A few weeks ago CBS invited TrekCore to talk with the CBS Digital team responsible for the wondrous restoration and remastering of Star Trek: The Next Generation in high definition. Craig Weiss and his team were very generous with their time and answered a huge number of questions, often very technical in nature. I hope you enjoy the resulting interview and leave with a greater understanding and appreciation for the monumental effort that this project represents, and of the wonderfully talented people who are working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to make it happen. Feel free, as usual, to leave comments and questions below.

CBS Digital: TNG Remastered Interview, Part 5

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

TrekCore: A lot of questions have commented on the different models of the Enterprise that have been used. The 4-foot model was brought in later on in the show and is quite maligned by fans. Fans are asking if you can replace the 4-foot, or if Sarah could conveniently lose the footage?!

Laughter

Eric Bruno: There are actually three main models that they originally used. There’s obviously the 6-foot model which seems to be the popular one, the 4-foot model which is a little more stocky and has a lot more relief on it, and there’s also the 2-foot model which is used on several occasions as well. As Craig just mentioned, our goal is to stay as true to the original as possible even if the models don’t match each other 100 per cent. If the film is there, and it’s good, we’ll use it – there’s no reason to replace or edit it, it’s not the objective of this project.

Craig Weiss: So, maybe if the fans want it… when we go to 4K we’ll do that!

The much-maligned 4-foot model has already been seen in the blu-rays when Season 5’s ‘The Inner Light‘ was released on the sampler disc back in January 2012. As Eric Bruno explains, CBS Digital’s goal is to stay as “true to the original as possible”, which means we’ll be seeing a lot more of the 4-footer!

TrekCore: How much of the alterations or additions to the original film are known in advance from the notes that the Okudas provide for you? How much is decided during the actual process, spontaneously?

Craig Weiss: It happens kinda like this, the Okudas go through a lengthy break-down process. So, ahead of [each] episode they do a lengthy break-down – they break down each shot and give notes on each shot. And at that point, they’ll make notes in there whether something like… whether stars are going incorrectly for example, which they’d like to see fixed. There are some times when we’re in our review session where something might come up and we ask for it be addressed. For the most part, a lot of this happens in the break-downs before we start the work.

Eric Bruno: There are occasionally times when an individual artist will see something, will have a question, will ask that question – should we fix it, should we not fix it – and that answer will come from the Okudas.

TrekCore: Sarah and Wendy, do you sometimes stumble across deleted scenes or bloopers or outtakes when you’re going through the boxes, or has that material all been destroyed?

Wendy Ruiz: It’s not been destroyed. It’s just hard to identify it. There’s nothing really labelling it as an outtake or blooper. We have some notes, but not many, and when we do find notes for what we can clearly figure out to be a blooper or an outtake, we set them aside for the blu-rays.

TrekCore: So there is a chance that those will be coming on future sets?

Wendy Ruiz: That’s our hope, yes!

TrekCore: Can you tell us any more?

Wendy Ruiz: We’re barely starting our search now for Season 3 bloopers and outtakes. If we find stuff, and if it’s interesting enough, then we’ll use if hopefully.

TrekCore: Do you know if CBS are happy with the sales figures from Season 1? Is it giving them good grounds to consider remastering future Star Trek series?

Craig Weiss: We’re not privy to the sales numbers, but I know that the company has been very happy with the product and the response that they’ve got from people like you and all the different fans has been very supportive and you’re genuinely thrilled with the quality and the effort that the company has put in to making this happen. It took so many years to get this off the ground, because nobody thought that anybody could even put that amount of work in to make this happen. But [CBS] got behind it and decided that it’s such an important franchise that they had to find a way to do it. Overall it’s been a big success for everybody.

TrekCore: In the ‘Twilight Zone’ blu-rays, every episode was equipped with a separate isolated audio track for the score, the music. Is that something that is possible for you to do, or would you consider doing that in the future for TNG?

Craig Weiss: That’s interesting. Anything is possible, I don’t know what the plans would be in terms of specs or anything.

