Hello Fellow Trek Fans!!
My name is Jeremy Brown and I feel I should warn you, this may be long-winded.
I'm a filmmaker originally from Boise, Idaho, my wife, my son and I moved to Seattle, WA but finally settled down in Watertown, South Dakota. I've been making films for over 10 years and most of my films stuck with the horror/supernatural element. Just recently we shot a fan film called "Friday the 13th - Vengeance" and thankfully it's done very well! We're nearing almost a million views on YouTube and I couldn't be happier for my cast and crew who worked so hard on it. However, I hope this doesn't come off as boasting which is never my intention but the film served a much more important purpose, we were able to raise over $25,000 for the Shriner's Children's Hospital through our volunteer work in the name of this film! That, we're very proud of.
So enter 2020, which has really been a very tough year for all of us, and especially some more than others. We had talked a very long time about doing a Star Trek fan film, but were always scared to pull the trigger because Star Trek fans hold the fan films to a very high standard and we knew we needed to get better. Able to finally develop a feature film like Vengeance really showed us the level of talent and hard work we had on our team and we knew it was time to take a step forward and take a chance on entering our hand into the Star Trek universe. However it had to be a story worth telling, and one that meant something to what's going on in the world now.
I got with a very talented novelist named Matt Shaw, who is a best selling horror author in the UK, and we constructed the story of a Klingon named Ak'Trath and a Starfleet Medical Officer named Anja Koria and how they both lived in two very different worlds. These two worlds would come together just when it seems like everything is falling apart for the both of them. We wanted to stick to the Star Trek style of storytelling with this, a tough situation, a few possible solutions and a resolution that would leave you content with the episode. I was very inspired by the "Way of the Warrior" episode of Deep Space Nine.
It seems space combat is very important to Trek fans, but we had to step away from that way of storytelling, I feel in the timeline we've chosen it might become too commonplace or expected, so our story focuses on character development and a ground attack on Terra Colony Prime.
The timeline would put us in the Deep Space Nine series territory. The year being 2372, and the Cardassian and Klingon forces would oppose Starfleet. We knew there was a story in there that needed to be told and we felt we found one that would be worthy of a Star Trek story. Worthy even enough to put a film team together and shoot this story. So I asked my team from Vengeance to join me on this voyage, and most who were not busy with other projects agreed. So I'm bringing in the very talented Mick Strawn, who did our production design and acted as my 1st AD. Mick Strawn worked on some 80's and 90's classics such as Blade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4. So I called him and he quickly let me know what a big Trekkie he was. The first thing he asked me "Can you find me a dentist chair?" I couldn't help but laugh.
I needed a great cinematographer and so I reach out to my friend Kody Newton, a very talented writer/director who fell in love with the camera side of things. He's mastered using the Arri Alexa and truly understands framing, lighting and using the camera to tell great stories. He's won a handful of awards for his work and I felt he'd be the best person for the job of this Star Trek story that we feel is so important to tell.
From there we reached out to a very talented costumer who also designs costumes for her own films. Nearly 30 years of Trek fandom and an absolute love for the story we wrote she agreed to design our costumes. Heather was already showing me pieces of the Klingon costume and how utterly important it was to be camera perfect. So we've been talking the arm fur and what materials to use and many more elements that she's being very precise on.
Finally rounding out our team, we have our marketing genius in T.J. Bowser who is a big Trek fan, he runs the Dewback Discussion Network that has a large following, TJ is a charismatic and fun person who really loves the sci-fi community and supports many great artists. TJ also was our voice over actor for our news cast on Vengeance. Our graphic designer, Cory Coffman who can look at any graphic in the world and recreate it nearly perfectly. Some of his work was featured on our film Vengeance, he was able to recreate exact replicas of items seen in Friday the 13th Part 6, we were just blown away. Finally Tesia Lehman, a graduate of a very prestigious SFX makeup school agreed to help design our makeup for the film, working on the Klingon appliances and more. Tesia is a multi-talent, she's the voice behind "Wicked Wednesdays" on the Dewback discussion network and a very sought after horror model as well.
