Trekzone was told yesterday and today that those on Monster were not happy with the way things were done, ‘I think he ditched us in some categories‘ was one such thought and ‘It all felt much more like “let’s give everyone something to win, so they’re happy”‘ was another.
So, I am going to answer them because I am the guy (not Matt who it was aimed at) who decided what was going to happen, firstly there was no ‘let’s go and ditch Monster from being nominated or winning x, y and z for the hell of it or to be nice to x, y and z’, try fitting 32 fan films into four spaces and then whittle that number down to one, somebody is going to be sitting it out, somebody will always fall short and somebody will win, that’s how it is from the Oscars to The 2024 Trekzone Fan Film Awards to some vote in a school, there will always be disappointment.
I know this next part might sound petty on my part as I’m involved in the production, but having a barely 4 minutes collage of a single ship flying in space win the best VFX over movies like our “Monster” or the Euderions which both have a runtime of nearly an hour and both have several different aspects of visual effects work, like camera tracking, creature animations, facial mocaps, compositing, live action CG integration etc. while also featuring space scenes and ships etc., really feels weird to me. What exactly lead to this decision for example?
Social media does make people easily become angry, rude or petty etc.
The difference in running length between fan films was concerning when it came to this category, fan films aren’t supposed to be 50 minutes or so long, they are supposed to be two 15-minute parts (most put two into one), lucky for productions their name isn’t Axanar or CBS and Paramount would be looking closer.
I chose the nominations and I looked at all the various fan films and went for a mix of long and short fan films and I looked at all the effects back and forth and it was not easy to decide on one, but we got there in the end.
Now to go into the reasons of the selection of Yeager, yes, it is fan film made up of different action sequences, but it is a fan film, fan films are presented in many different ways like Once More with Feeling is presented differently to Come What May.
The visuals in the fan film, I believe is second to none, Chris Lea appears to be the best in the business, look at the beauty of the Yeager when it comes right up to the camera, the beautiful planet, going into warp, the asteroids, the ship going through the gases, we’re seeing the Yeager at work with minimal voices and maximum music.
This is not an easy category as mentioned with the different lengths, I am happy with the decision I made, the people at Monster may not be happy but maybe the other award shows they will look favourably at Monster, there’s pressure on them now, do they pick a 50-minute fan film or do they go short too, I wouldn’t want to be them knowing what we know now.
Then again while we’re happy our movie got the nod for best make up, I’m sure (especially without the disqualifications) there were much more suited movies out there with much more complicated and awesome make up effects who should have won instead of us.
Monster also got Best Story and make up was a tough one to decide on, but it was felt that Monster just had that little bit more to put it over the top of the others.
A lot of the categories weren’t even close to a slam dunk, a lot of backwards and forwards was required to decide these things, it isn’t a happy-happy-joy-joy situation, it is long, it is stressful and to some an underappreciated part of the process.
Also, the disqualification business is not as simple as that, after the disagreement last year and additional issues afterwards, it was obvious that there was no way that things were ever going to go back to what they were before, and they will never go back, there is no ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ moment coming, who we have is who we have and anybody else who comes along in the future.
Regardless, I am not convinced that there was better out there, Monster had the Orion and the Trill, the holes in the head from the ‘monster’, the bloodied Captain and if we chose wrongly, there’s nothing that can be done about it now.
It all felt much more like “let’s give everyone something to win, so they’re happy” rather than judging on actual technical qualities.
I didn’t make my choices to make the people of Monster happy or Randy happy or Chris Lea happy or Radek happy, there’s a 75% chance of making somebody mad or sad or disappointed or something not good and a 25% chance of making somebody happy with every selection, when the odds are overwhelmingly in the negative, all you can do is make your best choice and let it ride and whatever happens, happens.
What was read today really did hurt, and it may even cost me a partner for next year just hours after enthusiasm for 2025, hopefully it is not the case and after a while we’ll regroup and go over what worked and what didn’t and run the gauntlet once a fourth time.
I know everybody lets to get into a fight with Matt because he can dish it out as good as he gets it, but I am the one people are supposed to be going at when decisions were made on fan films but for some weird reason everybody skips me or if they do come to MTM and ask a question, they rarely respond back, either they were satisfied with the answer or they were dissatisfied with the answer, they never say.
That’s it, if people like the answer that’s good and if they don’t well, we just all move along.