Wendy Ruiz: I haven’t heard anyone discuss it, but audio is one of the areas that we don’t really touch very much. But I’m sure if the fans started bringing up an interest, maybe we could… We’ll forward [the suggestion] on, and see if we can!

Craig Weiss: The one thing about Star Trek, and the company [CBS] is that they listen to the fans. [The Fans] also have a huge voice in this. So, they are very influential – so I’m sure if the fans … like, if the fans really wanted Deep Space Nine as a blu-ray release, the company would really look at that and take it into consideration. In this franchise, the fans really drive a lot of what happens.

TrekCore: I think that’s what’s more surprising. I know there was a large demand after Season 1 asking if future seasons were going to get audio commentaries, and now CBS are indeed doing those for Season 2. This is great to see – how much the feedback process is influencing the blu-rays, and how much CBS are taking on board.

Craig Weiss: Absolutely. That’s why the fans are so important. For future shows like Deep Space Nine, if [the fans] start lighting up those message boards that they’re so thrilled with this product and would love to see that, then the company starts to really listen to that.

If CBS are to take the plunge through the wormhole and green-light a Deep Space Nine remastering into HD, Craig Weiss urges fans to start lighting up the message boards to show our interest – that’s when CBS “starts to really listen”

TrekCore: Winding up with some questions for everybody. What have been your best and worst moments on the project so far?

Craig Weiss: Ahh. The best moment is when we said “Yes, we’ll do it” and the worst moment is when we said “Yes, we’ll do it”!

Laughter

Craig Weiss: Honestly, for me, there’s been no real worst moment. Even with all the headaches and struggles, it’s such a joy. What makes this project unique is when you watched it 25 years ago… and everyone in this room grew up with standard definition television and before the digital era it was a snowy picture and bad colors, and then all of a sudden high-def came along and we thought ‘Wow, high-def is such a great picture’… and then we personally started scanning the film and seeing the results, it was really like seeing it again for the first time. So, whatever headaches we’ve encountered in terms of technical problems or hurdles we’ve had to go through – the finish line, and the picture, and what we’ve been working on makes that all go away and makes it all worth it and makes you want to keep going.

TrekCore: So what have been your biggest challenges?

Wendy Ruiz: Keeping it on schedule! It’s a very tight schedule, trying to get it delivered on time, and having the time to find these missing elements. We keep searching until the very last second until they tell us ‘send it down, you’ve gotta deliver this now’. So that’s the biggest challenge, trying to deliver on time.

Sarah Paul: Yes, finding the elements. My best moment was finding those 13 seconds [from ‘Sins of the Father’].

Eric Bruno: The challenging moments are when you come across a shot … like the opening title sequence of the show… 30 layers of an element and you have no idea how those 30 layers are supposed to go together. You just have to power through, and figure out in the end how those 30 layers were used. It is challenging, but when you watch the finished shot, when you watch it on the big screen – you realise you’re part of this iconic show. It doesn’t get much more satisfying than that.

A full breakdown of one of the most complicated visual effects shots from Season 1 – the Enterprise’s arrival at Starbase 74 from ‘11001001‘. A large number of different layers had to be assembled to produce the final shot and Eric Bruno and the CBS Digital team had to figure out how all the layers fit together.

TrekCore: So my only bone to pick with you guys is why you don’t credit yourselves in the end titles?

Craig Weiss: Oh I wish we could. I think it’s just a legal issue because … ya know, we would love to, but that’s why we reach out to people like you to spread the word and give us that due credit.

Eric Bruno: We wish we could have done with the Original Series too…

Craig Weiss: Yeah, we wish we could have done the Original. So, yeah – thank you I appreciate that, and we wish we could, but unfortunately we can’t.

TrekCore: The fan feedback we’ve been getting for this project is truly unprecedented. Hundreds of emails congratulating everyone on the amazing job you did with Season 1…

Craig Weiss: Well thank you. I know they have some really amazing stuff coming up. The one thing they are truly committed to is all the extras and VAM – the Value Added Material – when it comes out each season, they’ve got something planned. This blu-ray set will not disappoint for sure.

TrekCore: Can you tease us with any future developments in future seasons?