I wanted to share with you all these great people so you know that we have a team that cares about this project. Every ounce of our being is dedicated to making great film with great stories. You're more than welcome to watch our fan film, Friday the 13th Vengeance on YouTube, its there in its entirety, for free. Warning though, it's rated R for language/nudity/scenes of brutality, so you might get a feel of how serious we take our fandom.
To join a Star Trek community like this is very important to me, especially as we're still in development stages of the script, the film and the casting. We're currently in the audition stage of our casting and we're being quite finicky on who we are going to cast. Fan films are created by fans, so its important to me that the fans be included in having a say on elements of the film. So there are going to be times that I'd love to reach out to you guys and get your opinions and thoughts of set design pieces, costumes, and more! I know you can't please everyone when it comes to film, we sure try our darnedest to do so.
To clarify, we are very aware of the Star Trek fan film rules from the CBS/Paramount site, so we're not looking to shoot anything beyond 30 minutes. In fact, the Star Trek fan film rules were our guidelines upon shooting Vengeance. Though there were elements in which we were able to talk to the creators of Friday the 13th to clarify a few things. However, we are sticking to the rules as much as we can with this film. Though there is one we're straying away from because it is indeed a murky rule and that rule is it being an amateur only production. I feel that while we have a strong understanding of film, we're not doing our Trek at a Hollywood level with Hollywood actors. The entertainment lawyer I've talked to, said that's a fair assessment of that rule and she followed that it would be a hard assessment to quantify. Since this film is not making any money, the cast and crew are strictly volunteer, it cannot be considered a professional film. This was the explanation I received anyway. I'm not out to circumvent rules, I just would prefer to work with my team.
So yes, we're not quite ready to start a Kickstarter as we're still in development. I am happy to meet all of you and would love to listen to your thoughts and opinions because they truly matter to me. It's quite important that you fans love what we create and feel included in its inception! Also I wanted to include a lovely message for the great Queen of Geeks herself, Ms. Felicia Day!
My name is Jeremy Brown and I feel I should warn you, this may be long-winded.
I'm a filmmaker originally from Boise, Idaho, my wife, my son and I moved to Seattle, WA but finally settled down in Watertown, South Dakota. I've been making films for over 10 years and most of my films stuck with the horror/supernatural element. Just recently we shot a fan film called "Friday the 13th - Vengeance" and thankfully it's done very well! We're nearing almost a million views on YouTube and I couldn't be happier for my cast and crew who worked so hard on it. However, I hope this doesn't come off as boasting which is never my intention but the film served a much more important purpose, we were able to raise over $25,000 for the Shriner's Children's Hospital through our volunteer work in the name of this film! That, we're very proud of.
So enter 2020, which has really been a very tough year for all of us, and especially some more than others. We had talked a very long time about doing a Star Trek fan film, but were always scared to pull the trigger because Star Trek fans hold the fan films to a very high standard and we knew we needed to get better. Able to finally develop a feature film like Vengeance really showed us the level of talent and hard work we had on our team and we knew it was time to take a step forward and take a chance on entering our hand into the Star Trek universe. However it had to be a story worth telling, and one that meant something to what's going on in the world now.
I got with a very talented novelist named Matt Shaw, who is a best selling horror author in the UK, and we constructed the story of a Klingon named Ak'Trath and a Starfleet Medical Officer named Anja Koria and how they both lived in two very different worlds. These two worlds would come together just when it seems like everything is falling apart for the both of them. We wanted to stick to the Star Trek style of storytelling with this, a tough situation, a few possible solutions and a resolution that would leave you content with the episode. I was very inspired by the "Way of the Warrior" episode of Deep Space Nine.
It seems space combat is very important to Trek fans, but we had to step away from that way of storytelling, I feel in the timeline we've chosen it might become too commonplace or expected, so our story focuses on character development and a ground attack on Terra Colony Prime.
