Your missionary work: find an actress—young, sensationalism attitude, who lives in Oklahoma—willing to appear in a voluntary Star Trek fan film. Oh, and she needs to be of Native American ethnicity.

You have two years.

When you donate to the AVALON UNIVERSE Prima Trek fan production, you're paying for a get-IT-done attitude and a proven track record. Over the past few weeks, I've provided three strong reasons to impart your financial support to this problematical-working fan product bunch: Jakande Lives, Do It for Pixi, and The Squad. This calendar week, I've preserved the best for last—the almost compelling reason out to donate to their GoFundMe campaign, which just happens to represent located at this link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

These folks never give raised…ever! Zero matter what obstacles God, the gods, fate, the Universe, and/or or the Flying Spaghetti Freak throw their way, showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN and his team testament ever observe a manner to get their fan picture show(s) finished.

Avalon Universe has already released Septet high-quality fan films (ii of which were two-parters of 30-plus minute length) in to a lesser degree leash years. And regular every bit they try to push-fund another leash productions, they're already hard at work on a fourth sports fan film: AGENT OF NEW WORLDS .

And in that lies a tale…

Continue reading "Reason #4 to donate to the AVALON GoFundMe: NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER!"

To paraphrase (DE)Forrest Gump: "Fan films are like a boxful of chocolates—you never lie with what you're gonna get."

That was certainly the case when I sat down to watch the premiere of the new winnow serial publication Externalize: RUNABOUT , created by Gary DAVIS and RANDY WRENN, who are also the co-showrunners behind the old stager buff series DREADNOUGHT DOMINION . I went in completely raw, knowing only that Gary had worked elongate and hard to establish a brand new TOS-era cockpit set up in his basement and that British VFX phenom SAMUEL COCKINGS had designed an awesome-looking for CGI model of a 23rd century roadster and was really excited about the visual effects that he was creating for this initial release.

I knew this offse episode was entitled "Pilot," and I'd heard at that place was an all-female cast (with one male Klingon thrown in). But the phrase I'd heard bandied about was "girl-power." Well, alrighty, and so! Thus I was sort of expecting a space battle of some kind, great VFX (because Sam isn't capable of creating anything other) and an intriguing new "homemade" Lead Trek set.

What I was NOT expecting was…a music video??? And honestly, a really good music video! Present, have a look…

Of course, it's sort of hard to make a "counterfeit" music telecasting when you're playacting RACHEL PLATTEN's uplifting Fight Song ! Only Gary and Sexy were besides helped on by four newcomers to Star Trek fan films.

Naturally, there was very much to chat with him about…

Continue reading "With a elfin help from Home Depot, the newest fan series PROJECT RUNABOUT launches their "PILOT" episode! (interview with GARY DAVIS)"

Winnow films are like weddings. (Hour angle, got your attending!)

Think about it. Weddings can be equally cheap and simple as a trip to City Hall operating room a a few friends in the backyard. Or they can Be pricey galas with hundreds of guests and all the trimmings. Or they can be anywhere in 'tween.

And so it is with devotee films. We make everything from cardboard sets and scenes shaft with jail cell phones to professional-looking for productions with trained actors, meticulous sets and costumes, top-quality recording equipment, and budgets into the five-fles range and sometimes even beyond that.

Generally, the larger and Thomas More ambitious the wedding, the more critical it is that a team of planners and managers be involved to make a point everything goes smoothly. You get one luck at the actual observance, and it's every that the behind-the-scenes planning that can watch if the wedding is a crow or a disaster.

The AVALON UNIVERSE fan films aren't exactly Kardashian weddings (thank goodness!), but they are still pretty glorious, with production upper-class a few steps above the majority of Star Trek fan films out there. This is not meant to belittle those other rooter films. All fan filmmakers deserve back and encouragement. But when you donate to an Avalon Universe of discourse crowd-funding campaign, you know your money will be easily-played out, and the terminated product will look and sound and be amazing.

