It’s been more than a year since the last time we heard anything about acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino’s proposed Star Trek film, but according to the man himself, there’s still life to the project despite the long silence.
It’s a very big possibility. I haven’t been dealing with those guys for a while cause I’ve been making my movie. But we’ve talked about a story and a script.
The script has been written and when I emerge my head like Punxsutawney Phil, post-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, we’ll pick up talking about it again.
Tarantino has been hip-deep in filming — and now post-production — of his forthcoming film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, set to debut in late July, which will keep him tied up through at least early autumn as he participates in the global press tour that follows a film like that.
The A-List director has publicly declared that he plans to retire from filmmaking after his tenth production, and with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as Tarantino Film #9, his proposed Star Trek project could be Tarantino’s swan song — should it eventually come to fruition with him behind the camera.
If things move forward with ‘Tarantino Trek,’ hopefully there will be more information available later in the year — and if we learn more, you’ll see it here at TrekCore.
One of the more interesting components of Star Trek: Discovery has been the sound design of the series, with the team bringing not only familiar sounds from decades of Trek history to a modern presentation, but also creating a complete soundscape of immersive audio from all of the USS Discovery crew’s adventures.
As Discovery Season 2 came to a close in late April, supervising sound editor Matthew Taylor and lead sound designer Tim Farrell from the WB Sound team spoke to A Sound Effect about much of the new audio created for the year.
Among a swath of other topics, Farrell shared some insight about how the Discovery spore drive sound effect was created:
The spore drive is made from a number of things. TONSTURM put out a library called Whoosh a while ago. Then they made all of these weird processed versions of them for The Whoosh Processed. They used a Kyma to make these weird, growly whooshes from a bullroarer. That became one of the main elements.
The spore engine does this wub-wub-wub-wub kind of thing. Back in Season 1, I was sitting there with another effects editor and I was saying the spore drive needed to do this ‘Three Stooges’-esk wub-wub-wub-wub thing. We thought it was funny so I actually recorded my voice doing that and we sped it up and pitched it and put it in. So in the spore drive, the high-pitched spinning element is me doing my best Curly impression.
Then, there are some massive booms and other weird sounds. There’s a great library from SoundMorph called TimeFlux. It has some cool, granular sounds. There’s a duck sound that I slowed down in there. And seaweed against a submarine hull. There’s this really cool recording I have of ice breaking on a frozen lake. It makes these great ‘power-down’ sounds.
We don’t have as much time to record as we would like. We tend to seek out good libraries and find cool material. It’s about finding sounds that have character and won’t turn into white noise in the mix.
He also went into detail about the components of starship weaponry sound, heard extensively in the “Such Sweet Sorrow” season finale.
For the shields, I pulled a lot of spark sounds. There was a lot of material that I created for the spores that didn’t make it into the final. They sounded sparky and crackly. Those were the result of a lot of plug-in chain processing. So I ended up using those and I put a comb filter on it. MeldaProduction has this amazing comb filter that sounds awesome. So, just with the default setting, the sound of sparks become these great shields. It kind of gives it a nice buzz on top and you get the sharp transients from the sparks. That ended up becoming a lot of the shields.
The energy-based weapons were mostly created last season. One thing to note is that when the phasers shoot, there’s this screaming sound. That was a Wilhelm scream that I processed the heck out of.
The curious time crystals, which played a big role into “Through the Valley of Shadows,” had their own unique audio background…
I found these obsidian chimes that make a cool tinkling sound. I pitched those way down and it made a cool, elongated metallic sound.
…as did the mysterious Red Angel, an otherworldy figure characterized by its strange appearances before its final identity was made known to viewers.
Because of the image, we tried to create an ethereal vibe. There was such chaos before she showed up and so we wanted to carve out this moment of quiet. There’s a heart beat sound that I created from slowed-down Godzilla footsteps. There’s a choir and chimes slowed down. There’s a magic bubble pop sound that I slowed way down.
I love slowing down sounds until they almost break. It creates these weird, tonal textures that are really fun.
Farrell also revealed that Saru’s peaceful homeworld, Kaminar, was filled with nature sounds from all walks of life… including bird sounds sourced from Uhura’s computer console in the Original Series.
I wanted that place to have an otherworldly quality to it but also feel familiar. You have to come up with alien crickets and alien birds. These were a seafaring people and so I wanted to have seagulls, but not use seagulls. I tried to use a lot of sea related sources and modulate those until they felt alien and sounded like weird cicadas and bird calls. I created bird calls from reeds that I made from blades of grass.
I spent a lot of time making these amazing cricket sounds from dolphin clicks that I sped up. It was so cool because they’re crickets but they aren’t. Then you put them in the track and bring them down and add the music and they sound like crickets. I probably could’ve just used crickets!
My favorite sound from that episode came from an old recording I had from the Original Series. They gave us all of this wonderful original material and some of Uhura’s beeps have these really great bird-like qualities. Those are all throughout Kaminar as birds, but they are actually old computer noises from the ‘60s.
Reaching back to some of the sounds heard throughout Season 1, Farrell commented on how familiar sounds from Star Trek: The Next Generation made their way into Discovery, despite the time discrepancy between the show’s two eras.
Someone complained because we used some of the ship beeps from The Next Generation. I actually did that on purpose because Discovery is a new ship, so I put a few in there just for fun, thinking that these beeps were being tested out on this new ship. We were told that this ship is the future of Starfleet. It was like a test ship. So we put a few of The Next Generation beeps in just for fun and fans definitely noticed.
I was thinking about who came up with the sounds of everything on the Starfleet ships. Was it people like [us], sitting there designing all of the beeps for the ships? I bet they were recycling sounds. I will say, though, that every sound I pulled I processed in some way, usually a bit of pitch shifting, so that it was close to the original sound but not quite it.
Taylor shared an interesting note about alien vocal manipulation, including the fact that Tellarite audio includes subtle notes of trombone music.