Mentioning Trekkie Mentions 
Chuck, you seem like a genuinely nice person. But you have to understand that this is the very reason that many film competitions have a panel of judges that vote secret ballot. The BJOs not only had a panel, but they were all people who weren’t involved in fan films in any way, didn’t know the filmmakers, and only rated films based on the content they saw. The votes were tallied to determine the winners. I got my butt kicked by Aaron Vanderkley in 2020 and thought “Fair”. Not only had he undeniably made a better film than I did, but the majority of a panel also voted that way. It was truly objective, and kind of impossible to argue with. All you can do is congratulate the other person and make a better film next time. And of course, there was never the question for anyone “Did I only win because someone else was disqualified?”
Now, I absolutely believe you had no malicious intent in how you chose the winners. But one guy picking the winners will always be inherently biased by the very nature of it. Everyone has biases. That’s why panels vote. So, no one bias can overly influence an entire contest. But as long as you’re the more silent member of the partnership. And these winners and nominees are presented with the package of Matt’s overt hostility, insults, mocking, inappropriate taunting, and bias towards filmmakers in this community, the perception the selection is maliciously biased will always be there.
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Man participation awards have ruined the world. Not everyone wins. Not everyone gets an attaboy, and that used to be ok.
This is how we’re doing it, this is how we’ve always done it and it was fine when you were winning…
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Our setup is designed to be different to all the other events, if people think there is bias or whatever then that is what they’re going to feel and that’s that.
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I hope my reply goes through now, this weird wordpress thingy is messing around with me….
First of all, I only know Matt as the face of Trekzone media from his youtube channel and our very lovely interview a few weeks ago. I don’t hold a personal grudge against you or him. I’ve not been involved up to this point in this trek fan films “community”. I barely know like three names of people who seem to be prominent and frankly I don’t much care. For me the fun of making movies is front and center, I’m not even a full blown trekkie. But I’m a filmmaker and I really love it.
I was purely judging what I saw as the awards show unfolded. My criticism which I stand by about Matt was mainly about the decision to put personal matters front and center and open the show with this diss track which derailed the show before it even began. Not excepting whole productions because the involvement of one or two people who Matt seems to have a problem with puts the whole awards thing into question. Like I wrote before, you guys had the potential to become THE ST fan film awards show. It’s heartbreaking to see this thing go so off tracks because of personal feelings.
My comment about “it feels like everyone gets a price so everyone is happy” was referring to the fact that some of the nominations / winners felt out of place since we did not really know how they were picked or the reasoning behind it. As seen in my quote you posted, I was well aware you or other people might read my comment as being a sore loser, but what can I do? I am involved in Monster as one of the two vfx artists who did the whole post production. Yet I should still be able to comment on something I noticed and that felt off to me. I’m not yelling give me my award, I’m asking how were certain decisions made and frankly, the reply did not really clear things up.
Since you copy and pasted your reasoning for the vfx and make up category, let me copy my reply I posted earlier this day under the other article on this site.
Quote:”I’m really not trying to shit on anyones work on their films, but when the reason for best vfx mentions the music as a factor I’m really at a loss what to think about it. One of the reasons given for our movie Monster to win “best make up” was the head wounds of the victims, WHICH WERE COMPLETELY CGI AND VISUAL EFFECTS…”
I hope you can appreciate the irony here as much as I do. Apparently, our VFX were good enough to fool you into believing the head wounds in our movie were make up effects. That is why things felt out of place for me.
If you for example would have written something like “while the other productions were also top notch with their visual effects, it was Chris Lea who went the extra mile of actually designing his own original concept ship which he showcased in a beautiful way.”
That would be something everyone can get behind and understand and it would actually highlight the mastery behind his work a lot more then “look at the beauty of the Yeager when it comes right up to the camera, the beautiful planet, going into warp, the asteroids, the ship going through the gases, we’re seeing the Yeager at work with minimal voices and maximum music.”, a description that would probably fit for at least 60% of all ST fan films.
What rubs me the wrong way now in your response is that you seem to actually hold it against us and other movies that they are this long. We are well aware this breaches the guidelines of CBS. If you are so concerned (as you stated in your vfx consideration) about the adherence to all guidelines you could have just set the ground rules for participation and not accept any film which breaches any of the guidelines, problem solved. Holding this over our heads in your argument now is a bit unfair. It did not seem to be a problem for our story award or Euderions best fan film award. So why bring it up as some sort of justification now?
