May 14 2019
There hasn’t really been a whole lot to say over the last month but the fan film news has made me curious.
Jonathan Lane announcing a new fan film called ‘Interlude’ doesn’t surprise me, the fan film being based on Axanar material doesn’t surprise me and the choice of co-directors doesn’t surprise me either.
Those who follow the fan film scene could easily see that the jump from writing the story for an Axanar comic to writing a fan film based on Axanar isn’t farfetched but merely a natural state of progression.
The choice of Joshua Irwin and Victoria Fox is logical, they have street cred with their past efforts and it just felt reasonable that they would be given the task of bringing the story to life largely thanks to Fan Film Factor.
The choice of Ares Studios was logical as well as it has the Ares Bridge and Captain’s Quarters and Jonathan loves them and wants them used so that’s how it is done.
The chances of ‘Interlude’ being made and being made well without any financial or creative hiccups is pretty good, a higher chance than the chance Axanar has at this moment in time.
There are two hurdles and they are funding and studio status, the first one may not be a biggie as it will most likely come in at a reasonable price (not $150,000 to $200,000) and Axanar’s donors will most likely back it.
The studio is the biggest question of all, will the bridge be 100% complete by September? would the Studio be there in September? Will they be able to film on days that have little traffic and weather conditions such as no rain and no high winds? Will Interlude be made before the two Axanar parts?
I can’t help but wonder if Axanar is going to be a fan franchise within a franchise, in other words Axanar within Star Trek.
The theory is that Alec Peters makes the war his patch of turf, so there’s four years (story time) worth of stories and the whole storyline can flick back and forth between Starfleet and the Klingon Empire.
So the Vance Major’s and Joshua Irwin’s of the fan film world would ask for and receive a storyline then they raise money or already have the money to make it and then shoot it, the more of quality films that are released, the more we see confidence rising in Axanar and therefore Ares Studios because they are churning out the goods.
Eventually Ares Studios gets a reputation for making high quality fan productions and they hang on long enough to be in the position to be able to make Sci-Fi films that do not have the restrictions that Star Trek fan films have, everybody there wins.
Of course it is just a theory but it is a possibility.
Until next time, be good to each other.
Mentioning Trekkie Mentions 
Two theories on Axanar now… both could be true. For all of his faults, Alec is shrewd
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Agreed that the wild card for Mr Lane’s film is the status of (which) warehouse contains the Ares bridge set in September. I think there is little question that Mr Lane will complete his film upstream of the 2 Axanar shorts given what is known now. If a competent VFX guru (Sam Cockings or Tobias Richter) is added to the Avalon Universe team, Mr Lane could possibly bring in some of us who are outside of the Ares Patreon network for his film in the hope that a good film will emerge. We’ll have to see if more than one Trek film can be made in Axanar’s FASA-influenced universe of ideas before the financial question of the survival of Ares Studios is finally faced. It would be good, IMHO, if such a thing could be achieved since the probability of the 2 Axanar shorts being finished in their current projected plan is limited.
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The problem here is that Ares Studios itself isn’t producing anything. These are outside productions using the facility (whichever one Axanar can afford by the fall, I guess). But you can bet Ares will try to nab the credit for others’ ability to actually get a film into production while Axanar itself continues to languish.
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Assuming that Ares Studios will be ready to go in September, Interlude will be the first production out of the gate at the facility.
By all accounts of the new Axanar plan, it appears a minority percentage of Axanar’s two parts will actually be made at Ares Studios.
There’s just the sense with Interlude, the audio production plan and the comics etc that there is a fan franchise within a franchise happening and as long as it spreads, people will pay for it to do so.
It’s clever, Ares is the only place with an Axanar related Bridge, everyone has to go there if they want to play in the ‘Axanar Universe’ and that means business is done which in turn means that everyone will know about it.
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Well, Mr Lane can’t be accused of timidity in the planning of his film. I was confident that he could get $5K fairly easily, but close to $20K is audacious. I’d guess that this will require maybe 800 backers or thereabouts. Perhaps it’s some sort of irony that Mr Lane seems to be aiming at close to 10% of the published goal for the 2 Axanar shorts at the same time that Mr Peters says he will raise funds using (presumably) an independent tech platform. Both plan to film something in the fall. We’ll see what the combined forces of the Axanar fans (and maybe an occasional eccentric from outside of that group) can put on the field for Mr Lane’s tale (a very long shot), but I remain incredulous that any fan endeavor can raise a 6-figure sum, especially in what amounts to half a year.
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I think it is asking a lot of people to help fund not only Ares Studios but Axanar too and then at the same time you got to throw Interlude a bone.
Two of the three require a one time commitment but the commitment for Ares will go on and on until Alec Peters takes the training wheels (fan donations) off or you decide ‘screw it’ and buy something else instead.
Confidence is high that Jonathan can make something happen but the condition and location of Ares Studios as we’ve noted is the wildcard.
The $18,800 price tag divided by 800 would be an average of $23.50 per person so they might need a couple hundred more people for Interlude to fly.
As noted before, the fan film world has changed so much since four years ago, fans had no Star Trek on TV and now for $6.95 or so a month they can see 20+ episodes a year plus past efforts and other CBS titles.
Continues etc filled in a hole in the consumer’s appetite for Star Trek and while Discovery and Picard won’t satisfy everyone, the appetite has largely been satisfied.
There are three things that I am curious about, how fast does Alec expect Axanar to be funded? how fast does Jonathan expect Interlude to be fully funded?
What happens when they don’t have $150,000-$200,000 and $18,800 in the kitty when production has supposedly commenced?
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Agreed that both of these film attempts are interesting gambits in that they can be disproved in the open, that is, it will be obvious if there isn’t enough support for them to commence. Failure would mark them in the fan film community, so to speak. By the same token, should Mr Lane’s funding attempt succeed, he will have accomplished a fan film feat that hasn’t been done, to my knowledge, since maybe Renegades or Blade of Honor. The most successful recent fan film of which I’m aware is Mark Naccarato’s Romulan War (around $12K over at least 2 months).
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Here’s the interesting thing
Axanar has a filming date but we’ve heard time and time again they need $150,000 or so to make the film.
So what are they going to do? are they going to start filming Axanar and then pay themselves back for expenses?
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