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UPDATED: Enterprise Cast Reunion for Season 2 Blu-rays filming today!

TrekCore Archives

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April 10, 2013

UPDATED: Enterprise Cast Reunion for Season 2 Blu-rays filming today!

TrekCore can reveal that the entire principal cast of Star Trek: Enterprise have reunited today to film a special cast reunion piece for the upcoming Season 2 release of the show on Blu-ray. Scott Bakula (Archer), Jolene Blalock (T’Pol), Connor Trinneer (Trip), Dominic Keating (Malcolm), John Billingsley (Phlox), Anthony Montgomery (Travis) & Linda Park (Hoshi) were all present along with the show’s co-creator Brannon Braga.

Brannon tweeted a great picture of the team earlier today:

The reunion follows a similar format to the massively popular TNG Cast Reunion which was included on the second season Blu-ray release of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Securing the schedules of all principal actors is a daunting feat to say the least, so it’s to the credit of Roger Lay, Jr., Robert Meyer Burnett and CBS that they’ve pulled something this spectacular off yet again!

Stay tuned as we’ll bring you all the latest news on the release of Season 2 of Star Trek: Enterprise on Blu-ray as we get it!

UPDATE: We can now reveal that the reunion was completed with a special surprise guest. Actor Jeffrey Combs who played Shran in the series surprised the cast with an unannounced appearance! We can’t wait to see the results in what is sure to be a thrilling addition to the next Enterprise Blu-ray set!

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TNG’s Visual Effects: You Asked For Widescreen…

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April 8, 2013

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TNG’s Visual Effects: You Asked For Widescreen…

Fans have been floored by the beautiful restoration of Star Trek: The Next Generation – and the fantastic clarity the new 2K scans of the original 35mm photography reveals. The show’s remastering has resulted in a wealth of information being made public about how TNG was originally filmed. A number of readers have asked about some very specific shots in episodes when the picture quality seems to drop on rare occasions, typically on moving shots with visual effects.

Preview images of “The Child” generated some concern from fans relating to
the softer image quality seen in pre-release screencaps.

The answer to this is – not surprisingly – the particular way some of these visual effects shots were originally photographed and completed in post production. Putting visual effects into a live-action plate is hard enough when it’s stationary, or “locked off,” but when the director needs the camera to move in order to reveal something to the audience at a particular moment – or to follow a character’s movement on screen – the level of difficulty increases dramatically.

Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato was presented with exactly this kind of difficult live-action shot early on in Season One with the episode “Code of Honor“. In the episode, Tasha Yar had to be seen entering the holodeck, crossing the room from right to left and grabbing an aikido uniform that materializes on the wall in front of her. While it could have been filmed in a single, static wide master the details would have been hard to see, especially on the old cathode ray tube television sets viewers were watching the show on in 1987.

Back in the late 1980’s, before the advent of tracking software that could automatically analyze a series of moving images and derive x, y or z-depth spatial information from them in order to composite an element or place a 3D object in the scene, filmmakers had to use expensive, large and quite loud motion control camera systems that could perfectly execute the same camera movement again and again via computer for each element needed in the final composite. This is, in fact, exactly how the miniatures for TNG were filmed, on a motion control stage with motion control camera rigs.

For whatever reason – most likely lack of money and/or time – the “Code of Honor” shot could not be easily filmed this way. Legato’s solution was simple and sort of genius: film the shot in widescreen!

The widescreen footage was adjusted in post-production to fit standard television screens.

In 1987, widescreen movies filmed with anamorphic “scope” lenses in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio (most of the Star Trek films have been shot in this format) were customarily transferred to video in a process called Pan & Scan. Because televisions back then were made in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the only way to fill the screen without distorting the image was to reposition the frame shot by shot and to “pan and scan” from side to side if two or more important objects or actors happened to be on either end of the same widescreen composition.

By filming with this process in mind, Legato knew he could capture the beginning and ending points of the intended camera move in two static, “locked off” plates — one with the actors and the aikido uniform on the wall and one clean plate without actors or uniform. And because the camera would never actually move, the split-screen and animated matte/dissolve that would reveal the uniform on the wall would be much easier to achieve. And so it was.

The success of this shot led to further opportunities for Legato to use the process on other Season One episodes like “The Last Outpost” and “The Battle“, as well as the Season Two episodes “The Child” and “Samaritan Snare” — all using various types of effects and levels of complexity. The process would continue to be used for several more seasons.

The only drawback is that anamorphic “scope” lenses are not the most ideal optics to shoot visual effects with due to the greater number of glass elements in them making them “slow” (needing more light), their tendency to flare, to produce a cylindrical distortion at wide focal lengths, and for out-of-focus objects to be blurred more vertically than horizontally (due to the cylindrically-shaped lens element which squeezes the image onto the film). This is why spherical prime lenses are preferred for VFX work.

This sequence from “Samaritan Snare” shows just the slightest amount
of “fish-eye” lens curvature near the edges of the frame.

