Star Trek
Beyond [STB] is a SciFi, dramatic/action web series written and directed by
David Quintana-Lujan. It was the first web series idea ever produced by
Quintana-Lujan, this series was produced under the studio name, StoneWater
Productions from 2006 to 2008. This series takes place 87 years after Start
Trek Voyager, after fallout from a massive war has brought the Federation and Romulan
Empires to forge an Alliance that has now expanded into the Kilos Quadrant of
deep space; this part of the cosmos is vast and relatively uncharted. One species
[The Jade Kussar] is helping the new Alliance map the farthest reaches of the
quadrant in a vain [but cryptic] attempt to expand trade and commerce. When an advanced offshoot
of the Borg are found in the sector, the crew of the ASV [Alliance Space
Vessel] Precipice must investigate the reasoning for the Borg presence and help
the Alliance defend what’s left of their homeworlds. Star Trek Beyond features Bernice Tremblay,
Marah Anderton, A. J. Lightsey, William Foster, Jeremy Chubb, Rachael Duerrler,
Tom McAvin, Seanna Six, Heather Hyland, Jessica McAvin, Randall Behan, Melissa
Damon, Aaron Hayes, Mike Valletta, Kristi Lynn, Matt Vaughn, and Kat Hansen.
Screenplay
by D. R. Quintana-Lujan
Story by D.
R. Quintana-Lujan
Bernice Tremblay
Heather Hyland
Based on
Characters by D. R. Quintana-Lujan
Produced by
D. R. Quintana-Lujan
Bernice Tremblay
Jeremy Chubb
Starring Bernice
Tremblay, Racheal Duerrler
Cinematography
by D. R. Quintana-Lujan
Edited by D.
R. Quintana-Lujan
Music by
Within Temptation
Production
Company StoneWater Productions
Running Time
20 minutes per episode
Countries United States
Language
English
26 Episodes
Star Trek Beyond [STB] is an ultra-low independent web series directed and produced
by David Quintana-Lujan during the Spring 2006. Living in New England during
his military years, the director-producer spent two years working as an editor
on low budget independent schlock vampire films in Boston, MA. One day after
getting fed up with the local drama there, he went back to his home and thought
about starting his own independent films in Connecticut. After talking with a
friend [Professor William Foster] at a comic book convention, they narrowed
the field of potential projects down to two formats; either produce a western
or produce a SciFi project. Since the logistics at his current disposal couldn’t
support horses or building a town for a western, he decided on producing a
SciFi feature film. Foster jokingly told the aspiring filmmaker that if he made
a Star Trek show, he wanted to be in it.
Quintana-Lujan
began talking with long time Navy buddy, Del Mar Rosa, about working on a potential
SciFi movie. One idea was called Andromeda7, which would later be produced as
Angelika5, and the other was a deep space feature partially based on a Mad Max
type world where a star ship crash lands and the survivors have to mingle in to
survive. But Quintana-Lujan and Rosa had never used camera equipment before, so
they both decided on working on a project they both new best, a Star Trek show.
Quintana-Lujan began working on a script and his friend, Marah Anderton, helped
out creating one of the new aliens to present in the show called, The Jade
Kussar. This new race was a bunch of half-assed but very mysterious pirates;
who may have been the culprits who visited the earth long ago and brought the
pirate mentality to Earth.
CREATING THE
ASV PRECIPICE
Quintana-Lujan wanted to design and present an all new class of ship. It was to
be a hybrid of technologies between the old Federation and Romulan fleets. But
since the technology was not readily available to the studio to project the new
ships design, the director settled on using the Akira Class Cruiser from STNG
canon, but with various alterations in propulsion, a cloaking device, and advanced weaponry on board. Rosa
worked feverishly to design sets for the show, most on paper and with cardboard
cutouts. When a design was found doable, Quintana-Lujan funded $250 to help
build the set, which was nothing like what Rosa had designed. The team loved
the color setting, most were earth colors with maroon shades and thin black stripes,
which matched the uniform colors of the ships personnel.
