Dating some pictures
- Thread starter Bennell
- Start date
1978/1979? Is that the The Motion Picture warp drive room?
Age-wise he looks like this might have been closer to 1986–1990, around the time TNG premiered, perhaps when he was shooting the intro for the “Cage” TV premiere. It’s not part of the larger collections at either Getty or Alamy. This seems to be from the same general period and it’s dated 1988. According to IMDd it comes courtesy of Majel Barrett Roddenberry and is copyrighted by The Roddenberry Estate. Maybe something @Jules / OTOY from the Roddenberry archive can find out?
The background is not engineering per se, but a matte painting that I think was used in The Motion Picture to extend the forced perspective set. Here’s a larger version where you can better see that it’s a painting.
The background is not engineering per se, but a matte painting that I think was used in The Motion Picture to extend the forced perspective set. Here’s a larger version where you can better see that it’s a painting.
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I'm sure that pic in front of the warp core forced perspective painting was on the VHS of either Star Trek IV or "Encounter at Farpoint" or some 25th anniversary (1991) VHS I had at one point.
Sure looks like Gene around 1986 - but I cannot see that forced perspective shot. Cool video because you can see the TMP sets haven't yet been converted to TNG style and there's what appears to be some Phase 1 sets visible too. He's not wearing the same clothes in that video either - so exactly when it was taken is still unsolved!
I 'dated' a picture of Raquel Welch for a while when I was teen... Oh, wait, I see.
You beat me to it!
I'd always date people and not pictures!
As Irving Berlin put it,I 'dated' a picture of Raquel Welch for a while when I was teen... Oh, wait, I see.
Every time I see that reply, I think of an old Steve Martin stand-up bit (see the "Jackie O and Farrah F" track on Comedy is Not Pretty), about "all the hours [he] spent holding up [Ms. Fawcett's] poster with one hand."I 'dated' a picture of Raquel Welch for a while when I was teen... Oh, wait, I see.
Actually, that's not entirely true. There were two segments to the horizontal intermix chamber. One was built on set and was the forced perspective piece to which you are referring. The other segment, however, was a part of the background painting. I don't have it handy, but in the book Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise there is a photo of the intermix chamber. In that close-up still photo, you can clearly see where the physical set ends and the painting begins. In particular, the segments of the intermix chamber have subtle differences in the painted portion and the floor beneath it is plain in the painting portion whereas there is equipment in the floor of the actual set piece.
EDIT: I found the photo and (crudely) marked where you can see the edge of the painting against the set floor.
1bpg2L1
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Thanks for posting that photo! It lead me to finding some other photos that let us see that part of the set more clearly.
However, I think if there’s a matte painting extending the set it doesn’t start where you’ve marked it in the photo. The clearest indication of that is the area on the ceiling that I marked here, where there are some lighter portions in the structure that are present in the photo but not the painting. Plus, in the screenshot from the movie you can see that there are performers (children in engineering suits, IIRC) standing next to one of those diagonal pipes. These would be standing inside the painting, if it truly started where you think it starts.
If there is a matte painting, then I think it actually starts further in the back, as I've highlighted here. However, it doesn’t look like the painting continues the intermix chamber from the real set, even if it does continue the ceiling and floor structure. So I think @Maurice is correct that the matte painting Roddenberry is standing in front of is actually a different one from the one used in the actual movie. I wonder for what purpose it might have been created then.
Edit to add: Plus, in the screenshot from the movie you can kind of see that the angle of the practical ceiling doesn’t perfectly continue in what seems to be the painting in the back, slightly breaking the forced perspective illusion. So yeah, it seems to be a painting behind the diagonal pipe.
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Questioning my knowledge on matters TMP is generally a fool's errand.
The background painting doesn't contain the core because you can see the branches leading to the nacelles have lights in them, and they are set pieces, not part of the backdrop.
The big thing that wrecks the illusion is the helmet isn't scaled to the small person in far b.g.
Who played the outer-space waver when the ENTERPRISE left the spacedock? Does he do conventions?Questioning my knowledge on matters TMP is generally a fool's errand.
Yes, but he never does more than wave at people.Who played the outer-space waver when the ENTERPRISE left the spacedock? Does he do conventions?
"OMGOMGOMG I was just waved at by the guy who waved at the Enterprise!!!"
There might be some potential for a short fiction there, if you want to assume he survived the digitization of E9.
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