Because of these issues and the need to dramatically zoom into the widescreen image (which needs to be either compressed vertically or stretched horizontally by a factor of 2) in order to perform the TV Pan & Scan within the 2.39:1 frame, it unfortunately makes the footage appear soft and grainy. In addition, the simulated camera move the process uses adds a good deal of motion blur which serves to make these types of shots even softer.

Even so, it was a fairly clever solution at the time. Rob Legato would later switch to motion control rigs when the camera moves were more elaborate or the money allowed it, such as in the Deep Space Nine pilot “Emissary“, but he would again employ this widescreen process for his DS9 episode “If Wishes Were Horses“.

Stay tuned to TrekCore as we bring you more in our continuing series looking back at the production of visual effects on The Next Generation. What do you think about the use of widescreen production footage on TNG, and its effect on Blu-ray picture quality? Let us know in the comments below!

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CBS Music Executive Robert Linden Dies

TrekCore Archives

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April 8, 2013

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We’re sad to report the loss of Robert Linden, a name most of you will not be familiar with. Robert was instrumental in the production of several Star Trek soundtrack projects, including the recent TOS Soundtrack Collection from La-La Land.

Producer Lukas Kendall reached out to TrekCore to commemorate Robert with this short piece:

CBS music executive Robert Linden, 57, died April 3rd while battling leukemia. Robert was associate director of music at CBS Television Studios and amongst his wide variety of responsibilities acted as a curator of Star Trek’s musical legacy, keeping close track of the original scores and documentation. He provided essential access and assistance for recent Star Trek soundtrack productions, particularly La-La Land Records’ 15CD box set, which quite literally would not have been possible without his help. He was widely respected and appreciated within his field of the film/TV music business—and as a musician himself, had many fans and friends within the L.A. music and arts community.

On a personal note, Robert extended far more courtesies to me over the course of several CBS soundtrack CD productions than I had any right to expect. He was a warm-hearted, gracious and helpful executive who tirelessly sought to do good work. Star Trek fans are surely aware of the many Hollywood personnel who have contributed to the franchise over the years, rarely with credit. Robert is surely one, and on this sad occasion I would like to bring him out of anonymity even if it is too late for him to take a bow himself. He was a sweet and decent man and I very much enjoyed working with him.

For more information, see Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline Hollywood.

– Lukas Kendall

TNG’s Visual Effects: Behind the Scenes of “The Wounded”

Star Trek: The Next Generation

TrekCore Staff

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April 4, 2013

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Our article on Tuesday going behind-the-scenes of TNG’s visual effects from the episode “The Child” met with a good response, so we’re continuing the series with an analysis of another episode. Last month, we brought you an exclusive look at an early workprint copy of Season 4’s “The Wounded“, with additional scenes, missing music, and several unfinished visual effects shots. Today, we’re digging into those missing visual effects with an exclusive before-and-after video comparison, along with a scene-by-scene breakdown of the technical processes used to complete each scene!

We have used two versions of “The Wounded” in this presentation: a production-era workprint VHS tape dated November 26, 1990, and final version of the episode from the 2002 DVD release.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8nLaTMIm_Y

1990 Workprint	2002 DVD

ACT ONE, SCENE 11: The original 35mm background plate of Marc Alaimo as Gul Macet is used by itself in the workprint for the offline edit. In the completed video master and subsequent DVD release, the background element is properly composited with the foreground plate of the actors on the bridge filmed against bluescreen. The blue color is “keyed out,” making the viewscreen area transparent to the footage behind it.

ACT ONE, SCENE 13: In the workprint, the original background plate of John Hancock as Admiral Haden is used alone when editing the sequence. In the finished shot, the footage is resized and skewed to fit the screen of the desktop monitor. In this case, it was not necessary to use a bluescreen because no objects in the foreground pass in front of the monitor screen.

ACT ONE, SCENE 16: The workprint uses a simple dissolve for the Cardassians beaming-in. In the finished shot, the standard transporter effect is used. An overall “shower” of streaks is wiped down over the actors, which then dissolves to a more confined version. A semi-transparent hold-out matte is created by an artist in the shape of the actors. This matte “holds-out” the background to allow the familiar shimmering points of light of the transporter effect to be seen just inside the body. Then another dissolve and wipe reveals the final residual chest cavity layer which, in turn, is slowly dissolved away.

ACT TWO, SCENE 28A: In the workprint, the foreground plate is used of the actors on the bridge filmed against bluescreen. As with scene 11, in the finished shot the blue color is later “keyed out,” making the viewscreen area transparent to the footage behind it – in this case, an animated sequence illustrating the relative positions of the Phoenix and her Cardassian target.

ACT THREE, SCENE 36: Another bluescreen shot used without VFX in the workprint. The warp effect outside the Ten Forward windows was accomplished using streak photography.

ACT FIVE, SCENE 46A: As in scenes 11 & 28A, the workprint uses the foreground plate of the actors on the bridge filmed against bluescreen. In the completed shot, the Phoenix miniature was filmed separately at Image G and later composited into the keyed viewscreeen area, along with its various lighting passes. The ship is layered on top of a standard, “head on” warp effect that was first created by Industrial Light and Magic during the production of “Encounter at Farpoint”.

