By GustavoLeao / 12:10, 5 March 2008 / General Star Trek

Fan film productions Hidden Frontier and Starship Intrepid have teamed up for a second co-production: a movie titled Operation Beta Shield. What started out as a sequel to their original crossover feature "The Orphans of War" has ballooned into a feature-length epic that will also serve as the launching pad for a third Hidden Frontier production.

TrekWeb talks to Hidden Frontier executive producer Rob Caves who gives us a production update on the Operation Beta Shield movie and reveals details of its production.

1-Rob, what can you tells us about the pre-production and production of the Operation Beta Shield movie ?

Basically scheduling is what is happening now, and things are starting to come together.  We start filming around this time next month with a couple of returning Hidden Frontier people.  CGI is mostly complete, with only a few sets left to be done and a character shot of some virtual Romulan/Reman troops that is being done by Dan Crout.  Philip Hogg and Matt Boardman have finished the new Excelsior Bridge Module and it's just waiting for some new LCARS. 

All major cast are confirmed, we're just waiting to hear from some of them about scheduling.  We're also close to announcing the new mini-series that Beta Shield is the prelude for.  It will run four episodes in total concurrently with subsequent seasons of Odyssey/Helena Chronicles. 

The first episode of the mini-series was penned by Brian S. Matthews (who also wrote Beta Shield), and the second episode is being written by Eric Weaver and features a major crossover with the Trek Audio drama, Starfleet Renegades.  Starfleet Renegades just released their pilot audio drama and is a spinoff of Hidden Frontier, specifically the fourth season episode, "Piracy of the Noble", written by James De Ruvo.  DeRuvo heads up "Renegades" and we're excited to be working with his characters again.  More info on the mini-series will be released on April 1st including a teaser.

2-What can you reveal about the new starship designed by Sean Tourangeau, the designer of the U.S.S Titan ?

Not too much yet, but the ship plays a very special role in the fleet and was designed accordingly.  It has a unique detachable section that provides an important storytelling opportunity.  Also a sister ship of the USS Titan, also designed by Sean is in the film and gets a brief action scene.

3- You said there will be a shocking death in the movie. Can you give some clues about it ?

Beta Shield has some similarities to Star Trek VI, "The Undiscovered Country" in that it addresses many political aspects of the late 24th Century era of Star Trek while reflecting on our current situation in the dangerous world we live in.  Not everything is rosy, and while we've kept an optimistic view of the future, and there are good people out there, there is also something very rotten in the state of Denmark.

4- There are more CGI FX in Beta Shield than the regular Helena and Odyssey episode ? Can you say that the scope is bigger than a normal production ?

The script is close to 80 pages so naturally it worked out to about double the amount of CGI shots found in a typical 35 minute episode.  Although for those keeping score, Hidden Frontier's final episode still had more VFX than anything we've done to date, and that was *after* cutting a lot of shots!

5- When you will have more news for us about Beta Shield ?

Production stills should start coming in about a month from now from the first shoots. 

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