Craig Weiss: You know, I know that they’ve announced on Season 2 they’re doing the cast reunion. They got everybody together in the same room to talk about the show. That’s been talked about. Beyond that, I think they’re developing it as we speak. We get that information as we get closer to building the blu-ray discs. As of right now, I think you pretty much know what we know. That’s where we’re at!

TrekCore: Well I’d like to thank you all for your time, it’s been a pleasure to speak to everyone.

Bruce Golin: Thanks, Adam – come and visit us soon!

The CBS Digital team behind remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation (from left to right):
Tony Graf, Chris Payne, Loren Bivens, Eric Bruno, Niel Wray, Craig Weiss, Chris Tezber,
Max Gabl, Jimmy Berndt, Sarah Paul, Wendy Ruiz, Janice Lee, Mary Joy Macalintal

Go to Part: 1 2 3 4 5

	Order TNG - "The Best of Both Worlds" Feature Blu-Ray today!		Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Blu-Ray today!

A few weeks ago CBS invited TrekCore to talk with the CBS Digital team responsible for the wondrous restoration and remastering of Star Trek: The Next Generation in high definition. Craig Weiss and his team were very generous with their time and answered a huge number of questions, often very technical in nature. I hope you enjoy the resulting interview and leave with a greater understanding and appreciation for the monumental effort that this project represents, and of the wonderfully talented people who are working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to make it happen. Feel free, as usual, to leave comments and questions below.

CBS Digital: TNG Remastered Interview, Part 4

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

TrekCore: So, you mentioned Craig that you have two separate effects houses working on the show now. How does that affect the continuity of the effects shots – do you find that they are different from season to season?

Craig Weiss: I don’t think so. Really, Mike and Denise Okuda – who are the eyes and ears of the fans – are the ones who are overseeing the consistency of the look. They sit in on all of the reviews and approve all the shots because of their history with the franchise and the fanbase. It’s really Mike and Denise who keep the consistency from season to season historically accurate and what they feel is aesthetically important. That’s pretty much how we keep the consistency.

TrekCore: Do you collaborate at all with the other team, or is it independent?

Craig Weiss: It’s relatively independent. But we do collaborate on sharing elements and stuff. Sometimes we might have a film plate that they need and vice-versa, so we share that. But for the most part it’s their artists working on that season, and us here. We don’t have our guys over there and vice-versa, it’s pretty separate. It’s due to – it was a staggering schedule in terms of delivery – so there’s absolutely no way… we would have loved to have kept that here, but due to the schedule it was just impossible.

TrekCore: So at CBS Digital you’re working on the third season now?

Craig Weiss: Yes, we’re probably more than half way – three quarters of the way through the third season.

TrekCore: If I ask ‘What episode are you working on at the moment’, is that a redundant question? Are you working on multiple elements from different episodes at the same time?

Craig Weiss: Yes. What happens is – everything gets transferred. We do work in a kind of linear fashion, but we have multiple episodes up in the air at the same time based on – just to keep the work flow going, as we might be waiting on one episode for elements, we’ll jump to the next one. We have five-six episodes up in the air at any one time.

TrekCore: Are you finding Season 3 more technically different than the first season?

Eric Bruno: Yes! They definitely upped their game with this season. Many more ships, more complex ship moves, more complex alien transporters, more complex alien phasers, lasers, explosions – you name it. They hit their stride in Season 3 as far as that’s concerned, and they were definitely pushing the envelope. While Season 3 may have a smaller number of visual effects shots compared to Season 1, the complexity is such that it’s taking us more time to finish them because they were top of their game back then.

Some of the smallest elements can be taken for granted, such as Q’s floating head in this famous scene from ‘Déjà Q‘. It’s Sarah Paul’s job to track down every piece of film which often proves difficult if it is so small.

TrekCore: For Sarah – even the smallest elements that we may take for granted… I heard it mentioned you had trouble locating the image of Q floating in the cigar smoke from ‘Déjà Q’ – one would tend not to even think of that as a separate piece of film. How difficult is it piecing all these parts together when they are all separated?