ACT FIVE, SCENE 47: In the workprint, an over-the-shoulder shot of Patrick Stewart on the bridge with a chroma-key blue viewscreen quickly dissolves to the background plate of Bob Gunton as Benjamin Maxwell that will eventually be used as the composited element in the finished shot.

ACT FIVE, SCENES 47A & 48: The workprint begins with an over-the-shoulder shot of Bob Gunton looking out of Maxwell’s ready room window, complete with his actual reflection on the glass. Next we see a shot of the outside corridor and Colm Meaney as O’Brien slowly dissolves in – a placeholder for a never completed transporter effect, eventually cut from the episode all together.As we return to the ready room, the finished shot is revealed: the 4-foot Enterprise miniature, filmed separately at Image G, is composited into the keyed window area along with its various lighting passes on top of background stars. Gunton’s reflection is carefully maintained during the chroma-keying.

ACT FIVE, SCENE 50: Much like scene 36, we have another bluescreen shot used without VFX in the workprint. The warp effect outside the observation lounge windows was again accomplished using streak photography.

Stay tuned to TrekCore as we have several more workprint analyses to come, including a special look at the use of widescreen photography on The Next Generation! What do you think about the use of visual effects in “The Wounded”? Let us know in the comments below!

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TNG’s Visual Effects: Behind the Scenes of “The Child”

Star Trek: The Next Generation

TrekCore Staff

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April 2, 2013

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In recent weeks, we’ve brought you an exclusive look at an early workprint copy of “The Child“, with additional scenes, missing music, and several unfinished visual effects shots. The deleted scenes are certainly an exciting aspect of the original workprints, but we’re also fascinated by the insight they offer into the Star Trek: The Next Generation production process. We’re taking a deeper look at the missing visual effects with an exclusive before-and-after video comparison, along with a scene-by-scene breakdown which details the technical processes used to complete each VFX scene!

We have used four separate versions of “The Child” in this presentation: the “1st Cut” workprint, dated October 6, 1988; a second workprint – dated October 24, 1988 – which is virtually identical to the final broadcast version of the episode; the 2002 DVD release of Season Two; and the second season Blu-ray set which CBS released in December 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avM6M4B31X4

1988 Workprint	2012 Blu-ray

TEASER, SCENE 1A: A great look at the original 35mm plate photography, filmed on Stage 9 at Paramount Studios. Here you can see the interior north wall of Stage 9, with unused studio lights and other equipment stored behind the exterior shuttlebay door. Because no actors or objects pass in front of this area, no bluescreen was necessary to film this scene. In both the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the completed shot, the shuttle miniature – which was filmed separately at Image G – has been composited onto the plate along with its various lighting passes and shadow elements, along with the blue containment field. If you look closely, you can still barely make out a reflection from an equipment case in the yellow stripe area of the shuttlebay floor.

TEASER, SCENE 4: The semi-transparent CG animation of the containment unit used in the original 1988 standard-definition broadcast was replaced by new, high-definition CG animation with different lighting, and was composited into the scene at full opacity, eliminating the transparent look of the original. Although it is hard to see here, the new animation includes a corrected LCARS display which better matches the full size prop seen later in the cargo bay set. As in the original broadcast, the CG effect is accompanied by a blue ring representing the holoprojector along with a simulated reflection on the surface of the table.

ACT ONE, SCENE 27: While Workprint 1 just shows the blank on-set photography, a simple still image of an embryo was put in place on Workprint 2 for use as a placeholder for the post-production work. The LCARS graphic designed for the Blu-ray matches very closely to the original 1988 version, including using the original footage of the embryo, significantly desaturated. The 2012 compositor, however, still seems to have had trouble correcting for the perspective and part of the graphic very slightly intrudes onto the wall on the right side of the display.

ACT THREE, SCENE 51: The blank screen of the cream-colored sickbay office monitor has an LCARS graphic composited on top of it. The 1988 version has some noticeable signal aliasing or chroma noise on the text. Also known as color crosstalk or rainbow effects, they are caused by poor separation between the luma and chroma components of a composite (analog) video signal. The 2012 version, in addition to being digital and high definition, is very faithful except for the change of color from a grayish green to purple. Diana Muldaur is careful not to let her finger pass over the display area, to avoid adding an unneeded complication to the compositing process.

ACT THREE, SCENE 52: The three-dimensional shapes are faithfully recreated with higher resolution CGI and a more feathered and integrated look, which replaces the hard, aliased edges of the 1988 original animation. A volumetric glow of light has also been added to the holographic base.

ACT THREE, SCENE 56: The new console CG animation of the containment modules beaming-in is composited over the shot. Note the mismatched black level in the original broadcast composite — the darker black level of the animation doesn’t match very well with the lighter footage. This is corrected in the 2012 version.

