Yesterday, a part of a Swedish “fanfilm”, named “Gatekeeper“, was shot in Uppsala’s old “anatomical theatre” (in a scene involving Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang BTW). The film is said to try to combine Star Wars and Star Trek.
I have a long-time interest in amateur film making, “the fanzines of movies”. I made a compilation of films from local fandom in the 1990’s (called Filmfandom, incl. Dénis Lindbohm’s 1950’s super classic “Den stora nattens vålnad”) and have been a regular on the amateur Short Film Festivals for 25+ years (report from the latest in English):
Uppsala (north of Stockholm) UNT newspaper reports about this new “fanfilm”:
http://www.unt.se/kultur/stjarnornas-krig-till-uppsala-3088441.aspx
“Gatekeeper – A Meeting of Giants” is the biggest MTC (Multi Talent Co-operation) film project in history where Hollywood actors in co-operation with ProAms and talented amateurs create a high quality movie together. 48 countries are involved and more than 800 artists and actors, including original actors from Star Trek and Star Wars. Featuring the two Sci-Fi giants in the same movie for the first time! And YOU are invited to join the production – on set, or from your own home! More information to follow shortly !
Mattepainters/Concept artists: Thomas Dahl, Joachim Simon, Johan Lundqvist
Music: Terry Barrett : http://vimeo.com/67542246
“Gatekeeper – A Meeting of Giants” is a 120 min non-commercial movie where Star Trek and Star Wars meet in the same universe – with ORIGINAL actors – and YOU !”
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gatekeeper-a-meeting-of-giants
You can try net-based auto-translation services, but I’ll translate some snippets here:
Headline “Star Wars to Uppsala”, then eg:
“Science-fiction classics Star Wars and Star Trek will be united in a new film. One of the scenes will be shot on Saturday in Uppsala …
‘We behind the project all have a huge interest in sci-fi /sic!/, but at the same time we have notised the genre hasn’t really been seen as respectable culture in Scadinavia. It has been seen as a bit childish. But we want to change this, so we wrote a script during several years and gathered actors through contacs,’ the director Thomas Dahl says.
The film “Gatekeeper – a Meeting of Gigants” is a co-operation between profession al actors and amateurs of talent. Since the characters and backgrounds are eastablished it is considered a ‘fanfilm’. this means the film can’t have a commercial purpose.”
Thomas Dahl belongs to the Stockholm Trekkers Club and was one of the organisers of Swecon 2004, which was made in cooperation with that club. (Possibly Sweden’s second biggest con with literary people also involved. They invited ST actor Tim Russ and an unknown number above 500 turned up. Tickets were sold to main events, but they forgot to *list* attendees. The con made a big loss, which I believe was absorbed by people in the ST club since inviting the expensive actor was their idea.)
Recently a Star Wars “fanfilm”, “Threads of Destiny” was released on Youtube, mainly done in Sweden but also with international co-operation
(see : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d40IDc3rQfU ).
We also have the Finnish “Iron Sky”, not really a “fanfilm” because the script about Nazis on the Moon was an original story. The Finns also earlier did the full-length Star Trek parody, “Star Wreck”.
I’m sure there are plenty of other “fanfilm” projects around the world. The films have become possible because of new cheap, high-quality digital film cameras and distribution through Internet (Youtube, Vimeo etc). What is worth noting is that these films seem to have little or no contact with or involvement in the “traditional” amateur film movement (which I know very well, going to their festivals). That movement is 50 or more years old, beginning doing small films on 8 or 16 mm as cheaper cameras and infra structure for “home movies” became available some time after WWII. (My latest festival was the 47th in that series. My first one in 1987 had a majority of film on reels, 8 and 16 mm.)
While “traditional” amateur films are like “the fanzines of movies” (sf, horror etc is popular, but not dominant) these new “fanfilms” are like “the fanfiction of movies”.
© Ahrvid Engholm
Ahrvid Engholm is a swedish author, editor, journalist and SF fan.
„The Story of the “Gatekeeper – A Meeting of Giants” film
In “Gatekeeper – A Meeting of Giants” the two sci-fi giants of our time, Star Trek and Star Wars, meets in the same universe for the first time in a feature length film. This is done in a very clever way to avoid any changes to canon, to solve the obvious differences in technology and to avoid one coming of as better than the other.
The time is 2889, where just above the now terra formed planet Mars, a stationary nexus suddenly appear just outside the planet’s atmosphere. This rift in time and space is considered a gateway to a dimension where you construct your own personal reality as you please, and live forever. Aliens from the entire galaxy, as well as nearby galaxies, create total chaos in the Alpha quadrant, trying to enter the nexus. United Federation of Planets construct a space station run by Elisabeth Janeway, 16 generations after Voyager’s Kathryn Janeway. Together with a team of genetically engineered aliens, she is ordered to protect the Nexus and re-establish order in the quadrant. But one day two visitors appear in her private quarters, warning about a powerful warlord on its way, searching for his long lost love. A tongue from the Nexus reaches out and embrace the station and some of Starfleet’s long lost captains are disposed on the station: Captain Kirk, Captain Archer, Captain Picard and Captain Janeway is back – and ready to join the fight!
Producers of the “Gatekeeper – A Meeting of Giants” film
The production crew is huge but the inner circle consist of 4 well known people withing the Scandinavian and American fan community (4fathers):
Thomas Dahl (Director): Matte painter and graphic artist from Norway. Have produced film (awarded for best short fiction) and TV programs for 20 years, created Norway’s first Trek convention with Star Trek celebs and helped creating the first Norwegian trek organisation and the first Swedish Trek convention with celebs, and awarded Suecica Astrum Erratus Praemium.
Barbara Adams (Research): Best known from Roger Nygard’s documentaries “Trekkies 1 and 2”. Wonderful writer and mindblowing research for our main character. From little Rock, Arkansas, USA!
Martin Moen (sound/web): Educated in Great britain and working in a team with Pär Henriksson on our future web solutions.
Irene Brustad (Leading actress): Started Trekkers Norway and have been a huge drive to spead the interest of Sci-Fi among women. Playing the leading part in Gatekeeper.
Multi Talent Co-operation (MTC)
“Gatekeeper – A Meeting of Giants” is a 120 min NON COMERCIAL MTC production (Multi Talent Co-operation), where Star Trek and Star Wars actors, in co-operation with other professional artists, ProAms (professional in quality) and talented amateurs, together create a work of art on a voluntary basis, to be distributed all over the world on DVD and the Internet – free of charge.
Broad International Production
More than 800 artists and actors, in 48 countries, have joined the production. All creating parts of the movie for our creative production team to stitch together to a 120 minute quilt of movie magic! Among the actors are original actors from Star Trek and Star Wars, as well as actors from a number of current TV shows! These actors will be published as we go along.
Production Methods
The production is created from the principles of the “production Triangle” where the following three factors are wanted by most producers: They want the production to be cheap, have a high quality and be produced reasonably fast. However! These three factors seldom coexist and so you need to remove at least one of them. In our case we have decided to never compromise with the quality, and we are as independent producers restricted by budget, and so the solution is to compensate with time. We therefore have a rather long production period but aim to post parts of the movie for everyone involved to see as we go along. The sponsoring is by fans like you, by our future PayPal campaign and by trading of services and voluntary work.”
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gatekeeper-a-meeting-of-giants