There was a Short Treks episode that featured [a Tellarite] character, and we had to ADR all of his lines; the mask he was wearing looked fantastic but unfortunately restricted his mouth movement, therefore there were issues with diction. It made his performance sound lispy, and that is not the vocal quality they wanted for this character, so we had to go back and loop him.
Then, I pitched him down and combined that with some trombone parts I played. I have a series of trombone growls that I mapped against his performance. It is very subtle. Then, I ran that through the Infected Mushroom Manipulator to come up with a subtle output for that. Then I combined those three layers.
For the full interview, which includes interesting notes on how sounds from how a trip to Iceland added depth to a variety of Discovery audio effects, the desire to recreate classic Enterprise sounds for the visit to Captain Pike’s starship, and much more, head over to A Sound Effect to read more.
While fundraiser-backing fans have already gotten a sneak peak at the long-gestating Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary, the wide release of What We Left Behind is due in theaters in just two weeks — and today a new clip from the film debuted online, and with it producer Ira Steven Behr shared more details about the breathtaking HD footage that’s included.
Speaking with io9, Behr spoke at length about many of the things followers of the multi-year project are already aware of, including the “Season 8” roundtable discussion with his Deep Space Nine writing partners, sketching out a hypothetical “new” episode of the series.
io9 also debuted a clip from that segment:
But the most interesting part of the long interview is Behr’s comments regarding the newly-remastered high-definition episodic footage which features in the documentary (which looks fantastic, by the way)… noting that he and his team are sitting on a treasure-trove of HD material from the filming of the series, which includes outtakes and other unused material likely never seen outside of the original production team.
The joke is, you know, we have 200 rolls of film, I think, in order to get all the shots we needed. And the reels of film come in these boxes, right? So, if you ask for one reel of film, there’s like 10 reels of film that box. And [CBS] didn’t bother pulling [individual reels] — it’s too much of a production, they just send you the whole box.
So we downloaded everything. We have…I don’t know how many hours, of HD footage of Deep Space Nine. Now, most of it is outtakes that weren’t used, but it’s fantastic and we could sit there for hours and just look at Deep Space Nine in HD. We’d need to add the special effects and blah, blah, blah — but it’s still fantastic.
I wish there was a way to share that. And until there is — I don’t know.
We noted when the first trailer for the documentary arrived earlier this month that a number of shots appear to be both alternate angles on well-known scenes or shots cut from the final edit of episodes — but boy, would we love to dig through the material Behr and his team have uncovered.
While Behr admits that he has “no control” over CBS and any plans the company may or may not have for the series — “I think they’ve been burned on [past] shows, most likely,” he notes, likely referring to the less-than-stellar performance of The Next Generation on Blu-ray — he’s continuing to marvel at the quality of the show once properly remastered.
One of the great moments that I will never forget is coming to an editing bay, and there’s Jonathan West, the DP of the last five seasons of the show. He’s watching as the film has been upgraded, he’s doing color correction. And I walked into that room, and Jonathan is sitting there looking up at a monitor — and literally, his mouth was hanging open like a 10-year-old boy.
Trust me, I’m not over selling this — he was the happiest boy in all of Puppet Land. He was just thrilled to be seeing it, and he said this: “Even back then, I knew how good this show could look.”
And obviously, it did look like that back then, and the DVDs aren’t something to be proud of, but it has looked spectacular, and to see his jaw drop in seeing it…that’s the kind of thing that stays with you.
What We Left Behind hits theaters for one night only on May 13, so if you missed the streaming window you can be sure to catch it there in the USA and in Canada.
For the rest of the world, the documentary team have hopes to expand screenings worldwide, but at present have made no announcements on that front. For wide streaming options, the team is working on that too, as they noted in a recent update emailed to backers:
For those who would not otherwise be able to see the film later on (i.e., not receiving a Blu-Ray/DVD bundle), rest assured that we’re looking into new options to re-release a stream later on through a more user-friendly and less restrictive platform.
We want to make sure everyone who wants to gets the chance to see the film on as big a screen as possible.
As for those awaited Blu-ray / DVD releases of the documentary, further news on those is expected sometime after the theatrical screenings.
We’ll have our full review of the documentary in the days leading up to the May 13 theatrical event, so stay tuned — and if you’ve already seen What We Left Behind, remember… no spoilers!
It’s been a while since the Europe-based Destination Star Trek convention made its way east of Birmingham, but next year the popular event will beam back to Dortmund, Germany to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager.
Returning to the Messe Westfalenhallen in Dortmund, Germany, the three-day Destination Star Trek convention will run from May 8 – May 10, 2020 and will center around the silver anniversary of Star Trek‘s fourth live-action series, headlined by Captain Janeway herself: actor Kate Mulgrew, the first event’s first announced guest.
Here’s the official announcement from convention organizer Massive Events, in association with Showmasters Ltd and Media 10 Ltd:
DESTINATION STAR TREK RETURNS TO GERMANY TO CELEBRATE ALL THINGS STAR TREK INCLUDING 25 YEARS OF STAR TREK: VOYAGER
LONDON, April 29th 2019 – Destination Star Trek Germany, Europe’s official Star Trek convention, will return in May 2020 to give fans the chance to join the celebrations of everything Star Trek, including the very special 25th Anniversary of Star Trek Voyager.
Under license by CBS Consumer Products, the seventh Destination Star Trek, the third to be hosted in Germany, is all set for 8-10 May 2020, at the Messe Westfallenhallen in Dortmund. Destination Star Trek is a weekend for fans to embrace their love of all things Star Trek. There will be something for fans of all incarnations of the show to enjoy, from the classic series to the very latest show to air, Star Trek: Discovery, and not forgetting some important anniversaries for the hugely successful movies!
The first guest to be announced is KATE MULGREW (Captain Katherine Janeway) who will headline the event. As captain of the U.S.S. Voyager, Kate will lead the celebrations in this very special Star Trek: Voyager anniversary year. In addition to meeting popular Star Trek actors, collecting autographs, photos and watching live stage panels, fans also will be able to sit in the Captain’s chair, browse some exciting Star Trek merchandise
and see original props and costumes in the Destination Star Trek Museum, plus much much more still to be announced.