ACT THREE, SCENE 65: Wil Wheaton and Whoopi Goldberg perform in front of bluescreen on the Ten Forward set, which will become the first ever “POV” shot of a ship jumping into warp speed. Watch the ceiling above the windows as an interactive, on-set lighting effect is timed to match the warp effect. In the final shot, these harsh shadows are removed for a more natural look. This warp effect was accomplished using various types of streak photography, similar to what was used on Star Trek: The Motion Picture to create radial, rainbow-like streaks of stars during that film’s signature warp sequences.

ACT FIVE, SCENE 87: This is the standard transporter beam-out effect, which is made up of two plates: one with actor Seymour Cassel in place, and another of the empty set behind him. The two images are then cross-dissolved using a split-screen effect to keep LeVar Burton in the shot as the effect occurs in several layers. An overall “shower” of streaks is wiped down over the actor, which then dissolves to a more confined version. A semi-transparent hold-out matte is created by an artist in the shape of the actor. This matte “holds-out” the background to allow the familiar shimmering points of light of the transporter effect to be seen just inside the body. Another dissolve and wipe reveals the final residual chest cavity layer which, in turn, is slowly dissolved away.

Stay tuned to TrekCore as we have several more workprint analyses to come, including a special look at the use of widescreen photography on The Next Generation! What do you think about the use of visual effects in “The Child”? Let us know in the comments below!

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Ronny Cox Interview for TNG Blu-ray Docs

Blu-ray (TNG)

TrekCore Archives

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April 1, 2013

12

Ronny Cox Interview for TNG Blu-ray Docs

We’re thrilled to reveal that actor Ronny Cox – famous for his portrayal of Captain Edward Jellico in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Six two-parter “Chain of Command” – will be featured in upcoming bonus features on the TNG Blu-ray releases. Cox’s Jellico famously took command of the Enterprise during Captain Picard’s covert mission to Celtris III in the Cardassian-themed double episode.

The news was confirmed by Roger Lay, Jr. via twitter today. Roger also tweeted a great photo showing Ronny in front of the cameras being interviewed.

http://tng.trekcore.com/images/cox_jellico_big.jpg

A release of “Chain of Command” may be some time away, but Roger and Robert Meyer Burnett have made it clear that they are continuing to make every effort to interview guest actors such as Ronny whenever their schedules permit. Cox was not featured on the DVD release of Next Gen in 2002, so it will be a pleasure to hear his thoughts as part of the new Blu-ray documentaries!

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EXCLUSIVE: Dominic Keating Interview

TrekCore Archives

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April 1, 2013

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To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Enterprise‘s first season on Blu-ray from CBS Home Entertainment, TrekCore spoke exclusively to actor Dominic Keating who played armory officer Malcolm Reed throughout the show’s four seasons. Dominic addressed questions on Reed’s accent, use of lip-gloss, auditioning for Star Trek Voyager and how network politics doomed the show.

Dominic Keating: The Interview

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

TrekCore: Did you watch any Star Trek before you began Enterprise to prepare for your role?

Dominic Keating: I did! I grew up in the mid-to-late 1960’s watching the original show, and I remember that I nagged my father rotten to get one of the first color TVs on our street. It was one of those multi-broadcast sets with the louvredeuren… I was just blown over to see that Spock’s shirt was blue! I was probably eight years old or something. Yeah, one of those huge multi-broadcast sets that doubled as an aircraft hanger.

TrekCore: I know the ones… we had one too!

Dominic Keating: When I first got to the states, I watched Patrick [Stewart] on Next Gen, really out of professional interest, to see a British actor playing the lead in an American TV show. Oddly enough, I fetched up at this odd commune in Mailbu for my first couple of years, and it was all lorded over by this fabulous guy called Victor, who was a massive Star Trek fan. He told me, friendlily, that I could get a TV – he had a big satellite dish in this field that we lived in, just there across the creek. He said, “Get a TV, and I’ll hook you up!”

What he forgot to mention is that I had to watch what he watched! There was no way for me to change channels! He only watched one or two things – it was either Voyager at the time, or XXX-rated porn from Canada! [laughs] You’d come over in the evening and turn on the TV and it was like, “Oh my God! Oh, no, wait a minute – that’s Patrick Stewart’s bald head. That’s okay.” [laughs]

TrekCore: After you were cast on the show as the only Brit, did you try to emphasize your accent or tone it up? It sounds very pronounced sometimes.

Dominic Keating: If you’d seen me at the first audition – they told me they wanted a ‘stiff-upper-lipped Brit with a buttoned-down approach to life’ – God bless, as green as I was back then, actors love to act. They slightly lay it on a bit trowel-like. I think I did. I sort of went in with a slightly more clipped Sandhurstian accent that I ordinarily would have used. I think it softened as I grew more confident as the episodes went by. It’s odd that you would pick up on that! If you’d seen the first audition – there’s a funny story because they came back and said, “We love what you’re doing… could you make him a bit more blue-collar?”