In regards to the disqualification statements I made, I mentioned it because cutting out a large chunk of fan films due to personal conflicts completely distorts what is supposed to be a reflection of the current landscape of ST fan films. And that is why we are so disappointed about the whole thing! An award show like this should be the celebration of all the current ST fan films out there and not just those who you both deem worthy of admission after passing your personal opinion / ego threshold. That is not celebrating the craft of making fan films.
To close it out, I totally get you and Matt are now disappointed, sad and angry about the backlash the show received. You worked long and hard on putting this event together, watching all the films, judging them by whatever metric etc. But so did everyone else on their movies, potentially working for years to finish them. So please don’t forget that, the next time you exclude those films for your own personal reasons.
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It’s all over now.
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It has nothing to do with “participation awards”. It’s all about your own behavior Matt, and as long as you blame everyone else but yourself this will keep going down the same path. You are using this award show as a venue to Dogwhistle our community. You are so absolutely consumed by your seething hatred and jealousy for Jonathan that you cannot see how you are self-destructing. So much so that you’re not even subtle about it anymore. This week “The 19” became “The 21” and I suspect it will be “The 23” before the next show.
You’re right, I was fine when I won. And I shouldn’t have been. That was an absolute character flaw on my part. I wanted something good to come of Interlude, so let it go when you insulted Jonathan in your opening monologue or disqualified the Director of our film. Upset with her or not, I should have stood up for her and I didn’t. It was the wrong thing to do.
Also, you had no problem awarding me for a film shot at Ares Studios starring Alec Peters, until after Jonathan did something to offend you. Something you deserved after your shots at him. At the time I accepted your award with gratitude, and you made the choice to punish me the next year over your anger with Jonathan as you clearly stated in your response to me when I asked you why my film was disqualified. Keep blaming the filmmakers Matt. And see where that gets you. Keep wondering why you get zero response from this community every time you lob the “signature forging” nothing burger. But people see you as the bad guy when you treat filmmakers in this community like garbage.
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Your timeline’s a little off – how can I say something in my opening monologue that led to Jonathan writing about me in the lead up the awards show? Also the director of your film was not “disqualified.”
Also, remember the olive branch that we tried to extend that The Fan Film Blogger Dude slapped away? Yeah, I do. Then he interfered again, wrote a letter and got Ray Tesi to send it. And now again this year, you’re interfering in something you have no interest in – again – and riding on the coat tails of a pair of sore losers.
The TREKZONE Fan Film Awards Presented By Mentioning Trekkie Mentions are a co-production between Chuck and I – the production and content are not open for suggestion or demand and nor should they be.
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So deleting my statement in reply to this article and calling us sore losers is your way to deal with constructive criticism? Its scary and disappointing to see this side of you after we had such a nice chat a month ago. Well, sorry this went down the way it did. As I’m sure we are forever blacklisted after upsetting your majesty, I bid you farewell.
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1) this isn’t my site.
2) you’re constructive criticism was dealt with in direct reply where you posted it. If you’ve gone and posted elsewhere then I’m not following you around the internet to reply there as well.
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Turns out your comment wasn’t deleted. But, jump to the conclusion like others have.
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Apologies, I have to correct myself. After replying, this page did show my original post which was missing when I started replying. Not sure what´s going on here. Anyways, I retract the accusation of anyone deleting my post. Yet I still stand by my frustration of how this whole interaction turned out…
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It was pending. Because, as Benjamin said, we should get sleep.
We’re not sad or angry at the reaction, stark contrast actually – the Machiavellian traits in full swing were expected. It wasn’t expected that a fan production would ignore two category wins and focus on one loss because they feel aggrieved by it – and then to lash out at our process and our production.
We never claimed to be THE awards show, that ability was stripped from us by 19 people who signed a letter, threatening to walk away if we didn’t kowtow to their demands of including everyone – including persons sued by Paramount (and whom currently owes them $300k+), someone whom is alleged to have committed fraud and someone else who thinks we’re a waste of DNA.
We were fine playing over here with our sandcastle, but obviously our happiness is not allowed.
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I know I’m not really getting through to you, but here we go.
The part about the vfx category was initially only one part of my overall criticism of the award show. It wasn’t the center point of my disappointment I expressed initially. What irks me was the fact you lashed out right at the start of the show and then half assed the show by just reading out the winners. This was nothing like the 2022 show. I did not expect a huge gala or anything in the size of the 2022 show, but at least some sort of impressions through short clips of the nominees or the winners… just… something.
