LIEF Productions

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Dark Armada at Superheroes Con

ST: Dark Armada (Sep 25)
My good friend Robin Hiert and his crew were at the Superheroes convention in the Jaarbeurs located at Utrecht over the weekend of Sep 24-25. They were at the stand of The Flying Dutch with the slogan "After More Than 700 Years... She Sails Out Again". This young pre-production group is forging ahead with a new website and an improved trailer.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

A Valiant crew

Star Trek: Valiant (Sep 17)
Antonio Cabañas is back on line again after having second major computer problem this year. He has just posted shots of the crew of the Valiant, a Baton Rouge class federation starship. This Spanish fan-film miniseries was started late last year and is totally 3D using Anim8or and AutoCAD although the figures were created using DAZ studio, a free Poser-style program. Antonio has no website although he has a thread on both the ST New Voyages Forum and the Constellation forum

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Excalibur quick off the mark

Star Trek: Excalibur (Sep 13)
This new group, which sprang up at the start of June and is based out of Las Vegas, has just posted their first promotional trailer, available as a WMV file by clicking the link from their main page. The CGI is looking good, but I especially liked the music - I wonder if it is original?

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

HF 'Vigil', Henglaar, Dragon*Con, Wonder Woman!

Star Trek: Hidden Frontier (Sep 13)
Hidden Frontiers latest newsletter is out now. Wanna a teaser? ...
‘Vigil’ Coming Soon / Bonus Features: Their 41st episode is expected to clock in at nearly network-TV length. Vigil weaves together four storylines in an episode fans will be talking about for some time to come.

Henglaar in New Voyages: John Whiting, HF's Doctor Henglaar, is crossing over in the opposite direction to James Cawley by doing a guest spot in ST:NV by portraying his character's own ancestor.

HF Writer, Fan at Dragon*Con: HF's writer, Carlos Pedraza, appeared on six panels at the nation's largest science fiction convention, Dragon*Con, over Labor Day Weekend ... and guess who he sat next to? Oh! Lucky man!

Wonder Woman in ‘Vigil’: The crossovers continue as Michelle Laurent, the ‘Amazing Amazon’ of Redcape Cinema’s Wonder Woman: attle of Justice comes to HF In Vigil.
Wanna know more? Checkout the HF website to read the latest issue of the Newsletter, or better yet subscribe!

Sunday, September 11, 2005

NV Star Crossover and Set Interview

ST: New Voyages (Sep 7)
The news from New Voyages in the media this month is that James Cawley, who plays Captain James T. Kirk, is to portray another famous captain – Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, hero of Peter David’s popular book series - Star Trek: Excelsior - in the next episode of ST:Hidden Frontier, “Vigil”!

Away from the media spotlight, Jack Marshall is at the moment filming until September 19th. Up 'til this week, everything from the set including it's location has been a closely guarded secret although ST: NV have given us a few tantalising hints at what to expect, such as a new shuttle set, new, original music from Patrick Phillips and Wide Screen (16x9) filming, a new Teaser Poster and of course the big news of their future schedule that I reported last month.

Thanks to an anonymous tipster (thanks Tom!) I can report that Jack has given an interview to Capital News 9 which can be viewed online in text as well some fascinating sneak peaks of the set at Wheelock's Garage in Port Henry, New York.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Borg Wars Machinima

Borg Wars! (Sep 7)
I've found out more about this amazing machinima that I wrote about in last months "Hailing Frequencies Open". Its creator, Geoffrey James, is a New Hampshire journalist, which shows in the tight script and well-crafted plotline, and was created using two computer games, Starfleet Command III and Elite Force 2. It will build into a feature-length animation scheduled for completion in Spring of 2006 with it's own website, which will go live before the end of the year: www.BorgWarMovie.org.

"Three out of six segments," says Geoff "comprising the first forty minutes of the film, are available for limited review. The fourth segment will be completed next month, with the final two segments to be completed at 3 monthly intervals. A teaser is also available and a more detailed trailer will be available when the website comes up."
All files are available in High resolution (Hi) and Low Resolution (Lo) which were specifically designed as "PocketPC" sized versions - much lower resolution but about 1/5 the size of the full files. The files for the Teaser(Hi & Lo) and parts 1(Hi & Lo), 2(Hi & Lo) and 3(Hi & Lo) are available from the Authors website and Star Trek Elite Force Files

Not to be confused with the Half Life 2 game mod of the same name, BorgWar is being released as a "new game material" in compliance with the game licenses. The project is entirely non-profit "charityware" which means that fans who enjoy the movie are invited to donate to Geoff's chosen charity, the Big Brother/Big Sister program.

Stone Trek goes into hibernation

Stone Trek (Sep 1)
This long running Flash production, a hilarious satire of two 60's icons, the Flintstones and Star Trek, has gone into a short hiatus! Brian Matthews, the creator of Stone Trek recently suffered a computer crash and now that he is back has decided to advance some of his other projects. He's not giving up on Stone Trek altogether but it looks like it will be well into next year before we see any more. He says it depends on public interest so if you are a fan of this beautifully crafted series, let him know.