“For over five decades, Star Trek has continued to take us to the Final Frontier. With the new series’ now airing and in production it’s an exciting time to be a Star Trek fan,” said event organiser, Mark Woollard. “Destination Star Trek Germany will continue to celebrate what has gone before and what is to come in the future, so we can boldly go where no one has gone before. We are very excited to be coming back to Germany, the true heart of Star Trek fandom on mainland Europe.”
More guest and event announcements will be rolling out over the next year, but tickets for the May 2020 convention are already available at the official DST Germany website.
Star Trek: Discovery exits the 23rd Century not with a whimper, but with an explosive concussion of canon connections, and the final three episodes of the season sets Discovery onto a course largely beyond the farthest reaches of the Star Trek canon – provided plenty of references to the previous Star Trek canon.
What will the future hold? Nobody knows. But to tide us over until Season 3, let’s take a look at the canon connections in “Through the Valley of Shadows” and the two-part “Such Sweet Sorrow” conclusion.
Boreth
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS — Through previously seen from orbit earlier this season in “Point of Light,” this episode returns us to the Klingon monastery planet Boreth. While the monastery’s other function as a secret location of time crystals has never previously been discussed on Star Trek, Ash Tyler describes how the monastery is set up as a temple to Kahless (as seen in TNG: “Rightful Heir”).
Further, when Pike beams down to the surface to enter the monastery, the climate of Boreth – snowy and windy – also lines up with the establishing shot in “Rightful Heir.”
Klingon D-7 Class
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS — After seeing the famous Klingon battleship in hologram form in “Point of Light,” we get a glimpse of the actual D-7 Klingon battlecruiser in this episode in an establishing short in orbit of Boreth. In “Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2”, we finally get to see them in action.
Pike’s Bleaky, Beepy Future
THROUGH THE VALLEY OF SHADOWS — In the TOS episode “The Menagerie,” Commodore Mendez tells Captain Kirk and Mister Spock about the accident that confined Captain Pike to a life support unit. “Inspection tour of a cadet vessel. Old Class J starship. One of the baffle plates ruptured,” he says. “He went in bringing out all those kids that were still alive.”
In Pike’s flash forward after touching the time crystal, he sees this event, where he does indeed save the life of at least one cadet before succumbing to radiation poisoning. In the most horrific part of his vision, Pike also sees his disabled body confined to a life support chair.
Docking Corridors
SUCH SWEET SORROW — In the episode cold open, the Discovery pulls alongside the Enterprise and deploys a number of automatic docking corridors to link the two ships together to allow for the evacuation of the Discovery. Similar corridors have been seen on starbases, including in The Next Generation episodes “11001001,” and “Remember Me.”
Auto-Destruct
SUCH SWEET SORROW — Captain Pike and Commander Saru set the Discovery’s auto-destruct system by using two handprints for authorization purposes. A similar method was used by Captain Picard and Commander Riker in The Next Generation episode “11001001.”
USS Enterprise
SUCH SWEET SORROW — Following the brief glimpse we get of Spock’s quarters in “Brother,” we get a more complete view of the USS Enterprise to include the bridge, corridors, turbolift, and briefing room in the finale two-parter. There are a number of differences from how the Enterprise was depicted in previous Star Trek, but also many similarities.
A few standout highlights include the captain’s chair, the bridge chairs that are of the same style as on the bridge in The Original Series, the red grilles in the corridors, handles in the turbolift, the Enterprise dedication plaque indicating that it is “Starship Class,” and a three-way monitor in the briefing room.
Sarek is a Terrible Dad
SUCH SWEET SORROW — In their final goodbye, Burnham tells Sarek to take care of Spock. He responds by saying, “I will always be here for my son. Even as I keep my distance… as he has asked.” The two continue not speaking, as is indicated by Spock by the time we reach “Journey to Babel.”
Biobed
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — After Stamets is injured and arrives in sickbay, Doctor Pollard orders him placed on a biobed. Though we have seen biobeds in most sickbay scenes since the start of Discovery, this is the first time they have been named as such.
Solid Phaser Beams
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — Until now, Discovery’s phaser beams have been burst fire. In this episode, the Enterprise has the solid beam fire phaser weapons that we have seen on most Starfleet ships in the Star Trek canon.
Klingons Arrive!
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — Chancellor L’Rell and Ash Tyler arrive on the Klingon Cleave Ship, and we get our first look at a standard Klingon bridge (previously the only bridge we have seen on a Klingon ship has been the Ship of the Dead.)
The layout and aesthetic of the Klingon Cleave Ship bridge hew pretty closely to previous Klingon ships we have seen in canon. And as the Chancellor orders her ships into battle, she also gives us Discovery’s first call out (in Klingon no less, as first heard in DS9: “The Way of the Warrior,”) of the Klingon war chant – today is a good day to die!
Find Kirk
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — Before leading Discovery through the wormhole to the 32nd century, Burnham tells Spock that there is “a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you, and reach for them. Reach for them. Let them guide you.”
Spock follows her advice, and ultimately finds the person that Burnham is pushing him towards in Captains James T. Kirk (and also arguably Dr. McCoy.)
Wormhole Effect
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — After Discovery has entered the wormhole, the crew experience the same distortion effects as the crew of the refit USS Enterprise upon accidentally falling into a wormhole in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Starfleet Command
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — The senior staff of the Enterprise are debriefed at Starfleet Command following the disappearance of the Discovery. We get an establishing shot of Starfleet Headquarters, which has a similar layout and location to the one seen in Star Trek: Enterprise.
Regulation 157, Section 3
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — Spock references Starfleet Regulation 157 Section 3, which requires Starfleet officers to take any and all action to refrain from participating in historical events as a justification for why the crew of the Enterprise and Ash Tyler should be ordered never to speak of Discovery or its crew again.
In the 24th century, agents of the Department of Temporal Investigations will quote the same regulation to Captain Benjamin Sisko following the Defiant’s trip back in time to the 23rd century (DS9: “Trials and Tribble-ations.”)