I tell this story at conventions. I’d seen Ian McKellen play Iago at the Stratford; a right good Yorkshire councilman who would never aspire to be the king, but would always do a very good job as second-in-command. So, for my second call-back – I don’t know what the hell I was thinking – I got to the end of the first scene, and Merri Howard looked up and said, “Is that Scottish?” Brannon Braga leant forward and said, “Don’t be silly, Merri, it was Welsh.” And I could see this job skitting out the door! I looked at Rick Berman, and asked, “Do you think I could try it in my own voice, Mr. Berman?” He went, “…that’d be a good idea.” Funny you should pick up on that. I guess I was trying to speak how my mother had always wished I’d spoken!

TrekCore: BBC English.

Dominic Keating: BBC, exactly! Whenever I say ‘fuck’, I spell it P-H-U-Q-U-E.

Dominic Keating in character as Armory Officer Lieutenant Malcolm Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise.

TrekCore: So, Dominic, help settle a debate. There are many episodes where it looks like you’re wearing a kind of lipstick on the screen… what happened there?

Dominic Keating: I’ve got no idea, mate! Really?

TrekCore: Yeah!

Dominic Keating: That’s the first time anyone’s ever … I’ve never heard that before. I imagine you need to get your TV color corrected, perhaps! They did put lip gloss, lip moistener – LypSyl – on from time to time, to make sure you weren’t cracking. The atmosphere in those sets is very air conditioned and dry, so they used to do that – that’s the only think I can think of. There was certainly no lipstick on Malcolm’s lips, I can attest to that!

TrekCore: A lot of fans feel that the character of Malcolm Reed was underused. Do you share that impression? Were you prepared for that going into the role?

Dominic Keating: Yes. I was really happily surprised with the workload that I did enjoy, that I did get to do. I was very happy. You know, it was clear from the get-go – you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that it was going to be a triumvirate again of T’Pol, Trip, and the Captain. The fact that I sort-of elbowed my way into a nice solid supporting role that got his own episodes from time to time and invariably became …

I was not expecting to become the ‘action man’ on the show, but whenever the Captain screwed up, Malcolm came to the rescue! It was just great, to be honest. I pulled some long hours, but nothing quite like what those three would do over a general week. I’d invariably have a sort-of six-day weekend from time to time, where I could go off and enjoy the money. [laughs]

All in all, no regrets at all.

TrekCore: How the did the jump from regular British TV shows like ‘The Bill’ and ‘Casualty’ to being amongst the Hollywood elite take place?

Dominic Keating: Well, I made a decision to leave London. I’d done four or five years on that sitcom ‘Demond’s’ on Channel 4, and that contract came to an end – they were going on to do two more years, but I’d come out here on a vacation. I’d met some people out here, who were Brits in L.A.; I think I knew one other actor – Alistair Duncan – and I just went home and thought… I wasn’t married, I was thirty-one or thirty-two, I had a flat in Notting Hill Gate that I’d bought that I could rent out, that would sort of help me pay my way to take a deep breath and go see if we can’t make it in the major leagues!

That’s kind of what I did – I came over here with a wing and a prayer, really. God bless, it worked out. I knocked on a lot of doors and jumped through a lot of hoops.

TrekCore: You originally auditioned for a role on Star Trek: Voyager before you got Enterprise.

Dominic Keating: I did! That’s how I first came into their sphere of noticing. Yeah, I [auditioned for a guest-star role] on Voyager. I don’t remember too much about it, other than it was to play the prince of some nomadic space tribe or something like that. I thought I’d got the job. I remember ringing my manager, saying “Well, we’re doing Star Trek next week.” Rick and Brannon were in the room, and they couldn’t have been more effusive… and then I never heard anything! Nothing! Not even, like, “Good job.” nothing.

It wasn’t until, maybe, the end of the first season [of Enterprise] that Rick was on set – I think we were shooting “Shuttlepod One” – and he was chatting with me idly between setups. They had Star Trek: Nemesis shooting on the stage next store, which was why he was around. He let loose to me that he’d remembered me from that Voyager audition; he said “I’ve had your photograph on my desk for two years; we knew we were formulating the show…” I said, “God, you could’ve given me a ring, Rick! You have no idea what those two years were like, mate!”

Dominic Keating cites “Shuttlepod One” as one of his finest moments on the show which he remains proud of to this day. The ‘bottle-show’ with Reed and Tucker is still highly regarded by fans of the show as one of the best episodes.

TrekCore: There was a pretty big shake-up in the direction of the show going into the third season, and then another shake-up in the fourth year. Do you have a feeling about when the show was at its best for you as an actor?

Dominic Keating: You know, towards the end of the first season, I never would have imagined getting an episode like “Shuttlepod One“, as a sundry, second character. I always look back very proudly at that particular time, and I was really growing into the role and becoming somewhat fluid and fluent in film acting at that time. There’d been a nervousness even though I wasn’t green-around-the-gills, I’d never done it week after week, as it were, and then got to see what it looked like eight or ten days after that. I think there was a certain confidence that was building around the end of the first season.

In terms of the show, we never got stronger than Season Four. We had new blood running the show with Manny Coto – not to do any disservice to Brannon and Mr. Berman, God knows what they did in television history is unparalleled and will always be. They wrote four hit shows on a variation of a theme. We did twenty-six episodes our first two years. That’s just extraordinary! To keep it remotely fresh… I don’t know how they did it. I know it took its toll on Brannon, and that’s why he stepped aside by Season Four; he was just burned.