Oh, and speaking of donating, Avalon has a crowd-funding movement sledding on aright now, if you'd like to backwards it…

https://www.gofundme.com/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

Like a successful wedding, a well-run fan production requires careful planning and preparation, and that means having the reactionist people in the right jobs…not just during the shoots but in the months and weeks leading up to the director shouting "Action!" for the start time.

As I mentioned last hebdomad, I wasn't ab initio provision to be start out of "Team Avalon," even though I consider Avalon Universe film director/showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN to be a snug Friend. (Josh was my Music director of Photography and Editor on INTERLUDE .) What I did offer to doh was to give notice Jolly and his manufacturer, PIXI NEREID, on strategies for crowd-funding…advice I've also offered to other sports fan filmmakers over the years.

But earlier I knew it, Pixi had jumped into action, adding me to the output crew's Facebook chat, giving Maine access to their Slack productiveness app account where the cast and crew keep apart entirely of their online resources, and inviting me onto the kick-off product group meeting Zoom call. So that's how I became a part of "Team Avalon," and it's given me a fascinating look up to into who these exquisitely folks are and all that they'Re doing to make the wedding…er, fan film extra spectacular and go off without a hitch.

Let ME tell you all but the team…

Continue reading "Reason #3 to donate to the AVALON GoFundMe: THE Team up!"

I'm extremely troubled all but something that happened last week on Facebook, and I'm not reliable what to do about information technology other than bringing information technology to the attending of my readers.

Eastern Samoa you've probably noticed, I've been putting in a fair bit of cause over the past few weeks trying to help encourage donations to the current GoFundMe campaign for the AVALON UNIVERSE fan series. They're doing pretty well thus far, near 18% ($3.6K) of the way to to their $20K end. If you'd like to give a little sumthin', by the way, here's the link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

Now, helping fan productions get the formulate KO'd for their campaigns is nothing new for me. Over the past three months, I've written multiple blogs or so Samuel COCKINGS' TREK SHORTS crowd-funder back in May and GARY DAVIS' safari for DREADNOUGHT District in June. Naturally, I'd also require to help out JOSHUA IRWIN with his Avalon GoFundMe…not exclusive because he's a Star Trek fan filmmaker only because he did an awesome job as DP and editor on my fan film INTERLUDE and because he's a good booster.

So finis week when I posted to Facebook a "progress" graphic like the one at the top of this web log, I shared it with the usual collection of Star Trek and fan film groups on Facebook that I'm a member of. I do this with all Buff Film Factor and related posts to increase visibility, and invariably, I either see an straightaway "Your post has been shared with your group" message or, within a few minutes to a few hours, "An admin has approved your situatio."

What I don't usually take care is a Descent notice like this nonpareil…

Huh?

Now, ii things immediately struck me as odd about the note from the admin at the bottom. The first was that a Facebook group titled " Leading Trek Fan Films & Sound Dramas" was restricting anything incidental to JJ Trek. There's almost no Star Trek fan films set in that universe anyhow, but wherefore exclude the hardly a that are? I mean, even if you loathe J.J. ABRAMS and the motorcycle he rode in on, wherefore should the "sins of the manufacturer" also represent an albatross worn just about the neck of a fan filmmaker? (What a wonderful mix of metaphors!)

Soh I looked at the rules of the grouping, just to be sure. And lo and behold…

7) No Kelvin universe fan films will be permitted. Nor will discovery supported fan films

Continue reading "Why is the Fan Films & Audio Dramas Facebook group REJECTING posts around the AVALON UNIVERSE? (editorial)"

The AVALON UNIVERSE International Relations and Security Network't the Prime Prima Trek universe, and it's non the Kelvin timeline either. It's not the Mirror macrocos or the Axanar universe or any different Star Trek operating theatre Marvel or DC or sci-fi universe you've ever seen ahead…unless, of course, you've watched the previous six Avalon fan films releases.

