Starship Farragut: The Animated Episodes A Preview By Michael Struck
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Character Introduction
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Michael Struck Interview
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Welcome to the fourth issue of Trekkie Central Supplemental. This issue features Starship Farragut the Animated Episodes, with an exclusive article by episode creator Michael Struck and also an interview also with Michael Struck. We hope you enjoy this magazine Live Long and Prosper Richard
Trekkie Central Staff: Writers: Heather Ashleigh; Jennifer Cole; Gerri Donaldson; Josh Edelglais; Beo Fraser; Danny Levy; Alex Matthews; Richard Miles; Eugenia Stoypra; Michael Struck; Sean-Paul Teeling; Tim Vining and John Whiting. Head Writers: Gerri Donaldson; Alex Matthews; Richard Miles and Eugenia Stoypra. Photographers: Jennifer Cole and Richard Miles Graphics Artists: Steve Gilson and Richard Miles; Front Cover: Richard Miles Creative Consultants: Michael Hudson and Rick Pike. Assistant Editors: Heather Ashleigh and Alex Matthews Editor: Richard Miles Special Thanks: Contributors: Michael Struck. Trekkie Central Magazine and Supplemental is produced for fans by fans. This is a free to download and view online magazine, from which no profit is made in anyway. If you see this magazine on sale anywhere please do not purchase it as this will jeopardise feature issue of this magazine. If you do find it on sale please inform us immediately by emailing us at trekkie-central@hotmail.co.uk and put fraudulent magazine in the subject box. Many Thanks
Hello, my name is Michael Struck and I am the owner and manager of NEO f/x, a visual effects company located in Portland, Oregon. We have been operating since 2003, mainly focused on creating simple logos and videos for those in the Portland area. Around 2005 we wanted to expand from our core business and enter the entertainment industry. As most new filmmakers find when they begin, it is not easy to break into this industry. So, we started reaching out to smaller filmmakers, student directors, and internet fan films to slowly ease our way in. In 2005 we found Starship Farragut, a Washington DC based fan production. Their episodes were set in the TOS timeline and based on a new crew and ship. Unlike New Voyages which had already established themselves, Starship Farragut was just getting started, so this was our opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new project. Fast forward to 2007 and we had helped produce a couple of successful episodes of Farragut, and we found ourselves in demand by other productions. However, we also wanted to do one of our own pet projects which was 2D animation similar to the Filmation Trek of the 70’s. I had actually written a story treatment for Farragut, but just like some of the stories for the original episodes of live-action Star Trek, my story was a bit too ambitious for a limited funded live production, but could easily be created in animated format. However, I was no screenplay writer, so I solicited a story from Tom Scott, president of Magique Productions. This was a very impressive story that was very ‘Trek like’ in its structure and story. While we made a decision that this would be our animated episode, I still wanted to see my story come to life. Fortunately, one of the other productions we were beginning to work on was Of Gods and Men. This is where I met Jack Trevino, one of the writers of OGAM and a couple of ‘real’ trek episodes on television. He knew of our work in Farragut and commented that he wouldn’t mind writing a story for this series. I told him of our plan for an animated episode and my story, and we began collaborating on a script that would work in this format. As the scripts were begin developed, I wanted these episodes to not simply be classified as fan productions. While most of the cast of the live action Farragut would be involved, I wanted some ‘special guest stars’ to be included as well. One of the plans I always had was to include a character from the original Trek episodes as part of the Farragut crew. In the original animated Trek episode “Yesteryear”, the timeline was altered and Spock was no longer part of the Enterprise crew. Instead, the first officer of the Enterprise was a gray Andorian named Thelin. This character was originally voiced by James Doohan, and only appeared in this one episode. My rational for including him in the Farragut crew was somewhat ‘logical’ if not inventive; Thelin must have been in Starfleet to eventually end up on the Enterprise in a parallel timeline. And as we all know, one small incident in the past can have major consequences in the future. So, with Spock not being around in “Yesteryear”, maybe Thelin did some heroic act that got Kirk’s attention and he was on the fast track to Lieutenant Commander. With the original timeline in place, however, maybe Thelin didn’t get to meet Kirk, and he ended up on the Farragut as only a Lieutenant. Either way, I needed someone to voice this character, and I thought one day ‘why not ask the son of James Doohan to do it’. As luck would have it, Chris Doohan was interested in getting into voiceover work, so it took little convincing to get him involved. In addition to Thelin at Navigation, we also have a new character to the Farragut crew, Lt. Scott Taylor. Taylor is being voiced by Hetoreyn, the composer of the live-action episodes. Hetoreyn is originally from the UK, so it will be nice to have a non-American accent on the bridge. The story Jack and I wrote also involved a guest female character. Jack immediately recommended Chase Masterson from Deep Space Nine and OGAM. This is where I got my first dose of ‘Hollywood reality’. Actors belong to a union that protects their rights, and they simply can’t work on any project they want…The project must be SAG Signatory which ensures that the actor is treated as they should be. This is one of those ‘insider’ things I had no idea about; however, Chase was very open to helping NEO f/x become SAG Signatory so she could participate. This opened the door to other actors such as Vic Mignogna and Tim Russ (Tuvok) having some cameo roles in the episodes. Once recording began, we started animating. At this time it was only myself and Kail Tescar (webmaster of startrekanimated.com) working on the project. However, word of the project spread quickly and we began getting volunteers work on the project, including a former