And God bless Manny – he came on board as a staff writer about halfway through the Xindi arc in Season Three. I remember his first script; I finished reading it and went, “That’s bloody good!” I looked at the cover and saw ‘Manny Coto’, I hadn’t seen that name. I rang his office at the writers building and just wanted to say “Well done, man. That’s really very good.” He was a huge Star Trek fan as a kid. From what I understand from the fans, he tied up a lot of loose ends and made sense of a lot of some … they took some liberties, I think, during the first three years, about certain lore of Star Trek, actual, factual eventualities in the storyline, and I believe he tied it all up neatly with a big bow and went “Tra-laa!” and they loved it.

It’s too bad; politics took it down at the end, it was nothing to do with the fact that we were flagging; in fact, we were gaining momentum. Our network was in disarray, and you know, they did a deal with Warner Brothers and CBS did a deal, and turned [UPN] into The CW, which was no breeding ground for our show… and that was that.

Our thanks to Dominic and CBS for making the interview possible. Season One of Star Trek: Enterprise is now available to buy on Blu-ray and features interviews with Dominic, Connor Trinneer (Trip) and Scott Bakula (Archer) as well as a whole array of writers, producers and creative staff who made the show possible. Order the set through the links below and help support TrekCore!

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TNG S3 Blus: David Rappaport “The Most Toys” Footage Will Be Included

Blu-ray (TNG)

TrekCore Archives

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March 31, 2013

13

TNG S3 Blus: David Rappaport “The Most Toys” Footage Will Be Included

When the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Most Toys” was first produced in 1990, British actor David Rappaport was cast in the role of collector Kivas Fajo. Rappaport attempted suicide over the weekend after a few days of filming were completed. Director of the episode, Timothy Bond stated, “[T]here was a story going around that they had found him in his car with a tube running from the exhaust. Obviously I had to replace him.”

The part was subsequently hurriedly recast, and actor Saul Rubinek was chosen to portray the character of Fajo. Rappaport later attempted suicide again and was successful, dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on May 2, 1990 – just three days before “The Most Toys” aired.

At yesterday’s Wondercon Convention in Anaheim, California, the Blu-ray team (consisting of Mike & Denise Okuda, Brannon Braga and VAM producers Roger Lay, Jr. and Robert Meyer Burnett) were out in force to discuss the upcoming release of TNG Season 3. TrekCore’s Tom Bateman was there at the scene to bring us full coverage and shot some great footage. Among the goodies was the news that Robert Meyer Burnett and Roger Lay, Jr. have pieced together original film found from Rappaport’s appearance and edited it into several scenes which will be included on the Season 3 Blu-ray collection. You can watch the announcement in full through the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA_Ll-9Xics

This is the first time this footage will have been seen by fans after being buried away in Paramount’s vaults for over two decades. Talking to Robert Meyer Burnett some time ago, he mentioned how honored and privileged he felt to be able to handle the footage and edit it together with care and respect. The result is truly astounding – Rappaport gives a far different interpretation of Fajo than Rubinek, lending an eerily sinister air to the character which was absent in the final version.

We can confirm that the piece is included on the same disc that features “The Most Toys” and is dedicated to the memory of David Rappaport. Robert, Roger and the team at CBS are to be commended for pursuing this footage and ensuring it can finally be seen by fans. It’s a poignant piece given the back-story, but a pleasure to watch.

We’ll have more coverage of the Wondercon Panel soon, so stay tuned! In the meantime, feel free to let us know what you think about the inclusion of the Rappaport footage on the Season 3 Blu-rays, and if you haven’t already – lock in your order for Season 3 using the links below!

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Enterprise S1 Blu-ray: Best Buy Retailer Exclusive VAM

Blu-ray (ENT)

TrekCore Archives

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March 28, 2013

42

Enterprise S1 Blu-ray: Best Buy Retailer Exclusive VAM

This week saw the release of Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1 on Blu-ray in the United States and Canada (international releases will follow with Germany scheduled for today and the UK getting the set on April 1st). As we stated in our recent review of the set, the new Blu-rays come crammed full of newly created bonus material with a wide array of documentaries, commentaries and features available on the set; However – it turns out that there is some additional content floating around that is being offered as a retailer exclusive for those fans who buy the set at U.S. store Best Buy.

