FanMade: Star Trek Phoenix – New 25th Century Fan Series Releases First Episode

There is a new Star Trek fan production that has just released their first episode and it is pretty impressive. Star Trek Phoenix, produced by the Seattle-based Temporal Studios, is a new take on the 25th century of Trek’s prime universe, set aboard a massive new ship: the USS Phoenix. More details below.

 

Phoenix rises

Set 40 after Star Trek: Nemesis, this new fan film focuses on the adventures of the crew of the USS Phoenix (NCX-101138). The ‘Ascension Class ship is a massive 1,400 meters long and uses a hybrid of Romulan and Federation design, with a crew of more than 10,000. The pilot episode "Cloak & Dagger" takes place one year into the maiden voyage of the ship which has a mission of exploration and diplomacy.

phoenix ship
The USS Phoenix

Star Trek: Phoenix has a cast of nine main characters, with many more playing guest roles in the pilot. The characters are a typical Star Trek crew with a mix of humans and aliens, including some new species. Headed by Ben Andrews who plays Captain Bryce Avari, the cast are all trained actors who have done commercial, stage, TV and film work.  Phoenix Creator and Executive Producer Leo Roberts (who is also a casting director) remains behind the camera, telling TrekMovie his focus on experienced actors was one of the key goals for the series from the outset.

phoenixcrew
The Phoenix cast

Star Trek Phoenix has a large production team with more than 150 volunteers who have been working on the project for over two years. According to Roberts, one of the reasons they set the show 40 years after Nemesis, was to allow them to create a new look for the show – which required the creation of new uniform designs, new props, and even new alien make-up. For the pilot, much of the shooting was done on location as well as a number of ship locations (using a combination of standing sets and CGI). One set they did not build yet is the bridge of the USS Phoenix. Roberts says that he is hoping that the pilot is enough of a success to justify the cost of building a bridge as elaborate as the team has envisioned. Roberts and his team have already mapped out a first season for the show and hope to be producing new episodes soon.

You can download "Cloak and Dagger" and learn much more about Phoenix at the official website (www.stphoenix.com), which includes cast interviews, vignettes, behind-the-scenes photos and more.

Here is the trailer for "Cloak and Dagger".

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Seems intersting. First?

Impressive. I didn’t know Voyager had a big daddy.

very cool! can’t wait to watch. first?

Or would that be a big son?

Needs more lens flares…

Nice work. . .looking forward to checking out their work.

I don’t know why they didn’t just put their time and efforts into an original production to justify the expense. At this point, all this effort without revenue is pointless and you’re asking people to wait around for two years while you make another one.

Holy jeebus! The crew looks HOT! Can’t wait to see it!

I’d love to get involved with the production since they’re local-Seattle, but I have no production experience… so I’ll just enjoy the fruits of their labors.

The special effects look great, looking forward to it!

But why do they use this “soap opera” style instead of using some filters on the camera to make it look more professional? Are they too expensive?

Ship looks great!!!!

#7: It’s not pointless. We love Star Trek. We love filmmaking and audio production.

We want to tell stories in the Trek tradition. We want to put on a uniform and live the daydream for a while. We want to shout “Red alert! All hands to battlestations!” into a microphone. We want to have people — be it a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand or (if your name is Jim Cawley or Nick Cook) hundreds of thousands of them — believe in us as starship captains or science officers or Klingon warriors. We want to see the ships, hear the sounds, explore the Roddenberry universe one more time.

Writing, acting, and production are not about “revenue.” Revenue’s a means to make a career of it, but its worth is only instrumental. The value is in what we *do*, and in our *love* for doing it. This is true in every field: Socrates was arguably the greatest philosopher who ever lived, and as far as anyone can tell he never made a drachma off it. All he did was stand naked in the Agora, annoy and confuse passers-by, and get executed. For his love of philosophy over his love of return-on-investment ratios, he is recognized not only as a great philosopher but a pure one.

Fan producers are, for the most part, not great film- or radioplay-makers. (I include myself in that.) But we are *pure*. We do this because we love making shows, and we love Star Trek, and we’re willing to sacrifice a lot of mammon to bring the two together.

