I realised: I miss external Enterprise shots... and ad breaks

[C.E. Evans]

I do think a brief 3-second shot of the ship at the start of some acts in an episode can give a quick sense that it takes place over a period of time. It may cut down on relying on log entries or exposition dialogue to tell us that time has passed since the last act or major story beat.

 

[Michael]

Until this thread I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but yes, something does feel differently about the way Strange New Worlds employs (or rather doesn’t employ) establishing shots of the ship. Can’t say it really bothers me too much, but I will say it sometimes feels like we’re not seeing the ship outside all that often. And I’ll agree that on the older shows it helped to create a sense of the passing of time, a sense of location and of the ship as a character.

That said, thinking back to Discovery, I can’t say I’m missing these constant shots flying from a wide shot of the entire ship to one of the windows or the open hangar door. These are cool to have the first handful of times, but they overdid it to a point where it felt rather gratuitous to me, almost drawing attention to themselves.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Until this thread I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but yes, something does feel differently about the way Strange New Worlds employs (or rather doesn’t employ) establishing shots of the ship. Can’t say it really bothers me too much, but I will say it sometimes feels like we’re not seeing the ship outside all that often. And I’ll agree that on the older shows it helped to create a sense of the passing of time, a sense of location and of the ship as a character.

That said, thinking back to Discovery, I can’t say I’m missing these constant shots flying from a wide shot of the entire ship to one of the windows or the open hangar door. These are cool to have the first handful of times, but they overdid it to a point where it felt rather gratuitous to me, almost drawing attention to themselves.

On TOS, there was stock footage. Not expensive to insert, but the same every time, except maybe putting a different color filter on the planet (make that relatively inexpensive in that case). TNG also (re)used lots of stock footage.

Does stock footage go over well these days? I'd expect there'd be a Twitter storm about how the show is too cheap because they're reusing stock footage all the time.

 

[JohnCrichton1999]

On TOS, there was stock footage. Not expensive to insert, but the same every time, except maybe putting a different color filter on the planet (make that relatively inexpensive in that case). TNG also (re)used lots of stock footage.

Does stock footage go over well these days? I'd expect there'd be a Twitter storm about how the show is too cheap because they're reusing stock footage all the time.

They could do more animated stock footage that could probably trick the average viewer enough if they really wanted to cut on SFX expenses. I was thinking of that very idea before, and honestly they did that often with Voyager when it was the early days of pure CGI external shots. They forgot the art of creating CGI stock footage. It really should be a thing again.

 

[MarcKyle1964]

They could do more animated stock footage that could probably trick the average viewer enough if they really wanted to cut on SFX expenses. I was thinking of that very idea before, and honestly they did that often with Voyager when it was the early days of pure CGI external shots. They forgot the art of creating CGI stock footage. It really should be a thing again.

Bring on the Babylon 5 toasters, I say. (the entire B5 pilot was rendered on 24 Commodore Amigas networked together)

 

[Christopher]

Bring on the Babylon 5 toasters, I say. (the entire B5 pilot was rendered on 24 Commodore Amigas networked together)

The Video Toaster pretty much made the '90s-'00s sci-fi/fantasy TV boom possible by allowing extensive CGI effects for a fraction of the cost it would've taken before. It really was revolutionary.

 

[AntonyF]

Really even Voyager had stock model shots, it didn't start using CGI until about season four really.

In fact the only broadcast era show that would have been CGI is Enterprise. I can't remember off hand, but I suspect they were just happy to use stock shots because we'd gotten used to it by that point and it wouldn't have seemed odd. It was a CGI copy of a model-driven world.

But now...

I'd expect there'd be a Twitter storm about how the show is too cheap because they're reusing stock footage all the time.

Probably that!

 

[JohnCrichton1999]

Really even Voyager had stock model shots, it didn't start using CGI until about season four really.

In fact the only broadcast era show that would have been CGI is Enterprise. I can't remember off hand, but I suspect they were just happy to use stock shots because we'd gotten used to it by that point and it wouldn't have seemed odd. It was a CGI copy of a model-driven world.

But now...



Probably that!

I thought Voyager was pure CGI, not physical SFX? I could be mistaken. Either way, I really think they should make greenscreened cgi stock shots these days.

 

[AntonyF]

I thought Voyager was pure CGI, not physical SFX? I could be mistaken. Either way, I really think they should make greenscreened cgi stock shots these days.

No, they definitely had physical models early on. It was around about Scorpion that you really start to notice them get going with CGI. Look at the crazy movements Voyager does in some of the shots that would never have been possible with models. Then they started using CGI also for some of the standard stock shots; personally I never liked them as they lost some of the texture of the model shots.

But yeah I agree. Even with TNG they had one stock shock that they used with planets and other ships or nothing at at all. You can take some reasonably standard shots and vary them up.

You'd have thought churning out a few of the Enterprise at warp or just looking amazing in space would be doable.

 

[AntonyF]

The Voyager model...

 

[Christopher]

But yeah I agree. Even with TNG they had one stock shock that they used with planets and other ships or nothing at at all. You can take some reasonably standard shots and vary them up.

When ILM filmed the miniature FX for "Encounter at Farpoint" (before Image G took over for the rest of the series), they extended a number of the Enterprise shots beyond what was required for the pilot, so that they could build up a library of stock shots for use throughout the series.

Still, the slitscan technique used to stretch the ship for warp-entry shots was very complicated, so for seven seasons, TNG only used the same three warp-entry stretching shots that ILM had created for "Farpoint," or did a simpler warp-entry shot by having the ship facing the camera and suddenly blurring forward past it. The only time we saw the ship stretch outside of those three shots was in "Where No One Has Gone Before," which was shot directly side-on so that it was a simple matter of stretching the 2D image horizontally. It was only in later series, once they started using CGI ships, that it became easier to do stretching warp shots.