Shuttlepod One: Declassified – Review

The exclusive material is a 15-minute retrospective documentary on the fan-favorite Season One episode “Shuttlepod One“. The piece features new interviews with the episode’s co-writer Brannon Braga, director David Livingston as well as Connor Trinneer (Trip) and Dominic Keating (Malcolm) in a unique joint interview. There are some really nice stories presented here as Brannon recalls how the bottle show was meant to save money but ended up giving the studio a big bill for refrigerating the shuttlepod so the actors’ breath could be seen on-camera. Yet again, I applaud the choice to feature multiple people in interviews – putting Trinneer and Keating together lets us get a taste of the genuine friendship that has developed between both actors and hear their memories of the episode as they take a trip down memory lane together. I understand Roger Lay, Jr. and Robert Meyer Burnett are planning many more of these group interview setups for both Next Generation and Enterprise which I’m thrilled about. Roger and Robert actually headed out to Fresno, California for the Shuttlepod One feature, visiting the new home of the original shuttle in some dude’s garage. The footage from their visit is presented here – it’s cool to see, although I couldn’t help but wish this beautiful piece of craftsmanship had been preserved in a more public setting so fans could appreciate it – sentiments that I’m sure are echoed by the creative and design staff who worked on the show.

Fans who buy the set from Best Buy will not find the documentary on the Blu-ray itself, but rather as an online streaming/downloadable video accessible through Best Buy’s Cinema Now content service. Sets have a unique access code which is then entered into the website so you can view the video.

A further note – as one of our readers points out, the bonus material presented through Best Buy’s Cinema Now service is encoded rather poorly and certainly doesn’t reflect the high production values of the VAM team. It seems rather pointless to put out these stunning quality Blu-rays but then have poorly encoded low resolution VAM presented online. This really needs looking at carefully if CBS decides to pursue retailer exclusive VAM for future releases.

Availability in Germany

Luckily, fans in Germany will also be able to access this content (regardless of which store you purchase the Blu-rays from). The German release of Star Trek: Enterprise Season One has a special unique access code included with the set which you can enter at the official German Star Trek site, www.startrek.de/vam. At the time of writing this article, the video is not yet accessible but a message informs fans that it is coming very soon.

The Unwelcome Return to Retailer Exclusives

I’m not going to mince words – I hate retailer exclusives. So do all consumers. On numerous occasions, CBS have stated that this new wave of Star Trek Blu-ray releases will be the ultimate collection for fans and allow us to throw away our DVDs because they will have everything. Now all of a sudden that’s not the case, we have a two-tier system which forces the majority of fans to miss out based on their geographical location or store preferences.

Germany is apparently the exception to the rule for international availability. On contacting Paramount in the UK, they advised there were “no plans” for the special edition release. We’re yet to hear back from Paramount in Australia, however from what we understand it would appear unlikely that the feature will be included.

More Retailer Exclusives Planned: TNG Season 3

Rather than being an isolated special, we understand that CBS are also planning a Best Buy retailer exclusive for the April release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season Three on Blu-ray. Sadly the feature chosen for this release is one fans have been particularly looking forward to seeing – the original CG tests done for TNG back in the 1980s. This material was first mentioned by Robert Meyer Burnett in our exclusive interview back in January:

I’ll tell you one of the things we’ve found that is pretty exciting – we haven’t used it yet – when The Next Generation was first talked about, they had to figure out how they were going to do the visual effects. There was talk at the time – this was just a couple of years after The Last Starfighter, when they did all those space visual effects – that there was talk about going all-CG. In 1987.

Various effects houses did a sort of bake-off, where they were given some footage from Star Trek III to do transporters and phaser fire… then they were asked to do CG models of the Enterprise. So we have these tests that these various effects companies did of visual effects – what the visual effects would have looked like had they been all CG. Ultimately, they were a little, uh, crude – to say the least – so they opted not to go that route, and they opted to go with models and motion control, THANK GOD, but we have this footage, and we’re going to use it on one of the subsequent releases. We don’t know when, because it’s not season-specific, but it’s crazy to have! It’s just something that was on a tape, Angelo found a box with tapes in it, we looked at the tapes, and there was this footage.

When we first spoke to Robert Meyer Burnett several months ago before the Best Buy exclusives were planned, he mentioned that budget for VAM was already very tight. At the time, the “Best of Both Worlds” disc had not been formally announced so we decided not to include these comments. However, they take on a new pertinence in the wake of the news about retailer exclusives.

On both TNG and ENTERPRISE, Roger and I have stretched our budgets far, FAR beyond what they can accommodate in terms of content. Frankly, because we’re fanatics, we’re basically taking dollars out of our own pockets to create more and better VAM. As far as TNGS3 was concerned, I just DECIDED to make the documentary 90 minutes instead of 60. I asked Roger and he agreed. Ira Behr’s interview was so compelling, and he only worked one season on TNG, we both felt we had to use as much of it as we could, so we needed that extra 30 minutes. But what people must understand is…each MINUTE of VAM has a dollar value associated with. There’s only a finite amount of money budgeted for each title. There simply isn’t any more. We’re given a set budget for each season and are expected to work within that budget. To go over is unprofessional in the extreme. And if you read between the lines, you can see CBS has gone way, WAY above and beyond to accommodate the VAM. Way, WAY beyond…

Now…when the decision was made to create the BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Movie for the Fathom Event, and then CBS wisely decided to make that a stand-alone release available to hopefully attract new customers, suddenly there’s a new budget, and money allocated to create a product which didn’t previously exist. So Roger and I jump all over that and CBS gave us a budget which allowed us to create a new commentary and half-hour documentary which wouldn’t otherwise exist. Which adds to the overall value of the single-disc BEST OF BOTH WORLDS movie. Fans need to understand nothing was taken away from the individual season discs…because the BOBW doc wasn’t a part of that. Our Season Three VAM is absolutely the best we could have possibly done with our budget. CBS could have decided to release a vanilla BOBW disc, but we’re like… HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! Can we do some more VAM? To CBS’s credit, they agreed… but I’m sure someone was thinking…, “Those fuckin’ guys… don’t they ever stop?” Well… no… we don’t.”