Sarah Paul: Something like that, I think back then was an afterthought. After they got in the editing room, after they shot the episode. Something like that, I actually found it in second unit mixed in three episodes down. So a lot of times, if they get into the editing room and they want to change something, they’ll shoot it a few episodes down and that’s when it becomes difficult. For the most part, it’s all within the episode, the footage that we need.

TrekCore: Have you had any moments in Season 3 when you’re thinking ‘Oh my God, I can’t find this piece of crucial footage, what am I going to do?!’

Sarah Paul: Many times!!! Laughs Many times this season.

TrekCore: How’s it going so far then, what are we looking like in terms of completion?

Sarah Paul: We’re half way through, and we’re 100 per cent. I found them all.

TrekCore: That’s fantastic, Sarah – you’re a genius!

Laughter

Craig Weiss: We’ve nicknamed her ‘The Queen’ because, ya know…

Wendy Ruiz: ‘The Duchess’!

Craig Weiss: Sorry, Wendy’s ‘The Queen’! ‘The Duchess’ because she’s just been really great at … she’s going to be a detective in her next life.

TrekCore: Would you be able to talk us through the [blue screen keying] process that you use for blue screen shots? It’s obviously come a long way from the 80s, it’s a lot more precise and accurate. How does it work, and how easy is it now?

Eric Bruno: My understanding is in the show, what was originally being done for the first couple of seasons, they actually sent out the blue screens to get optical mattes created – this is coming from Don Greenberg – one of our artists, who was one of the original artists on the show. As the seasons went on, the technology caught up and they started using machines like the Harry and whatnot, they could actually pull digital keys. Keying has moved on tremendously since the show first began. When the show first began they were doing optical keys and eventually they were using early digital keyers. What we can do now – we have so many tools that, visually there is no excuse not being able to pull a perfect key on any given shot.

A full breakdown of the blue screen keying process which is used for blue screen shots such as this bridge viewscreen shot, from effect 058 on episode 20, ‘Heart of Glory‘

Craig Weiss: Some of the things we’re able to do now that we weren’t able to do back then is the way we handle the edges with blur and recreating grain and stuff that they couldn’t do. We’re able to get a much more like-for-like composite than they could back then. They really didn’t have the ability to finesse the edges and have all the different buttons to push that we do now.

Eric Bruno: We can pull out really really fine details, we can remove blue spill and green spill much more effectively and we can add interactive lighting on the edges of the mattes – on the edges of the hair, whatever objects we are keying, and really integrate them into the scene so that it’s virtually seamless. Obviously the technology back then was still emerging so they didn’t have the ability to do that.

TrekCore: With regards to the grain, it was such a refreshing change to see something which wasn’t digitally scrubbed away which has been the case in many cinematic blu-ray releases. Do you have to physically add the grain when you’re creating new digital effects? Does it have to be superimposed over the new effects?

Eric Bruno: Yes. Whenever there’s a digitally created object, whether it be [one of] Max’s matte paintings, or something from Niel and his team, we have to match the grain of the production footage. And we have to match it so it’s virtually identical so it has the exact same texture in both shots.

The iconic scene of the Batris exploding from Season 1’s ‘Heart of Glory‘ appeared in the Season 1 blu-ray trailer. Craig Weiss explains that the explosion we saw in that trailer was just a temp (left), and was replaced with a far more authentic version in the final blu-ray release (right).

TrekCore: For Craig – what kind of artistic license do you have with this project? We understand the remit is very different from the Original Series remastering. For example, in the Season 1 trailer there is a ‘modern’-style explosion effect shown for the exploding Batris and then you went back closer to the original effects when the blu-rays came out and toned it down. Are these artistic choices on your part, or is it Mike & Denise’s comments taking effect?

