Also 20 mins in, some of the ADR is awful and the music intrusive in places, but I'm digging the story so far. It might actually be about a guy with PTSD overcoming his issues and not just a standard fanfilm fanwank explosion?
Star Trek: First Frontier on Kickstarter
- Thread starter Bixby
- Start date
OK Glad it is not just me! For me it's the biggest problem in sickbay when the heartbeat on the biobed is overpowering and dialogue is at a whisper volume. However the story, acting, and VFX have been engaging so far.
Yeah--I'm an hour in and still impressed. A good sound remix and this would be up there with Horizon and STC.
Looks like it has been that was for a few years...............
Finally finished---been a busy day. The film maker ruined any goodwill I had by trying to be witty or maybe he thought it was cool..........in the thanks section he thanks all sorts of weird folks like Tammy Faye Baker..........goes on to take a swipe at CBS by thanking Seth for keeping TRUE TREK alive and thanks Doomcock, Mecha, and Midnight's Edge........#classy
I’ve watched it twice now, and while I enjoyed the story overall, the sound mix after the first 10 minutes did not make it easy. The acting was good. The only thing I noticed that was wrong with the sets was the bridge viewscreen.
I didn't mind the view screen......we've never seen it in April's day. I was wondering about the bright blue under the consoles. Was there supposed to be VFX there? Really a loud color to be in that location.
Bit childish and unprofessional as they clearly want to present themselves - a kick in the teeth to CBS?
also the end teases ‘First Frontier: Part 2’. I smell a C&D...
Last edited:
I don’t like the usage of Horner’s score for WOK. With all that time, you’d think they would have found someone to compose and perform something original which could have had elements of TOS, Enterprise and Discovery. Not the wholesale cribbing of something else.
Well, glad to see the shout-out to MacFarlane.
I dipped into this to get the flavor of it. Some nice work, really uneven, another case of the Elephant and the Blind Men where recreating the sense of what TOS essentially was like is concerned. But that's universal among TOS fan films. Like any creative effort, expressing a personal perspective is the whole point.
It's too long for what it is. YMMV, but I probably won't watch it all the way through.
In the process I stumbled on the Avalon short films. Most of what applies to FF applies to them as well, but they are brief and look like a good faith attempt to respect CBS's guidelines. I enjoyed what I saw.
I dipped into this to get the flavor of it. Some nice work, really uneven, another case of the Elephant and the Blind Men where recreating the sense of what TOS essentially was like is concerned. But that's universal among TOS fan films. Like any creative effort, expressing a personal perspective is the whole point.
It's too long for what it is. YMMV, but I probably won't watch it all the way through.
In the process I stumbled on the Avalon short films. Most of what applies to FF applies to them as well, but they are brief and look like a good faith attempt to respect CBS's guidelines. I enjoyed what I saw.
Last edited:
4 consecutive posts...from a moderator? The sky is falling... 
I like to try to be positive, and it looks like some effort was put into the live action material in terms of camera movement, etc. Some of the actors are good, but as ever, I'm not going to pillory those who are not. And hey, they got Barry Corbin—which is cool—but he basically acts everyone else off the screen even in a rather obviously written part.
Where this film really falls down is in the script (so common in fanfilms) and post. There are serious post production technical deficiencies. As others have mentioned, the volume levels are all over the place: you crank it up to hear one thing and your speakers get blown out on the next. Sound effects often don't quite line up the action screen. There's way too much music tracked in. The mix is all over the place so the music and sound FX often overpowers the dialog. There are clumsy editorial choices (characters just appear out of nowhere), weird color correction and editing mistakes (i.e. 3 black frames between two shots at 1:01:36), etc.
The technical faults made this really hard to understand let alone get into. And
...doesn't make me want to go back and try to decipher it all.
Honestly, they would be well off to take this sucker back into the editing bay and do another pass to tighten it down, fix the editorial blunders, and fix the damned mix.
I like to try to be positive, and it looks like some effort was put into the live action material in terms of camera movement, etc. Some of the actors are good, but as ever, I'm not going to pillory those who are not. And hey, they got Barry Corbin—which is cool—but he basically acts everyone else off the screen even in a rather obviously written part.
Where this film really falls down is in the script (so common in fanfilms) and post. There are serious post production technical deficiencies. As others have mentioned, the volume levels are all over the place: you crank it up to hear one thing and your speakers get blown out on the next. Sound effects often don't quite line up the action screen. There's way too much music tracked in. The mix is all over the place so the music and sound FX often overpowers the dialog. There are clumsy editorial choices (characters just appear out of nowhere), weird color correction and editing mistakes (i.e. 3 black frames between two shots at 1:01:36), etc.
e.g.
- 3rd shot (2nd CU of the Enterprise): Distracting jump cut. Lighting on the ship changes completely. Rookie mistake.
- The effects go to Birdemic level right here. The landscape is a clunky collage, the frame rate on the birds flapping doesn't match the frame rate of the film, and when they cut a reverse angle the birds are still flying in the same screen-right direction.
- I appreciate the attempt to use a real model for the Enterprise but they clearly had a lot of trouble with greenscreen matting.
- They literally dissolve their ship into an actual shot from TMP at the end
The technical faults made this really hard to understand let alone get into. And
It's the fanfilm favorite goto: the reluctant Captain who doesn't want to get back on the horse. It takes forever for the plot (such as it is) to get going, oh, and pew pew space battles with an enemy conveniently made eeeeevil and unredeemable is sooooo Star Trek. 
Honestly, they would be well off to take this sucker back into the editing bay and do another pass to tighten it down, fix the editorial blunders, and fix the damned mix.
