Project: Potemkin, a Star Trek Fan Film

[Melonpool]

I just looked at your update! I love those rope light illuminated partitions! I may have to steal that idea on my set!

I was away all weekend, so didn't make a whole lot of progress on mine. I managed to cut out all the foam rubber for the Captain's chair, but the majority of my time on Sunday was spent building one of the puppets.

Glad to see your progress!

[Potemkin_Prod]

I got enough donations to build some more partitions, so I spent Saturday at Lowes and on the carport painting them. Planned to finish the forward "mainviewer" but my elbow was bothered by tendonitis and spent the day with a heat wrap wrapped around it. Feeling better today, and hope to finish the forward partitions this evening, with the rest of the viewscreen Tuesday.

The rope light idea was one of Linda's suggestions, and reinforced by Thomas Sasser. I'd planned on putting a fluorescent tube in there, but no need with those cute little lights. The lens over them is a cut diamond patten acrylic (typical of overhead fluorescent lighting), and trimmed with some nice L-shaped trim that really is there to hide the rougher edges of the partition.

I keep laughing at my progress. Ricky's been tied up with school (he's taking education courses in Atlanta to get certified to teach), and Van's been tied up with his other projects. That's basically left me, Linda and the kids to work on the set. Linda's an engineer in real life, so she comes out and makes all these demands...er, suggestions, especially in terms of making it easy for her to go from the kitchen to her truck on the driveway. The boys take turns helping (one does one partition, the other does the other). Kim resorts and reorganizes the materials when we're through.

I'm looking forward to seeing your puppets! When are you going to post them?

[Melonpool]

I have one up in my avatar. I'll post some pics of the last batch on my thread in a few minutes. I'm working on a robot that looks like a teenage pop star right now -- she's a rod puppet (all of our others are hand puppets similar to the Muppets), so she's a bit of a challenge. Still -- she's coming along well!

[Potemkin_Prod]

Great! Looking forward to seeing your crew... And I'm interested in seeing if we can come up with a realistic looking puppet (such as this guy!):

[Melonpool]

I have a great old Cinemagic article from the 80s about doing something like this. If I can dig it up, I'll scan it and post it for you.

[Potemkin_Prod]

We're seeking some opinions as to what color to paint our bridge's center seat? Here's the unpainted version and several possible choices suggested by various folks on the production team. Anyone have any preferences?





Any other suggestions? The front of the arms will be lit from behind.

[doubleohfive]

If the red on the chair's arms matches the darker hue red from the walls, I say go with that. Very cool.

[Melonpool]

I swear I posted this before --

I say match the arms to the grey on the upolstery. Maybe you could make the console top have a red trim that matches the doors to tie it all together? I thonk too much black or too much red will cause the chair arms to kind of disappear into the rest of the set.

[Tom Hendricks]

Melonpool wrote:

---

I swear I posted this before --

I say match the arms to the grey on the upolstery. Maybe you could make the console top have a red trim that matches the doors to tie it all together? I thonk too much black or too much red will cause the chair arms to kind of disappear into the rest of the set.

I concur, make the arm colors match the color of the seat and add the red trim.

[Potemkin_Prod]

Pretty much what my daughter said, so I'll probably get on that tonight. Thanks!

[lennier1]

Why not make it a tad more complex (click image for a larger version)?


1. The majority of the chair is painted in the usual base color for walls, console parts and similar stuff.
2. Using some cheap wood plates some plant-ons are added to make the structure more complex. Paint this in the bright version of the main color (used for doors and similar details)
3. Paint the area above "2" with the darker base color (used for consoles, railings and the like)
4. Add some upholstery pieces from the local junkyard as armrests (ideally same gray as the seat or something close).
5. Add some switches/indicators to the front. Maybe even a piece of metal grating reminiscent of the TOS intercom area.
6. Maybe add a dark area to the front in the same color as you used for the conn/nav module.

[Potemkin_Prod]

Very intriguing!

[Potemkin_Prod]

We've been working very hard this week on both our mainviewer and our captain's chair. We should post an update either tonight or tomorrow with plenty of pictures.

It's looking like we're going to do some test footage fairly soon in the form of a short vignette. We'll be testing out camera angles, lighting, etc. on a full scale basis instead of a shot here or there. It'll also allow us a good look at our uniforms, makeup, some of the cast, etc.

I can't believe how close we are to starting on our episode...

[Melonpool]

Can't wai! I was just about to ask you how it's going!

[Potemkin_Prod]

The weather's been a problem lately. It's rained so much that getting outside to cut plywood and lumber has been impractical. However, we're going to finish up the mainviewer, the captain's chair and the "working" turbolift partitions this evening. I was up to 3am last night painting the plywood and the trim. Still, it's coming along nicely! How's your project?