Drydock
SUCH SWEET SORROW, PART 2 — Following the battle with Control, the Enterprise requires extensive repairs to return to normal operations. We see a shot of the ship in drydock, which has many similar features to previous drydocks seen in episodes such as Enterprise’s “Broken Bow” and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
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With Discovery kicked over 900 years in the future, the events of the Star Trek franchise to date are centuries in the past — how will the show connect the ancient history of the Archer, Kirk, and Picard eras in Season 3?
We’ll have to wait and see, but we have no doubt that we’ll be hearing about some of our favorite events, characters, and races when Star Trek: Discovery returns next year.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan brought many changes to the Star Trek universe, from small things like the maroon Starfleet officers’ uniforms to enormous events like the death of Spock — but in the middle of all that, the film introduced the first new Federation starship design: the Miranda-class USS Reliant.
Originally planned to be another Constitution-class vessel like the Enterprise, a combination of factors led the visual effects artists behind Star Trek II to pivot to the new single-hulled design. Between the cumbersome size of the Enterprise filming model to the need for viewers to instantly differentiate between the two ships, the Miranda-class Reliant became the first of many Federation starships created using the familiar hallmarks of Starfleet engineering.
The original studio model, built for the second Trek film, went on to be used for years in different configurations — including as the Soyuz-class, with roll bar removed — up until its final appearance in Star Trek Generations as one of the three ships which rescued the Enterprise-D crew from Veridian III at the end of the film.
The design then transitioned to a fully-digital model, seen in the extensive Dominion War battle sequences of Deep Space Nine, the opening battle against the Borg in Star Trek: First Contact, and as part of the fleet of ships which met the USS Voyager upon its return to Earth.
Eaglemoss’ XL-sized USS Reliant model is the first of that series to be released outside of the primary Star Trek ‘hero’ ships — your Enterprises and so forth — and is one of the most successful larger-scale offerings to date. Right out of the box, the XL Reliant is frankly gorgeous, with clean and crisp hull markings, red, blue, and grey accents around the ship, and solid construction at nearly every angle.
The upper hull is the standard die-cast metal build, with plenty of intricate detailing not often seen in the non-plastic portions of Eaglemoss models. The roll bar, underside, and nacelles are the typical injection-molded plastic segments, which includes the bright blue, translucent warp nacelle inserts, adding another pop of color to the ship.
Around the sides of the saucer, the tiny identification text which proved to be utterly distracting on the Enterprise-A model is just right here, aligned with the edges of the ship in a very appropriate size — and unlike many of the other Eaglemoss releases, this ship has painted windows without hull indentations, so the infamous window-alignment issue isn’t a factor.
The paint isn’t perfect, however; the edge of the saucer is missing the light-blue stripe which should be around its perimeter, and the front and rear torpedo launchers should be blue rather than gray, but on the whole those are extremely minor issues which don’t detract from the model at all.
The one thing that does serve as a bit of a disappointment is the “U.S.S. RELIANT” text on the top of the saucer, rendered just a little too small for it to stand out. If that marking was just a bit larger — like it appears on the bottom of the saucer — that single issue would be resolved.
Finally, like the XL Enterprise NX-01 and XL Voyager before it, the XL Reliant has a woefully inadequate display stand, with support prongs that are too short to support the weight of the front-heavy model. The bottom set of tines could easily be another inch longer without impacting how the ship is mounted, and it would keep the Reliant from falling out of its stand every time you try to move the ship.
Those minor nitpicks aside, the XL-sized USS Reliant model is at the top of the larger-scale Official Starships Collection fleet to date in terms of construction and presentation, and certainly something we highly recommend to fans of The Wrath of Khan and starship model collecting in general.
We’ll be bringing you a look at more recent arrivals from the Eaglemoss Official Starships Collection in the coming weeks, including close looks at the XL Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C, new releases from the Star Trek: Discovery line, and more!
Star Trek: Discovery has featured a rotating roster of episodic directors, and among them serves two-time directing partner David Barrett, who first joined the Star Trek franchise during the final run of Star Trek: Enterprise back in 2005.
His first contribution to Discovery came as the fan-favorite Season 1 episode “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” a time-loop tale featuring the return of Harry Mudd (Rainn Wilson) who came aboard ship to terrorize the crew.
Returning for Season 2, Barrett landed one of the pivotal episodes of the first half of the season, the resurrection of Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) by way of the mycelial network in “Saints of Imperfection,” the fifth episode of 2019.
TrekCore caught up with the director a few weeks ago to talk about his not-exactly-smooth start on Enterprise, navigating the mycelial network for Culber’s return, and working aboard the massive Section 31 ship set.
David Barrett at work on another production. (Photo courtesy of the director.)
TREKCORE: You’re the first Discovery director, aside from Jonathan Frakes, who got their Trek start on a previous series — before you came aboard to direct “Divergence” for Star Trek: Enterprise, what was your familiarity with Star Trek?
DAVID BARRETT: My dad was actually on the first Star Trek with [William] Shatner as a stunt man actor – he was the jailor in “All Our Yesterdays.” My dad was Burt Reynolds’s and Paul Newman’s stunt double and drove a rocket car. He was the first man that went Mach One on land, and so he had a big career.
But it was funny because I was telling him, “Dad you’ve gotta watch this Star Trek,” and he went, “You know, I was on Star Trek.” So that’s kind of a fun fact!
My grandfather owns a ski area, and there were a lot of things he taught me growing up about entertaining. You’re entertaining an audience on TV, and you’re doing the same on the mountains. You’re manufacturing fun. I think my passion for my career really started at the ski area; getting joy out of imagining a run through the forest and figuring out what people would enjoy.
That simple joy is where I got the joy of moving an audience, and that’s what makes Star Trek so fun. It gives everybody somebody relatable. You can relate to those characters on a deep level, and when an audience can relate you can really move them. But Star Trek: Enterprise was so daunting to be honest. To board a show, and I don’t know if that was the second to last show or almost the last one…
TREKCORE: I think that was very close to the last one. I think they only shot three or four more — after “Divergence” — before they wrapped the show entirely.
