Exclusive: Producer Angelique Fawcette On The Long Journey To Making Star Trek Parody Film ‘UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!’
Coming out on August 1st is the Virtual Online “Stay At Home” Red Carpet Premiere screening and LIVE Virtual Convention of the sci-fi parody adventure UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! The film features Snoop Dogg, Robert Davi, Michael Madsen, Gilbert Gottfried, Katarina Van Derham, McKenzie Westmore and over 40 former "Star Trek" stars, such as Chase Masterson, Garrett Wang, Nichelle Nichols, Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Robert Picardo and Nana Visitor . The online premiere screening of the film and the live Virtual Convention will be a worldwide event on Saturday, August 1, 2020 starting at 12:00pm Pacific Daylight Time (PDT).
This event is presented by and with the domestic distributor and foreign sales agent of the UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!, Indie Rights , and Archangel Films LA , the production company of husband and wife filmmaking team producer Angelique Fawcette and writer/director Steven L. Fawcette . The Premium TVoD and On Demand release date of UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! will be announced during the live event by the Fawcettes, who also executive produced UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!
Event Page for DETAILS about the day’s schedule and the different ticket options: https://bit.ly/UnbelievableTheMovieTix
For producer Angelique Fawcette, it’s been a long journey getting this project off the ground. Not only was she able to pull it off, but to have this many Star Trek actors commit to being in the film is a feat itself. An actress as well, she also appears in the film; thus adding to the many hats she wore to make this film happen.
In speaking exclusively with BlackFilmand TV.com, Fawcette goes over her love for the franchise and keeping her dream to make this film come alive.
Where did the love for Star Trek come from?
Angelique Fawcette: Well, there's two people that have love for Star Trek here. It's my husband, and myself. My husband, when he was very young, he was in love with the original series. He and his friends did things, in their experience, to keep Star Trek going. My love for Star Trek started when I was young, and I grew up in the 70s. There were only certain shows that were on TV that were good. I really enjoyed Star Trek and Nichelle Nichols was really the draw for me. Of course, there’s Captain Kirk and Spock and when you're a little girl, you have a love story with all of them. You have a crush on Captain Kirk one week and Spock the next week, but our film actually morphed into Star Trek without us actually planning it to be that way.
How did it go from being a longtime fan to putting together a script and then making a film out of this?
Angelique Fawcette: My husband wrote the script back in 1977. He actually he went into corporate america instead of pursuing his dream as a writer, director, and I too, when I was young, would act and have certain things that deal with with entertainment. But I also went into corporate America. And then when we met, he was he was working on his script and trying to get it done. He had people who were working with him that weren't quite pulling it. So he asked me to be his producer. I said, “No," of course. I had other things that I wanted to do. When I really saw that the people that he was working with weren't weren't pulling it for him I said, “Yes," and it was on from there. What he did is that he was presenting the script, initially just to get his feet wet, and it was not a Star Trek based film at all. But then we met Michael Dorn. And when we met Michael Dorn, it was pretty much on from there. Michael introduced us to Marina Sirtis. We started working on creating a full fledged Star Trek parody. We went ahead and proceeded and made it what it is today with over 40 Star Trek stars. We didn't know we would get that many. It's just that that's really what it morphed into. At first, when we would call managers and agents, they would say, "Who the hell are you? Who are you and why the hell are you calling me?" We decided to start going to conventions and actually meeting the actors. We presented our script with "Can you take a look? Would you be interested?" They started saying yes. Towards the end of the film, we had people asking to be in our film, so we were really lucky. We're really grateful for all the people we worked with because they were all really great actors and good people.
Because you're making a Star Trek film, and somebody owns the property to the title, did you have to go through a lot of channels to get clearance?
Angelique Fawcette: It's a Star Trek parody, and we're protected under a parody law. I'm doing the same thing, and my husband's doing the same thing as the big boys at Saturday Night Live do or Family Guy or anyone of the entities that parodies Star Trek; so, we were good.
