If you haven't met Carlos Pedraza, prominent writer for the hit unofficial Trek series Star Trek: New Voyages, and before that, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, you're in for a treat. Carlos tells us in his thoughtful and eloquent manner how passion led him into what is generally referred to as the "fan film" industry, and beyond. As he points out, the lines have blurred since the inception of the phenomenon. One can not assume that a big budget Hollywood feature will be more to a person's taste than a "fan film," penned by and starring one or more professionals, or done for pleasure by amateurs. So let's throw the labels out the window and talk with Carlos about the making of—and attitudes towards—some good fiction:

Wendy: You're a professional journalist by trade. What made you want to write episodes for fan films? Was it addictive once you got started?

Carlos: I made my first film—sci-fi, naturally—when I was 12 years old. One of my friends built a Trek-like shuttlecraft set in his basement that we used. I've wanted to make Star Trek ever since. But my first actual encounter with a Star Trek fan film was Starship Exeter's release in December 2002. One of the national news stories mentioned other Trek fan projects, particularly Hidden Frontier, which caught my attention because it was set in the 24th Century, post-Star Trek: Voyager. I'm a big fan of that era, so I checked out Hidden Frontier's Website and watched all their episodes in one weekend (HF was mid-way through its third season at that point).

I'd studied film since I was in 7th grade, and always wanted to be a filmmaker. Plus, I love Star Trek. So, when the Hidden Frontier folks advertised that they accepted story ideas, I jumped at the chance. It took me a few months to develop the right story and make the pitch. I knew I wanted the story to be topical—to comment on an issue of relevance today—in Trek's best tradition. I also knew I wanted to further Hidden Frontier's controversial and courageous gay storyline. The idea was accepted and I was commissioned to write my first script, which became the fourth-season episode, "Grave Matters." That episode featured televised Trek's first gay kiss, and introduced what was to become Hidden Frontier's best-loved villain, the Cardassian Glinn Betras, portrayed by the amazing (professional!) actress, Rebecca Wood.

HF normally commissions scripts more than a year in advance of production, but "Grave Matters" was rushed into production just a couple of months after it was written, and I was present for most of principal photography. I was pretty much hooked after that. I went on to become HF's staff writer and one of its producers, and I directed a few episodes. So I guess you can accurately call me addicted. I ended up writing thirteen episodes of HF, and charting out all of the episodes through to the series finale, which will finally air in May 2007. After I left HF, James Cawley, New Voyages' executive producer asked me to join his staff as an associate producer and to co-executive produce the upcoming NV spin-off, Star Trek: First Voyages.

Wendy: That was a quick rise to the top! Now that you're addicted, what is the main appeal of writing for New Voyages (or Star Trek: Hidden Frontier?)

Carlos: I think I'm a little different from some other fan film writers. I'm not that interested in revisiting established characters, or essentially doing sequels of existing Trek productions. The main appeal for me in Hidden Frontier was that it was its own little slice of the canon Trek universe. Sure, it featured a few canon characters but they were characters who were incidental in Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

For me, the most fun as a fan writer is the opportunity to explore the rest of the Trek universe. Star Trek has a complex mythology, yet so much of its milieu remains unexplored. Hidden Frontier offered the opportunity to really push the envelope—not just in terms of introducing gay characters, but in examining some of the social and political ramifications of the canon Trek universe. Like, what happens to a former power like Cardassia after it was humiliated in the Dominion War? What price does the Federation pay for some of the underhanded tactics it used during that war? The Federation is often portrayed as this utopian political entity, but it's really made up of these almost sovereign planets, each with its own political sensibilities, so what happens when one of them flirts with eroding civil liberties in the face of terrorism?

Now, having crowed about how great it is to paint with my own brushes on the existing canvas of the Trek universe, you may wonder how I reconcile that with writing for New Voyages, which is most definitely a sequel to Star Trek, the original series. That's a question I asked myself when James asked me to join. What made the difference for me was that I was really being brought on not so much to work on New Voyages but to develop the upcoming Star Trek: First Voyages.

Wendy: That makes sense. Now, how do you like fiction writing compared to journalism?

Carlos: Political conservatives might accuse me of not knowing the difference [grin].

In my career, I've written for several newspapers and for the Associated Press, and served as a deputy press secretary for the governor of Washington state. I think of myself, even now, as first and foremost a journalist. In the same way that an alcoholic is always an alcoholic, whether he drinks or not, I describe myself as a "recovering reporter." So I guess you could say journalism is part and parcel of my identity.

I think of journalism as the best source of good fiction. As a journalist, I'm trained to not just report facts, but to find and tell good stories—true ones, obviously. In fiction, I strive for the same thing: A good story, but with a focus on bigger truths, unencumbered by mere facts. I find that journalistic writing forces me to remember the importance of facts and details, while fiction makes me remember how important themes are to writing that prompts people to think about things they often take for granted. Or are afraid to talk about out loud.