BARRETT: It’s funny because at the time it was one of my first episodes that I had gotten as a director. I had a general meeting with the Brannon Braga and Rick Berman. I remember them looking at my resume and Braga said, “You’re a stunt guy?” I said, “I’m not just a stunt guy.” And he said “No, this [resume] looks like you’re just a stunt guy” and I said “I started in stunts. But I’m a second unit director on big movies like Stigmata,” and then I said, “You know something I thought this meeting would go a whole lot different.”
I was really offended, and I started to get up to leave. They ultimately said come back and asked me “Why? Why do you want to direct this show?” and I gave a quote of Gene Roddenberry’s. I said I thought Star Trek was a culture that you had created, just like Gene Roddenberry had talked about.
About Star Trek being an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom and will begin to take a special delight in differences of ideas and difference of life form, and I said, “If we cannot learn to enjoy those small differences and take positive delight in those small differences between our own kinds on this planet then we do not deserve to go out into space and the meet the diversity that is almost certainly there.”
Barrett (in vehicle) works out a driving sequence for another production. (Photo courtesy of the director.)
I said, “Just because I haven’t come from writing or film school, I thought I would be accepted for what I could bring to this production. I’m one of the top stunt men in the world; I’ve worked with the biggest directors — Spielberg, the Wachoswkis, Roger Donaldson…” – I just went on down the list.
And I said “I know I can bring heart to every character and I can bring a perspective so that everyone can relate to each of the characters in this episode. I can bring a visual style that is progressive, that still honors what you guys have been doing, and I can bring an energy that you haven’t seen before.”
I was really upset and passionate, and Berman was very kind, and he started talking a little bit more. And then Brannon started talking a little bit more, and ultimately before I got to my car my agent called. I thought for sure he was going to ask me why I would ever walk out of a meeting — and they said you have the job.
I got the job, and I knew it was towards the end [of production of Enterprise] and I asked them if I could really push the envelope in terms of style, and they said yes. Please do it. I talked to the crew and got Marvin [Rush], who had been the director of photography there for 17 years of production, on board with all these new ideas to give [“Divergence”] an energy from the very first shot, which is the camera zooming towards the bridge [of the Columbia NX-02] and goes right inside. You see that shot all the time now, but not 15 years ago on a TV show.
Once I was done with [“Divergence”] they told me if the show was renewed [for a fifth season] they wanted me to return for more episodes. [“Divergence”] was a very different feeling episode; everybody who had seen it at the studio and the producers said that at that time.
But God was I scared! That crew was around for 17 years and I was coming into a situation where I was a fan, but not to the point where I had anywhere near the knowledge of everybody around me.
Culber (Wilson Cruz) and Stamets (Anthony Rapp) reunite in the mycelial network. (CBS)
TREKCORE: I could happily talk to you all day about Enterprise, but I’d love to ask you about “Saints of Imperfection.” When you get a copy of the script for an episode like this – a big episode that brings Dr. Culber, who had been killed off at the end of Season 1 – what were you most excited about?
BARRETT: I find the heart in every character. I know my purpose here on Earth is to inspire others. That is why I exist. When I get a script, I look at it through that lens. How can I push, pull, or prod compassion out of the viewer for our heroes and for the villains?
How am I going to try to challenge everybody on a moral and ethical level? How am I going to teach them to have compassion? If there’s a villain, I really want to understand why they are a villain and what was done to him or her when they were young, because you’re not born of evil.
I look for the messages, I look for the themes, and I look for opportunity to move the audience and humanize everyone that is in the episode. This episode had a really big hook – bringing Stamets and Culber, back together again.
After my first read, I just sat in my office with my head in my hands looking at this opportunity and thinking about how I have a really special story here. Given some of the big divides within our country today, how can I take these two characters and use them to help people see compassion and unconditional love? How do I challenge them to love people for who they are?
That’s a driver for every decision that I made in this episode.
TREKCORE: Following on from that; how much freedom do you get as a director of Star Trek: Discovery get to put your own imprint on the product that comes out?
BARRETT: Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin and Aaron Baiers told me “shoot your show. Shoot what you want to shoot.” I had a couple of great conversations with Alex Kurtzman where I told him I was very nervous. This is a giant episode! We had a huge amount of characters in every scene.
Previously, when I did Enterprise, you go to do a [scene in which the] ship gets rocked or moved, and the actors know how to do it, the cameramen know how to do it, and it looks how it’s supposed to look. Well [on Discovery] this is an entirely new crew, I have five to eight actors in a scene and I’m having to cue the sparks, I’m having to cue them to move on a certain line, and if they don’t all match up and move the same way, and if the camera doesn’t move at the same time they do, it looks completely hokey.
I had to introduce the movement to the actors, but also these are already some of the most emotional scenes to date in that show with five or six characters in the scene for eight or nine pages of dialogue – including with visual effects and practical effects. That was so tough.
But Alex [Kurtzman] told me to make it look amazing. He said he wanted a fantastic product, and I had seen a rough cut of the first episode of the season, which he directed. That was like a movie! It was daunting to look at, but it helped me figure out what I was supposed to be doing in [“Saints”.] So they just let you go, within reason. There is a lot of freedom there.
There was a lot of conversation about the mycelial network and what that looked like, and what it looked like [in Season 1]. In scenes between Tilly and May, I really wanted to connect and make this about these two women not trusting each other, and making it as tense as I possibly could. At the end of the day, it was about trust and what you would do for somebody that you love. We saw it with Stamets, and I also wanted us to see it with these two women who grow to love each other and trust each other.
I have a fair amount of freedom in terms of how I shoot [the episode]. Prior to shooting, we had a really long tone meeting to talk through the episode and what we wanted out of it, so it was really great to be able to talk about the characters and what he wanted accomplished. It’s just really fun to be able to talk to somebody as fun, and as accomplished, as he is as a writer.
I also had a writer on set, Kirsten Beyer, who was just amazing. She was just fantastic at giving me the rules and the backstory [of Star Trek]. I couldn’t have had a better partner on set. What I didn’t know, she knew and where I had a weakness it was her strength. It was so much fun to talk these scenes out. It was very collaborative.
