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Star Trek ~ Project Potemkin "Darkness" S02-B NOW ON-LINE

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Potemkin_Prod

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Now Playing for Your Enjoyment:
Star Trek ~ Project: Potemkin "Darkness" S02-B
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9X-yKpFlAY
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/87590751

A landing party from the Potemkin beams down to investigate an unknown world only to find themselves in total darkness!

Starring Chris Coleman as Ensign Drew Wallace, Bill Mackenzie as Lt Cmdr Quentin Caley, Sara Higgins Mackenzie as Ensign Ziandra Yanari, and Christin Woods as Ensign T'Noshi. Featuring Stephanie Burke as Lt. Sharon M'tume, Pamela Robinson as Lt. Tera Storm, and Aaron Renfroe as Ensign Gueronimo Perez. Written, directed and edited by Randall Landers. VFX by Mark Brennan, Rick Foxx, Lee Gartrell and Randall Landers. Produced by Rick Foxx and Robert Reed.

Running Time: 5 min 33 sec Presented in 480p
 
Just watched "Darkness." I'm unfortunately at work at the moment and can't dedicate the time I usually do to my reactions/reviews, but aside from the usual technical issues I have, I quite liked this outing. I'll reply more when I have some time to compose my thoughts more properly.
 
Looking forward to your comments, 005!

Yeah, there were some technical difficulties when we filmed it some two years ago. New camera, new microphone, new green screen (we'd never shot a green screen before), new software. We learned a lot from doing it. So much so that for our new studio, we painted a 10' freaking wall green. The transporter set was incomplete, and we created some set extensions for it and the control area. We also learned that the slightest wrinkles can have drastic effects on the green screen.

Overall, we like the results, had fun doing it, and hope others enjoy it as well.
 
Good job! The acting was uniformly good and aside from the sound issues (which I know you're working on) I thought it was technically good. It reminded me of "Gem" from TOS which showed how effective the most minimal set can be.

I gather "The Night the Stars Fell From the Sky" was a sort of showcase for your first wave. I will be interested in seeing the improvement that goes on display when you do another full-scale episode. Keep going!
 
Thanks, Mike! We are definitely trying to make improvements as we continue to produce our vignettes.

"The Night the Stars Fell from the Sky" was an ambitious project, showcasing what we had learned to date. And still we found we had more to learn.

The second season consists solely of ten vignettes, most of which are already complete, and are in the final stages of post-production. We experimented with various equipment (cameras, mics, lights, green screens, locations, painted backgrounds), with camera angles, mic and light positioning, etc. To be honest, we do that every time we film. :)

The third season has been eight vignettes "filmed" so far (many of which are in the final stages of post-production as well), and we've begun a full-length episode. We have one vignette remaining to "film" later this spring after we complete the filming of "The Last Child" (the full-length episode).

We hope that our fourth season should consist of at least three and possibly four episodes as well as a seven to six vignettes. Pre-production work will begin on those in May. Our greatest issue is getting all the principals together for shooting at the same time, which is the main reason we continue to produce vignettes.

We're hoping to be able to create 10 productions per year for as long as we do this. We're having fun, and we hope our viewers enjoy our efforts.
 
Having been privy to the raw footage, I am amazed at the finished product. Even I had my secret doubts that it could be done! :)

Sir Rhosis
 
This is what you guys do best! A lot of Star Trek fan series do these short vignettes, but none of the others are as good at telling a science fiction story in three minutes!

You guys may want to come up with a shorter credit sequence for these short films.
 
@sir rhosis - In all honesty, I was a worried about it, too!

@kelso - Shorter credits would be nice for the viewers, but I think the cast rather likes them. Still. I'll give it some thought and see if we can come up with something different for the third season.
 
Re: credits. One of the things we do on Star Trek: Excelsior is have a list of detailed music credits on the website. I fully understand the dilemma: when everyone's a volunteer, how else can you pay them? :)
 
Here's a bit of unsolicited advice re the videos and the credits for anyone who cares about how YouTube tracks views and makes recommendations. Do with it what you will. :)

YouTube recommends videos not only by subject but also by popularity (total number of views) and also takes into account analytics. For instance, if people rewind your video to view part or all of it again, that's a plus but if they fast forward it's a minus. As such, for vignettes and short subjects the best approach is to have only the briefest title card and get into the story, then put your credits at the end. Doing otherwise encourages people to skip ahead to get past the credits, to the potential detriment of your video being selected as a recommendation.

(Also, it's best to have a single version of each film up on YouTube so that all hits are aggregated on the one instead of spread across multiple titles.)

I spent a lot of time tracking analytics on the music videos I've done, and it's fascinating to see the "attentiveness" curves. Sometimes you can tell exactly at which moment a lot of people switch off.
 
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Interesting^^^. Do the analytics track if its a "first time" view or repeat from the same IP? Or an interrupted viewing, i. e. I'm enough of a Luddite that I'm amazed that any time I go back to a previously partially viewed video it takes me to the same spot I was at before.

Sir Rhosis, easily impressed
 
Sir Rhosis said:
Interesting^^^. Do the analytics track if its a "first time" view or repeat from the same IP? Or an interrupted viewing, i. e. I'm enough of a Luddite that I'm amazed that any time I go back to a previously partially viewed video it takes me to the same spot I was at before.

Sir Rhosis, easily impressed
Click to expand...

I created a new topic on the subject of YouTube and FanFilms here (link) so as not to hijack Randy's thread.
 
Potemkin_Prod said:
For our Portuguese speaking friends, here's the Port (BR) subtitled version of "Darkness."

http://youtu.be/70bQ20FWwbM

Our thanks to Ulisses Rogerio Galazzo for his hard work!
Click to expand...

Re the YouTube advice, you might ask Ulisses to provide a the translation as an .srt file so you can just make them the closed captioning instead of making a separate video and splitting views across several videos. :)
 
I will ask him to consider that. He doesn't receive an advance copy of the script or the episode though, and I'm not sure that you can add the subtitles in later. I also would like to learn how to do the SRT files so I can subtitle in English as well.
 
English subtitles make the films available not only to the hearing impaired, but to thousands of Star Trek Fans around the world for whom English is not their first language, and who could follow the film with much greater ease and enjoyment if they also have the benefit of the written script. Just my two cents based on what I read when I visit non-English Star Trek boards hunting for foreign fan films.
 
Yeah, that's certainly desirable. But until I figure out how to do it, it won't get done, unless someone wants to step forward and volunteer to help? :)
 
You can add subtitles at any point. In fact, one of the easiest approaches is to let YouTube auto generate them. They'll be hilariously wrong, but the timing for the lines will be roughly there, and you can then edit them. I just did it for this music video. Once you know how, it'll take maybe an hour for a vignette.
 
George Kayaian did it for the film he made using his 4 year old daughter as the 'writer'. I couldn't understand what she was saying (sadly, never a mother) he did the subtitles in record time. I then used backtracks from my website to several foreign language Trek boards where the film was being favorably compared to films most of us who speak English as our first language would consider much better films. The subtitled had enabled them to follow his toddler's story, which made the toddler's film work better for them than the better, but not subtitled, works.

I am not the writer/editor Maurice is, and I'm not the editor, producer, or just work horse Randy is, but in the course of indexing Star Trek Fan Films and tracking the uses of my index, I find out a lot of interesting stuff. For whatever it's worth, I try to pass it along.
 
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