The two
filmmakers, with the help of Jeremy Chubb, spent a weekend hammering, spray
painting and gluing the set together in Quintana-Lujan’s carport and eventually
moved it into his car garage where the entire first season would be filmed. The
set was very flat, no curvature like they wanted, but it could be manipulated into
different designs and various compartments for use in front of the camera; it
would eventually be used as a bridge, a turbo lift, medical bay, crews
cafeteria, and more. Terminals were later designed and put together with wood
and cardboard. Some of the LCAR panels were painstakingly put together by Rosa
by using sliced up sticky pads and colored labels. Within a month, the bridge set
was complete and the team was so excited to get things started.
CASTING
SEASON ONE
Quintana-Lujan and Marah Anderton held a casting call for the lead role in the
series. Since they were both in the Navy, they were both looking for someone
that “had the look” of a ship’s Captain but with a younger outlook on life.
They went through five actors until one night they met up with a veteran theater
actor, Bernice Tremblay of Sterling, CT, who Quintana-Lujan stumbled on while
going through an online actor’s database; Tremblay later recalled that she “drove
a considerable distance just to meet the two at a Chili’s restaurant.” The
chance meeting went very well and Quintana-Lujan knew they had found what they
were looking for to fill the role of Captain Jadrian Quest. A few weeks later,
after the team gave Bernice time to look over the scripts – keep in mind that
Tremblay had never seen one episode of Star Trek before in her life and had to proficiently
learn Trek’s techno jargon – they began to film tons of scenes, traveling to
several locations in Connecticut and filming some more. The first four episodes
of the first season were filmed in only three weeks.
In the beginning, Anderton
demanded she play the Jade Kussar Princess and First Officer, Ravine; since she
helped develop the new alien species she felt she was the only person qualified
to play the role, but with one little addition, she wanted her character to wear an eye patch; something that would differentiate her with a handicap from the other characters. A. J. Lightsey would be the quirky Trill Science Officer and, due
to his busy schedule teaching at the University of Connecticut, William “Bill”
Foster wanted to play the ship’s doctor, Stitch Brown; who was known to have a sense of humor and use old remedies to cure his patients. Since the first season
would only be introducing the character development of a triad of actors for the first season, the team didn’t feel the
need to cast an Engineer or Security Officer for the first bunch of episodes. The
first episode of the show started with the ship’s Captain and First Officer
standing on a holodeck program and talking about World War II Submarine Memorial in Groton, CT.
FILM FORMAT
Quintana-Lujan did a lot of work studying the film format of both the original
Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation [STNG]. Going with the old “learn
as you go” method of filming was proving to hurt the production of the first
three episodes, than help. The young director knew that he was over lighting
the bridge scenes, but just couldn’t figure out what he needed to do to set the
right mood for the show. It wasn’t until the director watched STNG Episode 15
of Season 3 that he found the film format he was searching for. The episode was
about one “possible” future and the lighting was very dark. Seeing that STB was
a fan series about a possible future, it seemed logical to change the format in
the show towards a darker setting. By the end of the first season and going
into the second, the camera angles, lighting, and story boarding seemed perfect
for going into a more aggressive direction in the show.
THE SEASON
TWO DILEMMA
After a short break from STB Season 1, the fan following boomed to an all time
high which kind of caught the cast and crew off guard. So, Quintana-Lujan began
working scripts for a more edgy season to deliver to their fans, The Borg War. There was
a slight uniform change to make the series a little darker and warmer for the
winter months, then the scripts went out to the cast. Moreover, the studio
moved the entire set into an apartment where an entire living room area would
be used for the bridge, medical bay and crews quarters. The rear dining area of
the apartment would be used for the Engineering spaces. Quintana-Lujan and
Chubb lived in the apartment and they slept in the upper floor area, only using
the downstairs kitchen to cook.
Just as
filming was getting ready to start for Season 2, Anderton was forced to move out of state
and A. J. Lightsey was also gone, which left the team trying to figure out how
to save the role of the resident Kilos Quadrant alien and bring aboard a
science officer. Quintana-Lujan stumbled on Seanna Six working in an office
adjacent to his and asked her if she was interested working on the series with
him, when after realizing it wasn’t a porn thing, she said yes. When Six found
out she was going to play a space-pirate, she was so excited and brought most of the costume accessories she had bought for herself. She was cast as the Jade Kussar sister to Ravine, Sin’Jin. Tom McAvin
also worked in the same area as the director on the base and was asked about
stepping on as the ship’s Engineer. Mike Valletta was brought on to the show
via Tremblay, who she met on a set of another project, to play Commander Wallace, the new First Officer. The theater guru, Matt Vaughn was brought on board
to play General Teris Rodar, the leader of the new Alliance.
