Star Trek: Axanar

[Tosk]

Although that's highly unlikely [...]

Thanks Terry, and great answer. I figured you'd all have contingencies planned out, but it's comforting to get a sense of how it's all laid out.

 

[fireproof78]

So, it's basically like the military's Quatermaster Corp on a shoe string budget. Got it

Thank you!

 

[TerryMcIntosh]

Although that's highly unlikely [...]

Thanks Terry, and great answer. I figured you'd all have contingencies planned out, but it's comforting to get a sense of how it's all laid out.

Yep, Axanar is run like a proper business and not a part-time effort. We have department heads that actually are accountable for deliverables and milestones, so the titles are earned and not symbolic, and so much more. When we've said before that Axanar is a full time job for many we're not kidding. Speaking only for myself, I easily log 50 hours a week on a slow week working on Axanar business, and that's before the hours that I invest in my own company that pays my bills.

Since Axanar cannot profit from CBS IP for obvious reasons, we also have some initiatives in the works that can earn us proper profit, such as the Ares Digital fulfillment system that I cooked up. We're using Axanar as a proper live test bed, but when it's ready we'll be releasing it to the public, and any other crowdsourced effort, to handle everything from collecting donor shipping and contact info all the way up through upsells and all of that fun stuff. BackerKit, the company that we used in the Prelude to Axanar fundraiser to collect donor info, just isn't made or run the way that is advantageous for us, so we're making our own. Heck, we even have our first client (VERY high profile) and the system is still in development.

Speaking only for myself, it'll be nice to actually get a paycheck after these thousands of hours invested so far, too, since Ares Digital will be a for-profit company and I'll be the major shareholder. =)

 

[beamMe]

His performance in Prelude was rather flat and uninspired, yes. But I am going to wait and see how Peters does in the finished film before I make up my mind about him.

In the context of the interview-setting for Prelude I think he did a very good job.

 

[Karzak]

We will agree to disagree then.

 

[Titan Designer]

Although that's highly unlikely [...]

Thanks Terry, and great answer. I figured you'd all have contingencies planned out, but it's comforting to get a sense of how it's all laid out.

Speaking only for myself, it'll be nice to actually get a paycheck after these thousands of hours invested so far...

I think we all agree with you there Terry....lol

 

[DCR]

What I like about Richard Hatch's Kharn is that he seems to be playing him as a proper Klingon Thought Admiral from The Final Reflection, something that I found later interpretations of the race sorely missed.

Looking forward seeing more of him.

 

[Karzak]

I have another question for Terry:

From the IndieGogo page:

Alec Peters wrote:
Axanar is a feature film, but will be broken down into four episodes following the four acts of the script. With an overall budget of approximately $960,000, that means each episode will cost approximately $240,000. Add to that a portion of the ongoing studio costs, and the cost of Indiegogo, payment processing, and perks (see below), and we are setting a goal of $330,000 per episode, or $1,320,000.

We can make Axanar one act at a time, if needed (although we'd prefer to make it all at once!). So, we are setting our first goal at $330,000. There will be stretch goals at $660,000, $ 990,000 and $1,320,000, with each stretch goal meaning another epsiode will get made. If we raise the entire $1,320,000, then we will have what we need to make all of Axanar. (Anything above that will just make it better.)

The idea of breaking down a feature film and shooting it in four separate parts rather than all at once strikes me as being very foolhardy with respect to costs. Rather than building, lighting, rigging and using the sets for their scenes then moving on, this would be prolonging the production (and, I assume the need for funding) for the film.

 

[137th Gebirg]

What I like about Richard Hatch's Kharn is that he seems to be playing him as a proper Klingon Thought Admiral from The Final Reflection, something that I found later interpretations of the race sorely missed.

Looking forward seeing more of him.

Thought the exact same thing as well when I first saw it. I so preferred John M. Ford's Klingons to what we wound up getting in TNG and beyond.

 

[Warped9]

What I like about Richard Hatch's Kharn is that he seems to be playing him as a proper Klingon Thought Admiral from The Final Reflection, something that I found later interpretations of the race sorely missed.

Looking forward seeing more of him.

