Jefferies tube painted on in "Lessons"

[Emperor Norton]

I have a weird soft spot for matte set extensions. So I forgive it, even if the director had a little too much faith in it's realism.

Matte paintings are fine. But when there is a certain level of ineptitude on par with an Ed Wood set, then its not so much art. This one is not so bad, but it could have been helped by just building a rather short inlet portion, and then adding on the matte painting for the remainder of the corridor. It is the change in angle that blows it, when they move the camera down.

 

[Tim Thomason]

"This is the most acoustically perfect place on the ship."

"Hmm... well, I do like your Jefferies tube painting. It looks fairly realistic. Do you need a hand with those piano legs?"

 

[CommanderTrip]

Im 95% certain that DS9 did the same trick with it's corridors.

That being said, once you start to notice when they used those matte set extensions they tend to stick out a bit more. It 's easier to spot on TVs now a days, but 20 years ago my TV sucked and it was much more of a game to look for them and eventually find them.

 

[Amaris]

Yeah, 24 years ago, I was watching this episode on a 13" black and white television. Seemed real to me.

 

[Tosk]

Im 95% certain that DS9 did the same trick with it's corridors.

They did. The far end of the Promenade as well.

 

[Stephen!]

You can tell the jefferies tube behind them is painted on by the different color and being able to see the shadow on it. It was a little disappointing to have the fake background right in the center of the footage like that

Did they change it in the Blu-ray version?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Im 95% certain that DS9 did the same trick with it's corridors.

Although I always spotted the corridor extensions due to the odd perspective glitches, DS9 had the entire end of the Promenade painted on. And I never noticed on my old CRT TV!

 

[Tosk]

Did they change it in the Blu-ray version?

No.

 

[Takeru]

Although I always spotted the corridor extensions due to the odd perspective glitches, DS9 had the entire end of the Promenade painted on. And I never noticed on my old CRT TV!

Seriously? I never noticed the promenade thing either, it was curved so I figured there was no need for that. Does anyone have screenshots? I want to see it now.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Seriously? I never noticed the promenade thing either, it was curved so I figured there was no need for that. Does anyone have screenshots? I want to see it now.

 

[Takeru]

Wow, thanks. That's actually really obvious, I had no idea.

 

[tomswift2002]

That being said, once you start to notice when they used those matte set extensions they tend to stick out a bit more. It 's easier to spot on TVs now a days, but 20 years ago my TV sucked and it was much more of a game to look for them and eventually find them.

People were able to spot them more than 20 years ago. There was even an issue with them in STTMP. Someone forgot to make sure the engineering carpet actually laid flat where the set extension met the real set.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's amazing I never noticed these things before. I guess when you're not looking for them you don't ask a lot of questions or pay much attention to parts of the background not involved in the action.

Although in Voyager it was pretty obvious when they did it with Robert Beltran's face.

 

[Tosk]

Ba-dum-tsh!

 

[Mytran]

In the case of Lessons the use of the forced perspective painting was an unfortunate necessity, due to the way the scene is filmed: As the music starts, the camera moves away from the lovebirds down the Jefferies Tube opposite the FP painting.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s6/6x19/lessons129.jpg

The thing is, there were only ever 2 horizontal JT sections ever built for the show. So, since the director wanted that shot, there really was no other choice but to use the FP painting

 

[Tosk]

In the case of Lessons the use of the forced perspective painting was an unfortunate necessity, due to the way the scene is filmed: As the music starts, the camera moves away from the lovebirds down the Jefferies Tube opposite the FP painting.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s6/6x19/lessons129.jpg

The thing is, there were only ever 2 horizontal JT sections ever built for the show. So, since the director wanted that shot, there really was no other choice but to use the FP painting

If they had two horizontals, then they should have used both. And even if they only had one, they could still have done it properly by using the real JT behind Nella for her shots, then switching to the translight only for the long pullback. They either thought no one would notice or they knew people would notice and did it anyway. The fake JT was used for convenience either way.

 

[Mytran]

The FP painting was designed to go at the very end of the section of horizontal tube, not least because there is no end to the tube, otherwise! A hatch is always an option of course, but when you're trying to create the impression of endless crawlways snaking throughout the ship it's hardly desirable. And honestly, when placed at the back of 16 feet of horizontal crawlway the FP issues are pretty hard to notice (and would have been even harder on a SD television back in the day)
The following pic is not a great example as the camera is closer to the FP painting than usual, but fortunately LaForge's legs hide some of the sins
http://tng.trekcore.com/hd/albums/season-5/5x15/power-play-hd-321.jpg

If they had two horizontals, then they should have used both. And even if they only had one, they could still have done it properly by using the real JT behind Nella for her shots, then switching to the translight only for the long pullback. They either thought no one would notice or they knew people would notice and did it anyway. The fake JT was used for convenience either way.

They seemed to have 2 sections later in Trek (we see them from the side, crawling in Voyager several times) but assuming they only had the 1 in TNG, then completely redressing the set like you propose would have been a lot of extra work for very little gain! These episodes were designed to be seen on smaller SD screens, after all; however, if you think that the audience could in fact have spotted the FP painting so easily, then your solution would create some weird discontinuity for those same viewers when the camera changed and the tube behind Nella suddenly shifted from a light coloured extension to a darker one and shrank in apparent length by about 10 feet! Given the budget, time and space constraints of a weekly TV show, this was probably the least worst solution available.

 

[Nakita Akita]

The scene has more problems, as well. For example:

That roll-out piano she laid down, suddenly grew legs when she was seen playing it shortly later in that scene.

Okay I found the episode and re-watched it.

I noticed the piano suddenly had legs!
I think that's because there was no way to have the actress not look stupid trying to sit hunched over playing the keyboard at floor level.
I STILL didn't notice anything weird about her shadow though.
The scene moves pretty fast.
I have like a 48 inch TV but only the regular video DVD. I even sat closer.

 

[Shikarnov]

I hate to admit it, but in spite of seeing every episode many many times, I never caught any of that. Aside from the matte paintings of planetary landscapes or cities, I didn't notice anything on any ship or station (except for the inside of the Borg ship, that is). I think I'm going to have to turn in my Nerd Badge now.

 

[tharpdevenport]

And if you look again, you'll notice another little thing when the camera pans away from Picard and Nella playing -- a thick power chord leading away from the keyboard on the left side on the screen.

Also, in another scene in the episode when she brings her roll out keyboard to Picard's quarters, not only does it not grow legs, there's no visible power chord.

Also -- since I don't have episode available to me -- how did she get Picard's deeply personal woodwinds instrument he keeps in a wooden box in his quarters?