Craig Weiss: The actual explosion that you saw was a temp, because at that time we didn’t have the actual explosion. Hence the difference with what made it back into the blu-ray. But just philosophically speaking about this project, unlike the Original Series where a lot of the original elements had to be recreated because they didn’t exist and wouldn’t hold up, everything in this project is blueprinted and shot on film. Every ship shot, every layer… so it was really the goal to not just make this an extraordinary picture in terms of quality, but to stay faithful to the original show and to the details. There are certain things that have been changed here and there where there were probably mistakes back then, and they didn’t catch them. We have the ability to go back in and, again – the goal is to keep it the same but make it better where we can without changing the artistic integrity. So, we’ve been extremely faithful because we felt that’s what this deserved and [that the show] was really kind of perfect from the beginning. We just wanted to bring it to a level of quality that really blew people away.

Go to Part: 1 2 3 4 5

	Order TNG - "The Best of Both Worlds" Feature Blu-Ray today!		Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Blu-Ray today!

A few weeks ago CBS invited TrekCore to talk with the CBS Digital team responsible for the wondrous restoration and remastering of Star Trek: The Next Generation in high definition. Craig Weiss and his team were very generous with their time and answered a huge number of questions, often very technical in nature. I hope you enjoy the resulting interview and leave with a greater understanding and appreciation for the monumental effort that this project represents, and of the wonderfully talented people who are working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to make it happen. Feel free, as usual, to leave comments and questions below.

CBS Digital: TNG Remastered Interview, Part 3

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

TrekCore: Do you find that moving between the different seasons, there are different technical challenges? Is there a different film stock used for different seasons?

Wendy Ruiz: The quality of the film does change a little bit between Season 1 and Season 3. In Season 1 the material generally had a lot more grain (and it was a different DP) than we are noticing now in Season 3. So far, for Season 3 [the film has] been in a lot better condition than Season 1.

Craig Weiss: I can’t speak specifically, but I know they did change film-stocks – they got better, because when they used the higher ASA [film speed] stocks, if they didn’t have enough light it would get grainy. And I know as time went on, the stocks got better which reduced the amount of grain – as Wendy was saying – and the color looks better, and it improves throughout the seasons.

TrekCore: So we can look forward to future seasons being even better quality than the first season?

Craig Weiss: Yes

Between seasons, the film stock often changed resulting in differing grain textures and overall appearance. Season 1 (left – ‘The Neutral Zone‘) has a vibrant, almost glossy look compared to Season 2 (right – ‘Q Who‘) which is quite matte and more cinematic.

TrekCore: How often is the color correction applied? Do you have a fixed calibration that you use? Or is it different from dark and bright scenes? Are scenes individually adjusted based on their exposure?

Wendy Ruiz: All of the above. We do apply definite color correction to every single episode. We spend anywhere from … I want to say 2 to 3 days… on color correction alone. Again, trying to stay true to the story, the scene, whether it’s a darker episode, whether it’s a brighter happier episode. The bridge we’re trying to maintain consistent color throughout. As far as individual scenes, it depends on which episode it is. If it’s a darker mood, then we honor that.

Eric Bruno: And also our film technicians, for example, always use the chip charts with the film, which are basically color and gray-scale charts which tell you what the color and luminance should be. So that’s always our starting point, to match what the DP’s [Director of Photography] original intention is. And on top of that, as Wendy just mentioned, the mood of the episode, the notes, all that kind of stuff [is taken into account] to get the final color. And often we’ll get an artistic interpretation from one of our artists as well.

Wendy Ruiz: We have Mike and Denise Okuda present, reviewing every single episode. They give us guidance – especially story-wise, to make sure we are true to the story.

TrekCore: Once the whole project is finished, presumably there’s going to be a lot more uniformity between the episodes, rather than – at the moment on the DVDs – some episodes are completely washed out, some are oversaturated, some have a weird hue to them…

Wendy Ruiz: That’s what we’re hoping for, yes.

Eric Bruno: I can speak from the visual effects side, with the ship shots. My goal is to keep as much consistency between the ships as possible except when story tells you otherwise.

TrekCore: Moving on to the new [planet] effects, a question for Max Gabl. We’re assuming the effects are done in the pixel domain – what’s the preferred resolution you are working with?

Max Gabl: We’re trying to keep it all in HD, 1920 by 1080 and then we’re cropping on both sides. Unless there’s a planet where we have several angles, you know – the same planet, where several sections are shown. I’m trying to cover the whole thing, and then I render one planet in high resolution and cut out whatever is needed. But most of the time with these direct shots, it’s all HD.