I hope that answers your question.

For some reason when I see this I think GIjoe….and when I see the design of the ship I think Poseidon……

But hey, it looks cool. Can’t wait to see it.

Nice ship.

Fantastic! The video is a bit glitchy right now so I’ll wait til most folks are in bed and not clogging up the bandwidth and watch it then.

I like the ship. Looks like a logical coninuation of where
Trek left off. And a s a local, I am proud of this new effort from my home. Need a hand in the sandbox guys?

ughh….”continuation”

Uh, Oh, Looks like Mr. Cawley has some competition! I love fan made films.

Definitely worth checking out. I really didn’t see much Romulan in the Romulan/Federation design of the ship. Maybe I will after I watch the first episode.
Could definitely give Mr. Cawley’s New Voyages a run for its money.

TREK ON, PHOENIX!

Trained actors?

You must be kidding.

As with many of these fan productions, it isn’t the scripting, nor the direction. It’s the camera work. Actors aren’t shown to play off of one another; the viewer simply sees a close-up of a character (who often emotes poorly) without seeing how he or she is playing off of the situation.

ST New Voyages Phase II nails it sometimes (and sometimes not).

I would strongly recommend that the ST Phoenix production team rethinks the cinematography in their next episode. Select a visual style; set aside enough time to get quality angles, make it a storytelling experience, not a quick set-up, shoot, then move to the next scene.

Right now, I’m unimpressed.

Verry cool. Good luck guys

Amazing, and it doesn’t even take 5 years to not finish!

This is bad, it is not Trek.

Could someone mirror the file somewhere? I keep trying to download it, but it fails every time. Maybe BitTorrent would be a good way to distribute it?

For a fan made production, it looks great. I’m glad that fans are never giving up on Star Trek, even though it has been off the air (TV) for so long.

Hats off to this project, very well done and continued success. Ive said it many times before but fanfic IS the wave of the future not only for Star Trek for for the motion picture indu$try in general. #11 said it very well.

I don’t want to sound harsh, because it looks like a lot of work went into this project. But that ship design is waaaayyy to busy, Definitely fits in with the Trek Online games, but I wouldn’t call it a beautiful or original ship design

This craps all over New Voyages. Really really good.

This is pretty good. Needs a bridge but I understand why they did not build one. Would love to see more.

Looks interesting! It is so very nice to see a new group coming along and giving all of us their take on one aspect of Star Trek! I will D/L and watch this first episode. Also, from all of us at new Voyages / phase II, our best wishes for a successful Star Trek: Phoenix!
These productions can be fun BUT it is a lot of work from script concept to production to post production, then distribution.
If you would like streaming video contact the folks at http://www.digitalnewage.com – three of these folks are NV/PII and Mr. Clark worked with us while at DragonFly.com (now defunct.)
Gary

lol I dont think they are allowed to use that music are they?

If you have experienced actors then why have them doing moody looks and no dialogue for the trailer?

Well… it could have been worse.

The challenge is crossing the line of making it look and sound professional. The audio quality alone leaves it in the realm of amateur. As someone else mentioned, the visual quality of the actual video shot is too soap opera-ish.

Their cinematographer needs to work on things. The shots of the ship in space are too “cg”-y, and need to be reigned in (not in the rendering quality, but rather in the shot angles and camera moves). I agree with what ‘See No Evil’ says.

And the actors all suffer from the syndrome of ‘stand still while someone else talks, and then move around a lot and make lots of gestures while I talk’… There’s a lack of it feeling natural, like people actually talking to one another.

For all the criticism though, I think it’s a hell of an effort, and they all should be commended. It’s a great start to something that hopefully will learn and grow better over time.

goatees are lame
grow a beard damn it

I like it so far, it cut off mid way and wouldn’t let me continue…trying to download now.

Hopefully I get to finish it but nice work from what i’ve seen!

#16 – Competition, nope. I don’t believe in that sort of thing in the fan film world. Good luck to them,I wish them nothing but the best!
On a personal note, I would never do any modern Trek. 24th century or this new Abrams 25th century reboot stuff, It’s not my cup of tea. For me it’s CLASSIC KIRK TREK or NOTHING!