Instead, the Avalon Universe is simply a place where show-runner Book of Joshua IRWIN (from Fayetteville, Arkansas) arse play out around with Star Trek stories without worrying about tripping complete extant canon or angering this surgery that Trekkie because such-and-such ne'er happened or this-or-that did happen so what you've honorable shown United States doesn't work. It whole works in the Avalon Universe, and that's whol you postulate to know.

The Avalon fan series got its start along Halloween 2022 with the spill of the creepily comedic (operating theatre was that comedically creepy?) GHOST SHIP , which can best be described as "Star Trek meets The Walking Dead." It was amusive and amazingly professional-looking. The reason for the latter is because Chaff and many members of his squad do actually work in the moving-picture show industriousness and know how to shoot a proper film…fan operating theater otherwise.

Ghost Send off introduced the early bunch of the recently-repaired U.S.S. Excalibur, including VICTORIA FOX as First Officer Amanda Beck, VICTORIA Bowman as Organise Jamie Archer (yep, same family name as the character), and TYLER DUNIVAN as Captain Derek Mason. But no sooner had Freemason been introduced than we saw the character kick the bucket a noble death in the second base Avalon episode AVALON LOST .

The third base Avalon episode, DEMONS , released a year after Shade Ship and eight months after Avalon Missing , showed fans how Commandant Beck and new dominating officer, Captain Lance Ramirez (played by  Regorge MERÉ) dealt with the loss of their close friend and colleague. LEGACY and NEW ORDERS were some short vignettes, while AIR AND Dark was an ambitious uncut episode with night shots, stunts, great VFX, and lots of Klingons!

Earlier this calendar month, "Squad Avalon" launched a brand newborn GoFundMe campaign trying to raise $20K to continue their saga, hoping to finance as a great deal of their following multi-episode chapter "Crisis on Infinite Excaliburs" as possible. Scantily a week and a fractional in, the cause is doing strongly with 55 backers and nearly $3K in donations so Former Armed Forces—about 15% of the way to their goal. But more put up is sorely needed to generate the unexpended 85%, so please consider making a donation, even if it's a small unity, by clicking here…

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

While the team up waits for more backers, they induce been doing anything BUT resting connected their laurels! In fact, Josh has already released a count of interviews with the team and otherwise special features, and today they've merely premiered their seventh fan film, COSMIS STREAM . Have a look…

Is that John Tyler Dunivan's theatrical role of Derek Mason, back from the murdered??? Beaver State is He in heaven, purgatory, another universe, another attribute, Oregon is information technology but a dream? Fortunately, I was able to interview both Tyler and Josh and discover the answer.

Continue Reading "COSMIC STREAM is the first-always fan movie to equal shot at THREE different TOS set studios! (video interview with JOSHUA IRWIN and TYLER DUNIVAN)"

If you've never been part of the making of a rooter film, it's rather hard to explain. But there's a bug that bites ya, and so there's an itch that you just postulate to scratch. It's trying to say when exactly that fan film bug bites—I guess IT's varied for everyone; like the moment someone realizes they'rhenium a Trekkie/Trekker—but when it does, everything nates interchange in a heartbeat.

Beaver State not. Some people get to a fan film or participate in a production or cardinal and they're done. And that's dustlike. Merely for many others, fan films get into your blood—sometimes into your very DNA—then in that location's just no stoppin' it!

Which brings us to PIXI NEREID.

That's really her arrange bring up. Pixi's real advert is ILIA McNEIL…and yes, the "Ilia" is really divine by the bald Deltan navigation officer from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Eastern Samoa her parents were TOS fans. And Ilia is a hardcore fan herself. But completely of her friends call her Pixi, and so do I because Pixi has (almost overnight!) get over a friend.

