How can you put the fan film phenomenon into perspective in one interview? Well, I asked myself, which one person is the most influential in the Star Trek fan film community at the moment? Which production group has come closest to vaulting the chasm between amateur and professional? The answer would have to be James Cawley, the executive producer of Star Trek: New Voyages, which is without doubt the highest profile, fan-made, Star Trek fan film in production today.

It was certainly an experience! While James was genuinely friendly, cooperative and interested in what I had to say, he was definitely as sharp as a tack with a ready answer and an encyclopedic knowledge. It was only afterwards that I could put my finger on the word that encapsulated his energy and drive as he discussed the different aspects of New Voyages productions. He was passionate about what he was doing.

Over 90 percent of produced fan films are with us because of the drive of a single person—the producer. He is the person who brings it all together, coordinates all the hundred-and-one details, and organizes the work of dozens of contributors over all aspects of the production ... from casting to financing, from creativity to publicity. You have to wonder: what drives someone to take on the responsibilities and commitments of a fan production? Does it come from his past? What part, I asked, did Star Trek play in your youth?

"Oh, my gosh, I can't remember a time that it wasn't around. It was just one of those things that I discovered as a child and just continued to watch. I was really into it in the 1970s, right through until Next Generation started and just kind of continued—but the original series was always on television and I was always fascinated by it as a child. I think as an adult the strong messages and the stories just started to come through ... and kept me hooked."

In 1987, James worked on the set of Star Trek professionally doing freelance costuming on the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation with Bill [William Ware] Theiss. What was it like, as a fan, to help create Star Trek?

"Well, it was kind of different because, even though it was Star Trek, it wasn't the original Star Trek. I was still so fascinated by the original Star Trek that I struck up a friendship with Bill Theiss and he and I really hit it off; he was very hip-deep into planning the new series and doing some things. He realized that I had an affinity for wardrobe so he pointed me in the right direction and helped me get some professional work in it because of my interests."

James is also a major collector of Star Trek memorabilia. Did you buy anything from the recent Christies auction, I asked. "I didn't—I was too busy working on the last film that we did to go down to the auction. They were having the auction while we were shooting with George Takei, but I've got a lot of pieces in my collection from the original series that I acquired directly from Bill himself and I've since bought several pieces off the eBay auctions that are going on."

Do we see any of those original pieces on New Voyages? "Well yeah, the uniform that I wear, the gold uniform that I wear in the first two episodes, is actually an original costume from the '60s; I just had it taken in to fit me, and there are several others that are original pieces. We just bought three different costumes that will be used in "Blood and Fire," and we actually bought some of the Phase Two costumes as well that are going to be used in "Blood and Fire."

James is a professional performer and has made his mark by playing two of the icons of the 60's—Elvis and Captain Kirk—and is planning to branch out into a third. He has announced recently the start of a new fan film series based on that classic blend of the cowboy and spy genres, The Wild, Wild, West. Would he be performing in that?

James sounded enthusiastic. "I hope so, I hope so! Robert Conrad and I are close friends. I met him back in 1996 because I was bidding on some of his costumes from the show and I didn't know it but I was bidding against him and his publicist contacted me after I bought the items. Bob wanted to know if he could buy some of the pieces I had or buy one of them and I ended up striking a friendship with him and giving him one of his costumes back, so we became good friends. I've always loved that show. They made a movie of it a few years back with Will Smith that was very, very bad and I just thought that we've had such fun and such luck with Star Trek that maybe I could tackle another project from my youth and have some fun with that. That's in the wings right now, we're working on it and I hope to start shooting in the fall."

Would it be staying close to the original TV series, as New Voyages had with Star Trek? "Yup, I want it to be a complete continuation. We'll use the same title sequence and the terrain and the same costumes and everything—I want it to look like the show had just gone on."

It is with his fan film work on Star Trek that James is more commonly identified with, though. The Star Trek fan film community pretty much looks to New Voyages for guidance in many respects, not just as the benchmark against which their own work will be measured but with respect to their relationship with the copyright owners.

You see, even though there are close to a dozen fan film groups that have produced anything and a half-dozen more in various stages of production, none of them are legal, strictly speaking, and all of them are only allowed to survive because of the tolerance of the copyright holders. It is an unfortunate fact of their existence that CBS/Paramount could serve them with a C&D—a Cease and Desist notice—at any time.