Wendy: Well, in the interests of telling a good story about you, do you think of the films you've worked on as canon? How about other Trek fans?

Carlos: I am obsessed with making my stories fit canon. I do research for all my scripts to ensure consistency with the established Trek universe. Granted, canon is often contradictory, but one of the fun challenges in writing fan films is looking for ways to reconcile those inconsistencies. That said, I wouldn't let strict adherence to canon get in the way of a great story. What was it Emerson said? "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." I like that. Gene Roddenberry made the same kind of call with Star Trek all the time. If I make that kind of call, I construct a justification for it because I know someone will complain. I think I owe people that much.

Canon is one of those hot button issues among Trek fans. I've had people write me praising the stories, loving the series, but putting their foot down about fan films' canon status. Then there are others who consider New Voyages and Hidden Frontier to be canon. Honestly, I don't worry about what gets labeled as canon and what doesn't. I do strive for consistency, though, no matter what. After that, each to his or her own.

Wendy: That's always been my thought about canon, that it's up to each individual to decide what he or she accepts. So whether it's canon or not, tell us a bit about the favorite episode you've written.

Carlos: Well, my favorite episode hasn't been produced yet [grin]. It's an episode of New Voyages that is also the pilot for our spin-off series, Star Trek: First Voyages. It's called "Pomp and Circumstance," and introduces a group of new ensigns assigned to the Enterprise, just graduated from the Academy. "Pomp" is a fun story, my attempt at portraying the awkwardness and wonder of young people posted aboard their first deep space assignment. Its got comedy, drama and Klingons. What more could you want?

Of my produced work, my favorite is the sixth-season Hidden Frontier episode, "Vigil." The challenge in that episode was balancing so many plots and subplots, including James Cawley (Captain Kirk from New Voyages) as Captain Mackenzie Calhoun from the Star Trek: New Frontier books. The standard Hidden Frontier episode featured an A and B plot. "Vigil" had five storylines—two A plots, two B plots and a C plot. The storylines in a well-structured script need to echo each other thematically without plots being obviously parallel. Then you need to make sure that everything is properly paced and that the transitions from one to another are smooth enough. I had help from co-writer Mike Urvand who knows the Calhoun-Shelby dynamic so well, and from scifi writer Steve Berman (no relation to Rick) who wrote an original fanfic featuring Ro and Aster that was the basis for the holodeck storyline.

Wendy: You've got me very curious about "Pomp," and what fans will think of it. The overwhelming response to your work is positive, but how do you take negative criticisms such as New Voyages being "very amateurish."

Carlos: I embrace negative criticism. It either helps me improve my work or just confirms for me that people care enough about Star Trek to be pissed off by what I do. I'll take criticism over apathy any day of the week.

As for being amateurish, I'll take that, too. Amateur doesn't mean unprofessional. It means non-professional. In other words, I'm not paid for my work. I do it because I love it. The Latin root for amateur is love. For the people who want to dismiss my work as inept, more power to them. They're not required to watch. And if the only reason they watch is so they have something they can comfortably criticize, it appears to me that I'm still doing them some kind of service.

I think of our efforts as the Internet equivalent of community theater. Even given that, I aim to write and produce as professionally as I can learn how to do that. I think what you'll see in the upcoming New Voyages episode, "World Enough and Time," guest-starring George Takei, is as near to professional level work as people outside Hollywood can get. Incidentally, almost all the bridge scenes in that episode I got to direct in a marathon 14-page shoot on the final day on set. We plan to keep the quality high in the upcoming "Blood and Fire," which I co-wrote with David Gerrold ("The Trouble with Tribbles").

Wendy: Indeed, professionalism simply means doing business as well as art so you can eat. If you have another way to eat, you can concentrate on the art. Do you wish that these quality shows could be more easily distributed? Paramount turns a blind eye as long as a verbal agreement is upheld, but does it bother you to put so much work into something not officially allowed?

Carlos: I think Spock once said that a difference that makes no difference is no difference. The lack of official sanction hasn't kept us from doing what we want—making Star Trek. New Voyages' last episode, "To Serve All My Days," penned by D.C. Fontana and starring Walter Koenig, has logged more than 30 million downloads. That's 10 times the audience Enterprise had. I can only imagine what we could do, how many people we could reach, if we could earn the resources to produce more episodes with the production values we've now achieved.

Wendy: Well, you've hit the goal of SFS, to develop franchises the fans can call their own, and have the right to support financially and creatively. Do you write, or have you considered writing, any fiction that's not in an existing copyrighted franchise?

