Why was the 2-foot model built?

[jimbotron]

Colors aside, it was a welcome reminder from the show. That's my favorite shot of the Enterprise.

Of course, that wasn't the only recycled TNG shot used in Generations. They also reused the saucer separation shot, the one looking up as the saucer detaches.

That particular shot, BTW, seemed to be unavailable when it came time for TNG HD. They had to recreate it with CGI. I wonder if the shot got lost after it was pulled from storage. I hope they find it in time for BOBW2.

[Tiberius]

Xerxes1979 wrote:

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Can't you just scale a large model shot smaller in post production(I am guessing you could but it would take time and most likely look bad)?

Not really. You can certainly have the camera close to the model, but in order to get it all in you'll need to use a wide angle lens.

For example, let's say we have a shot of the E-D coming straight for the camera. If you are close, you need a wide angle lens or most of the ship will be out of frame. So you use a wide angle lens. But that makes the nacelles at the back look heaps far away from the saucer. To avoid this, you need to move the camera back. But if you have a really big model, you need to move the camera back a long way. Sometimes the mechanics that move the camera can't reach back that far, and sometimes you just don't have a studio big enough. But if you have a small model of the ship, it's easier to do.

What about movies like ROTJ? All the distance shots during the battle of Endor were done with small models or was ILM's shooting stage that big?

I;d say they used small models. After all, when the tie fighters were that small on the screen, you'd never notice that they were lacking in detail.

What about the distance shot of the Enterprise in TMP flying over V'ger from above? The TMP model was huge and massive.

Same again. They prob built a tiny little Enterprise for that shot.

Similarly, when they did all those ships in the fleets in DS9, they used little plastic model kits and even the Christmas tree decorations for those shots. Sure they were small and poorly detailed, but considering that they were very small in the frame, you never saw their flaws.

[Tiberius]

Christopher wrote:

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My understanding has always been that only the 6-footer could separate the saucer. That's why they stopped using the saucer-sep maneuver in the show -- because the 6-footer was too unwieldy to work with, and it was the only separable one they had.

*Nods* When they pulled it out to shoot the sep sequence for Generations, it hadn't been used in a long time.

[jimbotron]

Tiberius wrote:

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Same again. They prob built a tiny little Enterprise for that shot.

That's right. Apogee built a one-foot model for shots where they needed the Enterprise tiny.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Cons...on_class_model

After that, ILM used an AMT model for that purpose.

[jimbotron]

Tiberius wrote:

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When they pulled it out to shoot the sep sequence for Generations, it hadn't been used in a long time.

They didn't just use it for the saucer separation. They used it for the whole time (minus the occasional CG shot)

[Mott the barber]

My favorite shot of the 2 footer (and one of my favorite shots of the ship) is the rapid tracking shot of the ship going to warp, first used in EAF to try to escape the Q grid. Doesn't look so hot in Where Silence Has Lease on S2 blu ray, but I'm betting CBS-D will make it lok good again like in EAF.

[Tosk]

jimbotron wrote:

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They used it for the whole time (minus the occasional CG shot)

There's just the one CG Enterprise shot in GEN, I believe. Going to warp after the scene in stellar cartography.