FanMade: First Act Of Animated Starship Farragut Released

Starship Farragut, a TOS era fan production, has set a fan film milestone, by being the first to produce both live action and animated episodes. The first part of their first animated episode was released this week. You can watch that below, plus TrekMovie talked to the Farragut producers to get all the latest news and details on what’s next.  

 
 

Farragut gets animated
The guys at Farragut Films and NEO f/x decided that the time had come for fan films to go to the second dimension, so they set out to recreate the look of Star Trek: The Animated Series, but with the crew of the TOS era fan film Star Trek Farragut. The Farragut cast provides the voice work, and NEO f/x uses CGI to lovingly recreate the Filmation style of TAS.

For their first episode "Power Source" they even have some famous guest stars doing some voice work (Chase Masterson and Chris Doohan). The episode is about the USS Farragut dispatched to meet up with the USS Azrael (a single nacelle Saladin class ship), only to find out that the Azreal’s captain is under the influence of alien technology. Although they are set on board the USS Farragut, the animated show ties into the TAS by incorporating the character Thelin (voiced by Doohan), who was the Andorian first officer of the USS Enterprise in an alternative timeline (TAS "Yesteryear").

Each episode of Starship Farragut: The Animated Episodes will fit into the original TAS half hour structure (but without the commercials). The first act is now available online at the official site (farragut-animated.com) , and embedded below.

Farragut Animated producer Michael Struck tells TrekMovie that Act 2 of  "Power Source" should be released on August 3rd and the final act by the end of August. They are also hoping to have all three acts of their second episode "The Needs of the Many" out by the end of the year (again split into three act releases). That episode will tell the story of Capt. Carter of the Farragut facing the same Gorn Captain Kirk fought in "Arena". It will also feature the guest voice of Tim Russ.

More info of ‘TAE’ at farragut-animated.com.

Starship Farragut Update
As for the live-action part of the Farragut family, besides doing voice work for the animated show, the focus this year has been on building their own sets located in St. Mary’s, Georgia (previous Farragut productions have mostly used the Star Trek: New Voyages sets). Farragut films plans to have a sets for the bridge, transporter room, captain’s quarters, corridor and shuttle craft ready in time to shoot their next episode in early 2010.  In April they held an open house to their new facility (see video).

Farragut producer/star John Broughton tells TrekMovie.com he hopes to release their fifth production, a full-length episode titled "Damn the Torpedoes" by the end of 2010. Here is a synopsis of "Damn the Torpedoes":

The USS Farragut is bringing a Federation diplomat, retired Admiral Glasgow, to negotiate a truce. When the Admiral’s shuttlecraft disappears into a mined asteroid field, with other diplomats aboard, Captain Carter and his crew must find a way to rescue them without starting an interstellar war!

Farragut also made some news last month, winning the Best Fan Film award for the second year in a row at the Wrath of Con science fiction conference and film festival in Panama City Beach, Florida. It was awarded for their latest production, the ‘Crew Log’ half-length episode “A Rock and a Hard Place,” which you can download at starshipfarragut.com.

For more on Starship Farragut, visit the official site at starshipfarragut.com.

 

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This is cool. I love the animation

I dont care what anyone says, I LOVE FAN FILMS!!

The animation is very well done, although you can see where they have “borrowed”. There was one overhead shot of the bridge shaking where you can make out some of the TAS crewmembers.

I have trouble watching this though, as I’m a professional voice-over guy… and the Captain sounds (to my ears) to much like he’s READING. As someone who works in the VO industry.. it’s kinda tough to listen to.

That said… overall… it’s very well done. Bravo!

lol awesome.

I love it however, the captain does sound like hes just reading….I have to agree with number three

Uhura? Wtf are you doing on the Farragut?!

Its pretty good, but the voices are too deadpan, and the captain sounds like a teenager…

god, i hate starship farragut worse actingthen tos

needs. more. pauses.

Actually that’s meant to be Morretti .. You can find out more of her Character on the Farragut Animated website.

I really am enjoying this project, probably more than the live action series. The animation is well done and for the most part the VO are done well. However I must agree that the Captain’s VO is the weak link. There is a general lack of inflection that leaves the delivery somewhat monotone. It might be helpful to break up longer bits of dialog into smaller pieces and then edit them together. This should allow the actor to focus on the delivery instead of getting a long piece of dialog out.

Wow #7, that’s really constructive criticism.

While I agree with 3 and 5 that the voiceovers could use some work, overall I thought that “Starship Farragut” perfectly captured the spirit of the 70’s “Star Trek” animated series.