 

[Tuskin38]

personally I never liked them as they lost some of the texture of the model shots.

and there's some weird wraping that doesn't match the physical model. Compare the phaser arrays between the physical and CG models for example. In a head on shot, the phaser arrays on the physical model are level when wrapping around the front, but on the CG model they kinda wrap down ward

Both models are robin egg blue, Rob tried very hard to match the CG model to the physical model, but in a lot of shots it's really hard to tell, it gets washed out.

EAS has a bunch of images of both models people can use to compare

Ex Astris Scientia - Starship Gallery - Intrepid

Gallery of Starfleet's Intrepid class (USS Voyager)

www.ex-astris-scientia.org

here's an interview with Rob Bonchune

Voyager's Visual Effects: Creating the CG Voyager with Rob Bonchune

We’re wrapping up Voyager Week with a very special behind-the-scenes article from former Star Trek: Voyager Senior CG Supervisor Rob Bonchune. Rob’s tenure at the franchise led him to work on all three CG-heavy Trek shows: Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, eventually becoming the Senior...

blog.trekcore.com

The Voyager CG model was way more accurate to the physical model than the Defiant CG model with the giant nose and other odd shapes.

 

[AntonyF]

Thanks for posting that, it's interesting.

Also first link half way down the page is the Scorpion manoeuvring that I was on about up-thread. I love that scene, it's really nice seeing the ship unshackled from traditional model filming.

 

[Dar70]

It finally clicked to me last night. It was when I was watching a Voyager episode... I had a bad day I just wanted some comfort blanket nostalgia (wanted to watch the Cloud, started Phage by accident... that ain't comfort blanket...)

But even with its 4:3 frame and what now feels at times claustrophobic framing and reaction shots, I kept feeling this sense of space. Exploration. Movement.

Strange New Worlds I keep using the word insular about its stories. I have no sense of them really going places even though they clearly are going to different places. This is made worse I think by the fact the bridge doesn't feel the hub of SNW like other shows did, they use the medbay and briefing room a lot.

But then it clicked. For me it's more than that... I realised we don't see the Enterprise like a central character in other shows.

I tested this theory by flicking through Through the Lens of Time and Terrarium (other episodes may prove me wrong)... the former I don't think has any Enterprise shots and the latter has one I think.

Terrarium starts in the ship. It ends in the ship.

Compare that to the previous series. They almost always started with an external of the ship, and almost always ended with an external of the ship. They often featured shots of the ship at warp. Often when transferring from a scene on a planet for example to the ship, you'd see an establishing shot of the ship.

I think the nature of broadcast TV also helped this. You'd come back from an ad break to a shot of the ship, and often a captain's log to catch people up. But this acted as a great breather, to stop for a moment and set the scene and move on - something lost on streaming TV.

As a result the ship feels less like a character, but it leads to just one long string of internal scenes. There's no pause, no breath... no sense of the Enterprise being there, moving, traversing space... I forget just how powerful it is seeing an establishing shot of a ship at warp, going somewhere.

It took me ages to click with this, but I think it's something subtle that I miss about old Trek vs new.

Nice observations. You are not wrong. Totally agree with you ..

 

[gweeps]

It finally clicked to me last night. It was when I was watching a Voyager episode... I had a bad day I just wanted some comfort blanket nostalgia (wanted to watch the Cloud, started Phage by accident... that ain't comfort blanket...)

But even with its 4:3 frame and what now feels at times claustrophobic framing and reaction shots, I kept feeling this sense of space. Exploration. Movement.

Strange New Worlds I keep using the word insular about its stories. I have no sense of them really going places even though they clearly are going to different places. This is made worse I think by the fact the bridge doesn't feel the hub of SNW like other shows did, they use the medbay and briefing room a lot.

But then it clicked. For me it's more than that... I realised we don't see the Enterprise like a central character in other shows.

I tested this theory by flicking through Through the Lens of Time and Terrarium (other episodes may prove me wrong)... the former I don't think has any Enterprise shots and the latter has one I think.

Terrarium starts in the ship. It ends in the ship.

Compare that to the previous series. They almost always started with an external of the ship, and almost always ended with an external of the ship. They often featured shots of the ship at warp. Often when transferring from a scene on a planet for example to the ship, you'd see an establishing shot of the ship.

I think the nature of broadcast TV also helped this. You'd come back from an ad break to a shot of the ship, and often a captain's log to catch people up. But this acted as a great breather, to stop for a moment and set the scene and move on - something lost on streaming TV.

As a result the ship feels less like a character, but it leads to just one long string of internal scenes. There's no pause, no breath... no sense of the Enterprise being there, moving, traversing space... I forget just how powerful it is seeing an establishing shot of a ship at warp, going somewhere.

It took me ages to click with this, but I think it's something subtle that I miss about old Trek vs new.

Or in Voyager especially where you'd see the stars through the windows at warp.

 

[saladdays]

Or in Voyager especially where you'd see the stars through the windows at warp.

You would see those quite often in TNG as well.

 

[gweeps]

Yeah, they should go back to using some models and hand drawings.

But they won't, and eventually there'll be no props. Everything will be CGI.

 

[Tuskin38]

and eventually there'll be no props. Everything will be CGI.

That's not going to happen.

 

[gweeps]

That's not going to happen.

If CGI ever gets cheap enough...

 

[fireproof78]

We'll still see a mix. Props are still easier.