Thought the exact same thing as well when I first saw it. I so preferred John M. Ford's Klingons to what we wound up getting in TNG and beyond.

Seconded. The "bikers of the galaxy" we got from TSFS onward never impressed me.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Yeah, it was a weird bouillabaisse of outlaw biker + berserker Viking + Japanese Samurai (with an honor code roughly analogous to Bushido), and with a little Scottish Highlander and a dash of heavy metal guitarist thrown into the mix. Kind of one-dimensional and directionless in many cases. It wasn't until the "big 3" original Klingons showed up on DS9 that you really got a sense of what they could have been.

 

[Phantom]

Please explain that to the poster than spent several screen inches lecturing about how his opinion was more valid than mine as to the merits of Axanar's FX vs Abrams' because he was a "professional VFX artist".

It's not that my opinion was any less or more valid, it's that your basic premise was factually flawed and you seemingly had no concept of how the industry worked.

I do find it funny that many folks talk about facts and objectivity but then are in bitter denial when someone that actually works in the industry comes in and shoots them down.

Arugment from Authority fallacy. Tom's assessment of the material is not more credible than mine via any supposed "virtue" inferred from his professional status.

Most of those guys who built the system back then probably don't even know this project is going on, I wager.

If there's a legal issue that is ever in question, honestly, I don't think anyone at FASA cares anymore. I can't remember the whole interaction clearly, but I thought they dropped the Trek RPG license because Paramount wanted too much money and they wanted to put all their eggs in the Shadowrun project at the time. It may be an absurdly over-simplified adolescent-biased remembrance of something that happened 30+ years ago, but I think that was the general gist.

FASA ran afoul of Richard Arnold's Reign of Terror over the tie-ins. Looking back on it and knowing some of the details that David Gerrald has revealed about the behind-the-scenes shennanigans, it probably is more the Leonard Maizlish/Richard Arnold Reign of Terror.

At the time, FASA's work was considered "too militaristic" by the decision makers at Paramount, as well as creating too many extrapolations that PTB didn't want fans getting the idea that would be canon.

His performance in Prelude was rather flat and uninspired, yes. But I am going to wait and see how Peters does in the finished film before I make up my mind about him.

In the context of the interview-setting for Prelude I think he did a very good job.

Being an aficionado of documentaries, and esp military ones, he was pretty much pitch-perfect. Quietly professional and a touch self-effacing.

What I like about Richard Hatch's Kharn is that he seems to be playing him as a proper Klingon Thought Admiral from The Final Reflection, something that I found later interpretations of the race sorely missed.

Looking forward seeing more of him.

I was about to ask if anyone else caught that...

 

[Mudd]

It's not that my opinion was any less or more valid, it's that your basic premise was factually flawed and you seemingly had no concept of how the industry worked.

I do find it funny that many folks talk about facts and objectivity but then are in bitter denial when someone that actually works in the industry comes in and shoots them down.

Arugment from Authority fallacy. Tom's assessment of the material is not more credible than mine via any supposed "virtue" inferred from his professional status.

Nope, you misunderstand.

It's about the poster knowing more about what they're talking about than you do.

Which thought was ridiculous. also.
You validated my point

As for kirk in the abrams movies, that is just completely retarded, he sneaks on to the ship and by the time the movie is over he is captain

Only in the mind of JJ could something like that happen.

Meh, nonsense like that happens throughout the fifty year history of Star Trek.

If Kirk were in any real military or uniformed service he'd have been discharged for multiple violations before the end of the original TV series.

People need to stop pretending that there's anything plausibly realistic about Star Trek and then trying to use that to bash whatever version of it they happen to personally dislike. They're certainly not fooling anyone.

 

[dub]

What I like about Richard Hatch's Kharn is that he seems to be playing him as a proper Klingon Thought Admiral from The Final Reflection, something that I found later interpretations of the race sorely missed.

Looking forward seeing more of him.

Thought the exact same thing as well when I first saw it. I so preferred John M. Ford's Klingons to what we wound up getting in TNG and beyond.

Seconded. The "bikers of the galaxy" we got from TSFS onward never impressed me.