There was one big disappointment for me, though. I could be completely offbase here, but it looks like most if not all of the visual effects of the “Farragut” are merely Photoshopped changes to the Filmation clips of the “Enterprise”. I thought the producers of “Starship Farragut” were going to create entirely new effects shots **in the style** of the Filmation series, but using more modern F/X software such as Newtek LightWave + a good cel shader. Oh well… maybe next time?

RE: #11…

From what I remember reading, this new series was always meant to have the original look of the Filmation series….for better or worse. I kind of like the charm of the old 70’s animation style. Well, I should say I like and dislike many things…but I can absolutely appreciate the nod and tribute to the original series.

As far as the acting goes…for a fan-based show it was pretty good. I guess my main criticism would be with the Captain. He comes across quite flat.

As a whole, I think it is a top-notch fan production. I’ve been waiting months for it’s release and can honestly say I was not disappointed. The site is bookmarked and I will be looking forward to further episodes…as well as posting announcements on an animation promotion site I’m involved with.

Kudos to Farragut Films and NEO fx!

I love this! Very cool!

So #7 more pauses in the voice, does that mean you want the Capt. of the Farragut to now be called Capt. Jerk. What he needs to do is get a stronger memory and act the voice from memory, not a prompter like O’bama does. But reciting from memory is why actors get paid. And this production comes from a Fan’s heart that places them their on film. Which for some is of more value than a paycheck.

If they qualify as actors then they would be getting money like actors do, the bad part of this is you may be forced to join a union.

Oh Spockish…. politicians (and most people who speak on television) have been using teleprompters for decades, and before that, they had cue-cards. Why you or anyone would single-out President Obama is silly and ignorant.

What the hell does Obama have to do with this?

While a tribute to the style of the original animated series is nice, couldn’t they have amped up the thing? Added faster cuts, more movement to the animations, better special effects? The original animated show was cheaply animated due to budget concerns…when you’ve got modern computers you can do a lot more in much less time and effort.

Terrible theme music, terrible voices. And it should say “Farragut Films presents” not “present.”

The Farragut is great! I like it. Great animation. It has the TAS spirit, that is great. Maybe there could appear the Enterprise in the future… :-)

Spockish. I think you are in the wrong place. You want a politics site.

Way cool. And they use Thelin. I loved that character from the original cartoon. And clever voice casting. All very cool.

And might I add…a real Andorian. Love it.

Very nice animation, but a few of the characters sound like they are just reading from a book, not acting it out.

Wow, their bad acting skills translate quite faithfully to their animated characters.

Captain’s voice is just awful. Why do people insist on this fanwank?

Nice addition but I am not a fan of duplicating the 70’s animation style (if you can call it a style). The captain needs to put a little more life in his lines also…

I’ll give it a B –

I wish I could cite the article, but Shatner said that it wasn’t uncommon for the TAS voice work to be recorded wherever the actors were at the time…which includes a bathroom stall one time.

So, yes, while Bill was boldly going, he was delivering the Captain’s Log.

The look and style of this is top notch, but man, someone needs to give that captain a shot of cordrazine!

Good job Farragut and NEO Fx. I enjoy the TOS fan films, and mixing in voices from any ST in very nice! Keep up the good work, “Full speed ahead!!!”

#11 My feelings exactly, I am a little more involved with this project, having worked with one of the producers on TOS online comics, I created some artwork for the Farragut site, I use 3D Studio Max. I wish they have done more with the space shots, I understand the idea of recreating the original animation from the 70’s, but one has to realize that those guys didn’t have a choice, they couldn’t afford to do it better, with today’s computers we can do full animation for the space shots which would look really cool.

I’ll watch this in a month when the whole thing is released. I don’t understand why incomplete work is presented like that. In this case it isn’t so bad, because it’s only a month. The better the show/fan fic/fan film is, the worse it is that it’s incomplete. I realize there are 2 schools of thought. Some people don’t mind because they get to see something. Personally, I just like to be able to watch the whole thing. I won’t be able to finish it until the final part is released anyway, so I wait.

A month isn’t so bad at least. Didn’t that Exeter episode recently have its 4th anniversary since the first part was released? Hopefully the final act will come out before Star Trek 12.

I wish someone would use the original dialogue/music/sounds from the original animated series, but do new 3D CGI animations for each shot. Especially those episodes written by D.C. Fontana and other classic Trek writers. It’d be way too much work, but it would be awesome to see!!!

This is cool too though, what a great fan tribute!

I know they are trying to capture the look of the original but why? I watched TAS when I was a kid during the first run, and back then I thought the animation was terrible. It still is. The only reason it was bad back then was because of the budget (Just like TOS) With the low cost of good animation techniques available today it could be a lot better. Retro is fine, but this is silly.