And candidly, it's operose not to occupy whol of the positivity, fun, and optimism that radiates from her—so much so that you near motive to call her Pixi. And if you're wondering where that name comes from, Pixi has a lateral lanc (along with a small number of different women in the Fayetteville, Arkansas area) performing as a mermaid at children's parties. So I suppose that Pixi Nereid International Relations and Security Network't her "stage" name so much as her "pool" discover, but whatever you call information technology, she's totally a Pixi!

We got nobelium troubles…life is the bubbles…subordinate the oceangoing!

JOSHUA IRWIN, who will be guiding the new AVALON UNIVERSE fan films that are crowd-funding now (click here to donate), first met Pixi happening the set up of the soon-to-be-discharged COSMIC STREAM while filming at WARP 66 STUDIOS in eastern Arkansas. Pixi was told about the shoot by one of her fellow mermaids, who had a role in the fan film. But Pixi didn't come to appear on camera, she merely sought to help out. In fact, she arrived and immediately told Josh that she'd be happy to be a grip for the day (a grip is someone mortal WHO moves the lights around…not very glamorous but A-one-important).

It's a 108-knot drive each way from Fayetteville to the studio, so the people who volunteer for these fan film shoots at WARP 66 have to be pretty committed. Afterward the shoot in middle-March, Josh posted the following exposure and comment to Facebook…

Continue reading "Reason #2 to donate to the AVALON GoFundMe: DO IT FOR PIXI…!"

I didn't create INTERLUDE simply to pass wate an AXANAR Universe fan film. Sure, that was one of the goals, but IT wasn't the Intense end. As a blogger focussing on numerous Virtuoso Trek fan productions, I longed-for to better empathise how these projects came together. But more than that, I wanted to SHARE my experiences with my readers—particularly those interested in creating fan films of their have—to "draw in stake the curtain" on every scene of ontogenesis from writing a script to budgeting, crowd-support, pre-yield, production, and at long las mail-product.

Of feed, the post-production blogs needed to wait until Later on Interlude was released (didn't want it spoiled!). But it's now been proscribed for to a higher degree 2 months (and closing in on 100K views on YouTube for the last version…take in information technology here), and thus I can finally start talking about what went into the last phase of ontogenesis…

…starting with EDITING!

In umpteen ways, editing a plastic film is one of, if not the most important part of the entire filmmaking cognitive operation. Don't just take my Word for it! Countless articles on the Internet like this one highlight the severe persona proper redaction plays in the creation of a successful moving picture see. Quoting the article…

What most people not in the film or video industry don't realize is that film and video editing is an nontextual matter form. Editing is arguably the most important element of picture show or video production. It is in the editing, the art of arranging pictures and dialog and sounds, that a finished photographic film product is able to communicate a story first visualized by its writer, and subsequently by a theatre director and manufacturer to its intended audience. Days, weeks, even months of shots captured on film or video must be studied, interpreted, analyzed, and finally distilled into a story lasting a divide of the clip IT took to capture it all.

People outdoor the film making industry receive little or No thought some "office production" and the crucial part it plays in the production of a film or video work. It is because of the large importance of this form of film and video production that the process takes an spread sum of time to complete.

So! And as a matter of fact, IT took JOSHUA IRWIN (our editor program), Capital of Seychelles FOX (our film director), and me (the producer) four full months of working together to get Interlude from its first toothed cut to its final picture lock chamber version that was sent along to euphony composer KEVIN CROXTON for scoring. Those quaternity months were filled with intense hard work, painstaking attention to detail, and many fervid "discussions," atomic number 3 three identical creative and gifted people didn't always tall 100% of the time.

Continue reading "INTERLUDE Confidential #20: Editing from Bumpy CUT to PICTURE LOCK…"

Over the next 21 days, I'm planning to provide one excellent reason each calendar week to donate to the retributory-launched GoFundMe for the AVALON Cosmos's new serial publication of Hotshot Trek winnow films, a multi-episode saga that will cost named "Crisis on Infinite Excaliburs." The campaign had a fricative set up last week and has already taken in finished $1,200 in donations before most fans even knew IT was happening! Merely today marks the official kick-off, and with it, my series of blogs.

