Axanar meets legal resistence from CBS

[Ryujin]

I think Mr Wheaton's article, that you quoted, suggests otherwise - fan films running at the $100,000 mark. About 10% of what Axanar pulled in.

$1 million isn't *magic*, however, if it is 10x what most others use, then I think the point still stands that it is a lot of money.

And, on that measure, I don't htink I'd have a problem with CBS coming down on them, either. There's a point where the funding is really pre-sales, and fan productions shouldn't be about sales if you want that pseudo-protected monkier.

I didn't present Wheaton's piece as any sort of support for my statements. It's there for informational purposes, as I'm just trying to keep folks up to date with what's going on. On the funding angle the reason why most fan projects cost so little is that all of the labour tends to be performed volunteers, with folks taking vacation or unpaid leave to do the production. The moment that you decide to pay people even as little as minimum wage, or base scale for the specific job, costs skyrocket. Axanar, like many indie projects, pay their people. From what they're saying it sounds like they're paying scale, even to people who command a much higher rate.

 

[Ryujin]

One of the danger zones of the Axanar project is they raised a ton of money and sounds like they've used that money for things like setting up a studio to be a long term venture, rather than "get money and use it directly for the making of the thing the kickstarter is for"

Which is suspiciously similar to the board game case that hit the news "thing that ate monopoly" or whatever, where the guy used the money to move himself to WA and start a company, pay his rent, rather than directly use it on production costs of the game that he was handed the rules/art for to make into a reality.

Given the outcome of that case, and the changes to Kickstarter requiring full reimbursement if the project fails, the danger for the Axanar guys similar, in that if they've spent money on things that are not "Axanar film assets" then they will have that much harder of a time getting the money back to the funders if this fails (which it may if Paramount wins).

The set building is definitely a sticking point, but not outside the realm of what other productions have done. For example "Star Trek Continues" have bundled set building into their crowdfunding efforts. "Kirkstarter 2.0", for example, raised over $200,000.00 and at least some of that went toward increasing, and improving their sets. Those are permanent assets.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rek-continues-2015-kirkstarter-20/description

 

[MarkB]

The weird thing is, the head guy behind Axanar, is a lawyer. You'd think he'd have smelled legal risks a mile away the moment he had the idea to film something about Star Trek.

Personally, and I suspect for Danny the Actual Lawyer as well, I see/hear ideas like this and I think of legal things to double-check before I assume something is kosher to just go ahead and start doing. It's pretty freaking obvious that if you re-use the name of something from a TV show, movie or book, that you better make sure you have legal rights to do so.

Are people really this stupid or careless? Or was Axanar really lawsuit baiting for Paramount?

I'm guessing they saw the legal ambiguity as an opportunity and decided to see how far they could push it, with the expectation that even if Paramount / CBS took action, it would begin with a Cease & Desist order, at which point they could either cave or drum up public opinion. They decided to gamble on the studio not leading with a full-scale lawsuit, and they lost.

 

[Janx]

The set building is definitely a sticking point, but not outside the realm of what other productions have done. For example "Star Trek Continues" have bundled set building into their crowdfunding efforts. "Kirkstarter 2.0", for example, raised over $200,000.00 and at least some of that went toward increasing, and improving their sets. Those are permanent assets.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...rek-continues-2015-kirkstarter-20/description

Here, I might wonder if I misunderstood a term. I fully expect them to have physical assets like the set for filming. And if the project goes bust, they can sell those assets to fans to help cover costs perhaps.

But I saw the term "studio" used with verbiage implying "to do other future business/film things" and assuming I read that write, that's farther than, some sets somewhere.

 

[Ryujin]

Here, I might wonder if I misunderstood a term. I fully expect them to have physical assets like the set for filming. And if the project goes bust, they can sell those assets to fans to help cover costs perhaps.

But I saw the term "studio" used with verbiage implying "to do other future business/film things" and assuming I read that write, that's farther than, some sets somewhere.

You're right that they did mention a studio. It's a warehouse space that's functionally little different from that of the other series that I've mentioned.

Star Trek Continues: "Our “Stage Nine” (an 18,500-square-foot studio named after the original soundstage at Desilu) houses the largest, most complete standing TOS sets in the world — including the bridge, corridors, turbolifts, quarters, sickbay, briefing/rec room, transporter room, Jefferies tube, engineering, auxiliary control, and shuttlecraft sets — precisely constructed using the original Star Trek blueprints (see our interactive virtual tour above)."