Star Trek: New Voyages is the only fan film group that can say that it has had any official contact with Paramount. However, that was at least two years ago now and circumstances have changed, with no Star Trek on first-run TV and CBS having acquired the franchise in the big Viacom split into TV and film divisions. I asked James if this had changed his relationship, as the head of New Voyages, with the studio.

"Well, y'know, the only changes that have happened have been even more positive. I've had several discussions with the folks at Star Trek licensing and CBS, and I have to say that the people in charge of the franchise now are a lot more fan friendly than some of the old Paramount team who were there a long time ago. They really do seem to understand their fanbase and have an appreciation for the fans that, I want to say, previous management teams did not have. I think they're trying to figure out Star Trek. CBS has never dealt with anything like Star Trek before; it's a very big and very important part of their family now and they certainly seem to be wanting to include the fans and fan activities. Y'know, right now it's a critical moment and they are learning just as much as we are. They really do seem to appreciate the fans and the fan films and I think that very, very soon we're going to see them embrace the fan film movement much in the same way George Lucas has. That seems to be the rumblings that I hear from my friends and contacts inside the business."

One of the biggest problems that New Voyage's 'agreement' posed for fan film groups was the stipulation that they not charge money or even accept cash donations for their work. Even taking into consideration all the cost-cutting measures possible because of fan production, the cost of creating the New Voyages fan films has got to be considerable. James Cawley has gone on record many times, saying that he hopes that CBS/Paramount eventually considers some form of licensing, even though a license normally costs big dollars up front. Was this what he was thinking of for New Voyages, or was there an alternative? "Well, yeah," James answered, "there are several ways to go; we certainly have the ability to do it either way."
New Voyages has been approaching professional quality production values with every new episode, even without charging for their work, and their next episode, "World Enough and Time" seems set to break their previous records. Their newest offering premiered at the AMC Cineplex at Universal Citywalk in Orlando on March 29, before an audience of 300 people—most of whom had never seen New Voyages before. What was the crowd's reception?

"Overwhelming! People laughed, they cried, they jumped up and down and they applauded at all the right moments—so having George and having a real, proper director on this movie made all the difference in the world. All the cast and crew were there, except for the gentleman who plays Mr. Scott, and George Takei flew in. The CGI artists from the Dave school were there and their families came, and it was open to invitation and the public. So it was quite a crowd."

"The consensus is that this is going to be the first time that you guys are going to see a fan film that is on par with a network television show. We've got about two million dollars' worth of special effects and we've raised the bar on everything—from the acting and the lighting ... all the way across the board."

New Voyages traversed a long hard road to get to where it is and met with a lot of initial skepticism. "I think up until New Voyages—and I hope this doesn't come across as sounding too full of myself—the idea of recasting Kirk and Spock was a no-no. I mean, no one was ever open to it, nobody wanted it done, but my thought was the characters were what were important. Certainly, we love those actors—but if we want to see those characters continue then we have to use new actors. Not update it too much ... but I still want it to be the classic Star Trek."

If there is a secret to New Voyages' success, it lies in strong management and a talented, committed team effort. James has proven himself an able producer without going the traditional route to the producer's chair—starting as a P.A. in Hollywood and working his way up. However, he also gives credit where it is due to the magnificent drive of his production group.

"I think being a producer is like being a manager of any business. You have to have a clear sense of what you want to accomplish and you have to have some idea of how you are going to go about it. Then you have to put your trust in a group of people who you know can get the job done and that's kind of what I've been doing with this. It’s just dive in and get yourself completely wet and figure it out as you go! Luckily, I've been blessed with a terrific number of people who all share the same passion I do. The trick has been finding the people who share the same vision because there are a lot of different ideas as to what Star Trek is. I've been trying to get the people that understand what it is that I'm trying to do with it, how I'm trying to continue it and not change it."

"After the success of New Voyages, Manny Coto was very familiar with us, he knew of our amazing downloads and he talked to Rick Berman about us. In fact, it was because of the success of New Voyages that he was able to convince Rick Berman to introduce elements of the original Star Trek into the fourth season of Enterprise. That's a fact. He told us that right to our faces at Pasadena, California, and then he and Mike Sussman and Andre Bormanis all got on stage for their discussion wearing New Voyages buttons—so we were thrilled."

James believes that New Voyages was the catalyst for the new Star Trek movie that is taking place shortly before the original series. "I think they have seen the fact that the original series is where the fans' heart is and I think that is why they are going back to the original series for this new feature. I think they have seen the success of what we are doing and they are interested in going further with the original, so I'm hopeful that they will do it properly.

