Julia Morizawa (Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, Star Trek: Odyssey) has been signed to play snarky college student Abbey Park, best friend of Danny Reyes (played by Caprica‘s Richard Harmon). Ron Boyd (Star Trek: Phase II) will portray Ralph Garlington, a curmudgeonly cinematographer judging the Keystone University Film Festival alongside lead Zachary Wells (Charlie David of Dante’s Cove and Mulligans). Tim Foutch (of the Hidden Frontier spinoff, Star Trek: Odyssey) will appear as Tommy, another Keystone film student competing against Danny in the festival.

“I’ve had the pleasure of directing and acting alongside these actors for some time,” said Judas Kiss director J.T. Tepnapa. “They’re talented and hard-working performers who are a joy to have on a set.”

Tepnapa and Morizawa met on the Hidden Frontier set, where she played the popular Vulcan character, Lt. S’Tal. She was later cast as a telepathic ship’s security officer in the Hidden Frontier spinoff series Star Trek: Odyssey. She has worked on 15 features and television series as an actor, writer and producer. She recently completed a Los Angeles theater run of a play she wrote, produced and starred in, Twenty-Two, and also stars in the scifi Web series Frontier Guard.

Tepnapa and Judas Kiss writer-producer Carlos Pedraza also worked with Boyd in Star Trek: Phase II, the Hugo-nominated Web series that also won TV Guide’s Award for Best Online SciFi Series and was named among Rolling Stone’s five Web series you shouldn’t miss. Boyd plays the acerbic Lt. Vincent DeSalle. He has also appeared in the Canadian TV series, Corner Gas. Boyd is also well known as an artist for DC Comics.

Foutch is already well known among Judas Kiss fans for his portrayal of Tim the Intern in the Judas Kiss podcasts. He also plays the chief engineer in Star Trek: Odyssey and Cadet Fetch Zisser in the Web series Frontier Guard.

Judas Kiss is being produced by Blue Seraph Productions, a Los Angeles company headed by Tepnapa and Pedraza. Their previous work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC, Variety, Frontiers, Fab magazine, the Today Show, MSNBC, and other international news outlets. The film is scheduled to shoot this summer in Seattle.

Links

• Julia Morizawa‘s IMDb profile
• Ron Boyd‘s IMDb profile
• Tim Foutch‘s IMDb profile
• Blue Seraph Productions Web site

After spotlighting Judas Kiss as one of the films to look for this year, the site’s author, Nick, made a recent post, “Gays in Space,” that discussed the portrayal of gays in various scifi series on TV and the Web, including my own teleplay, “Blood and Fire,” co-written and directed by noted author David Gerrold for Star Trek: Phase II. Excerpt:

Gerrold’s AIDS allegory storyline [originally written for Star Trek: The Next Generation] was expanded and brought up to the minute by major Trekkie and Hollywood movie writer/producer, Carlos Pedraza (Judas Kiss). Now the gay men’s love is clearly displayed, not just hinted at, and one of the interstellar gays is none other than Captain Kirk’s nephew.

Nick’s article also talks about the genre Web sites that spotlight GLBT projects, like GaySciFiNerds.com and our pals at DoorQ.com. Other shows and movies addressed in the article include X-Files, Dr. Who and the amazing Torchwood.

You can read the entire article here. And add Nick’s site to your bookmarks or RSS feed.

— /carlos

Carlos co-authored the screenplay with noted scifi author David Gerrold (“The Trouble with Tribbles”), who also directed the episode.

TrekMovie.com hailed “Blood and Fire, Part 2″ as:

An emotional yet exciting story, complete with the excellent production values and effects that we have come to expect from the Phase II team.

The past year also attracted kudos for Carlos’ work from Joss Whedon, who told Rolling Stone that the Phase II episode, “World Enough and Time,” which Carlos co-executive produced, inspired Whedon to create the Internet phenomenon Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog.

Rolling Stone, by the way, named Phase II, among its five must-watch Web series.

“Blood and Fire” is based on a script Gerrold originally wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 1990s. It was never produced because its passing reference to a male couple aboard the Enterprise was considered too controversial by the producers.

Carlos adapted the script for the original Trek series-based Phase II, expanding the story to include Captain Kirk’s nephew Peter as one part of the male couple. Interestingly, two decades later, that portrayal proved controversial when “Blood and Fire, Part 1″ debuted a year ago.

