It has come to my attention that people believe the 2023 Trekzone Fan Film Awards are biased, they are not.

I didn’t want to write this today but the idea that we are biased made my blood boil.

I wrote down all of the fan films for the 2022 and 2023 Trekzone Fan Film Awards not Matt Miller.

I am not personal friends with any of the nominees, some may follow MTM but none of them talk to me about metal detecting or Stock Car Racing or asked me to pick them, time to time they just say ‘thank you’ when they are mentioned in the news.

I picked all 112 nominations (includes alternates), and Matt Miller did not pick any of them, in fact when I handed over my list of nominations to him not a single one was recommended to be changed, not one line of debate.

The fact that everybody is pleased with the nominations is proof that they have great faith in us to choose right and they know that award deciding is not easy.

Now some people are upset that certain fan films were not included, there may have been a few missed and that happens as we are human, a different label can cause a fan film to be missed when looking through YouTube, I do it manually and sometimes one film label can be outside the box.

Heck, I missed FSFilm’s fan films on the nomination lists by mistake, I wrote them on my big list and was considering them for awards, but I forgot to put them in the split lists, they were worried that they got left out and I was puzzled because I saw them on the big list but then checked the splits and realized that I left them off the ones Matt got.

Some fan films were not considered because we had no choice but to not consider them.

Vance who released a ton of fan films does not want anything to do with Trekzone and that wish was respected, I saw the message with my own eyes when Matt told me I can’t pick them and I asked to see it, I followed that wish of Vance’s right past the last letter and there were no messages this year asking for consideration, if we received one, then consideration to all of Vance’s fan films would have been happily granted.

With Vance starring in one Avalon production, that fan film could not be considered because Vance is there, Jonathan Lane is a consultant on the other so we could not touch them.

Last year the Interlude drama hurt, it was a very sad time especially as during that time my dog had to be put down because of cancer, I was working on the awards at the same time as giving Willow care before his death.

The Interlude drama threw everything into disarray, I even upset Victoria Fox though Matt wore the blame, we heard that there was a possibility of Interlude’s full withdrawal, and so we planned for alternate nominations, Victoria was up for Best Director and we took her name off in preparation and I told myself to tell Matt to go ask her for her thoughts but in the middle of grief, I forgot to tell him and he assumed that the change happened and announced the changes and it was too late to go back.

After what happened with Interlude, we changed things to make sure that a repeat wasn’t on for this year and so instead of surprising fan films, we asked for their okay and we made sure not to go near the fan films we knew the people wouldn’t accept us.

Bottom line, we tried to not be fan film political in 2022 and it bit us in the bum, this year sadly we had to play politics because either way, we were going to cop a whack, it was either near certain humiliation by rejection or try and keep the peace by steering clear.

If I was biased about these awards, I would have added the Samuel Cockings fan film that had Matt Miller in them and put him up for Best Supporting Actor, but we excluded it immediately, Samuel was puzzled that decision was made and it makes sense because Emma Thorne who is great at fan films and gets robbed of more award opportunities, but we are happy with our decision, we could not have a conflict of interest.

People take shots at us because we state our pride in not asking for fees, we have no fees because we believe that if Fan Films can’t make money, then we should not make any money off fan films, it is that simple and we’re sticking to that belief though we’re not telling people to change theirs, they can do what they please.

I am so proud of the 2023 Fan Film Awards, we aimed to improve this year and we have, it won’t be perfect but it’s the best that two people can do, I have every confidence in Matt Miller, he is passionate and sometimes likes to crunch somebody back maybe a little too hard, but he allows me to do my best and I know that I have support no questions asked.

We may cop some flak from certain corners of the Fan Film World, but we serve the people, we want people to have a great July 10, a July 10 that they will remember for years to come.

Enjoy all of the fan film awards that are out there, there’s plenty out there with all different philosophies and styles, don’t boycott any or prefer one over others, just have fun.

Sorry that this piece is a long one, maybe I have said too much but so much had to be said and now I can get back to work.

Until next time, be good to each other.