November 24, 2011 - Four years from fanfilm premiere...

Today (Nov 24, 2011) at 6:30pm it is exactly four years from the premiere of first Czech Star Trek fanfilm - Metrénský incident (The Metrén Incident). We are bringing you some numbers:

Length of movie: 56 minutes a 22 seconds

Length of development: 4 years

Number of crew: 48 people

Number of screenings: 15 (11 in Czech republic and 4 abroad (Slovakia, Italy, Norway, Poland)

Number of eyes: 1584 (792 people)

Number of downloads: 3338 (to this day)

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About the Movie

The Metrén Incident is the story of the USS Avatar and its crew under the command of Captain Talisa Ren. They boldly go on a rescue mission, where not everything pans out like the crew (nor the script writers) expected.

A Vulcan Professor by the name of T'Prill is kidnapped for an unknown reason by the (up-to-now) non-violent inhabitants of the planet Metrén. As the crew finds out, diplomacy alone will not be enough to rescue the Professor.

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• The first signs of the whole crazy idea began to be inconspicuously hatched in one untitled tea-room on the Wenceslas Square in Prague throughout the Summer vacation of 2003.
• The next phase involved sorting out opinions within the group regarding which plot to use; if to include either one of, both or neither the time-loop or real Star Trek characters; and most importantly: what the movie was to be about.
• D-Day came during the "Avalcon Special 2003" convention, where temporary script writers (Annie Š. and Ondra L.) revealed (at their own risk!) the truth to the other supposed-to-be future members of the "staff". Everyone was given the chance to back out of the project before he/she was told the details, but everybody was curious and without any anticipation of the possibility of anything going wrong, they all decided to stay and implicitly agreed to join the shoot.
• At the same convention, the very first top secret role casting was made. The competition was very hard - the future Starfleet members took an examination in controlling and navigating the ship. Their survival ability in extreme conditions was also tested, as this ability would be often needed during shooting. After this, the acting and improvisation tests followed.
• The only things to be done after the role assigning were the final revision of the script and writing the "extraordinary replicas" during the many boring lessons at school :). The script was brought to life with the addition of the actors and external influences, and it started to evolve into something unexpected - in other words, not everything was turning out as expected.
• Shooting was (as according to the script) divided into two main locations - Beroun Studios and exteriors. This began on January 9th 2004, after solving technical difficulties with the "green screen", the correct placing of scene lighting, and changing the species of the Captain from Andorian to Trill (This was because the blue skin of an Andorian was clashing with the green screen background - part of the face always mysteriously disappeared).
• The last two film shootings were completed at exterior locations, despite difficulties with bad weather.

• The Postproduction process took 2 years to complete. Final cut of the movie was done and green-screens were removed from all the interior shots.
• After many significant as well as small improvements (which you will hopefully appreciate :-) the bridge and other ship's interiors were declared finalized. (Only now and then, when we cannot resist, we make little improvements in the LCARS panels). Consequently, the Captain is not seated on a chair in front of sheets of green paper anymore, but in a comfy arm-chair in the middle of Federation starship's bridge.
• Nowadays, we are adding shots with special effects (phaser fire, explosions and other surprises) and shots taking place in space (such as jump into the warp, flight in warp, jump out of the warp... offensive maneuvers, defensive maneuvers, surprising maneuvers, dangerous maneuvers...). In short, you can look forward to seeing many different maneuvers. And indeed several space battles.
• Main architect, designer and 3D master builder in one person (Martin) is finalizing the look of the Metrén capital and its interiors.
• Contemplating the work already done, we have decided to set the date of the film premiere. Therefore, the "Coming soon" slogan has changed to "This year in the cinema". (By "this year" we mean 2007 ;-)
• After preparations for the gala premiere, big event took place in Prague's (Czech Republic) cinema Atlas on November 24, 2007.

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Disclaimer: The Metrén Incident characters and ship names are trade marks of CZ Kontinuum Pictures.
All rights reserved. Projection of this movie is allowed for home use only. This statement excludes any public projection with exception for premiere, copying, renting to unauthorized persons, TV broadcasting, selling, etc. Breaking these rights, or any part of them, will cause immediate retribution and punishment under civil laws, including the possibility of compensation payments.

You can find us also at startrekreviewed.blogspot.com ...
... fanfilms.net ...	... and at AmatérskéFilmy.cz

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