Last edited:
So, I just watched it. I feel as if the movie got better as it went along (until your last point in the first spoiler... D'oh!). I almost felt like the bridge was green screened in the first couple scenes but then they got the practical set built. The shuttle bay scenes were super messy green screening.4 consecutive posts...from a moderator? The sky is falling...
I like to try to be positive, and it looks like some effort was put into the live action material in terms of camera movement, etc. Some of the actors are good, but as ever, I'm not going to pillory those who are not. And hey, they got Barry Corbin—which is cool—but he basically acts everyone else off the screen even in a rather obviously written part.
Where this film really falls down is in the script (so common in fanfilms) and post. There are serious post production technical deficiencies. As others have mentioned, the volume levels are all over the place: you crank it up to hear one thing and your speakers get blown out on the next. Sound effects often don't quite line up the action screen. There's way too much music tracked in. The mix is all over the place so the music and sound FX often overpowers the dialog. There are clumsy editorial choices (characters just appear out of nowhere), weird color correction and editing mistakes (i.e. 3 black frames between two shots at 1:01:36), etc.
e.g.
- 3rd shot (2nd CU of the Enterprise): Distracting jump cut. Lighting on the ship changes completely. Rookie mistake.
- The effects go to Birdemic level right here. The landscape is a clunky collage, the frame rate on the birds flapping doesn't match the frame rate of the film, and when they cut a reverse angle the birds are still flying in the same screen-right direction.
- I appreciate the attempt to use a real model for the Enterprise but they clearly had a lot of trouble with greenscreen matting.
- They literally dissolve their ship into an actual shot from TMP at the end
The technical faults made this really hard to understand let alone get into. And
...doesn't make me want to go back and try to decipher it all.It's the fanfilm favorite goto: the reluctant Captain who doesn't want to get back on the horse. It takes forever for the plot (such as it is) to get going, oh, and pew pew space battles with an enemy conveniently made eeeeevil and unredeemable is sooooo Star Trek.
Honestly, they would be well off to take this sucker back into the editing bay and do another pass to tighten it down, fix the editorial blunders, and fix the damned mix.
I feel like there was a seed for a really good idea in there and it needed more editing. The alien seemed more like a classic Doctor Who alien than a Star Trek alien. I also feel like most of the movie was a first read of the script on camera, even from the actors that put in a great performance.
While you say it falls apart in post production I think the movie needed a good deal more pre production.
What sets did they use for the shipboard scenes? It felt like the colours were completely different in sick bay and the Captain's quarters than they were in Phase ii and the Georgia sets
Using James Horner's music seemed to clash with the retro feel of the sets and costumes. It really would have been better to use Henri Mancini/Hoyt Curtin's jazz-type flair
Using James Horner's music seemed to clash with the retro feel of the sets and costumes. It really would have been better to use Henri Mancini/Hoyt Curtin's jazz-type flair
Speaking of the costumes... Did anybody's costume fit right? Everything seemed to be a couple sizes to large and longer than necessary.
I looked at their FB page - they appear to have built at least half of the main bridge and a transporter room. They did build the viewscreen full-scale, or something close to it, but I don't see any images of that set piece attached to the bridge set.
If I were to guess, they repurposed part of the platforming for the back half of the bridge, mounting the viewscreen on it for the reverse angle.
No pictures of other full scale set construction. Maybe they shot on the sets that were out in the midwest for a while (the folks who started with the Exeter bridge set. Or, maybe Ticonderoga. They shot this over a period of years.
If I were to guess, they repurposed part of the platforming for the back half of the bridge, mounting the viewscreen on it for the reverse angle.
No pictures of other full scale set construction. Maybe they shot on the sets that were out in the midwest for a while (the folks who started with the Exeter bridge set. Or, maybe Ticonderoga. They shot this over a period of years.
The four phases of fan film costuming:
- We can't sew and have no budget. Starfleet uniforms are just turtlenecks anyway. Hail Walmart!
- Found a copy of the Lincoln Enterprises patterns on eBay. Does it matter if the neckline on this tunic shows my navel?
- See the collar on this dress uniform? It's made from the same all-natural polyester harvested from Ceylonese silkworms during the summer of 1964 and hand-dyed in Italy that Theiss used in the first seven episodes of the second season of TOS. The mill was out of business but we bought all their old looms and set them up in my cousin's garage.
- So, if we start with a TOS tunic and replace the side gussets with black polyester, add Voyager rank pins and use AbramsVerse chest badges we're creating our own alternate universe. Also, we can raise a couple million bucks online because we're a derivative work!
Overall, this was a fan film and there were quite a few things to like (I like the really retro feel of the silver spacesuit, the phaser pistols, the CG effects done by Samuel Cockings and his crew (I think the latter were not responsible for the transporter FX sequences, just a guess).
I have some issues with the directing and the editing (way too many cuts during what are essentially short dialogue bits- like 3 angle changes for essentially a 6 second bit.) Remember, there should be a reason for cuts: if you go from a close-up to a two-shot, it's because you want to reveal something significant, not because you want to hide something...
At the very end there is a quick message the same team is preparing a sequel to this...I'm willing to watch.
And then they show a scene with a younger Harry Mudd...
And then I slammed my skull against a solid wall and bellowed: ''Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...''..
I have some issues with the directing and the editing (way too many cuts during what are essentially short dialogue bits- like 3 angle changes for essentially a 6 second bit.) Remember, there should be a reason for cuts: if you go from a close-up to a two-shot, it's because you want to reveal something significant, not because you want to hide something...
At the very end there is a quick message the same team is preparing a sequel to this...I'm willing to watch.
And then they show a scene with a younger Harry Mudd...
And then I slammed my skull against a solid wall and bellowed: ''Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...''..
Indeed. Also, don't go in to the comments section. "Gene's vision"
Similar threads
- Poll