The timeline would put us in the Deep Space Nine series territory. The year being 2372, and the Cardassian and Klingon forces would oppose Starfleet. We knew there was a story in there that needed to be told and we felt we found one that would be worthy of a Star Trek story. Worthy even enough to put a film team together and shoot this story. So I asked my team from Vengeance to join me on this voyage, and most who were not busy with other projects agreed. So I'm bringing in the very talented Mick Strawn, who did our production design and acted as my 1st AD. Mick Strawn worked on some 80's and 90's classics such as Blade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4. So I called him and he quickly let me know what a big Trekkie he was. The first thing he asked me "Can you find me a dentist chair?" I couldn't help but laugh.
I needed a great cinematographer and so I reach out to my friend Kody Newton, a very talented writer/director who fell in love with the camera side of things. He's mastered using the Arri Alexa and truly understands framing, lighting and using the camera to tell great stories. He's won a handful of awards for his work and I felt he'd be the best person for the job of this Star Trek story that we feel is so important to tell.
From there we reached out to a very talented costumer who also designs costumes for her own films. Nearly 30 years of Trek fandom and an absolute love for the story we wrote she agreed to design our costumes. Heather was already showing me pieces of the Klingon costume and how utterly important it was to be camera perfect. So we've been talking the arm fur and what materials to use and many more elements that she's being very precise on.
Finally rounding out our team, we have our marketing genius in T.J. Bowser who is a big Trek fan, he runs the Dewback Discussion Network that has a large following, TJ is a charismatic and fun person who really loves the sci-fi community and supports many great artists. TJ also was our voice over actor for our news cast on Vengeance. Our graphic designer, Cory Coffman who can look at any graphic in the world and recreate it nearly perfectly. Some of his work was featured on our film Vengeance, he was able to recreate exact replicas of items seen in Friday the 13th Part 6, we were just blown away. Finally Tesia Lehman, a graduate of a very prestigious SFX makeup school agreed to help design our makeup for the film, working on the Klingon appliances and more. Tesia is a multi-talent, she's the voice behind "Wicked Wednesdays" on the Dewback discussion network and a very sought after horror model as well.
I wanted to share with you all these great people so you know that we have a team that cares about this project. Every ounce of our being is dedicated to making great film with great stories. You're more than welcome to watch our fan film, Friday the 13th Vengeance on YouTube, its there in its entirety, for free. Warning though, it's rated R for language/nudity/scenes of brutality, so you might get a feel of how serious we take our fandom.
To join a Star Trek community like this is very important to me, especially as we're still in development stages of the script, the film and the casting. We're currently in the audition stage of our casting and we're being quite finicky on who we are going to cast. Fan films are created by fans, so its important to me that the fans be included in having a say on elements of the film. So there are going to be times that I'd love to reach out to you guys and get your opinions and thoughts of set design pieces, costumes, and more! I know you can't please everyone when it comes to film, we sure try our darnedest to do so.
To clarify, we are very aware of the Star Trek fan film rules from the CBS/Paramount site, so we're not looking to shoot anything beyond 30 minutes. In fact, the Star Trek fan film rules were our guidelines upon shooting Vengeance. Though there were elements in which we were able to talk to the creators of Friday the 13th to clarify a few things. However, we are sticking to the rules as much as we can with this film. Though there is one we're straying away from because it is indeed a murky rule and that rule is it being an amateur only production. I feel that while we have a strong understanding of film, we're not doing our Trek at a Hollywood level with Hollywood actors. The entertainment lawyer I've talked to, said that's a fair assessment of that rule and she followed that it would be a hard assessment to quantify. Since this film is not making any money, the cast and crew are strictly volunteer, it cannot be considered a professional film. This was the explanation I received anyway. I'm not out to circumvent rules, I just would prefer to work with my team.
So yes, we're not quite ready to start a Kickstarter as we're still in development. I am happy to meet all of you and would love to listen to your thoughts and opinions because they truly matter to me. It's quite important that you fans love what we create and feel included in its inception! Also I wanted to include a lovely message for the great Queen of Geeks herself, Ms. Felicia Day!
