DarenDoc’s Slightly Nifty Musings Inc.

UPDATE:  The clip was put up for viewing for just a short time, and it’s removed now… so we’ll just have to wait until the episode is finished…

Last month I had the chance to go and play Star Trek with James Cawley and his intrepid band of volunteers known as Star Trek Phase II… I had visited them a couple years ago when they were making another episode focusing on a young Kirk in his Academy days… and it was a blast.  So, when Cawley called me up last year and asked if I’d like to be Procounsel Claudius Marcus, ruler of Magna-Roma, the planet that the Enterprise crew visited in the classic episode “Bread and Circuses”, how could I turn him down. (we had previously been in talks about me playing another high profile guest starring role in another episode, but the logistics never worked out…)  So when I showed up on set in the Procounsel’s Chambers decked out in my fancy Roman Emperor Space wear, it was a great time.  I got to chew the scenery with the great cast, including newcomer Brian Gross as the “new” Captain Kirk, stepping in for Cawley who has given up the center seat in order to concentrate on producing this wildly popular fan production.  Also in my scenes were Brandon Stacy as Spock, and John Kelley as McCoy…  All three of them were very supportive of this first time guest star… and I thank them for their encouragement…

James was so excited by the stuff he was seeing in the early cut of the episode, that he was busting to share it with everyone… so here is a slightly spoiler-y scene from the episode… where I got to have a fun stare-down with the captain.  It is VERY rough… not a final edit by a long shot, and the sound and color grading have to be done… so this is Phase II at its absolute roughest form… but it is still fun.

Hey all… I’ve been neglecting the blog for a while, so I figured it was time to put up something… so here it is… enjoy.  I brought the old girl out of mothballs and lit her up… (for another project that I’ll tell you all about sometime… )… and before you all go “DIRECTOR’S EDITION HD????” … um… no.  Unfortunately.  I was thinking about being cruel and posting that work had commenced on the DE:HD.  But I would have had to post it on Sunday, if you know what I mean.  Anyway… here you go. Share and enjoy.  Click on it.  The picture is huge.

A Tall Ship

Today marks the 45th anniversary of the first broadcast of the first episode aired, “The Man Trap”, of Star Trek.  I wasn’t watching at the time.  I wouldn’t be born for another 10 months.  But I made up for it later, as I caught it on every night on WPIX in New York when I was growing up, then when we moved to Illinois, it was on WFLD channel 32 in Chicago.  Now that it’s available all over the place, and at any time, through Netflix (albiet it’s the revamped episodes with the new effects) I think Trek is doing pretty well for itself.  In celebration of the birthday of one of the most influential shows in my life, I have decided to dust off the old TOS CG model, and do some schwanky new renders.  So, accept these as they are meant… a celebration of what’s good in life.  All these pics are big… you may click to embiggen and grab them.

Well, ok, just one.

I’ve been working a lot.  Which is a good thing.  However, it does keep me from doing updates on the ole’ bloggerino… so thanks to those who keep checking on me.  (And thanks to the dozens of fascinating russian members of this blog who keep telling me about exciting new ways to buy prescription medications online!)

Todays update is about… you guessed it… ANOTHER Star Trek: TMP ditty.

As a lot of you know, the infamous “Officer’s Lounge” scene in TMP was one of those things that was never gotten “right”…  When it was filmed, budget concerns made the set “less than adequate” to show the scale of the ship and its relation to the exterior.  During pre and post production, there were ideas to set this scene in the large-windowed lounge behind the bridge on the egg shaped section of the primary hull.  Andy Probert did a couple of these concept drawings, one in the “rec-deck” that was later transposed to this officer’s lounge, and rendered in the film with a model.

And this drawing… which was never realized…

When we came to work on the “Director’s Edition” back at the turn of the century… (Ten years ago already!) The idea was to try and get as close to this as possible… what we ended up doing was just putting the nacelles into the existing windows… (due to a couple compounded problems, we were forced at the last minute to use the existing stars… which, yes, resulted in the stars’ vanishing point not being completely aligned to the engine’s vanishing point)  Anyway… what we had wanted to do would have, at the time, been a time and budget busting nightmare.

This is what we wanted to do.

(click on all images to enlarge)

There you have it.  It could have worked… if we had a squad of about 20 rotoscope artists work around the clock for about 2 weeks.  Nowadays, the tools are easier… and I figure I could do it myself in about half the time.

So, if we do ever get the call from Paramount for the 4K remastering of the Director’s Edition… We stand at the ready.

As promised, though a few days late, is the final part of the commentary on the film done for startrek.com with Dave Fein, Producer, Mike Matessino, Restoration Supervisor, and Daren Dochterman, VFX supervisor.  Enjoy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (10.5MB)