How zany did you want this film to be? How many times had the script changed before you got it right?
Angelique Fawcette: Totally, completely zany. It's completely psycho zany, if you ever saw films like Airplane, or Mars Attacks, it's that crazy. We're Star Trek fans, and we're fans of film. So a lot of times, it's my husband and I working together. We're in the middle of the night and we're like, "well, what if we did this," and then we just start laughing at it, and then we put it in the script. That really helped. Then as we also hired other actors and other actors were like, "Oh, I want to get in," we would write in roles for them. We would just work it from that way.
For example. We were filming in Malibu, and we were filming at a very nice estate in Malibu and as the producer and being very hands-on, we had to go and fill out forms for the neighbors so that they would know we were filming. Well, Michael Madsen lived next door to a place, this estate that we were filming at. The day that we were filming, we were rather loud. The actors were rather loud, but there's a lot of space. But I saw this dark, looming figure over the balcony. I was like, "Oh, my God, that's Michael Madsen. He's going to come over and do a Kill Bill on us." He didn't thank God. We had a lot of fun that day. That day was with Armin Shimerman, John Billingsley Jeffrey Combs, Olivia d'Abo, Dina Meyer and Julie Warner, all from Star Trek. Then basically the next day, I got a call from the gentleman who owned the property. He said that Michael Madsen is a major Star Trek fan and he really wanted to get into our film. And I'm like, “Okay, that's wonderful. I love Tarantino's work." I called Michael Madsen, and we talked about it and we figured out what we wanted him to play. He ended up playing President Bendover. Basically, we we wrote a role in for him. We wrote a role in for everybody, but we went off of what was funny to us; what we thought we ended up laughing about and that's how we put it in. So, there were rewrites there were several because you have to accommodate to the actor, and the situation and what you have and what your budget is and what you can do. That's how we established each scene, each script and why they were rewrites.
How did Snoop Dogg get involved?
Angelique Fawcette: Snoop Dogg as a Star Trek fan. First of all, we didn't know. We had someone on the East Coast telling us that we should go with this rapper or that rapper. And although I respect those rappers very much because I am a fan of rap music, no one really floated my boat the way Snoop Dogg. I'm from California. I grew up in Inglewood, West LA. I used to cruise down Crenshaw, and his music was the music that changed our souls and made us happy. I was basically told by a partner that Snoop Dogg would never work for me. That was pretty shocking as a black female filmmaker. You have to come to grips with who you are sometimes when you're in the midst of it. I'm a producer, I can find Snoop Dogg. I'm going to go look for him. I called the number. I left a message, and I got in touch with Snoop Dogg. That’s what happened.
He's an executive producer, basically a name, but his presence cachet that he brings has such great value to our film in and of itself. We do have some producers who aren't hands on and actually producing the film, but the value that they bring and the positivity that they bring is really essential. When we met him, we went to his compound. Like I said, we discovered that he was a Star Trek fan. We thought he had decorated his office for us?” He didn't and we're like, "Who the hell are we for him to decorate it for us. We found that most of his decor is in starship, spaceship, mothership decor. Then we go into his room and then it's like a bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise with a captain's chair. We're like, "Okay, this guy's a serious Trekkie." It must fit, the whole situation fit. He's a Trekkie. He loves Star Trek. Then we have a Star Trek parody. It's still trips me out that we didn't pursue him even earlier, but it was really the film just became what it became as a process. His presence and his participation in the film means so much. He was so really, really a nice guy and just excellent on set. We loved him.
Did the script always have Kirk as a puppet? Did you go after William Shatner?