Thanks to those that did watch this and liked it. It was designed to be a tribute to Filmation. While we did improve upon things visually, for the most part it is meant to stand beside the original as almost a ‘spin off’.

I won’t spend any time defending the voice work. Everyone gave their all in this project and it does tell an interesting story. You can’t please everyone all of the time, but I am happy some people enjoyed it.

#32
Couldn’t agree more. What’s the possibility somebody with the skill and time to do it lurks around here and might just…..

You get my drift.

Wish I could do it. Because I would love to see these get the ‘remastered’ treatment.

Come on Paramount, this sounds like a superb money spinner to me!

7. johnny – July 23, 2009

Might want to brush up on your grammar before criticizing the acting. Seriously, I had to read your post 3 times to figure out what you said. Anyone know what a comma is these days? Periods or exclamation marks? I’m not expert, but at least I try to make my posts understandable.

As for the animated Farragut, it’s really cool, but I simply can’t stand listening to the actor playing the Captain. He slurs through his lines, both here and in the live action show. I simply can’t buy him as the captain with such horrible diction. His performance is ok, if understated, but he really needs to up his game in terms of diction and clarity. He needs to practice saying his lines with a pencil clenched in his teeth. That will help him a lot.

all kudos to folks for putting so much love and effort into fan productions… but I have to agree with other posters – its rendered pretty much unwatchable by the terrible ‘acting’ and reading of lines…

Was this done with flash?

Starship Farragut Rocks! Given the fact these guys are giving their own free time and resources (especially $$$) as well as getting voice-overs from professionals (Masterson, Doohan, Russ,etc.), I say more power to this gallant crew! Once again, if any of you naysayers can do better, then by all means do so. We would love the opportunity to critique your handiwork as well as admire your efforts.

To the Star Trek fan films and other fan productions: LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!

#38

No…while Flash would be an option if we were to completely do a fresh new cartoon (with its own style), this was done to replicate cel animation. So, we did it very similar to that…Volunteers from around the world would submit ‘cels’ and we would layer them in After Effects, where they would be animated and exported into a timeline editor.

Not the best way to do a production cartoon, but works well for this.

re:Opening Music

If they were going to use/borrow TAS incidental/background music- why not simply use the TAS opening theme.

My 2 cents- music needs work- otherwise good effort.

Shades of Mary Sue! Dude, casting yourself as the captain of an animated spaceship? Show some retstraint!

WOW! I am VERY impressed with the animated Farragut episode. I could watch more of this. Very good.

@ Michael-NEO f/x

Look at “Futurama”. It’s an animated cartoon, but the visual F/X style is top shelf with fluid motion of the cars, space vehicles, etc. You could still have had an animated spinoff of TAS that duplicates the visual style of the Filmation series, but with much smoother animation. I guess that’s what’s at the root of my disappointment–I (obviously mistakenly) was under the impression that I was going to see near-Futurama visual F/X on this project.

39. Aldo F. Rodriguez – July 24, 2009

Did they get a vocal performance from James Doohan before he passed away in 2005?

Scott,

Nope…that was never the goal…everything you see on the screen was done purposefully to mirror Filmation-style animation. People kept commenting that Filmation did this to save money and that we should have done better, however, we did this on NO budget with volunteers only. If we had started with a clean slate, this project would have never seen the light of day. Utilizing the ‘Filmation’ style gave us a grounding point to start from. In the end, it is a tribute to that style we were going for.

Sorry some of this disappointed you guys…TAS was never about the animation anyway, but about telling an interesting story.

I was pretty good friends with John Brought back when we used to work together at a government contracting firm in Maryland… he’s a fantastic guy and absolutely LOVES HIS TREK. I remember he used to bring in these great props (phasers, etc.) he made to share with me..

I haven’t spoken or seen him since we worked together; it’s so cool to see him still “Trekkin'”… I’ll have to shoot him an e-mail and congratulate him! Go, Johnny, Go!!!

9. Aldo F. Rodriguez – July 24, 2009

Having read the article again, I can see why you were confused. They have incorporated a character that was voiced by Doohan ‘in the original animated series’. The character is obviously voiced by a new actor here, since Doohan is dead.

46 Michael – It is a nice nostalgic effect and serves as a homage to the TAS I knew as a kid. Very nice job with it. It was no small effort, I am sure.

Best,

Brett

It’s Chris Doohan.

Father, James used to do lots of extra voices on the animated show. Including Thelin which his son is doing now. See – it’s a tie in folks. A nice tribute.