Ryujin
Legend
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.