Axanar: "The Axanar team is happy to announce that we have signed a lease on 16,000sf warehouse in Valencia, CA. The new home of Axanar Productions will be called “Ares Studios” and you are all part of it because of your donations to the Axanar Kickstarter. We intend to turn this warehouse and office space into a fully functional sound stage. This will allow us to not only make “Axanar” but other Star Trek projects after Axanar and other Sci-Fi projects. (Robert Burnett and I have already acquired the rights to a fantastic book series by David Gerrold.)"

 

[Janx]

You're right that they did mention a studio. It's a warehouse space that's functionally little different from that of the other series that I've mentioned.

Star Trek Continues: "Our “Stage Nine” (an 18,500-square-foot studio named after the original soundstage at Desilu) houses the largest, most complete standing TOS sets in the world — including the bridge, corridors, turbolifts, quarters, sickbay, briefing/rec room, transporter room, Jefferies tube, engineering, auxiliary control, and shuttlecraft sets — precisely constructed using the original Star Trek blueprints (see our interactive virtual tour above)."

Axanar: "The Axanar team is happy to announce that we have signed a lease on 16,000sf warehouse in Valencia, CA. The new home of Axanar Productions will be called “Ares Studios” and you are all part of it because of your donations to the Axanar Kickstarter. We intend to turn this warehouse and office space into a fully functional sound stage. This will allow us to not only make “Axanar” but other Star Trek projects after Axanar and other Sci-Fi projects. (Robert Burnett and I have already acquired the rights to a fantastic book series by David Gerrold.)"

yeah, the term Studio meaning "place where our sets and offices are to do this project" is probably in-bounds, relative to proper use of the money.

Studio as in "big dream idea of being a full blown production company for lots of movies" starts getting into grey area.

Granted, the fact of any business where you setup infrastructure to do a project, leaves you with infrastructure to do another project. But one likely has to be careful how one phrases that.

 

[Ryujin]

yeah, the term Studio meaning "place where our sets and offices are to do this project" is probably in-bounds, relative to proper use of the money.

Studio as in "big dream idea of being a full blown production company for lots of movies" starts getting into grey area.

Granted, the fact of any business where you setup infrastructure to do a project, leaves you with infrastructure to do another project. But one likely has to be careful how one phrases that.

Axanar was planning on releasing their movie in parts, with how many at once being determined by the funding that they received. Their entire budget was projected to be $1.32M, with an approximate cost of $330K per "act". It was going to take significant time to shoot, produce, and post.

 

[MarkB]

You're right that they did mention a studio. It's a warehouse space that's functionally little different from that of the other series that I've mentioned.

Star Trek Continues: "Our “Stage Nine” (an 18,500-square-foot studio named after the original soundstage at Desilu) houses the largest, most complete standing TOS sets in the world — including the bridge, corridors, turbolifts, quarters, sickbay, briefing/rec room, transporter room, Jefferies tube, engineering, auxiliary control, and shuttlecraft sets — precisely constructed using the original Star Trek blueprints (see our interactive virtual tour above)."

Axanar: "The Axanar team is happy to announce that we have signed a lease on 16,000sf warehouse in Valencia, CA. The new home of Axanar Productions will be called “Ares Studios” and you are all part of it because of your donations to the Axanar Kickstarter. We intend to turn this warehouse and office space into a fully functional sound stage. This will allow us to not only make “Axanar” but other Star Trek projects after Axanar and other Sci-Fi projects. (Robert Burnett and I have already acquired the rights to a fantastic book series by David Gerrold.)"

Yeah, those two don't quite sound the same to me. The Star Trek Continues one is explicitly dedicated to the production of that specific show. The Axanar one is explicitly intended to support other projects that nobody signed up for in the Kickstarter.

 

[Ryujin]

Yeah, those two don't quite sound the same to me. The Star Trek Continues one is explicitly dedicated to the production of that specific show. The Axanar one is explicitly intended to support other projects that nobody signed up for in the Kickstarter.

Sure, except that the Axanar 'studio' will be full of the exact same sort of starship deck sets as the one for Star Trek Continues. Star Trek Continues also has more square footage than does Axanar. On the studio front, it's essentially a wash. Watch the Axanar Indiegogo pitch video and you'll see that the funding paid for something like a year and a half worth of their lease. That would pretty much cover production and after that, they're on their own.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The weird thing is, the head guy behind Axanar, is a lawyer. You'd think he'd have smelled legal risks a mile away the moment he had the idea to film something about Star Trek.

This may come as a complete shock to many of you, but some of my colleagues are amoral and shady. And a certain subset are so smart, they stupidly think they can get away with anything.