Angelique Fawcette: Yes, we went after William Shatner, of course. But he was really too busy every time I contacted him. He was really busy. It just didn't happen. I have great respect for William Shatner, for many reasons, but it just didn't work out. In the middle of the night, my husband said to me while I was sleeping, because we stay up very late, he says, "Why don't we make the the lead character a puppet?" And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." We'll make the lead character puppet and I went back to sleep. But then the next day we were up and we had an appointment with the Chiodo Brothers. If you're familiar with the Chiodo Brothers, they are the the puppeteers who created all puppets in a lot of films. They created a puppet for us with one of the old Team America World Police bodies.They redid the teeth, they redid the skin and the hair and it was a real process. It was expensive to buy the puppet, but it was well worth it. He became our lead character, and he's like a little person and he will be at our events as well.
Anybody who looks online will see that there was a premiere in 2016. We're in 2020. How long did it take to put this film together that's coming out now?
Angelique Fawcette: It took quite a few years. We started pre-production in 2012, searching for locations, searching for actors, searching for crew members that we would use. Your crew is so important. It's like any other job. You have to get the most skilled that you can possibly afford. Then in 2013, we basically started filming. So it's basically essentially eight years. We had to crew up and crew down. These are Star Trek actors first off, and when we established our astronauts, there were times when I couldn't get all of them in one place at one time. One time, I had to wait something three and a half months to get them in the same place at the same time because they're at conventions. Then as we proceeded to continue to film and figure things out, we added new actors, and we pursued new actors. It took some time. When we got Snoop Dogg, it was a process to get to that point.
The premiere that we had back in 2016 was a really special day because that was on the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek, and no one was doing anything in town, which was really surprising. There’s 30 million or more fans around the world. I wanted to do a little sneak peak premiere for just our investors, actors and some close friends to to view it and show what we had and just put in like a little homage to the Star Trek that night. It was a really beautiful night. We had maybe 30 actors show up and a lot of the media, about 33 outlets. I think a lot of people just really love Star Trek. It’s a part of our culture. It really is. It was just a really lovely night to have so many people come out, support the film, stand up and give a little homage to Star Trek. But now we're at this place where we have the final cut. We have our distributor. There was a lot of work, a lot of intense times and a lot of fun times, but we finally got a distributor that really believed in us. And it's not that we didn't have other distributors that were interested before. It just never was the right the right situation. Some of the other ones that we wanted would come and go and pass and, and come back. It was a real process I'd say with distribution. But I'm so appreciative Indie Rights, because when you have a distributor who believes in you, and you're an independent film, that is everything. I'm just really grateful we're at this point.
Of the cast members, who did you connect with the most?
Angelique Fawcette: There's plenty of them that are friends that I don’t share a lot about because they’re private friendships. But the one that I connected with the most is Nichelle Nichols. She’s a very unexpected relationship because when I met her we were introduced by another actress, and for her to be in our film, and I really just thought she would be an actress in our film, because we have what 71 actors, but she's obviously an icon and a very, elegant esteemed and accomplished woman. I really thought that be all it would be, but she became basically like a mother to me. I wasn't looking for a mother figure. I'm 50 years old. I was 42 then she ended up giving me away in marriage to my husband. She's the one that connected with the most and who I love very much regardless if I see her or not. She's always in my heart and someone that I will continue to do what I can for her.
What is your biggest takeaway in being a producer and putting this film together, and knowing the longevity is taken to get here?
Angelique Fawcette: I have a lot of takeaways, but I would say and it may sound cliche, that you never give up and you never give in. It is a type of grit that you would not realize that you need to have. Then when you realize you have it, I believe that's when you succeed and you believe in your film, you believe in it no matter what. Because when films take a certain amount of time, especially when it's longer, there's always going to be the naysayers who say, "Oh, I don't think that film will ever make it. Oh, they'll never sell it." Yes, I will. I absolutely will. And as a black female filmmaker, it is different for us as women and minority women. The challenges you have to go through, people trying to put you down as you are actually in the process of working the film. We raised almost $4 million for this film through private equity, and we worked hard to do that. It wasn't just luck. It was work. I'd say the biggest thing is never ever give up on on anything that you're doing. I don't care if it's not film, if it's another area, whatever area that you work in, corporate no matter what, never ever give in and have that grit, that absolute grit to take it to the very end, no matter what.