TrekCore: I know we saw a few of the preview images from Season 1 which appeared to be in a widescreen aspect ratio. Do you render in widescreen?

Max Gabl: Yes, I render them in 16:9 widescreen HD. Even though we’re going to crop them on both sides to 4:3, it never hurts to have a little more to use, we can move left or right and do a little adjustment.

Most of the Season 1 planets (including Delphi Ardu IV, above) were recreated in CG by Max Gabl. Max renders his planets in 16:9 widescreen HD. They are then cropped to fit the scene.

TrekCore: Apart from the pilot episode where you were able to reuse matte paintings from Deneb IV, have all the planets been CG recreations?

Max Gabl: I think most of them are total recreations. Because the planets we’re looking at from the original [TNG] series are very low-res and blurry. There’s no way to put more detail into those, so it’s basically all recreation. Mike Okuda tells us exactly what we need in there, and it’s just back and forth – playing it and seeing what the details are going to look like and then I put them in, compare with the old, [Mike will] look at it, I’ll make the changes and that’s how it goes.

TrekCore: Do you have a personal favorite you’ve made so far?

Max Gabl: Not really, I mean – I like most of them. I don’t have a personal favorite. Maybe Vulcan, that’s a nice one to do – it’s a famous planet, so there are expectations and I put in a lot more detail, and that’s one I really enjoyed doing.

TrekCore: Do you make complete maps of the planet, or do you just make a map of the side we will see on the screen?

Max Gabl: They are all rendered in 3D, I use a 3D application. I put the textures around a 3D sphere that rotates, then add an extra layer for clouds that also rotates at a different speed. They are all coming out in 3D now. Once the textures are around the planet, I do a test view, and then change the lighting, a lot of tweaks. So that’s all in 3D now.

TrekCore: With regards to matte paintings of planet surfaces and other shots, do they always hold up in high definition or do they sometimes have to be enhanced so you have to make them look less like two-dimensional paintings?

Max Gabl: Sometimes they hold up, but I would say most of the time they need some recreation to be a little more realistic. We add some more detail in.

TrekCore: Do you know if any of the CGI footage that was originally created in The Next Generation has survived. I know you beautifully recreated the Crystalline Entity in Season One, but with regards to the other shots, is that all lost?

Niel Wray: No, nothing.

Wendy Ruiz: No

Niel Wray: Anything which was originally done in CG, we have to recreate in CG.

TrekCore: Are there cases where effects which were made pretty easily back in the 80s and the 90s using practical effects techniques are now more complicated to render using todays CGI?

Niel Wray: In some cases, yes – in some cases, no, but in a lot of cases yes. It’s pretty challenging to recreate some of those original optical elements in CG.

TrekCore: Could you give us a few examples?

Craig Weiss: Any kind of organic elements which were shot…

Niel Wray: Yes, the transporter we had to recreate the elements for that. And that took us a few weeks to recreate those elements. How many layers to that? Yes, there are 3 layers to that.

Eric Bruno: Any of the elements, as Craig mentioned, that are more organic, that are more random … random textures, random chaos, lasers – like the Calamarain – laser aliens… you have lights shooting through smoke with some sort of cloth in front of it with a light on it, you know there are several layers of physical objects they are filming and they are doing camera tricks to it too. To recreate that, as Niel will tell you, is a LOT of work!

TrekCore: So is the only option there CGI recreation, or do you have the option to film those effects using the original practical techniques?

Eric Bruno: Actually, that’s a good question. There is an element…

Wendy Ruiz: Replicator

CBS-Digital found a novel way to recreate the replicator visual effects when they were remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 into HD.

Eric Bruno: Replicator, you know where you make all the food. We were creating that element, and through some research we found out it was basically a tube of water with sparkles in it swirled around. So we went on to our stage and got a big giant vase, filled it with water, bought a bunch of sparkles from a local store and we shot it! That’s what we’re using for all the replicator shots. Our new shot isn’t CG, it’s faithful to how they did it 25 years ago.

