his lines were given to other characters. While it's a great opportunity for lesser characters to shine, we were really surprised and disappointed. If you'd be interested in appearing in Project: Potemkin, and if you are willing to travel to the Albany, Georgia, area for filming, please let me know. We would love to get this situation resolved soon.