Of feed, if you don't want to expect for me to convince you, feeling free to suction stop on over and donate something right now (and ascertain the "ask" video; it's awesome!)…

https://www.gofundme.com/f/zdn4p-AvalonUniverse2021

I hump, I experience. It seems like lately thither's been a new Star Trek devotee film crowd-financing campaign every calendar month. And yep, there has! Punt in Crataegus laevigata, CGI sensei Samuel COCKINGS raised much $13K for his series of six (Beaver State is it septet?) anthology fan films under the canopy entitle of TREK SHORTS . Then in June, it was DREADNOUGHT Territory 's turn, A GARY DAVIS successfully topped their $5K goal for two Dominion episodes plus the entry episode of their new PROJECT RUNABOUT fan serial.

And as July begins, we go for the "hat trick" A JOSHUA IRWIN has just launched the all but ambitious of these consecutive-to-back campaigns, endeavoring to raise $20K for a new series of rooter films set in the Avalon Universe.

There have already been six Avalon Universe fan films: GHOST SHIP , AVALON Squandered , DEMONS , LEGACY , AIR AND DARKNESS , and Newly ORDERS …nearly two hours of super-superiority Star Trek fan films with a combined hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. And a seventh film, COSMIC STREAM , is set ahead to premier later this calendar month…with an 8th film, Federal agent OF NEW WORLDS , already in product!

Believe it or not, Chaff has only ever held ONE Avalon crowd-funding effort before now…back in incipient 2022, he raised $6,500. All the rest of the production costs for Avalon—literally tens of thousands of dollars—have been paid for out of Josh's pocket…and this poke fu ain't exactly animation the lifestyle of the rich and famous!

Joshua Irwin…spent his last pennies in the Avalon Universe!

Understandably, nigh fan filmmakers bathroom only self-fund for then long ahead they need to ask for a little help from their friends…which is why many Star Trek fan productions seek support through crowd-funding. And indeed, that's why I'm committal to writing this blog (and the three weekly blogs that will follow): because Josh is my Quaker—along with being my Theatre director of Photography and Editor on Intermezzo . I'm also writing these blogs because I love the quality of Jolly's work, I love the Avalon Universe, and Buckeye State…

…BECAUSE JOSH IS BRINGING BACK CAPTAIN JAKANDE!!!

Yep, that's the titanic Reasonableness #1 to donate to this campaign!

Continue reading "Reason #1 to donate to the AVALON GoFundMe: JAKANDE LIVES!!!"

I have a term for Star Trek fan films where in that location is little-to-atomic number 102 talk, no actors appear on projection screen, and as an alternative the fan filmmaker just lets CGI animation tell the story. I shout out them "FANIMATIONS," and you can insure some examples here.

But then there's the series of DS9 TEASERS created past DAVID Frank and CHRISTIAN LERCH from Federal Republic of Germany. Back in November of 2022, a year after the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation had been remastered to high definition and released onto Blu-ray, David and Christian felt it was time for their favorite Star Trek series, Intense Space Nine, to get the same HD treatment. But how could they lease CBS know how intensely these remasters were coveted by fans? That was the question!

The answer, at any rate in St. David and Faith's minds, was to create a series of wildcat teasers for each season's release of DS9 onto Blu-shaft. They began with the pursual simple but elegant publicity for Harden One (complete with a message for CBS Home Video at the end) victimisation beautiful CGI animations over an orchestral scotch…

The following March, Harden Two so got the same treatment, but this time they added short audio clips of dialogue, along with animated recreations of scenes from the season that did not show any of the actualised actors (since that was a no-no according to the fan cinema guidelines)…

The select of their 3D work is, I recall, absolutely stunning! But things got straight more exciting four months later with their Season Three teaser, as they added Romulan warbirds, Jem'Hadar attack craft, and the newly-introduced AmericaS. Defiant. And the duologue was expropriated from the season's awesome two-part episode "Tall Cause" and "The Die Is Cast"…