Disney employee, a couple comicbook artists, and even someone that helped pitch a post-TNG style cartoon to CBS. For the music, Hetoreyn volunteered to participate. Outside of the simplified animations, most people are nostalgic about the music of the original animated episodes. These were original creations and were used A LOT in not only Star Trek, but other animated episodes created by Filmation. While I was thrilled to have Hetoreyn working on this, I knew that we had to capture the feelings the original music created. Any misgivings that I had about the music were put to rest when he delivered a wonderful, modern rendition of the ‘battle sequence’ from TAS. I knew at that point we could capture the original feeling without resorting to using the original music. As we moved forward on the episodes, I was spending a lot of time in LA getting the recordings, so I decided to look up Lou Scheimer…one of the co-founders of Filmation (the original creators of TAS). How surprised was I when he invited me to his estate that overlooked the San Fernando valley! I showed him our work and he gave his complete endorsement of the project saying “You have to follow your vision of what to do, and don’t let anyone detour you. “ He has since recorded a promo and cameo for these productions that we will be releasing soon. Overall, this has been a fantastic project. Looking back to 2003, I would have never thought I would be working directly with actors, or meeting legends in the animation world. The other thing I never anticipated was the amount of effort it takes to put a cartoon together. When we originally announced this at the beginning of 2008, we thought for sure it could be done by the end of the year. However, defining the character and getting the recordings the exact way we wanted them took a lot longer than we anticipated. Therefore, we have slipped our release date to the first half of 2009. The goal has always been to release this before the JJ Abrams film, and we are still on track to do that. Until then, we are planning to release a couple of trailers to whet the appetites of the online fans. Until then, you can get that ‘animated feeling’ by having an animated image of yourself drawn up by Kail from StarTrekAnimated.com. Simply go to http://www.startrekanimated.com/tas_portraits.html and follow the instructions. Please note that there is a charge for this service.
TCMS: Can you tell us who the cast will be for these episodes?
TCMS: What will the running time be for these?
MS: The cast of the original Farragut episodes will be in these episodes. This includes John Broughton, Michael Bednar, Holly Bednar, and Paul R. Sieber. In addition, the doctor (Amy McDonough) and Galway (Bob McDonough) will also make appearances. In addition, we have Trek Alumni Chris Doohan, Chase Masterson, and Tim Russ participating in various roles. Vic Mignogna (Fullmetal Alchemist) will also make an appearance, as will Jason LaBlanc, a voice-over artist from Dallas, Texas. Finally, we have a few cameo appearances that the fans will appreciate, including Lou Scheimer…the co-founder of Filmation.
MS: These will be like the original episode and they will be slated to run for about ½ hour. The nice thing about an independent production is that we are not restricted to keep it 22 minutes. Therefore, one of the episodes will probably be a bit longer than that to make sure we do justice to the story.
TCMS: Who wrote these episodes? MS: There will be two episodes. Power Source was written by Thomas J. Scott of Magique Production. He had previously submitted a screenplay for the live-action Farragut as well, and was happy to shorten it and turn it into an animated episode. The Needs of the Many was written by me and Jack Treviño, writer of a couple of DS9 Episodes. This story is also based on a ‘pitch’ I gave for a live-action episode. TCMS: Will there be original music used in these episodes or will you use bits from the animated series? MS: Surprisingly, the original music is not readily available. I actually met with Lou Scheimer and we theorize that Paramount has the original, but it would be unlikely for us to be able to get it. However, that is fine as we have a VERY talented composer who will do a homage to the original music, along with creating scores unique to the episodes.
TCMS: How did you managed to get Star Trek alumi Tim Russ and Chase Masterson to participate in these episodes? MS: Not only Tim and Chase, but Chris Doohan (son of the original Scotty, James Doohan), and Vic Mignogna from the anime world (Edward Elric on Fullmetal Alchemist). Since the beginning of this project, I had a ‘special’ character in mind for the crew of the Farragut. Very similar to M’Ress and Arex in TAS, I wanted an alien in the mix. The character I had in mind was originally voiced by James Doohan, and then one day it clicked…why not ask his son to participate?? One e-mail chain later and he was hooked on the idea. He then became our biggest advocate. The story Jack Treviño and I came up with was very flexible, so the first person we asked to participate after Chris was Walter Koenig, since he was never in the original animated episodes. Unfortunately, with his recent participation in OGaM and the New Voyages episode, he felt he had done Chekov to death (pun) and was not interested in revisiting that character. Since the main character of the story could have been male or female, we decided to go female as Trek has not had enough strong female characters in its history. With that, both Chris and Jack suggested contacting Chase Masterson. When she found out Chris and Jack were involved, she assisted us in getting the project set up with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and then joined the project.
She then suggested we contact Vic. Vis is a HUGE Trek fan and jumped at the chance to participate. From there it was just a fluke to get Tim Russ. We were interested in showing a trailer at the Creation Convention in LA and I contacted him to see if he would be showing OGaM, and if so, could we attach the promo to it. He wasn’t showing anything this convention, but hinted that he has gotten into voice over (V.O) work recently. A few quick rearrangements and we were able to bring him in on a small role that is perfect for him. TCMS: Is there anything else that you can tell us about these animated episodes? MS: Well, we are still finalizing the premiere of these episodes. We have a lot of artists participating in these episodes, and we want the premiere to do justice to the work they put into this project.