This time it is the guy with the beard and mustache who looks like the 80’s era washed up x-rated actor…there always seems to be one guy who fits this bill in all of these amateur Trek web productions. :-)

What’s embarrassing is that fan made ships are far superior to those we’ve seen on that Star Trek Online.

Good luck with the production and feel free to ignore the bafflingly pointless kneejerk criticism. Put on a show and have fun!

James you stick to your guns and thats the sign of a true artist IMO, I admire that. Keep kicking butt. Although I’m a fan of the “Abrams re-boot”, and think it was/is needed as far as the franchise goes, Its only one interpretation of Star Trek and there is plenty of room for many more view points as far as art is concerned. And the great thing is that none of the interpretations are “more valide” or “better” than the others. Its art man.

Does the captain have braces?

Very impressive. The foundations for this fan series are certainly very solid. Looking forward to future instalments Keep up the good work! :o)
.

Looks great heading straight to the web site. With fan productions this good who needs CBS/Paramount.

Wow. Great fan film. I look forward to more. Unlike Mr. Cawley’s work, I think I can get into this one. Not to say I don’t think Mr. Cawley isn’t producing quality shows, I just can’t watch him as Kirk. Kirk’s my hero, and I have a filter for what is good character representation and what’s not. Pine captured it for some reason (much to my surprise), but I have been turned off by Mr. Cawley (sorry:)).

This new show, though… It is original so can “boldly go” in any direction it chooses, introducing characters in any way it chooses.

As a writer and video producer myself, however, I’d advice trying to break free from some previously established character elements, such as the dead father who was in Star Fleet (or the Federation in some form) which is reminiscent of Archer, or the doctor who’s afraid of transporting and full of wise-cracks. Also, like #18 pointed out, the cinematography needs to be more inclusive of the other actors while people deliver their lines so we can get reactions. The scene with the doctor is sarcastically suggesting they set up camp in the middle of a hostile environment, it would have worked great had the camera included the captain in the sequence, then the captain could have spoken his next dialogue immediately following the comment with perhaps a look of annoyance (or whatever else would be appropriate). Think fluidity. You never want dead time or a cut and paste feel when watching. Try and visualize every sequence before you shoot. Story boarding only helps to a degree, I find a mental image is best.

But otherwise, keep up the good work!

Now thats what I call Star Trek.It is far better than the Pilot´s of VOY or ENT.In the short ammount of Time you get as many insights you need in cool Flashbacks.There is (as always in these series) crew conflicts,buddys who know each other for some times,alien crew members which are to explore.For a low budget Fan Prouction it is extremely entertaining.It´s about time that ST returns as a regular series or direct to DVD Movies.The sarcasm of the the Doctor is marvelous.The only thing disturbing and missing, is the bridge,hope to see it soon.
Keep on with this tremendous work.It was fun :-)

It looks alright, but Batman may want his music back.

18. So right.

Effects are great, music is very good, but the live action sequences need the help of a professional or semi-pro cinematographer. I’ve only filmed two videos in my life and I can tell you that this element, plus the right editing, is critical.

Nice first attempt, though.

meh.

nothing exciting here.

Extremely good. The streaming version, and the iTunes download were both plagued by problems I assume will be repaired.

Fight scene with Telek was lame, but it’s nice to see real actors at work.

The idea of a “State” ship is intriguing, but could end up being a burden, just like the ‘families on the Enterprise’ idea which was happily killed off in “Generations.”

Keep it going, for sure!

Well, I’m no expert in filmography but I have been in film classes and the filter used isn’t something that should be used with anything. It is so unprofessional and gives viewers a home-taped feel…or like watching a prime time soap.

Just watched half the episode until it crashed what I saw was very good

It looks to have decent special effects, but the bit I watched was pretty unoriginal. The opening sequence & music was a mix of the opening sequences of Voyager and DS9, complete with the wormhole at the end. The ship seems to be an overgrown (WAY overgrown) Voyager. The acting was mediocre at best. The uniforms were pretty obvious Voyager / DS9 variants.

But, it’s a good effort and a step in the right direction.

Keep trying, guys. It’ll get good.