Moonves Vs Brazeal in Flash

Enterprise Flashed (Sep 7)
Last month saw the release by Chad Troftgruben (Lil'Red head) of the long awaited "Moonves Versus Brazeal". It's a satire of our times, where Leslie Moonves and Tim Brazeal fight for the future of entertainment. Rather long for a Flash production at Nineteen minutes but it is still worth the download. Whilst you're there, checkout Lil'Red head's "Ahoyager: The Voyage Home", a satire on a previous Trek series.

The Continuing Voyage

ST: The Continuing Voyage (Sep 7)
Made by the same group as ST: Constellation, this series takes place aboard the U.S.S. Republic during the time of The Animated Series.

Unity publishes update

ST: Unity (Sep 7)
Unity have recently posted a comprehensive and informative "General Project Update", a welcome addition to their new website.

My fellow staff writer from "Hailing Frequencies Open" and producer of ST: Unity, Trek-Rider, is currently storyboarding a fan film tribute using contributed clips and graphics from most of the groups which are part of the Trek United Fan Film Post Card campaign. This is going to be an absolute classic!

Legacy from Trekkies 2

ST: The Legacy (Sep 7)
This German group, featured on Trekkies 2, which includes the internationally recognised fan Vulcan Willi, has beautiful sets made for the Enterprise-D and the Original Series Enterprise. They finished shooting on the original series bridge on Aug 7.

Farragut forging ahead

Starship Farragut (Sep 7)
The newest American fan film group, this Greater Washington, D.C. based group was officially launched at the Shore Leave Con only a couple of months ago. Storyboarding, casting, costumes etc are all going well and they envisage filming a trailer in October and their first episode in January '06.

Mystery Area appears in Darmstadt, Germany

ST: Mystery Area (Sep 7)
A very, very early concept group from Darmstadt, Germany - they only got their web site up on Aug 12th! For more information checkout Slice of Scifi #021. Their spokesperson, Robert Muller, has said there will be an English version of the film and described their concept on the Trek United Forum as ...
Its a Story about a Steamrunner class Starship, who works for Federation secret service. Its mission is to inform the Federation Headquarter about activities of potential enemys . . . . But it is its Mission to do acts of sabotage, too. The series shows that Federation isn't as nice as it looks everytime. It shows the "Dark Side of Federation".

Lexington back on track

ST: Lexington (Sep 4)
After a setback last month where they had to advertise for a new director, Lexington is back on track with a vengence! According to their Website they have decided to make their first episode, "All in the Appearances" into two 45 minute parts. Originally scheduled to start filming in mid to late September with a 2006 release, they are now planning a pre-series short film focusing on Alex and Angie which should begin filming in October. If you still can't wait though, they have audio clips available for download right now from Episode #101 and #102.

They've also had a rather neat idea for raising money. Their new makeup artist, Rhoda Cronebach has offered to make women's jewelery which will be sold exclusively on Project Lexington's website. A samples page will be posted shortly and aside from the production costs, all proceeds will be put towards to filming and production costs.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Section 31, Ep 203 - The Gathering Storm

ST: The Section 31 Files (Sep 5)
Acts of terrorism being to destabilize the Federation. Meanwhile the daughter of
Khaless has been kidnapped and it's up to Section 31 to rescue her. But will
they be in time?
Written and produced by Eric Busby

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Constellation's concept and storyline

Star Trek: Constellation (Sep 3)
Jimmy from "The Constellation project" got back to me with some more information on the concept behind this fascinating project. From their forum there's a wealth of background...

Imagine if Star Trek had been a TV series based on a mid 1950s sci-fi film. "Constellation" aims to be the 1950s Star Trek film that never was. From our cinematography, to our characters, to the music, and the style of FX, we hope to capture a 1950s feel, with modern production quality. Our inspiration is drawn heavily from the fan-produced community. From "Star Trek New Voyages" and "Starship Exeter" to "Hidden Frontier".

Our other inspiration lies in old films like "The Forbidden Planet" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still". We hope to make a film much like "Sky Captain"... a modern film that brings to mind memories of the heyday of sci-fi. The classic Star Trek pilot "The Cage" also brings a great deal of inspiration.

For our Klingon characters, I have used John Ford's novels "How Much For Just The Planet" and "The Final Reflection" as reference. Ford depicts the Klingons much more like the samurai of ancient Japan, rather than the modern view of Klingons as being more akin to Vikings or Celts. Ford's names have a certain Japanese flare to them. I have altered them slightly to have a decidedly "Soviet" sound, as our concept would require a slight "anti-Soviet" train of thought. If some of the Klingon names and designations sound Russian... it's on purpose.

For historical and technical reference, "Constellation" is based squarely in the "fanon" universe. Our heroes' ship, USS Constellation NCC-1017 is a design created by Masao Okazaki... his Lancaster-class cruiser.

... for more see the forum's Story thread.