Small Budget Film Track

Small budget filming is films done in a non-traditional, non-Hollywood way. Film types in this category include Fan Films and some Independent films. Film makers with small budgets are the most creative, finding ways to change the script filming techniques, sets, and so on to work with what they have. You hardly ever hear about these films because they have no monster marketing machine to get the word out.

The Shore Leave Small Budget film track aims to help you find some of the most creative audiovisual SF works around! To this end, we screen quality examples of these films in the SF&F genre including talks by the film makers and actors when possible. This track typically includes 8 to 12 hours of AV programming in a media room.

Film Groups Attending

From the makers of Dark Operations: A Dark Odyssey begins, is Producer/Director/Writer Royce Essig, Devin Robinson, actor Nathan Schell (Wes Hinkley), and Anthony Ur . You can see a newly created rough cut of the series pilot and hear their talk starting at 1 PM Saturday.

From Act Together Productions, the makers of Banner's Predicament series, attending will be film editor Ken Davis, actor Mimi Ton (Dr. Rebecca Lanly), actor Steve Sax (Dr. David Banner), and the Act Together Production POC for Shore Leave, actor/editor Elena Lee. You can see their film and hear their talk starting at 1 PM Sunday.

Film Descriptions

Films are listed in order shown . See also the Shore Leave Schedule for Saturday and Sunday:

• The Space Between Us

  The world is choking on pollution; people need oxygen masks to survive. The key to humanity's survival may be a captured sentient sea-creature nicknamed "Adam"! Juliette pities and frees Adam before his schedule gill removal operation.

• The Looking Planet (17 min)

  During the construction of the universe, a young member of the Cosmos Corps of Engineers decides to break some fundamental laws in the name of self-expression.

• Reality+ (23 min)

  The brain chip 'Reality+' allows you to see yourself with the perfect physique you've always dreamed of. All the people equipped with the chip can also see your new appearance and you can see theirs, but the chip can only be activated for 12 hours a day. Then what?

• Continuum, all episodes of Season 1

  A beautiful young woman awakens aboard an adrift space ship with no memory of who she is or how she got there and is at the mercy of the ship's mysterious computer.

• Icarus

  When a Mars colony's communication satellite is damaged, Emilia Riley embarks on a seemingly harmless repair excursion.

• The Anomaly

  Set against the space-race canvas of the 1960's, Anomaly is inspired by the traditional Christmas Nativity and explores, through a modern-day lens, the events of two-thousand years ago. It is a story about relationships that intertwine around an unprecedented astronomical event as a couple navigate life's realities at a time of unfathomable significance.

• Dark Operations

  100 years from now, Earth has finally united in peace, started exploring space, and made many successful first contacts. But the utopian United Earth Alliance is ill prepared to encounter hostile species. The USS Armstrong, a peaceful science and exploration vessel, is recruited by Dark Operations, a secretive military branch charged with protecting Earth, and finds their world turned upside down. Darkwave Universe – Mankind has spread through the galaxy using wave technology but lost the ability to travel FTL when the Darkwave event happened and is stranded across the galaxy.
  • Darkwave: Drift A salvage crew find itself being hunted on a derelict space cruiser. When one of their crew is taken alive, they must decide whether to rescue him or escape and run...
  • Darkwave: Edge of the Storm On New Earth 72, a young family runs to escape the clutches of the Ministry. Stopping at a burning outpost to search for supplies, they discover the terrifying cause of the outpost's destruction and more just before an approaching starfighter forces them to seek escape.

• DUST Studios – Seam

  Tensions between humans and human-like machines worsen when synthetics begin spontaneously exploding. A terrified machine woman who is an unwitting suicide sleeper bomb herself and her human soldier husband must get to the Machine Homeland, deep within the Arabian desert, before its too late.

• DUST Studios – FTL

  A lone astronaut testing the first faster-than-light spacecraft travels farther than he ever imagined possible.

• DUST Studios – Interview with a Time Traveler

  Paul meets with a man claiming to be a time traveler. As his skepticism is put to rest, Paul is sucked into the traveler's anecdotes and tales, completely unaware of the real reason he was invited and how it will change his life forever.

• DUST Studios – Traveler

  A group of friends build a jet-powered craft to teleport across the universe. When they succeed, their problems really begin.

• DUST Studios – Hyperlight

  Two elite astronauts wake up in the abyss of space; they return to their stranded ship and discover the surprising reason behind their mission's catastrophic failure.

• DUST Studios – Final Offer

  A down-on-his-luck lawyer awakes in a doorless room to find he's been selected to negotiate on behalf of the human race.

• DUST Studios – The Stowaway

  A stowaway is discovered on an emergency dispatch ship and must come to terms with the consequence of her action.

• DUST Studios – White Lily

  A tense spaceship captain and co-pilot set out to investigate a comet, when a technical fault cuts to the core of their relationship problem…

• Attack of the Space Pirates

  An alien technology so powerful it threatens the very galaxy itself is hidden away. Pirates will stop at nothing to find it and unleash it. Only one valiant ship stands between the pirates and total domination – Starship Intrepid!

• DUST Studios – The Secret Number

  A psychiatrist in a mental hospital treats a brilliant mathematician who intends to prove the existence of a secret integer between three and four. When the patient mysteriously disappears from the hospital, he realizes that their fates are deeply entwined.

• Banner's Predicament (a Hulk fan film series)

  Ep 1 – Entangled States David Banner takes a job as a hired hand in a secret lab studying the interface between quantum computing and the mind, where his attempt to banish his monstrous alter ego with its research catches him in a plot far more sinister than he had expected!

• Banner's Predicament (a Hulk fan film series)

  Ep 2 – Bringing Down the House David befriends a young musician only to be caught up in a sinister agenda unbeknownst to them both... and now the Creature must force everyone to face the music!

• USS Marie Curie: The Beast

  On its maiden voyage, the Hospital Ship Marie Curie finds a unique life form needing its medical services, and a foe who promises to be quite difficult.

• Battlecruiser Kupok: Battle of Alawanir

  EP 1: Battlecruiser Kupok is on a standard patrol when they receive orders to investigate the possible presence of Romulans in the Alawanir Nebula. Their mission is clear, but is everyone to be trusted?

• Battlecruiser Kupok: Sanctuary

  EP 2: While visiting a planet to honor his brother and the crew of the To'ng, Captain Kesh finds the survivors have developed their own society, their own...sanctuary.

• Battlecruiser Kupok: A Gathering Storm

  EP 3: The Starship Triton has been sent to the planet Alkarinque to make a last ditch effort to get its people to accept a treaty with the Federation, in order to protect them from Klingon occupation forces approaching their world. But the Alkarinquans don't seem to be the slightest bit concerned. If anything, they seem quite...eager...

• Battlecruiser Kupok: The Soul of Honor

  EP 4: While officiating an arranged marriage for his daughter, Captain Kesh is given a choice. Does he need to change? Does he need to stand? Only a true Klingon heart will come to understand "The Soul of Honor."