"My only concern about the new Star Trek feature is that it sounds like they are going to do a 're-imagining' of the original series, and that I'm not too keen on. I've always maintained that New Voyages was successful, or is successful, because even though we put new people in the roles it still looks like the original show. We didn't change the Enterprise, we didn't change the costumes, we didn't change anything! We just picked up from the day they stopped and I think that that is what most of the fans who grew up with the show wanted and never really got. We never really got the original show back, and I think that is why we were successful."

There's very much a sense of community about fan films, and I've come across dozens of examples of groups and individuals who have selflessly given freely of their time and resources. New Voyages has been somewhat of a leader in that respect, inviting members of different fan film casts to do guest spots on New Voyages. "Blood and Fire" is going to continue that tradition and there was pride in James' voice as he spoke of their next filming.

"Right now ... we've got people coming from six different fan film groups and four continents to be here. So its going to be big, yes; this is going to be a very big undertaking and we're very thrilled. We've got Nick Cooke from Star Trek: Intrepid coming over to play a major guest part; we have Mike Dempsey from the newly formed Star Trek: Origins coming. We have Paul Sieber and John Broughton from Starship Farragut coming. I've got Mabel Rodriguez, who's also a member of the Origins team, coming all the way from Spain to be here. There a lot of people coming from all these different fan films and fan film groups to be part of "Blood and Fire." We're very excited; its going to be a great time!"

This landmark episode is based on an original story by David Gerrold which was originally pitched for Star Trek: The Next Generation but ultimately rejected for its controversial storyline: dealing with an AIDS-like virus and homosexuality. Perhaps the most significant guests could be from Star Trek: Hidden Frontier. Lead actor and director J.T. Tepnapa (see his interview with Scott Brody in this issue) and long-time friend and producer Rob Caves have been invited to be associate producers on "Blood and Fire." As James Cawley explains: "Well, my idea was, I've always been a big fan of Hidden Frontier, I've always liked what they were doing. I think they've grown tremendously as long as they've been on, and there are a lot of hard working folks who've made that show real. They were the ones who first introduced a gay character on Star Trek and I kind of wanted to honor them. I know that New Voyages gets a lot of publicity and a lot of people are aware of what we do, but there aren't as many who are familiar with Hidden Frontier. I just thought that it would be the right thing to do to include them in this particular story since they've worked so hard to make a gay crewman such an accepted thing on a starship. I thought it was the appropriate thing to do to share the spotlight with them and bring them over, have their notes and their thoughts about what we were doing and have their input on the story."

This is taking New Voyages in the footsteps of the best of Star Trek—it's very much social commentary, isn't it?

"Very much, very much. There's been a lot of comments on the Internet about it already and we haven't even started filming. I'd say that more than three-quarters of the comments have been supportive and very positive. Those people that are raising some fuss are really raising fuss over maybe what boils down to a three-minute piece of the episode out of about 50 minutes. Maybe three minutes of it are really, uh, touchy. We certainly won't do anything to violate what Star Trek should or shouldn't be, for sure, but we won't back off from topics that make you question certain things."

Is this perhaps a little bit of a payback to Hidden Frontier, I asked, when James appeared in their season six episode "Vigil" as  Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, the character Peter David made famous in his Star Trek: New Frontier series of books.

 "Yes, well I did that because I contacted Rob and those guys and I was such a big fan of what they were doing. I had told him several times that if anything came up that I would love to be on the show. The idea of having me play Calhoun was all Rob Caves'; he invited me on the show and I had a great time. In fact, I think J.T. Tepnapa directed me on that and he just did a splendid job. He's also directing the pilot of First Voyages for me."

James sees New Voyages as a champion for fan films. "When we go out talking about fan films we don't just talk about ourselves, we talk about all the fan films because that's the way Gene Roddenberry wanted it. Fandom was fandom and Star Trek fandom was his family. The more another fan film is successful, the more New Voyages is successful and the more New Voyages is successful, the more the other fan films will share that success; at least that's my motto. The studio does seem to be understanding this and I do know they are trying to find some sort of way to embrace this phenomenon, so we'll just see what happens."

Watch and wait.

Perhaps for not too much longer though. Other studios are taking steps to legitimize fan films, most notably George Lucas, who has opened up the annual Star Wars fan film awards to action fan films as well as just parodies & documentaries as in previous years. Even more surprisingly, the winners will be broadcast on Spike TV. How long can CBS/Paramount afford not to cash in on this potential fan resource?