Star Trek Continues, Episode 4...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
What clued me in was the way the ship looks. It's remeniscent of classic reused shots of the 2nd pilot version in orbit, but the new shot is the series production version. When I saw it I asked if it was just a one-off promo pic or from the forthcoming Ep. 4. DD confirmed it is indeed from the upcoming episode.
Retro-style? what with all the TNG-type add-ons and the way that they're pumping up the cast roster to modern ensemble size rather than its original numbers (with now Drake, McKennae, Smith AND Palmer added?!?), how is this series legitimately ''retro'' ?
They should keep their current intro.
When they do an episode featuring security chief Smith reconciling with his father or overcoming his fear of snakes, you'll have a point. Up to this point they've added recurring characters rather than using different crewpersons each week. That really doesn't have much to do with the style of the show.
With regard to the opening credits, I've commented specifically on how it contains obvious shout-outs to TNG, in particular with respect to the movement of and angles on the ship, but I never said it was a bad thing.
If TOS had continued for an unlimited number of seasons, I'd expect that they wouldn't have rigidly adhered to the same cast roster for the entire duration. They certainly didn't during the three seasons we had. Rand left, Chekov arrived, and various minor crew-member characters with substantial speaking parts had various irregular appearances.
Personally, I sorta like having some TNG allusions, including a ship's counselor. That is, the very idea of a counselor is not at all objectionable. As with most things, it comes down to the execution, but innovation and experimentation are always better than ossification and stagnation.
If TOS had continued for an unlimited number of seasons, I'd expect that they wouldn't have rigidly adhered to the same cast roster for the entire duration. They certainly didn't during the three seasons we had. Rand left, Chekov arrived, and various minor crew-member characters with substantial speaking parts had various irregular appearances.
Personally, I sorta like having some TNG allusions, including a ship's counselor. That is, the very idea of a counselor is not at all objectionable. As with most things, it comes down to the execution, but innovation and experimentation are always better than ossification and stagnation.
IIRC one thing Doug Drexler did to make the Enterprise SFX look more along the lines of the original filming was scale. A lot of productions model the craft as full size and then put the virtual camera in to get a cool shot. Doug scaled it to match the 11' filming miniature then created his virtual camera to match the lenses used back then as well. The combination gives the ship the same feel in perspective motion as the TOS shots.
I recall him explaining this as well.
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
Agreed, entirely. I wasn't a fan of the show's main title sequence initially, but I do like how it doesn't adhere specifically only to TOS. Too, it helps to set the show apart from the other TOS era fan films, and in some respects, Continues, I think, has purchased enough goodwill based on the stellar track record of their six productions that they can be forgiven (if forgiven is even the applicable term) for this one indulgence.
In other words, Continues doesn't need to replicate TOS in every single respect or function, nor should it. It's doing things just fine the way it is.
Doug's got the right idea there.
If you want to get effects that actually feel like they did on TOS you have to not only simulate the stage lighting and lenses (hell, you ought to model a floor and walls of the stage to get the bounce light), but you can't just let the 3D software do the camera move for you. Prior to motion control the camera was dollied, tilted and panned by hand, so you need to simulate that, too. It's not as perfect in terms of constant speed, etc., as a CGI splined path.
If you want to get effects that actually feel like they did on TOS you have to not only simulate the stage lighting and lenses (hell, you ought to model a floor and walls of the stage to get the bounce light), but you can't just let the 3D software do the camera move for you. Prior to motion control the camera was dollied, tilted and panned by hand, so you need to simulate that, too. It's not as perfect in terms of constant speed, etc., as a CGI splined path.
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As much as I admire Mr. Drexlers work and as logical as it might seem at first glance, scaling of a virtual model has no effect on the render, because model and camera are both virtual.
The only aspect where it might have a slight effect is if you use DoF (Depth of Field) in your renders, but I don´t think that he used that effect in his shots - and even if, this could also be achieved in any scale by adjusting parameters.
So, what's relevant is the relative scale between model and lens. Setting the size of the virtual model to match the filming model and modeling a virtual lens to match the real lens of the period is simply a convenient away of "adjusting parameters" correctly to achieve the desired effect.
Mr. Drexler is absolutely correct.
I'm really hoping they can pull in about 325k, enough for five more episodes and all the upgrades.
That'd be nice, but I bet it'll be a continuation with the Piece of the Action theme and was probably made before they even shot Ep 4. We may know in just a couple of minutes... or not.
You are correct.
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