Tremblay
also brought in Kat Hansen to play the Borg Queen and Kristi Lynn to play a “Q”
to round up the required actors for Season 2. The series went into production
without any further hiccups and the entire 8 episode season was shot in under
eight days over the course of a month, shooting episodes every Wednesday and
Saturday. Tremblay worked a lot on this season of the series, with her hard
work playing the character of Captain Quest, then helping with script writing
on character development and also stepping in to do all the makeup for the Borg
Queen. Hansen worked two nights on the series episodes as the Borg Queen and
then stepped away before the third season began. The season ended with the
entire cast and the ship being destroyed by the Borg. The episodes concerning “The Marble” drew the largest viewership from the shows fans and a spike in episode
views reached over 1,600 on the first night of being released; at that time, it
was a huge thing as no other fan production was receiving that high of traffic
on their shows.
SEASON THREE
After an extremely hard winter, the studio and the series team returned to
start pre-production efforts on Season 3. Seanna Six had to step down from her role due to
being pregnant and was replaced by Heather Hyland, after Quintana-Lujan had met
with Hyland over lunch. Hyland would eventually re-write the history of the Jade
Kussar before the end of Season 3 and was introduced as the empire’s second
eldest daughter and family accountant, Fra’Oc. Melissa Damon was brought on
board as the Borg Queen, covering Hansen’s duties. Mike Valletta’s character was
planned to move off the series, so Racheal Duerrler was cast as Commander Maku,
who was filling the role of a stern First Officer. Jessica McAvin also entered
the series production and was placed as the ships Science Officer. The cast and
crew slipped into the third season with elegant ease. Everyone knew their
characters, knew the Trek lingo and followed their scripts brilliantly. One
surprise was the return of LT Palmer, now performed by Aaron Hayes, who had
worked with Tremblay on a previous independent project.
The series
was firing on all thrusters and was a smooth operation going from one plotline
to another with professional execution. By the end of Season 3, Tremblay had
made mention that “the series had run its course” and it was time for her to work
on other projects. To the sadness of the series director-producer, the
character of Captain Jadrian Quest was promoted to Rear Admiral by a stern Federation Fleet Admiral (played by Randall Behan) and was written off the series. Commander
Maku [Duerrler] was promoted to Captain and took over the ASV Precipice and her
crew.
SEASON FOUR
Going into the early spring of 2008, the cast returned to perform a theatrical
performance that was well out of center from the series production format of
the previous seasons. Hyland worked closely with the director-producer in creating
a whole new back story and look at the Jade Kussar. A story that was written in the Jade
Kussar’s ancient lore, a history that claimed the pirate race were the fore-bearers
of “The Duat”- a mystical technology of three items, that when put together, would
give its wielder the ability to control, bend and open doorways into time and
space. This new season would allow fans to see that Fra-Oc was once a passionate part of her empire until tragic events forced her to become the looney-type accountant that she was playing. Theater performances were recorded on the set and in four different
locations in Connecticut. At first, the storyline received low reviews, but
over time fan followers claimed that the plot and storyline were perfect and
produced well ahead of its time.
A separate production
and storyline to Season four brought in actors and a crew from the upper
Hartford area, the team was identified as Meezemeyer studios, who have worked
on independent films for many years in Connecticut. This team covered a
plotline that crossed STB with the STNG timeline. This crossover brought in a
high number of views that were missing since season two.
THE FINALE
Kristi Lynn reprised her role as the “Q” for the final episode of the series. A
new line of cast members lined the bridge and the series ended with the
possible hint of an extension to the series. The final episode received the
highest amount of views from fan production fans. Many SciFi fans have shared their
thoughts through comments and emails that the series ended on good terms. Many
online fans missed Tremblay’s performance of Captain Quest and wished to see the entire
cast from the previous seasons on the final episode; something that was
impractical at the time. The series ended on a holodeck program with the ship’s
Captain and First Officer exactly where the series began. The series has since been immortalized by having a page on Facebook. DVD sales to raise money for a new extension of the series proved to be more than fruitful for the new studio. The Facebook page also gives updates to new releases and some interesting series history and actor interviews.