On set with Doug Jones (Saru) between shots. (Photo courtesy of CBS)
TREKCORE: What’s it like working with the cast, and how do you provide opportunities for each of these different actors to get their own moments to tell their side of the story?
BARRETT: It’s in that first read of the script. You’re reading and trying to find – where is the heart in each of these characters?
Burnham is the lead on the show, but it’s a big ensemble. You have Anthony Rapp, who I cannot even tell you what an amazing actor he is – that guy is amazing. He’s amazing because he gives so much all of the time, both on and off screen. He’s always there [on set], which is important because when you have five or six people in a scene with everybody having to do these physical effects, if one person is off you have to do it again. The actors all were so helpful to each other, and we had some long hours. It was really special to work with a cast who really love each other as much as this cast does.
In the first scene with Burnham [running from the bridge to engineering] I wanted to tell a story because it had to frame the whole episode. I wanted that first image of her [in a panic because of Tilly’s disappearance] to guide the viewer and let the viewer know what kind of episode this was going to be. But how do I get a shot of Burnham running inside the ship? I needed it to be desperate; I needed her to run full out. Sonequa can outrun any one of us on this crew, so how am I going to get that desperate look and see her face shake and see that desperation for her friend?
Ultimately, I got an electric bike, we put a camera on it, and we whizzed it all around the Discovery set. She’s running as fast as she can moving through people, and that really was her moment. Then she runs into [engineering] where she sees Anthony shaking his head, and you see her breathing very hard and you see the emotion in her… ”I’ve lost her. I’ve lost her.” I try to find those moments in each character that I can capture in the most truthful and vulnerable way.
And then we had Anson Mount. I did a pilot with him called “The Mountain,” so I’ve known him for years, but I haven’t worked with him since. I said “Anson, what makes you a great captain? I want to know. I want to know what makes you special and what makes Pike special.” We decided that if there’s one thing that Pike does well it’s that no matter how many people are in a room, he can make them feel like you are talking and listening only to them.
Saru and Burnham speak with Captain Pike (Anson Mount) on the bridge. (CBS)
So, when we started to block out his bridge scenes, we decided we wanted him to go to each officer for an answer. I didn’t want him to just sit in his chair; I wanted him to reach out to them. Ultimately, we decided to block it that way so that we could show the audience through his behavior why he is captain of the ship. I talked to Aaron [Baiers] and we went on a weekend with [first AD Woody Sidarous] and Kirsten Beyer and we pretended we were the actors. Kirsten rewrote and shifted dialogue around so that we could get that first scene of him on the bridge walking all over the place.
That really was a moment for me where I could show his compassion for his fellow workmates. And if you look back at it, I think we as an audience watching that really got a sense of who he was and his personality. That’s just one example of how I bring out the humanity, the heart, the love in each character, which translates into something that’s very alive.
And then for Stamets and Culber, we knew what the big moments on the page were. But for Wilson [Cruz] I wanted to show through his wardrobe what it meant to be in the mycelial network and wanted to use his wardrobe to help tell that story. He had to appear to be a monster, but we still had to know who he was when we saw him within the ship. So, I decided when we started talking about the wardrobe that I wanted to have the wear and tear tell a story.
If you notice watching the episode, the parts of his body that are exposed and ripped are right over his heart. I said I imagine Culber on these long days alone on a journey by himself, holding his heart and laying on his left side. So, let’s put holes on the points of contact on his right hip. I didn’t want to make him have ripped clothes just to show off his gorgeous body and just to be gratuitous. I really tried to ground the way we found him and the way that his wardrobe was used in a way that was heartfelt.
So that drove every decision in terms of where we put a hole on his hip, on his elbow, and I just imagined him holding onto his heart and just keep tugging at his wardrobe while he’s laying on his left side.
Those are the little things, and when you talk an actor through the movements or the costumes you can see them be moved by the thought that you put into that character. It’s just fertilizer to what these guys have already brought with them to [their performance].
Hugh Culber sits in defeat inside the mycelial network. (CBS)
TREKCORE: It definitely felt like you definitely saw Culber’s sense of isolation and loneliness and being constantly attacked — but then on the other hand, with May and the Jah’Sepp, you kind of felt like both characters had a really strong and defensible point of view.
BARRETT: Yes, yes. When we revealed Culber and [Tilly and May] started fighting, I really made the actresses get physical with each other to make it feel desperate. I pushed them to that point, because I thought in the mycelial network it was really important to play that distrust. These two characters do not trust each other, and I wanted to see this really beautiful journey where they learn to come together.
That was very fun because Tilly is almost the comic relief of the show, and I really wanted to see what she’s capable of. I said to Mary, “One day your character is going to be a captain, isn’t she? You need to show me that you she is a very good judge of character and that she can fight for what she believes in.” And that’s what we saw from Tilly in this episode. I thought that was really refreshing and gave us insight into the depth of her character.
TREKCORE: One connection to “Divergence” is Section 31, the shadowy intelligence unit of the Federation. How do you work with the actors and how do you shoot something that has evil characters in it without having them come off as mustache twirling caricatures?
BARRETT: I’ll point to the last scene [in “Saints”] with Burnham and Georgiou. It was really important for me in that last scene that it’s about trust. I said to Michelle [Yeoh] at one point – listen to [Burnham] and the fact that she does not trust her own mother. It’s about boiling it down to simplistic terms of trust and love that humanizes the [Section 31] characters and makes it become real. If it’s real, then it’s relatable.
In order for the show to feel real there has to be heart. And I just find those moments to really anchor it. And I said to Michelle, “Michelle, [Burnham’s] not listening to you she doesn’t trust you. Let it hurt you.” And I think you see shades of Michelle’s character in there that you hadn’t seen before. Do you agree?
Section 31 agent Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) returns to the Discovery. (CBS)
TREKCORE: I think she’s such a layered character. The Mirror Universe has always been portrayed as being more caricatured, but it seems like the Discovery portrayal and the character arc Georgiou is on is one of trying to add much more depth.
