‘Star Trek’ Fan Films Produced By Pasadena Filmmaker

A group of people united by their love of filmmaking, their love of Star Trek and their love of science fiction gathered at Rob Caves’ Pasadena home on July 11 to embark on an epic journey into the world of “Star Trek”.

Caves, a filmmaker and executive producer of the production company Hidden Frontier, studied editing and filmmaking at Marymount College. In his school years, Caves met up with other “Star Trek” fans to put together a Trek fan film. The film eventually spun off into the “Hidden Frontier” series, a continuation of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, which Caves produced for seven seasons.

After “Hidden Frontier” wrapped up in 2007, Caves began working on two new original series, “Odyssey” and “The Helena Chronicles”. Juxtapositions of Homer’s “Odyssey” and “Star Trek”, these shows are currently in their second seasons. Each season is 4-9 episodes in length, and each episode is approximately 35 minutes long.

Although Caves has developed new characters and only “borrows” characters from “Star Trek” from time to time, both shows pay homage to “Star Trek” through their story lines, Caves said.

“’Star Trek’ has always been positive about the future and has been very timely in terms of current events. We keep things new and fresh and re-spin them because ‘Star Trek’ is one of those things that gets reinvented every generation, and as long as you keep to the core principals, people recognize it and respond to it,” he said.

On Saturday, July 11, Caves and his crew filmed the second to last “Odyssey” episode of the season in the back of Caves‘ Pasadena home.

“I converted the back of the house and set one room up with a green screen,” Caves explained. “Now almost every room has been taken over – there’s a makeup room, a costume room, an editing room.”

The set consists primarily of a green screen and prop pieces. Certain items, such as bunk beds and prayer tables, are props and are placed in front of the green screen, but a majority of what is depicted on the show is all digital.

“It saves on a lot of space,” Caves said.

Approximately ten cast and crew members, including four actors, a director and a make-up artist, were present at Saturday’s filming, but more than 40 individuals make up the combined cast and crew for both shows.

It usually requires four-five days of filming to get enough footage for one episode, Caves explained. Once filmed, the episode then moves to post production for a month or two before it can be posted on the Hidden Frontier site.

Post-production is done by individuals all over the world, Caves added, and Hidden Frontier will even work with other fan film production companies in different countries to put together their episodes.

“It’s cool because the Internet has really allowed all the fan film groups to come together and share resources,” he said. “It’s really kind of a big community for people who are into sci-fi and Star Trek.”

Even the actors come from around the globe, and occasionally a fan or two will come on board as an extra. Just a few weeks ago, fans from Washington, D.C., flew out for walk-on roles on Caves’ new original show “Frontier Guard.”

“What ‘Star Trek’ does is it brings people together because they’re all excited about the same thing,” he said. “People will travel and do what they can to get involved. People from all different kinds of countries are involved.

With “Odyssey” and “The Helena Chronicles” near their season’s end, Caves is now beginning to focus on “Frontier Guard,” his new, original sci-fi production.

“It’s kind of an attempt to branch out from Star Trek and make something original,” he said. “It hits on some of the science that is around the corner, the technology and the space exploration that the masses deal with now and tries to bring it all together into a future fiction that is kind of exciting, mysterious and entertaining.”

Previews of Caves’ new show can be viewed at www.youtube.com/frontierguard. Episodes of Caves’ other shows and more information about Hidden Frontier productions can be found at www.hiddenfrontier.com.