archived-videos Star Trek - Horizon: Feature Film

T

tommygdawg

Hey, everyone

I've just completed my three plus year adventure of creating a Star Trek fan film. I've always wanted to be a filmmaker, and being a huge Trek fan, I decided to do a fan film as my first feature (after many shorts and such). I wrote, directed, edited, and scored the film as well as created all of the visual effects and costumes. I realize many people will (and have) criticize this venture. "It's not feasible to make a fan film," "it's not smart," "it's just plain stupid," etc. But I will simply say this: Horizon has been a tremendous experience for me and I've learned so much on this project and I wouldn't trade it for anything. What I learned on this I will carry forward into every project that follows in my career.

All that said, I wanted to show it to you all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l94v4YOqxOc

The Coalition of Planets, a young alliance of worlds led by Earth, is at war with the Romulan Empire. Desperate for a chance to gain the upper hand in the war, the Coalition forms an alliance with T'mar, a Romulan deserter, in the hopes that she can provide valuable intelligence on her former masters.

Thank you!
- Tommy
 
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So I skimmed through this... Woah you have a LOT of special effects... Like skimming through I don't think I landed on a scene that wasn't covered in special effects.....

That's impressive for an indie.. I do see you Kickstarted and your credits seems to have a good number of crew.

Wow. I think I'd actually watch this (based on the clips I watched) if it weren't for it being a StarTrek fan film...

1) Don't like fan films, fan shorts preferred if any.

2) I could never really get into that franchise... but I hate space... so maybe that's why?

Anyways.. looks great... I hope you the best both in getting this quality looking fan film to the fans, and avoiding DMCA issues.
 
SkyCopeland said:
So I skimmed through this... Woah you have a LOT of special effects... Like skimming through I don't think I landed on a scene that wasn't covered in special effects.....

That's impressive for an indie.. I do see you Kickstarted and your credits seems to have a good number of crew.

Wow. I think I'd actually watch this (based on the clips I watched) if it weren't for it being a StarTrek fan film...

1) Don't like fan films, fan shorts preferred if any.

2) I could never really get into that franchise... but I hate space... so maybe that's why?

Anyways.. looks great... I hope you the best both in getting this quality looking fan film to the fans, and avoiding DMCA issues.
Click to expand...

Regarding effects, I didn't have the budget to build all of those sets, so it was always going to be virtual sets. Thanks for the well-wishes!
 
I remember seeing the trailer, which was already looking very promising :)
Cool to see you finished it.
I put the video in my favourites, so I can watch it later.
360k views in a few days is also not bad at all: I'm curious about your marketing/seeding strategy :)
(I'm pretty sure you already had a fan base?)
 
I'll take a look in the next few days. From a brief look (like everyone else), it looks good. You obviously put a lot of work into this.

You learned a lot doing this, didn't you? I'd love to get the opportunity to pick your brain down the track.

and as Walter said, 360k views. Damn! Nice results in such a short time. I'm sure you'll leverage it into future work.
 
I watched the film and I was very impressed. Congratulations. To finish at all is a major accomplishment, but it looked damn good as well. The organizational skills required to manage so many VFX shots ... wow.
I also liked the production design work and how many nice ideas were written in.
The world you created felt big and the VFX were impressive. The whole thing "looked" more expensive than your Kickstarter numbers. I'd love to know what the final production budget was.
 
Thank you to everyone for all the nice things you've said! I didn't have a fanbase at all before Horizon, and I still don't haha. Whenever I upload something that isn't Horizon/Trek-related it gets at most a couple hundred views :P

I spent, by the end, between $25,000 and $35,000. I haven't tallied the exact numbers in a while. That money went to things like computer upgrades, software licenses, camera/lighting gear, costuming materials, etc.

The reason I was able to get away so cheap is because I did mostly everything on the film and didn't take a paycheck. I had a few people (besides cast) contribute some time to the film. One guy made the three Vulcan ship models, another made one of the Romulan ship models, etc. And I also have to really thank Michael Huang, the sound designer/mixer. He worked completely for free and did all the sound on the film, that was so generous of him.
 
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whoa, dude! this looks awesome! I'm gonna set aside a few hours tomorrow to watch this :)

Huge ST fan here, I'll let you know what I think
 
It does look really good. I haven't watched the whole thing but I'm sure I've seen this knocking around on youtube (trailers and such). I did a short (that sadly wont see the light of day) that had a tonne of vfx in it. So I know only too well how much of headache it is managing shot after shot.

Well done mate.
 
Yeah, the mere existence of this film is an inspiration. I still haven't watched it yet, but I'm totally going to do that at some point. Bravo, Tommy! I'm way more than impressed with the production quality.
 
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