BARRETT: Yeah. And [Georgiou] has a line “You’re going to have to start trusting me, and have a little faith, Michael.” And that’s what she’s fueled by, right? That was a real challenge, and it was heartfelt. I tried to just make it real between these two almost mother-daughter figures in Burnham and Georgiou.
She also has a really good scene when she’s walking with Burnham and they almost begin to fight. Georgiou is eating an apple, and she drops it to assume a fighting stance. I had to shoot that apple a bunch of times – because it just meant so much in terms of a shift in their relationship. That physical act was a moment when these women were about to go toe to toe. It got real in that moment, and that moment of the apple dropping was a shift in their relationship and definitely a shift in the scene.
TREKCORE: You were the first director to shoot extensively on the Section 31 control center set. What’s it like to shoot on a multi-level set like that and how do you use that to help tell the story?
BARRETT: In that final scene I had to have [Pike and Leland] meet, and this is a relationship that’s going to travel a few episodes, so I want them to know who’s boss. I put [Cornwell] on the upper level, and I put Pike at the bottom, which gives the audience a chance to get his point of view.
So, it’s between those two, and I have to – in a believable way – have Cornwell enter off camera. And I decided I would love to see how different [Pike and Leland] are, so Cornwell starts to move, and they have to follow her because she is running the show. And so, you see the two characters go up two separate ladders to the upper level. That was to give the audience an idea of how really different these guys are, and how they cannot stand each other.
Leland (Alan Van Sprang) and Pike receive orders from Admiral Cornwell (Jayne Brook). (CBS)
I thought it was a good way, without sound or dialogue, to know exactly what the dynamic was between these three characters. That is something that I really pay a lot of attention to. Paul Newman was my godfather, so growing up a lot we would talk about scripts and I told him I wanted to be a director one day.
He would just talk about blocking and tell me to block the scene in such a way that, without dialogue, you would know what was going on only through looks and the characters’ behavior. He said that if you cannot know what the scene is by the way it is blocked then you have not done your job as a director.
Our Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 wrap-up coverage will continue next week!
After a year away from the franchise, Star Trek: Discovery actor Jason Isaacs returns to Starfleet in the latest update to the Star Trek Online gaming saga — and this time, the one-time-Terran is staying clear of the Mirror Universe as he portrays ‘Prime’ Gabriel Lorca.
Following in the footsteps of Discoverycostars Mary Wiseman and Rekha Sharma, who also returns in this new gaming update, Isaacs will finally get a chance to tell the story of the ‘good’ Captain Lorca, who eventually swapped universes with his Terran counterpart in the days leading up to the first season of Star Trek: Discovery.
In Star Trek Online: Rise of Discovery, the story will shed light on the team of Gabriel Lorca and Ellen Landry, their time serving together aboard the ill-fated USS Buran, and feature a mission where Landry must rescue a captured Lorca from the Klingons.
Star Trek Online -- 'Rise of Discovery'
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Gabriel Lorca in command.
Ellen Landry on duty.
The bridge of the USS Buran.
The USS Buran.
Star Trek Online: Rise of Discovery launches for PC players on May 14, and will expand to XBox One and PlayStation platforms later in 2019.
Star Trek: Discovery wrapped up its second season last Thursday with a time-twisting finale that looped back through the entire 14-episode run, before shooting the Discovery and crew off to the far future for a story yet to be told — and now, some of the creative forces behind “Such Sweet Sorrow” have shared some behind-the-scenes secrets from the making of the finale.
Sonequa Martin-Green films part of Burnham’s trip back through time.
Director Olatunde Osunsanmi wrote an amazingly-detailed, lengthy piece for StarTrek.com last weekend, diving into all angles of the two-part production, from the moment he learned the finale would be expanded into a two-hour event through the staging of specific scenes and action sequences.
It’s much too lengthy to be quoted here, but his journey through “Such Sweet Sorrow” features insight into the dynamic, rotating set used to create the Georgiou-Nhan-Leland gravity battle, preparing for Ash Tyler and Michael Burnham’s farewell moment, filming Sarek’s moment of meditation on location, and much much more.
In addition to a number of interesting personal photos from the set, Osunsanmi also shared video of the on-set action as Burnham prepared to leave the ship in her Red Angel suit, illustrating just how far the Discovery visual effects team must go to transform the live-action facility into a futuristic starship.
Osansanmi also spoke at length in an interview with SciFiBulletin.com, where he expanded into more technical details on camera lenses, filming techniques, lighting choices aboard the USS Enterprise, and more — including the new dynamic camera movements used in Season 2.
It’s all about transparence and parallax; we constantly struggle with making the flat screen, the 2-D screen, feel like it’s not there any more. The more you move the camera, the more you move the background and foreground and the actors within that space, the more the screen feels like you can just put your hand through it and touch what’s going on there. The more you feel it’s real, the more it emotionally impacts you.
That’s why usually an audience member, or even me when I’m watching, might not notice the camera’s moving if it’s done right but in certain moments, when a character is experiencing a particular emotion and the camera moves in to that particular character, just seeing subtle stuff like that impacts you in a stronger way than if the camera were to be particularly still.
Sparks fly on the Enterprise bridge.
The director also dove deep into how different frame rates in shooting were used to heighten the action during the battle sequences, compared to the moments of relative peace aboard the Enterprise during its introduction and farewell.
When we first arrive on the Enterprise bridge, Pike steps out of the lift and he walks in and there’s a nice big epic wide shot that starts in a close focus and pulls back to a wide shot. That’s the first time we’ve seen the bridge. After that, all the shots of Pike on the bridge, and when the crew are talking to each other, they’re on dollies, and nice and smooth.
Juxtapose that the same day with the battle beginning [in 214], the shot sequence for that, so suddenly I realize I’ve got to get off the dollies and go handheld for a lot of this, and I want to put liquid filters – which are just crushed up water bottles with water in them that slosh around as you move the camera around – in front of the lens so the camera’s more herky-jerky.