Carlos: I sure do. I'm working on a script with J.T. Tepnapa, my former HF colleague and new colleague on New Voyages, called "Judas Kiss." You can check out our website, judaskissmovie.com. I'm on the second draft now, and we hope to raise money to produce it in about a year. It's a contemporary, edgy drama that explores how our early life choices affect our ultimate identity. J.T. is an award-winning producer of short films—none are about Star Trek [grin]—and I've joined his production company, Blue Seraph Films. Working on fan films has helped me learn my craft, allowed my work to be widely seen and criticized by thousands, and soon, millions of people. What better training can you get than that?

Wendy: That's a fascinating website—not just the story concept, but also the idea of soliciting investors for it on the Internet. It could end up being a model to follow. Getting back to the creative side of things, do you think it would be easier to bring ideas such as having prominent gay men in shows if you worked on stories in an original setting that isn't controlled by a company primarily concerned with making money? I.e., wouldn't you have more creative freedom in your own fictional world?  

Carlos: Like most choices in life, it's a question of balance. A totally original setting gives you ultimate freedom. But ultimate freedom costs. Fan films run on volunteers' time, money and shared passion for the source material. An original milieu has no built-in passion, so there's no fan base on which to cut the kind of corners that you can with volunteers' time and resources.

Also, playing in someone else's sandbox gives me the opportunity to be provocative, to push the envelope, to question the assumptions. Star Trek fans comprise virtually every age group and walk of life. We're everywhere! Sometimes covert, but we're there. I'm not one of those people who deifies Gene Roddenberry, but I definitely admire his goal of using popular entertainment to make social commentary. Today's homophobes who criticize the notion that gay people would even exist in the future—"surely it's a genetic defect that would have been 'cured' "—are yesterday's racists who didn't believe white people and black people should associate with one another, much less kiss in public or, God forbid, make love.
I guess my short answer to your question is that I don't want more creative freedom if I lose the chance to communicate with so many more people based on our shared love for Star Trek.

Wendy: I can see your point. Therein lies the challenge: To work up original franchises for people to play in, that evoke the same passion as Trek. What do you think of the SFS concept of joining fan ideas with professional production? Do you think it can work?

Carlos: That essentially describes what we do on New Voyages. The question is, is this a sustainable model that could be replicated by others? I'm not sure anyone knows the answer to that yet. But there are only so many professionals with the time and resources to substantively contribute to the success of a fan-led effort. And, from their perspective, is there some intrinsic value to fans being the source of ideas that would outweigh all the cost considerations that are a disincentive to embarking on such an effort? There's a tension here that ultimately deals with money—will the quality of fan ideas plus professional production values be high enough to get people to pony up cash to get films made? No one knows yet. I guess this ends up putting me into the category of "skeptical." However, I support the idea of trying. There's such a stranglehold on good ideas getting into production in the traditional Hollywood system. But the Internet has changed the equation, so there's a ray of hope for alternative, independent productions to come to life. But nothing substitutes for a well-made story; many people think they can act, direct or write, and the reality is that only a relative few can do those well.

Wendy: SFS projects won't actually be fan-led, but they will have a say. If things work as hoped, fans can be there from the beginning, be guardians of the canon as it's built, and be able to submit scripts for review by the pros, or just good ideas to refresh what would normally be written by one small group of writers in a rush to meet deadlines. Each fan won't have a lot of control, but a chance to see something of theirs incorporated in a professionally produced production. You're right about the challenges, though, of funding new franchises with no existing fan bases, and having to say no to ideas and scripts that just don't fit in. Do you think professional productions are any better than what you're making with New Voyages?

Carlos: Of course they are! They have millions of dollars where we have thousands at best. While a budget is no guarantee of quality, it surely is a determining factor. So the less of it we fan producers have, the more likely we'll produce something of lower quality. On the other hand, I'm proud of what we've accomplished. I attended the screening of the nearly complete New Voyages episode, "World Enough and Time," starring George Takei, and what I saw rivaled anything I've seen on network TV. So many professionals contributed to this effort that I think it may be a misnomer to refer to it as a fan film. I think it's more accurate to portray it as independently produced Star Trek.

Wendy: I like that term. We all know how special Trek is. Do you have the same passion for working on the original Judas Kiss project with J.T. Tepnapa as you do for your independently produced Trek?

Carlos: We have lots of other stories and lots of other settings to explore. I'm excited that Star Trek fan films have afforded me the opportunity to learn so much on the job, as it were. One of the beautiful things about Star Trek is how far it reaches out into other stories, other fields, other endeavors. That inspiration is what Gene Roddenberry meant when he said, "The human adventure is just beginning."

Wendy: Indeed it is; but do you find people look down on fan film writing?

Carlos: The great irony in writing for fan films is that, while it gives you the opportunity to take the reins of a universe you really love, that love can easily blind you from making mistakes that detract from your story. Overly contrived "homages," casting yourself in the lead role when you can't act, writing yourself all the good lines, not developing substantive villains, remaking stories that have already been done—these are all common traps we fan writers fall into. I find I spend as much effort working to avoid making these mistakes as I do actually writing. And I wish I could say I've been successful. But I do think I've learned a lot along the way.