It seems likely that the new retailer exclusives were commissioned and funded by Best Buy so they would seemingly not have been produced without this sort of arrangement.

Still, the key issue here is availability. CBS have been incredibly visionary and consumer-oriented with the Star Trek Blu-ray releases so far, but by essentially restricting access to this VAM to certain countries they risk alienating the international fanbase. We sincerely hope that CBS will think carefully about international access to this material – it is somewhat unfair to exclude huge numbers of loyal paying customers from accessing material based purely on the fact that they live in a country that doesn’t have Best Buy. We will of course keep you updated if availability of these special features changes.

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EXCLUSIVE: Extended workprint cut of TNG’s S2 opener “The Child”

Star Trek: The Next Generation

TrekCore Staff

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March 27, 2013

16

Earlier this month, TrekCore was excited to share an exclusive look at a workprint copy of “The Wounded”, featuring several minutes of scenes cut from the finished episode – and today we’re continuing our exclusive workprint series with a look back at “The Child“, the Season Two premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation!


The original VHS tapes, generously shared with TrekCore by Cyril “Patchou” Paciullo

This tape of “The Child” is dated October 6, 1988, and like the other VHS recordings in this series, it contains an early, unfinished copy of the episode, with missing visual effects, music, and voice-over audio.

Workprint vs. Finished Episode

In addition to several scenes featuring alternate takes and camera angles, this “1st Cut” also includes nearly four minutes of additional scenes cut from the broadcast version of the episode!

We’ve been provided a copy of the original VHS transfer, and we’re happy to share an exclusive cut-down package highlighting the six most prominent deleted scenes – in proper context with the finished episode – along with a scene-by-scene breakdown!

	*ACT TWO, SCENES 31 – 32* Our take: “Soon you’ll arrive, and so many questions will be answered.” A terrible line and a fairly poor delivery by Marina Sirtis makes this small scene jump right onto the cutting room floor.
	*ACT TWO, SCENE 34* Our take: The opening segment of this scene was used underneath a Captain’s Log voiceover in the final version of the episode, and for good reason – whether it can be blamed on the scripted lines or the performance of actor Seymour Cassel as medical specialist Hester Dealt, this conversation is really unbearable to watch.
	*ACT TWO, SCENES 42 – 44* Our take: The first segment cut from Troi’s birth scene features Pulaski revealing Ian Andrew Troi’s birth weight and gender. These are standard childbirth scene tropes, but just how did she measure the weight of the baby with her bare hands anyhow? Picard’s congratulations in the second restoration pulls the viewer right out of the emotional moment… and it’s certainly strange that he doesn’t even ask if there’s anything weird going on with the mysterious alien space baby! The final cut – Riker’s dismissal of Worf – is just a bit of unneeded, duplicated dialogue, since Pulaski already told him that “it’s just a baby”.
	*ACT THREE, SCENE 53* Our take: It’s a true novelty to hear Data refer to himself by his full name of record, but this scene does nothing but hold up the story while we wait around for him to assert his command authority. Jumping right to the computer’s approval is a much cleaner edit, and it also eliminates the terrible camera angle looking right up Colm Meaney’s nose. “NFN NMI Data” refers to his lack of first name and middle initial, seen listed on both his Starfleet Academy diploma and his classified schematics in “The Measure of a Man”; this is the only time we’ve heard it said aloud.
	*ACT THREE, SCENE 59* Our take: This short sequence of Ian dumping his lemonade is something we wish could have stayed in the episode – this “experience” shows the entity acting like a curious child, something missing from much of the episode.
	*ACT FOUR, SCENE 76* Our take: Removing this short scene of Wesley arriving at the bridge allows the ensign’s story to lead right from his conversation with Guinan into his discussion with Picard requesting to stay on board the ship – a good adjustment.

One small update to our earlier report: A VHS tape which was labeled “Where Silence Has Lease” turns out to have been mislabeled during the show’s production; it contains a second, near-finished copy of “The Child”, missing the deleted scenes we’ve highlighted above.

Stay tuned to TrekCore as there are still several more Next Generation workprint recordings to come, and we’re excited to begin our research to discover what hidden gems the tapes may include! What do you think about the additional material discovered from “The Child”? Let us know in the comments below!

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Dominic Keating: The Interview

Shuttlepod One: Declassified – Review

Availability in Germany

The Unwelcome Return to Retailer Exclusives

More Retailer Exclusives Planned: TNG Season 3

Workprint vs. Finished Episode