On top of that, 213 was shot on a 180 degree shutter, and 214 was shot on a 90 degree shutter. For the 180 degree shutter you’ll see the smooth frame rate that is normal to cinema. However at a 90 degree shutter, you get more of the staccato ‘Saving Private Ryan’ effect. Though Spielberg went down to 45 for battle sequences, I only went halfway to 90 degrees. With all the shaking and camera moves, I felt 45 would be too extreme. So 214 feels a little bit choppier, a little bit edgier, the frame rate as it’s going through is not as languid and smooth as it is in 213.
All those types of micro-adjustments just make it feel a little bit different between the two.
The Discovery and Enterprise fight against Leland/Control’s Section 31 forces.
Also speaking with SciFiBulletin.com was Discovery’s visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman — nicknamed ‘JZ’ by the crew — who covered how his team prepared to take on the extremely VFX-heavy two-part finale, from the elongated battle sequences through the massive time-travel wormhole created to send the Discovery crew into the future.
Alex [Kurtzman] let me and everybody else in production know really early on and we started the battle planning. What ships are going to be involved? Who’s going to be there? The choreography started really early. We finished it somewhere around April 5 [less than two weeks before the episode aired].
[…]
I worked with [director] Tunde [Osunsanmi] and Alex to lay out the battlefield in advance so we had an idea of how the ships surrounded everybody, and how they were going to be, at least at the start, until the fire started coming.
So we had a good idea, and with an episode that so heavily relies on CG, you have to have a pre-vis for the editors when they start to cut the episode because it’s a large component that plays into all the rest of the shots, and we wanted to be sure to give them something to play off. In some cases, there were adjustments that had to be made, but at least it gave them something to say “That’s it”, or “That’s absolutely not it.”
We went through several revisions with Alex and Tunde, changing the animation [in the pre-vis], changing the blocking to make sure that it coincided well with what we had shot practically.
The Red Angel suit, from concept art to reality.
Moving into the practical side of the finale, series costume designer Gersha Phillips revealed some of her work in designing the now-infamous Red Angel time travel suit on Instagram this week, teaming up with the Discovery prop and production design teams to build the practical gear worn by Sonequa Martin-Green.
The Red Angel suit took roughly nine months [to design and build] before going to camera. We started last April, and went through multiple revision with fabrics, textile design, the fit, colour, and the shell components.
The fit of the Red Angel suit was inspired by Scarlett Johansson’s costume in the film ‘Ghost in the Shell.’ I absolutely LOVED what they did, and I wanted our Red Angel suit to look just as streamlined on Sonequa.
We developed our own fabric design by 3D-screenprinting three different layers, two of them being a different scale of a circuitboard pattern. Inspired by Burnham’s mother’s suit (which we were developing simultaneously), we injected new technological elements into making Burnham’s suit look more futurisitic.
[Prop designer Mario Moreira] came up with the idea to match Burnham’s suit to the Discovery uniforms, and it was quote the process to perfect it to the exact colour that we wanted. For example, in one of the earlier designs, we had the thigh plates in lighter-coloured metal, but after going through camera tests, we toned it down as it was standing out quite a bit.
In addition to Phillips’ insight, Discovery prop house Walter Klassen FX shared an impressive look at two of the built suits used to represent the Red Angel both in the finale, and for use as ‘mannequin’ standees in “Perpetual Infinity.”
Finally, a handful of new behind-the-scenes photos from the finale have been released by CBS on social media, including a fun look at the Discovery cast and crew marveling at Ethan Peck’s arrival on set as blue-shirt Spock.
Behind the Scenes on 'Such Sweet Sorrow'
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Ethan Peck, Anson Mount, and Rebecca Romijn lead the Enterprise. (CBS)
Ethan Peck, Anson Mount, and Rebecca Romijn lead the Enterprise. (CBS)
Ethan Peck arrives on set as Science Officer Spock. (CBS)
Olatunde Osunsanmi and Mary Chieffo on the Klingon bridge set. (CBS)
Makeup artists fine-tune Anthony Rapp's battle damage. (CBS)
Our Star Trek: Discovery Season 2 coverage will continue with our final Canon Connections article for the last few episodes of the season, and additional interviews with the series production team!
It’s been about two months since the first rumors began swirling about a kid-focused, animated Star Trek television project for the Nickelodeon cable network — but today, CBS has made the news official.
Headed from writers Kevin and Dan Hageman, this untitled “CG-animated” show may not have a name, but it does have a premise: “The show follows a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation.”
Executive producers and writers Kevin and Dan Hageman. (CBS)
Here’s the full press release on the new project:
A new, original CG-animated Star Trek series that follows a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation is in the works from Nickelodeon and CBS Television Studios. The show, to be developed by Emmy Award winners Kevin and Dan Hageman (Trollhunters, The LEGO Movie), and overseen by Ramsey Naito, EVP, Animation Production and Development, Nickelodeon, will debut exclusively on Nickelodeon. The show will be the second upcoming animated Star Trek series, joining Star Trek: Lower Decks, which will stream on CBS All Access.
“‘Star Trek,’ Nickelodeon, and the state of animation are doing incredibly ambitious things as of late. We couldn’t be more excited to jump aboard,” said Dan and Kevin Hageman.
The untitled Trek adventure show will be created under the auspices of CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, CBS Television Studios’ new animation arm; Secret Hideout; and Roddenberry Entertainment. Trek veterans Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Rod Roddenberry and Trevor Roth, along with animation producer Katie Krentz, will serve as executive producers together with Kevin and Dan Hageman. Aaron Baiers will serve as a co-executive producer.
“Star Trek’s mission is to inspire generations of dreamers to build a brighter future,” Kurtzman said. “Dan and Kevin have crafted a story that honors its exploratory spirit in a way that’s never been done before, while the Nickelodeon team blew us away with their excitement at bringing Trek to a younger generation around the world.”
So far, no other information on the upcoming show is available — it’s unclear when the series is targeted for debut, though the long lead time needed for animation projects makes us suspect we won’t see it on television until mid-2020 or later, at minimum.