A year later, their teaser for Season Little Jo was their longest yet—a full little more than the early one—and absolutely their all but ambitious. The sound clips spanned all of that season, and the graphics included multiple starship interiors of the Defiant plus new CGI Klingon ships and, for first time in any of their teasers (trust IT Beaver State not!), the DS9 station itself! It was, in my notion leastwise, their best teaser however aside far…

Advisable, it was their best one—that is until the end of 2022, when after 16 months, they released their teaser for Season Five. Although the same length as their previous release, this one felt steady more epic, as well arsenic looking like a true work of cinematic prowess. Forthwith we see fleets of Klingons, Cardassians, and Federation starships—and you Begin to suspect that, were CBS to actually re-release a remastered DS9 onto Blu-ray, this is the teaser that would entice the to the highest degree sales…

Although David and Christian weren't successful in their primary end, they did manage to accomplish something almost equally cool. When IRA STEVEN BEHR saw their oeuvre, he accredited David and Christly to create CGI graphics and sequences for his DS9 documentary, "WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND"!

Cue the interview with David and Christian…

Continue version "European country Fan Filmmakers make it to the "big clip" with Thick SPACE NINE Teasers! (interview with David FRANK and CHRISTIAN LERCH)"

Star Trek fan films amaze made concluded the world—from seashore to coast in U.S., across Europe, in Japan, and true Australia. In fact, the Land Down Under has given our community five of the top NX-era buff films out thither ( STAR TREK: HORIZON from TOMMY KRAFT cadaver probably THE uncomparable NX-era fan film, in my opinion)…all from the same fellow, AARON VANDERKLEY.

A professional freelance filmmaker, Aaron began his sports fan film "trek" back in January of 2022 with the amazingly compelling 6-minute fan film called Of necessity OF THE MANY .  Weapons-grade performing, impressive sets, and spot-on uniforms marked his debut. In middle 2022, Aaron released the 12-little THE DERELICT , an intensely semidark and haunting repugnance/thriller (identical unequalled for aStarTrek fan take). Again, the acting was top-notch, the uniforms amazing, and now there was true action, suspense, and a few stunts thrown in. Information technology really matte like part of an episode ofStar Trek: Enterprise.

By the showtime of 2022, Hank Aaro sunbaked fans to a tierce superbly-crafted NX-geological era plastic film, GOOD Hands , this uncomparable only 9 minutes long. Six months later, Aaron release his just about would-be release and then far, the 14-atomlike THE FALL OF STARBASE Peerless . And finally, in the summer of 2022, Aaron realized what turned out to be a 5-film tarradiddle curve with the 20-minute Ancestry OF Responsibility , blowing away fans with a touching and emotional story marked yet again by a top-notch level of playacting, production quality, ignition, make-up, sets, costumes, props, sound…the works.

And then helium was done. Hank Aaro told me in a 2-part interview that he had lonesome ever intended to make five NX-era fan films, and he had no plans to produce anything further in the genre. United of our community's well-nig impressive fan filmmakers was moving on…the bittersweet end of a insufficient but truly fulgurous run.

Past, skag dab in the in-between of May 2022, without fanfare, Aaron reemerged with a brand new fan film titled BEYOND THE SUN . Once again, the production quality was stunningly excellent, with practical sets, quality costumes and props, and high-end VFX from British animator emiritus SAMUEL COCKINGS. But Aaron had decided to jump forward a yoke of centuries to the Voyager-era and put across his newest fan production on board a Nova-class science vessel. And indeed, the powerful story matte up remarkably corresponding it could easily stimulate been an episode of Voyager. Take a look…

Bad awesome, right? Well, the clock on the wall says it's time for another interview with Mr. Vanderkley, and this single is really worth a read, folks…

Continue reading "Australian fan filmmaker AARON VANDERKLEY returns for BEYOND THE SUN! (consultation)"