TrekCore: That is fantastic – you must do it as a bonus feature, we’d all love to see how that’s done!

Laughter

Go to Part: 1 2 3 4 5

	Order TNG - "The Best of Both Worlds" Feature Blu-Ray today!		Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Blu-Ray today!

A few weeks ago CBS invited TrekCore to talk with the CBS Digital team responsible for the wondrous restoration and remastering of Star Trek: The Next Generation in high definition. Craig Weiss and his team were very generous with their time and answered a huge number of questions, often very technical in nature. I hope you enjoy the resulting interview and leave with a greater understanding and appreciation for the monumental effort that this project represents, and of the wonderfully talented people who are working tirelessly behind-the-scenes to make it happen. Feel free, as usual, to leave comments and questions below.

CBS Digital: TNG Remastered Interview, Part 2

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

TrekCore: How does Season 2 stand up so far, have you managed to track everything down?

Craig Weiss: Season 2 – actually – because they truncated the delivery schedule, Season 2 was handled by another vendor. Basically, Season 2 was handled outside.

TrekCore: I see – so the film itself was handled outside?

Craig Weiss: Yes. For that season, that was done… and the visual effects were handled by Dan Curry and the original group on that one. We were so busy with everything else, that due to the schedule we weren’t going to be able to do both seasons at the same time.

TrekCore: Moving on to when you actually scan the film through. Are all the archive negatives being scanned box-by-box or do you just pick out the bits that made it into the final cuts of the episodes?

Wendy Ruiz: We’re transferring only the film dailies that they used back in the day when they first transferred the film, but they transferred them to 1-inch dailies. We are in turn up-rezzing and cross converting those 1-inch dailies to HD and we’re having our scanners only scan on those 1-inch… now to those HD-D5s that match the picture, so we’re strictly working with what the editors worked with back in their day.

Bruce Golin [CBS Digital Producer]: The challenge initially was that there’s no road-map back to original negative because this show was mastered on videotape. We have EDLs [edit decision lists], we don’t have negative cut lists. So, the reason for uprezzing 1-inch dailies to D5 is to preserve the time code, and to relay some negative in HD back to those upconverted tapes, simply to preserve time code, which is our only reference for assembly.

Wendy Ruiz: We’re trying to cut down on the excess amount of film we’re going through. There’s an excess of 70 boxes per episode, so doing it this way, we kind of save ourselves some time so instead of going through everything, we only go through what we need.

TrekCore: When the film is played back through and captured digitally, what resolution is it captured at? One of the most popular questions we’ve had is ‘are you future-proofing for 4K resolution’?

Craig Weiss: No, at this point we are working in HD. If, in the future, there is a request to go back to 4K or something – at that time we’ll address it. We have – the most important thing – the time code of how the show was mastered, which has been the bulk of trying to figure this out. So we can go back and remaster the film in 4K. Due to just time and the schedule, there would be no way for us to be able to manage that kind of data for an HD release at this point. And nobody really knows what the specs for 4K are going to be, or for 4K televisions. So we decided we didn’t want to scan with today’s technology and then a year from now the specs might be different so we’d have to re-do it, so we decided to just stay within the specs for this Blu-Ray project.

TrekCore: Once you have a full resolution video, what’s the next step in the restoration process? Do you step through the film frame-by-frame touching up the details?

Wendy Ruiz: Once we’ve scanned all the footage, we go to an editor who will conform the picture to match the standard-def that aired on the network. From there, once we’ve conformed, we’ll put together the pieces – any missing items there, we’ll go on the hunt to find any missing material – it will then go on to color correction, where we’ll try to match the notes that we see as to the mood of the show for a given episode. After that, it will go into DRS [Dust Removal System] – dirt removal where it will take off any dust and dirt that are on the show – positive/negative dirt – any additional fixes, any boom microphones that are left in the show, and set pieces that might have been left. We’re removing pieces that had originally been left in during the network release. This time around, we’re catching all those boom mikes, we’re catching all those set pieces that had been left behind and making sure those don’t appear in the [remastered] show.

