"Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film!

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Is this still planned to be a film running about 20 minutes? By the way, I think it's my MacAfee, but my software makes it impossible for me to view videos on Vimeo. When you post your film in final release form, you might want to also post it on You Tube, or offer it as a downloadable file.

That said, I still added these links to the Yorktown article at Star Trek Reviewed, which is (Y) here: http://startrekreviewed.blogspot.com/2009/06/210.html

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Not sure why the videos won't play on your MacAfee. When the film is done, it will also be posted on Youtube to ensure that many people get to watch it. As it stands, the film is 20-22 minutes.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Looks cool! I hope that starbase shot will be accurately degraded to match the original footage!

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

The footage of the station has the exact same film grain added to it that you see in the shots of Nogura. We sampled the film grain directly from the original movie for all of the FX shots. The space station is a bit dark in these shots, so some of the dirt and scratches are not as noticeable as they are in the clip with Nogura. For the final film, we plan on having the Vanguard station be brighter lit, which will show off the film grain more.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Ahhh, yeah - I guess it's just dark. Hard to tell on my old laptop screen.
Either way, things are looking great!

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

The thing that jumps out to me about the starbase shot is the same thing that bugs me about the TOS Remastered effects: they feel completely at odds with the photographic style of the live action. It's like taking VFX from 2001: A Space Odyssey and sticking them into This Island Earth; they don't match.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Well, I guess they could make models for all this stuff and actually film it with Super 8 film. That'd be pretty cool!

Though definitely labor-intensive. Digitizing film and whatnot.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Well, this sequence was originally done just for myself to test the model and the Yorktown guys just used it to test some filters themselves. Of course it doesn´t look like a model from back then, when they didn´t have the budget or time to build such elaborate models - and the lighting is also completely different to what they did back then. Depening on what shots they will need for the final film and who they will do them I am sure it will look very different and match much better.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Well, that's good to know. I think it's going to be an interesting challenge to make this all feel "of a piece" given the mix of Super 8, digital video and CGI.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

There's more to matching the Super-8 footage besides grain. There's also how it reproduces color and the contrast (blacks and whites) as well as the image jumping around a little in the frame due to the analog nature of a small film-stock moving through a camera or projector. In this shot, it almost looks to me like the S8 footage was converted to video by shooting a projected image against a sheet because I can almost see a waving or wobble in the frame. There's a way to digitize and stabilize Super-8 so that some of these artifacts can be eliminated, but that wasn't done here, because it all comes from (correct me if I'm wrong) an old UMatic master. So all of the vagaries of the conversion process, the telecine and the limitations of the videotape medium itself, also play a part in trying to match the look.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

The film grain used in the clips was sampled from the original 8mm film after it was transferred over to the 3/4" Umatic SP tapes. No color correction has been done to any of those clips that I posted. I didn't play around with the live-action Nogura footage in the starbase scene because it is test footage, and Nogura was simply added as a tease for now.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Have you experimented with plug-ins like FilmConvert? I myself have never used it but from what I've heard it has a bunch of presets to match different film stocks and adjusts how it applies the effect depending on the camera the digital footage was shot with.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

You can color-correct the Umatic all you want but the quality of the original S8 (in theory) exceeds the specs of the old Umatic spec. If the final target for this were a VHS tape or even DVD played through a CRT in composite or S-Video this would not be an issue, but a 720P or 1080P MP4 stream delivers higher quality than 3/4" analog videotape.

I'm not saying you should bend over backwards to do a straight digital scan of the original S8 footage. I appreciate the logistical problems here, but just factor in the video conversion when matching the CG to it. The S8 footage is going to be slightly fuzzier and more washed out just due to the video conversion.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

You bring up some good points, and this is stuff that we as a team have discussed over the past few years. I currently have all of Stan Woo's original 8mm film reels in Toronto. Over the past year, I have given serious thought to handing those film reels over to one of Toronto's film transfer facilities to make a crisper looking copy of the film.

Transfering 8mm film to digital in Toronto is a bit cheaper than doing it in LA or NY, but not by much. Based on the amount of footage I have, plus the cost of dirt removal, grain elimination, color correction, and film stabilization, it will cost (roughly) between $1200 to $1500 to transfer. It really depends on the cost factor for us, as the money for finishing the film is all coming out of the producers pockets at this time.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Very sad news on the Yorktown front today. James Shigeta, who plays Admiral Nogura in the film, passed away yesterday at age 81. Producer Stan Woo recently went to visit James in LA, and he knew that we were working hard to finish the film. We had all hoped he would have chance to see the film finished someday. Very heartbreaking to hear of this news today.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/james-shigeta-dead-die-hard-721851

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

A message from Yorktown: A Time to Heal producer Stan Woo:

Today was a routine day at work. I was working on a Crestron Presentation System when a text came in at 11:12AM PDT. It was from my Yorktown: A Time to Heal Executive Producer John Atkin: “Some sad news. James Shigeta has passed away.” I was alone in the darken lecture hall, stunned. In December 2013, while working late back stage, I received a happier text from my wife that we received a Christmas card from Jimmy. I was relieved to learn that Jimmy was okay. The previous year, we didn’t receive a card from him and we were concerned about him. On my holiday break, I was determined to pay him a visit. I saw him for the last time on December 19th, 2013. When I arrived at his home, he was watching a Pavarotti Special on PBS. He was in good spirits and was sharp as a tack. He asked about the family and I shared some family photos with him. I also showed him the www.yorktownfilm.com website on my phone to show him some of Roland Baron’s Visual Effects. That was the last time I saw him.

In 1985, I was determined to bring Admiral Nogura to life via James Shigeta. I read the Star Trek: The Motion Picture novel weeks before the movie opened and was very disappointed NOT to see the Nogura character in it. I remember seeing him as Admiral Nagumo in Midway and had him in my mind’s eye as Admiral Nogura while reading the movie novelization. I contacted Jimmy’s Personal Manager Ruth Burch and talked to her about the possibility of Jimmy appearing in Yorktown. After 6 months, James Shigeta, a perfect stranger to me, appeared in Yorktown: A Time to Heal. He wasn’t a stranger for long. In the last 28 years, we’ve kept in touch. I have a stack of Christmas cards from him. He was at my wedding. When I sent him a birth announcement of my oldest daughter, he sent her a little yellow duckie. He was a true gentleman and I’m proud to be the producer of a Star Trek fanfilm with him playing Admiral Nogura.

When I arrived home today, I pulled out his last Christmas card and saw the big “Aloha” on the cover of the card and felt a chill as connotation of word change for me since the first time I saw it. The first I saw it, it was a big hello. Today, it meant…good bye.

Mahalo and Aloha, Jimmy. You are now in Paradise, Shigeta Style.

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

What a wonderful insight into Mr. Shigeta! Thank you for sharing!

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Oh, My,... I heard the news on NPR, they did a great story on his history.... I too am sadden about his passage, he was a great actor and I am sure he will live on in the ST universe as a gentleman and scholar. Now I want to see this addition to his legacy even more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you sir....

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

 

Re: "Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film

Terrific images! What's the release date looking like now, John?