Star Trek film slides

[PotatoesKartoffeln]

Hey all,

I'm a student from Germany, I study conservation of audiovisual media and photographic heritage (that's a mouthful, I know) and I've been given this slide from the TOS.
It's a profile view of Spock with his old uniform, so I'm guessing it's from the pilot or "Menagerie". I know people online sell 35mm slides that were once used for promo or advertisements, but this isn't a 35mm slide, it's half frame format (18x24mm), of which I can't find anything online. The plastic frame itself is 5x5cm. Are there any experts here who could tell me more about this piece of history?

Thank you!

s9B55cm

 

[NCC-73515]

Servus! It's definitely from The Cage, the original pilot. But I don't find that particular view in the screencaps

 

[Michael]

Yes, it’s from “The Cage”. The angle and camera setup match this shot from early in the episode, although the exact moment (where Spock looks to his right) does not seem to appear in the episode. Maybe it’s from a different edit of the pilot? Or just from footage that was cut from the episode?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The physical artifact you have is a clipping from the 35mm workprint, sold mail-order by Majel Barrett's little kitchen-table company Lincoln Enterprises. This was from about 1969 to the mid-1970s.

The customer (including me) would receive a bag of crudely cut strips of film about 8 cm long, and then cut out a single image to put it in a half-frame mount for use in a slide projector. It was fun. And yes, the color film degraded severely, years ago. But when new they looked like a million bucks.

 

[PotatoesKartoffeln]

Thank you guys, you've been very helpful so far. There's just one thing I don't entirely understand. If the films are 35mm, why is the frame I have in a different format? Was the show shot on half format cameras? Or is this particular image a copy?

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Google tells me that the series was filmed half frame because it had to be in a 16mm format for broadcasting purposes.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Thank you guys, you've been very helpful so far. There's just one thing I don't entirely understand. If the films are 35mm, why is the frame I have in a different format? Was the show shot on half format cameras? Or is this particular image a copy?

This might be what Ray saw:

https://entertainment.ha.com/itm/movie-tv-memorabilia/star-trek/star-trek-original-series-set-of-609-35mm-film-frames/a/696-49185.s

I got mine out of storage and measured the pieces (the scraps and trims that I did not mount in plastic half-frames back then). The film itself is 35mm wide, if you go all the way out to the physical edges, meaning past the sprocket holes. The photographic image on the film is 22mm wide. That excludes the clear vertical strip along the left edge, which is probably where the optical soundtrack would go.

 

[scotpens]

Google tells me that the series was filmed half frame because it had to be in a 16mm format for broadcasting purposes.

That's completely bogus and makes no sense. Filmed TV shows were done on 35mm and reduced to 16mm for broadcast prints. As ZapBrannigan pointed out, the image size is correct for 35mm film.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I always appreciate it when someone who actually knows something comes in with the corrections and extra information.

 

[MeanGene]

I inherited a number of these slides from my brother and am in the process of resurrecting them. I have a Kodak slide reader and software like Adobe Photoshop Elements. Any advice or suggesting with regard to the task?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I inherited a number of these slides from my brother and am in the process of resurrecting them. I have a Kodak slide reader and software like Adobe Photoshop Elements. Any advice or suggesting with regard to the task?

If you can scan the film frames, the highlights would be images that are not included in the finished episodes. I mean, if you can get the same picture on TrekCore, or by making a screencap from DVD, then the slide is just a souvenir. So I would look for clapboards, behind the scenes, outtakes, unused angles, makeup or costume tests, and all that jazz.

And then it's going to be a matter of color correction if possible. You might have some fun just making the effort.

 

[publiusr]

Hey all,

I'm a student from Germany, I study conservation of audiovisual media and photographic heritage (that's a mouthful, I know)

Off Topic…but still.

This loss to aerospace deserves to be a thesis:

Early european rocketry projects

Apologies the photocopier was not good... Europa III

www.secretprojects.co.uk