Dan Curry preferred to shoot at 30 frames per second in the episodes where he was the VFX Supervizor (such as ‘Datalore‘). This posed an extra challenge for lead compositor Eric Bruno…

TrekCore: How are you dealing with some of the miniature photography that was shot at 30 frames per second. What program are you using to convert it to 24 frames? Do you use Autodesk Smoke? Are the results indistinguishable from native 24 fps footage?

Eric Bruno: Yes, the two main VFX supervizors on the show were Dan Curry and Rob Legato. Rob Legato liked to shoot at 24 frames per second and Dan Curry liked to shoot at 30 frames per second. So basically, every other episode, one is 24 one is 30 – for the visual effects. So, yes, we had to – on all the episodes that were shot at 30 by Dan Curry – we had to put a 125% speed up on each of those elements so that they matched the original. We’re using Autodesk Smokeand Flame to do those speedups. For the most part, they are indistinguishable from the original. If and when there are artefacts from the speed-up process, we take them out and clean them up if they are noticeable.

TrekCore: Well this is a whole lot of work which isn’t really appreciated. It’s such a simple issue on paper, but it seems like a lot of work is involved in getting around that.

Eric Bruno: Every other episode is at 30 frames per second. And you’re talking 7 layers per ship, 10 layers for this, 5 layers for that and each one has to be sped up to match the original timing.

TrekCore: If we can move on to reassembling the footage. How long does it take to rescan the film from any given episode?

Sarah Paul: It usually takes a week to do all the production and all the visual effects. A week for each episode. And if you conform the episode, it will take another week.

TrekCore: And with regards to adding in new VFX. How long would it take to, for example, add in a phaser beam to a scene?

Eric Bruno: It really depends on the scene. If it’s a simple phaser that lasts for a second and is going straight, we could knock it out in an hour using Flame. If it’s multiple phasers, maybe an hour and a half. If the light is reflected it may take half a day. It really depends on the scene itself and the complexity of what’s happening.

A full breakdown of the many components which go into creating a CG phaser beam, from effect 056 on episode 20, ‘Heart of Glory‘

TrekCore: So this really gives us a great idea of the amount of time it takes to remaster a given episode. Obviously it’s depending on the amount of visual effects, but half a day for a phaser beam is certainly a lot more than I was expecting. From some of the feedback we’ve had a lot of fans seem to think it’s a job that could be knocked out in half an hour.

Craig Weiss: No

Eric Bruno: Even the simplest phaser scene, by the time you’ve set it up and got all the elements in there… in any visual effects scene, even the easiest shot is an hour on your best day.

Craig Weiss: And another thing that’s really important here – in order to honor and stay faithful to the original material – even something as simple as a phaser beam, the R&D that they put into … because a lot of that was hand-drawn back then and they used different techniques, so we had to spend a lot of R&D time in order to match that. The amount of noise, the color, the look and feel. So something as simple as what would be a phaser beam, there’s a lot of R&D time and work that went into getting the right look and building a system that is consistent throughout. You know, sometimes the simple things are even more difficult because you have to go back and recreate what was originally done, but recreate that same flavor.

A nice breakdown of the different elements which go into creating a phaser beam from effect 056 on episode 20, ‘Heart of Glory‘. As Eric Bruno and Craig Weiss explain, even the simplest phaser shot requires a lot of R&D to get a consistent look throughout the show.

TrekCore: With that in mind, are there any differences between the editing process you’re using with TNG Remastered and a series which would be produced today for television?

Craig Weiss: I think… well most shows today are no longer shot on film, so they’re not transferring film. And, today just in terms of efficiency – everything is shot now with cinematic digital camera. So that stuff comes right out of the camera right to the editor – the efficiency and time it takes to actually edit a show, conform a show, is night and day compared to how it was 25 years ago. We’re kinda having to emulate the way they did it 25 years ago, but if you were to do the same show today it would be a completely different workflow. We wouldn’t shoot models, of course, we’d do CG. So like Eric’s saying – you have 8 layers just for one shot, but if we did it in CG it would be done with one pass, so to speak.

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