Fortunately, Part 2’s release this past November was greeted by far fewer objections.

“Blood and Fire” was shot by Judas Kiss‘s director of photography Dave Berry and second-unit director Ben Alpi, of our partner company Runic Films, with visual effects by Joël Bellucci.

The episode marks Blue Seraph director J.T. Tepnapa’s debut as Lt. Cmdr. Sulu, and Carlos Pedraza’s turn as First Assistant Director. Blue Seraph cinematographer Dave Berry served as Director of Photography for this episode as well.

The episode also features J.T. Tepnapa’s first appearance as Mr. Sulu, Dave Berry’s turn as cinematographer and Joël Bellucci’s amazing visual effects.

Look for a cameo appearance by J.T. Tepnapa as Mr. Sulu in the cafeteria scene.

The new episode is available for both download and streaming here:

Streaming

• Playlist on YouTube
• Online streaming at startrekphase2media.com

Downloads

• startrekphase2.de
• phase2trek.com
• trekwebmaster.com/ (read page and follow links to downloads)
• http://trekminal.no-ip.org

Torrent

• phase2.us

Producer-director Ben Alpi, cinematographer David Berry, visual effects artist Matt Jolly and Judas Kiss writer-producer Carlos Pedraza will be at the country’s leading comics and popular arts convention, which is celebrating its 40th year.

Originally showcasing comic books, science fiction/fantasy and film/television, and related popular arts, Comic-Con has expanded over the years to include a larger range of pop culture elements, such as horror, anime, manga,animation, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels.

The sold-out 2009 convention is the largest of its kind in the world, filling to capacity the San Diego Convention Center with more than 126,000 attendees last year.

RUNIC’S CREATIVE TEAM comprises key creative personnel behind some of the Web’s most popular series, including Zerks Log, eScape, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier and the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Star Trek: Phase II.

Runic Films is a full-service HD, film and visual effects studio offering cutting-edge development, production and post-production services. Founded in 2001 by two brothers from upstate New York, it has grown to a full staff of award-winning writers, directors, artists and technicians with presence on both coasts. Runic Films also specializes in rich media content for Web and next-generation devices.

TWEETING Join our Twitter feeds with links below for hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute updates!

• Carlos Pedraza
• J.T. Tepnapa

Above is one of the universities we scouted up in the Seattle area. This little campus is my favorite. There is a cozy feel to this one.

OUR NEXT STOP was Port Henry, N.Y., where I reprised my role as Lt. Cmdr. Sulu in the Webseries production of Star Trek: Phase II; Carlos was 1st assistant director. We shot most of the episode and have very few pickups to worry about. All in all, it was a great shoot at a beautiful time of year. Autumn is the most wonderful time of year to be in upstate New York.

But now, I’m back home ready to get back to working on Judas Kiss preproduction A quick thank you, Mark Painter for contributing at the Executive Producer Level. It’s a long road, but I appreciate each and every one of our friends and fans who moves Judas Kiss closer to production.

– Jaytee

Carlos and I put together this podcast to highlight the who’s who of Judas Kiss.

– Carlos and Jaytee

Yesterday I shot some intense bridge scenes with smoke and pyro. It was all very intense, but I got through it. And I’m totally inspired by being around so many artists. Everyone is so dedicated.

Photo taken by: Sarge, www.startrekphase2.com.

Just around the corner is DoorQ Entertainment’s In the Closet world premiering at this year’s Outfest. You can buy tickets now for July 10th or its final Outfest screening on July 20th. This is Brent’s big acting debut and my nude debut. It’s a first for both of us!

Meanwhile, on the East Coast in the small New York town of Port Henry, I’ll be playing Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek: Phase II, formerly known as Star Trek: New Voyages. It’ll be a hoot to travel to future via the 1960s!

Star Trek: Phase II is one of the few fan series that has lovingly recreated the original sets of Star Trek and wooed Star Trek alumni like George Takei and Walter Koenig.  You’ll be able to check out my take on Sulu sometime next year.

I’m also going to have a small role in a comedy western next month. I’m playing a crazy Indian Chief. Yep, comedy.

So there you have it. Apparently, I haven’t left the world of acting at all. I’ve only begun. I still have to find myself a part in Judas Kiss. I was the bus driver, but since that part has been cut, I might try for the bartender.

– Jaytee