And just so you don't think I forgot to answer the original question, I'll say this: It's easy to insult everything in general; it's harder to find fault with anything in specific. So denigrate fan films all you want, but the only criticism that really counts is that which judges each effort on its merits. People who criticize with a broad brush don't carry much weight with me.

Wendy: That makes sense. Looking at it from another point of view, are fan films like the ones you're making actually more pure art, and thus better in one or more ways than commercial ventures?

Carlos: I'd be lying if I described what I do as pure art. There's nothing pure about it. No collaborative, artistic effort can be pure. Certainly not film making. Too many people are involved to assure any purity of vision. That said, I don't aim for art. I aim for telling a good story that balances fun with provoking some thought. Is that art? It's good enough for me.

As for comparisons with commercial ventures, all of us aim for the same thing: Viewers' eyeballs. Money aside, we all want the stuff we produce to be seen; maybe even to move people. So commercial considerations—essentially, the things that will attract and keep people watching—are the same for fan films as they are for commercial ventures.

Wendy: I guess the pure art is for individual projects that don't need to be sold. There are still many artists involved, though—including professionals now working on a number of fan films. What difference has that made in terms of quality?

Carlos: A huge difference. Just compare the quality of New Voyages from its pilot to what you'll see in "World Enough and Time." However, what you see on the screen still depends heavily on what we amateurs do, too. And we've learned a thing or two about a thing or two along the way. But the most effective fan productions are those where fans stop thinking like fans. Being a fan may be the source of our passion, but we have to think of ourselves as filmmakers first and foremost.

Wendy: That's great advice for anyone wanting to move from fan to pro, or pro quality "independent films," as it seems you are. What can you tell us about your next independent project?

Carlos: I have three I'm juggling simultaneously. One is the next NV episode, "Blood and Fire," which I'm co-writing with David Gerrold. It's gotten a lot of press because it's based on David's Next Generation script, which was not produced because it featured two gay characters. A not insignificant number of Star Trek fans don't like New Voyages boldly going into that particular frontier. I certainly learned that while writing and producing Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, which featured video Trek's first gay characters. But I'm excited about taking this next exploration of humanity to another level on New Voyages.

My second current project is writing and executive producing Star Trek: First Voyages. This New Voyages spin-off attracted me because it will offer Star Trek fans something they've only seen glimmers of before—what life aboard a starship is like when you start out at the bottom as a lowly crewman or ensign fresh out of the Academy. I can't say too much more about the project right now, but suffice it to say that if you liked the TNG episode, "Lower Decks," you will love First Voyages. We have a really great cast (their pictures appear in a "coming soon" ad on the back cover of the recent New Voyages E-Magazine). I also loved the challenge of creating an ensemble cast from scratch, to create unique and compelling characters with chemistry that will drive both drama and action.

I've charted out about eight episodes of the new show, with the script for the pilot episode completed about a year ago, and two other scripts in various stages of completion. The pilot, "Pomp and Circumstance," is slated for production this summer, following the shoot for "Blood and Fire."

And, finally, there's the second draft of the Judas Kiss script. That one's keeping me up nights.

Wendy: Better busy than bored! Do you see the future drifting towards even more blending of fans and professionals?

Carlos: Certainly the immediate future. Everything is in alignment to support this kind of collaboration, chiefly due to advances in the affordability of filmmaking technology and the distribution mechanisms offered by the Internet. However, the long-term future is unclear. These early fan efforts need to succeed at telling good stories, making fans continue to want more, even to be willing to pay cash money. To us writers, story is everything. If people put kewl special effects ahead of a good story, we'll have fallen into the same trap as Hollywood is in right now.

Wendy: That's true, I get bored with seeing one car after another blow up, despite the widely varying flame patterns in the subsequent fire. Story first! But that doesn't mean we don't want great visuals and props with a great story—how cool was it to see New Voyages' "Sulu scope" appear on the bridge of the Defiant in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode, "In a Mirror, Darkly"?

Carlos: Super cool, even though I can claim no credit whatsoever. My colleagues at New Voyages constructed the scope and made the arrangements with Enterprise's producers to use it in that episode. It certainly made history, and I'm proud to be associated with the people who made that happen. There's a lot more history yet to come.

Wendy: And you're going to be making some of it! Thanks so much for talking to us—we will be inviting you back in the future to follow up on all your future ventures.

You can see Carlos at these upcoming conventions:

* BayCon, the San Francisco Bay Area regional scifi & fantasy convention, May 25-28, 2007. This is Carlos' first appearance at this con.
* Dragon Con, the nation's largest scifi & fantasy convention, Labor Day Weekend 2007, Atlanta. This is Carlos' third appearance at this con.