The fact we are not openly celebrating the two awards we got should be clear by now. After reading what has been given as the reason for the VFX category and our win for the make up category, I questioned the judgement even more. If your buddy states he found the head wounds in our movie to be great make up when it was actually visual effects work does leave me scratching my head. And by the way, when I was initially referring to the vfx category I was not just referring to our movie but also movies like Euderion’s Legacy which also feature a plethora of different VFX techniques. But I digress.
I was well aware of the fact that if I bring this up it can and probably will be used against me / us as it did, beautifully demonstrated by you referring to us as sore losers while lashing out at yet another filmmaker who tried to give a few ideas on how to maybe handle something like this in the future.
But In the end you are absolutely right. It’s your sandcastle, play in it as much as you want and be happy. Just don’t expect anyone to visit you while you are in there.
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I made a mistake with the makeup, plain and simple.
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Unacceptable. You are supposed to be infallible, awake at all hours and not be offended when people call you a waste of DNA.
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I’m a terrible buddy.
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2021 was in a television studio, was 3 hours long, involved a dozen crew and included around 38 hours of pre production (not to mention a years worth of admin work from “my buddy”.) We were slapped around for daring to try and include everyone.
2022 was scaled back to our virtual studio, involved a half dozen crew, involved around 8 hours of pre-production. We were again slapped around because we ignored those that slapped us the previous year and the ones whom called us a waste of DNA.
2023 was the one man band in the new studio set, involved about 4 hours of pre-production. And we were still slapped around for not including people – by people who have clearly received a tainted version of events.
Done with this conversation, especially since you want to have an extremely condescending tone to me.
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The timeline is pretty clear.
You keep acting like you just offered Jonathan an “Olive Branch” by nominating him and by refusing to accept it he was “Slapping it away” or “Interfering”. You leave out the part where you insulted him first. Perhaps people would be more willing to accept your olive branches if you offered them without insults and personal attacks. People sending you a letter voicing their frustration with the impact your actions have on a community and asking you to reconsider them isn’t “Interfering”, nor was it intended as an “attack”. It’s people speaking up for themselves. In the end, all we wanted was just to talk. Sure, you can do whatever you want, but that doesn’t guarantee people won’t get pissed off. You frame everything as some attack on you and leave out what YOU DID to provoke it.
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I clearly need to owe Paramount $300k+, have production assistants allegedly fake talent release forms and own mouldy pieces of timber to gain any respect.
What a sad, sad state of affairs this has become.
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It was not rescinded, what happened was that when Jonathan withdrawn, we were anticipating the full withdrawal of Interlude (which you all did discuss), so we made up new lists and then it was decided that Interlude was staying in minus the Lane nomination.
At that time, there were some circumstances that changed so we held off on the Best Director nomination and I meant to ask Matt to ask Victoria what she wanted to do but my dog Willow died that week and I was distracted and forgot to ask Matt to ask and the change slipped through and when there was upset, I looked through the chat and realised that I didn’t ask but the damage was done and no matter what we were going to do, we were screwed.
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RKS. Thank you for your reply and explanation. Sorry to hear about your dog. Things happen, and sometimes when people talk, misunderstandings can be cleared up. Again, I don’t think you have a malicious intent in how you choose the awards. But the constant insults from Matt take their toll on people.
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Ok, last comment and I’m done.
The letter contained no threats whatsoever. One group pulled out because of the Matt’s rude response to it. The other group withdrew because they felt it was unfair for their film to be nominated and mine not to be.
Alec Peters had no involvement in the letter. He didn’t even find out about it till weeks later, at which point he told us we were wasting our time…. And he was right.
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And when I found out about Franks “waste of DNA” comment, I condemned it and apologized to you for it.
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Why? Why did you need to apologise? What did you do? You inserting yourself into every situation is pathetic.
“Offer no opinions, make no comments and give us awards”
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I apologized to you because I organized and lead the effort, therefore responsibility was completely with me. Had I known about that comment beforehand I might have approached the situation differently. It was not a condoned element of the letter effort.
“Offer no opinions, make no comments and give us awards”
Well most awards shows do refrain insulting filmmakers and other awards shows because it would undermine their credibility. Take from that what you will. If you don’t want me to insert myself in your business, not publicly mocking me, or my friends or spreading unsupported conspiracy theories that I bullied people would be a good start. I promise Matt, if you left me alone, I would leave you alone. I’ve got a lot of other things to do with my time.
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