Lit nacelle trenches?

There is a recently (2016) published book called The Enterprise NCC-1701 and the Model Maker by N. Datin McDonald and Richard C. Datin Jr. (I find no publisher information, so I assume it's a sort of vanity press project, clearly made without the aid of professional editing, but available on Amazon and a very interesting read.)

It is a biography of Richard Datin written by his children. More than half of the book is devoted to his time working on Star Trek. The memo referred to upthread is pictured in it's entirety in the book (pages 75 - 78).

I will here copy some of the relevant sections:

It's an interesting memo. The aft balls were hoped to be lit with a matching effect to the front domes, and there were hopes to light up the inner tracks as early as April of 1966. Though no color is established, the note on the color of the aft domes, the idea that the color should match the front domes in order to suggest the same energy throughout the whole engine, would suggest to me that the inner tracks would likely have been colored to match those as well.

Also it seems as though there was discussion over lighting at least the front engines domes of the three-footer to be used in shots requiring a lot of movement. I am reminded of the 32 inch Millennium Falcon built for The Empire Strikes Back. It, too, was used as a "stunt model" to film scenes where the five foot model would have been too heavy and ungainly to work with. Though as we know, lighting the "quarter scale" Enterprise was not in the cards and we got the 11 footer used throughout the series (exception: most shots for the first pilot.)

Also, I find it interesting that the darker panels in the inside surface of the pylons were supposed to be solar panels. I'm going to be using this tidbit in my own fan work of the ship.

--Alex

 

Yes, an older thread, but not that old, and has a subject line specifically related to my question. I'd asking to see that evidecce, in the form of the April 6 1966 memo from Anderson Co. with estimates for the lighted inner nacelles and other changes made to the filming model prior to its use in the regular series.

I think I found a source for the memo here:

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Constitution_class_model_(original)

 

And many thanks, Albertese, I have in fact see that memo by Gene Roddenbery. but what I was curious about seeing was the memo from Anderson Co. from the previous day (April 6, 1966), which I think would help put the memo you quoted in even better context. I THINK it was reprinted in the magazine I mentioned in my previous post.

 

Not solar cells, but "something like" solar cells - the look, not the purpose.

The lighting of the aft balls is new info to me! :O

 

Fifty years on and still learning new things.

So many years past I sometimes thought the aft spheres were lighted given the way they sometimes appeared onscreen.

 

Given this new information, who will be the first to depict the "Big 'E'" with the iconic spinning/twinkling effect in the main domes, aft domes and pulsing along the "trench"?

Sincerely,

Bill

 

I think that it was Deg3D's concept TOS Enterprise that had a segmented circle of light around those aft domes. That looked cool. Just a little light to add interest. Oh, and registry lights on the sides of the nacelles.

 

The moderators' general rule of thumb is not to revivify any thread that's been inactive for more than a year.

 

Yes, I got the message; I revived this thread and one other before understanding the policy. The other one was closed, thus giving me the last word. . I won't do it again.