I agree with all of that. But I felt he was trying a bit too hard to "put on" a Klingon voice...in a TNG sort of way. Obviously it wasn't over-the-top, but I still felt he was forcing some gruff into his voice. It didn't sound natural to me, it sounded forced. Maybe it's because I'm already familiar with the actor and that influenced my opinion. I really enjoyed him in nuBSG. We only have a short bit from him so far though, so maybe in the context of the actual film his performance will be a better sell for me. Hope so! I'm looking forward to seeing it!

 

[BigJake]

The idea of breaking down a feature film and shooting it in four separate parts rather than all at once strikes me as being very foolhardy with respect to costs. Rather than building, lighting, rigging and using the sets for their scenes then moving on, this would be prolonging the production (and, I assume the need for funding) for the film.

So I guess the non-hostile version of this question would be: "Hi, Terry. Can you explain why Axanar split its production into four acts, and how that affects financing?"

 

[fireproof78]

The idea of breaking down a feature film and shooting it in four separate parts rather than all at once strikes me as being very foolhardy with respect to costs. Rather than building, lighting, rigging and using the sets for their scenes then moving on, this would be prolonging the production (and, I assume the need for funding) for the film.

So I guess the non-hostile version of this question would be: "Hi, Terry. Can you explain why Axanar split its production into four acts, and how that affects financing?"

Non-hostile? In this thread?

I mean, good question

 

[Tom]

The idea of breaking down a feature film and shooting it in four separate parts rather than all at once strikes me as being very foolhardy with respect to costs. Rather than building, lighting, rigging and using the sets for their scenes then moving on, this would be prolonging the production (and, I assume the need for funding) for the film.

So I guess the non-hostile version of this question would be: "Hi, Terry. Can you explain why Axanar split its production into four acts, and how that affects financing?"

Nothing hostile about Karzak's post IMO, its a good question.

There already have enough for act one and probably act 2 by the time this Kickstarter is over it seems. Would be a shame though, that after getting a over a million (101k + 638k plus this drive at 236k currently) that they can't complete the whole movie or take another year or 2 to complete.

 

[Karzak]

I did not mean for the question to come across as hostile. My profound and sincere apologies if that is how it was read.

I do see that I mistakenly left out my actual question at the end of my previous post, which would have simply been "Do you know why this is being done this way?

 

[fireproof78]

The idea of breaking down a feature film and shooting it in four separate parts rather than all at once strikes me as being very foolhardy with respect to costs. Rather than building, lighting, rigging and using the sets for their scenes then moving on, this would be prolonging the production (and, I assume the need for funding) for the film.

So I guess the non-hostile version of this question would be: "Hi, Terry. Can you explain why Axanar split its production into four acts, and how that affects financing?"

Nothing hostile about Karzak's post IMO, its a good question.

There already have enough for act one and probably act 2 by the time this Kickstarter is over it seems. Would be a shame though, that after getting a over a million (101k + 638k plus this drive at 236k currently) that they can't complete the whole movie or take another year or 2 to complete.

I did not mean for the question to come across as hostile. My profound and sincere apologies if that is how it was read.

I do see that I mistakenly left out my actual question at the end of my previous post, which would have simply been "Do you know why this is being done this way?

I think that it was the "foolhardy" term in the question that made me at it.

I didn't think it was hostile so much as it it could be perceived that way. Again, the lack of verbal cues in text form means words take on a number of meanings in a person's mind.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yeah, it was a weird bouillabaisse of outlaw biker + berserker Viking + Japanese Samurai (with an honor code roughly analogous to Bushido), and with a little Scottish Highlander and a dash of heavy metal guitarist thrown into the mix. Kind of one-dimensional and directionless in many cases. It wasn't until the "big 3" original Klingons showed up on DS9 that you really got a sense of what they could have been.

I get flamed almost every time I bring this up, but I have a suspicion that J. Michael Straczynski's depiction of the Minbari race was basically his take on "What the Klingons SHOULD have been."

Warrior caste that never backs down from a fight and has their own way of doing things? Check.

Stealth technology? Check.

Complicated love-hate relationship with humanity evolving from conflict to mutual respect to eventual friendship? Check.

Affinity for melee combat? Check.

I like to think that Klingon society is a lot more complex and dynamic than what we are commonly shown. It would pretty much have to be.