STAR TREK: PHASE II "Kitumba" Sneak Peek

Night Shift? In deep space? Isn't that sort of like "up" and "down" in deep space, that is, arbitrary?

And yes, I have TWO comedy videos on my website entitled, Night Shift, but that's COMEDY.

 

Saw the preview of "Kitumba" on James's Facebook account, which I thought was good. Waiting til the wide release of the episode.

 

Folks probably remember this dialogue from "The Conscience of the King:"

LENORE: Did you order the soft lights especially for the occasion?

KIRK: If I had ordered soft lights, I'd also have arranged for music and flowers. Unfortunately, it isn't so. On the Enterprise, we try to duplicate earth conditions of night and day as closely as possible.

So, yes, there's "day" and "night" on the Enterprise.

 

Obviously, our ship marks the time of day as though they are on Earth, and their regular shifts vary. (which is why in TOS the exact crew wasn't on the bridge all the time. Near exact, but not exact.) As for "night shift", Gene did state that the ship's lights dim overall during the late night to keep the crew and their biological clocks healthy. (If you've ever flown overseas the airlines do this too... going all the way to turning the cabin lights OUT and then throwing them on when they want you to wake up.) Now, whether that is carried over to the "working" sections at night - most especially the bridge - is worthy of debate in my eyes. (I don't know of any company where the 3rd shift reports to work and the lights are dim compared to the lighting the 1st shift works in.)

As for the over-all lighting, I think it's just an effect of being on YouTube. I only remember Jon mentioning it for the bridge, and our lighting team throws so much light we've popped jiffy pop off them for the whole crew between takes. If the high res and streaming versions released later strike you the same I would be surprised. The version on my hard drive looks great.

Middyseafort, our production is a "git-r-done" production. We look at what we have to do to get to the end product, and do whatever it takes. While they were filmed, we do not possess the footage of some key scenes that were shot and are needed for the story to make sense, and at least one key scene needs to be re-shot because it doesn't cut into the episode the way the director chose to previously shoot it. (We'd rather not discuss why we are missing the footage and would prefer others not belabor the point either. It is what it is.)

Two of the guest actors in these scenes have moved on to other things, so their parts have been recast and they will be replaced in the episode. The new actors are doing an awesome job from what I've seen in prep! (I'm not high enough on the food chain to release character names without prior permission.) It's nothing to be concerned about - when Ben Tolpin decided he no longer had the time to devote to Spock, he was similarly replaced in "Enemy: Starfleet". I bet you never noticed.....

The missing scenes/reshoots will take place in either April or May, dependent on funds and James' ever increasing work schedule/con appearances.

 

Concerning Ben Topin: I noticed. No complaint, but I noticed. The idea that your viewers didn't notice is bizarre.

Concerning night and day on earth: The interpretation of the statement is bizarre, since it's always every hour of the day somewhere earth. I understand that comment to mean that the Enterprise followed a 24 hour day, with 'time off' following the idea of night and day on earth, rather than the human clock which is not exactly the same as the 24 hour day. People living in dark caves cut off from the cues of the outside world do not follow a 24 hour day. Right now Kirok L'Stok is in the early morning hours of March 1, while I am in the late afternoon hours of Leap Day. It's not even the same DAY everywhere on earth, for Pete's sake. There would be no logical reason to undercut efficiency in deep space during certain hours by declaring they are to be 'night' for the whole ship. Everyone can work during their own day, every shift. Falls into the whole, "Why I am not such a great Trekkie" class of statements. I like Trek, I love Trek Fans. I'm a Trekkie Fan!

And yes, I live in New York City... I can order a breakfast or dinner at any hour of the day or night. It would only make sense that a large Starship never sleeps...

 

The comment has me intrigued. You noticed that it's not Ben but Brandon instead? Or you can specifically tell which scenes needed to be reshot to include Brandon instead of Ben rather than the ones that were shot from the start with Brandon in the role?

I do find that odd, because frankly, most of US can't remember which scenes are which while watching it.

Though I am pretty sure the whole crew can see the ONE shot of Ben that was left in, and it wouldn't surprise me if that is the one shot you are talking about.... but not sure how to take your comment.

As for day/night... I think it's fair to assume that a starship decides on a specific time and then follows it from there...as we have seen the "ship's chronometer" which apparently establishes "ship standard time" despite where they travel. So, say Sulu is not rising to the dawn in San Fran while Chekov sleeps in waiting for the dawn in Saint Pete.

This is already being seen in the operation of the International Space Station. I could be wrong, but I've never seen those US men sleeping while the Russian guys were eating lunch already.

The human body really does need a day/night cycle for it's systems to operate properly. And the amount of daylight affects that in a real sense...something doctors and psychologists (of whom I am one) need to deal with on a daily basis.

 

I noticed that there was a new actor playing Spock. I do not make TV. I do not make Fan Films. I do not make movies. I'm just a viewer. I love you guys for doing so much work. You are my ONLY source of fresh Trek, and I hate reruns. JJA did not fulfill my Trek needs. Robert Picardo once summed up what made Trek special to him... and to me. He mentioned that it gave a forum in which ideas and moral issues could be examined. That it was, in that way, like classical theater and writing, not it's modern, "just entertain me and turn my brain to mush" counterparts. That, more than any other reason, is what I love about Trek.

If you meant noticed exactly what scenes were shot when, I wouldn't even think to try to notice that. Phase II usually grips me and carries me though without interrupting my suspension of disbelief. That said, I did do a momentary double-take when I realized there was a new actor playing Spock... then I got back into "enjoy this" mode. I am not trying to pick the frickin thing apart when I watch it. I want to be carried away by the story, and then to think about it AFTERWARD, but not to think about the technical stuff.

Frankly, the quality of Phase II is such that I think the bunch of you should be working for the Smithsonian recreating stuff for their exhibits. You are all national treasures.

So, anyway, I guess I misunderstood the comment.

 

Although Patty seems to have responded failry eloquently, I would agree that her original "I bet you never noticed" comment was meant to convey "I bet you never noticed that Ben Tolpin had to be replaced in the middle of the production and that most footage with him had to be reshot with Brandon Stacy but that a few over-the-shoulder shots are still actually Ben's shoulder." I think she's probably right: Ben Tolpin's Spock footage was pretty neatly excised without viewers being any the wiser. I bet most people can't see the seams.

Yes, ships travelling at sea traversing muliple time zones maintain "ship's time." In my cruise from New York to Halifax, the ship stayed on EST even when we were docked in Halifax, even though Halifax was on Atlantic Standard Time. Also, as Patty indicated, the International Space Station "resides" in GMT--despite traveling over all 24 time zones in the space of about 90 minutes.

For what it's worth, Spock indicates in "The Conscience of the King" that the Enterprise will be arriving at the planet Benecia at about "1500 Benecia Time." So evidently for some purposes, an an entire planet has some agreed-upon time.

I'm not sure the U.S. Navy would agree with the notion that everyone should just work "their own day" while on board ship. That seems kind of chatoic.

I think Starships are probably like Intensive Care Units: they don't sleep, but there's an important diurnal ebb and flow that it's best to maintain.

 

The beginning of the episode "Data's Day" featured Data in command of the night shift. The lights were dim on the bridge during that scene. We see the lights dim again at the very end of the episode, when Data once again assumes command of the night shift.

 

I'm going to chime in here and say that while I understand the idea of the Night Shift, even if I don't happen to agree with it applied inside a critical control room, the issue of too little light is one I've had with most fan films. The Kitumba sample scene put out suffers from the same problem. Spock and Uhura are underlit throughout the episodes when at their stations.

As a filmmaker myself, I understand well the issues with apparent darkness of different displays . Most HD TVs display more brightly than most computer monitors, but that's why you output different files for different displays (one setting for DVD/TV, another for viewing online) and why you test the output on different monitors before you release it. (I was once horrified that the soft edges mattes I'd used on cyc background, which never show up on computer monitors, popped out as soft pinkish glows when said video was displayed from a DVD on a LCD TV).

That said, since in the same shot some characters read pretty well and others are much darker, it's fair to say it's partly the fault of the lighting and not the display technology.

 

Don't know about the rest of you, but
if the lights were dimmed in my office
to give the impression of night...I'd fall
asleep at my desk...QUICKLY! Zzz Zzz Zzz...lol!

 

On the other hand, folks lucky enough to have visited the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena probably have seen the Deep Space Operations Center (DSOC). The DSOC is the mission control room from where our various unmanned space missions are controlled. The DSOC is referred to as "The Darkroom" by the scientists at JPL. Folks who have been there can tell you that it is indeed cool and dark inside the glass-enclosed DSOC--probably to make it easier to focus attention to monitors.

 

Which would suggest that such levels of darkness in a control room are inappropriate unless there are a lot of monitors to look at and that need looking at, as illustrated in your photos.

 

And, of course, "lots of monitors to look at and that need looking at" describes the bridge set perfectly. Eight small flat-screens per station (what is that? a total of 64?) plus the large overhead monitors at each station, plus one large viewscreen/monitor in the front: that's a lot of monitors.

 

Most of which put out very little light, and which we rarely see the crew (at least the regulars) having any need to refer to, especially when, like Kirk and Spock frequently are, they're standing away from them talking to each other. When Spock looks at a monitor, it's most often into his scanner aperture. If the overhead monitors were actually regularly in use (not to mention squarely in the field of view of the operators when seated, but that's another story), then they might be fairly counted. But they're not. A lot of the time, they're just in screen-saver mode, not putting out much light.

And if this is your argument for why the bridge is dark, why aren't its lights dimmed 24/7?

 

We posted the opening teaser for "Kitumba" (until we capriciously remove it again):

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGR1w5Zwm_U[/yt]

 

SPIFF!!!

Of all the Phase II stories that have been floating around since the '70s, Kitumba has always been the one I wanted to see on-screen the most. I look forward to seeing how you folks have realized this story.

Also - very cool to finally see the legendary Commodore Probert.

 

Yes, that's Andy Probert as "Commodore Probert" lurking in the background--and, of course, Gil Gerard ("Buck Rogers") as "Admiral Jack Sheehan."

 

Mr. Gerard makes a pretty-good Starfleet Admiral. In just that short scene, he conveys a sense of gravitas you'd expect from a flag-rank officer.

He also seems to be quite tall. Or, perhaps Mr. Cawley is a bit short comparatively.

 

You could have at least named him Admiral Buck Sheehan.