Hey, I never noticed that before....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
Yup, that's it!
After reading your reply, it occurred to me that I could hit Memory Alpha > Hadley > Appearances and look for episodes marked "stock footage." There are three. In the first, Metamorphosis, I couldn't find Billy unless it's just his shoulder in one of the Sulu scenes (a shoulder that might be wearing a second-pilot uniform). However, the other two episodes did deliver, and in spades: they gave me a brand-new Hey, I never noticed that before!
The Cloud Minders and Turnabout Intruder both deliver the three-quarter view of Hadley's head, but in two slightly different scenes. The first features Spock; the second, Kirk. The surprise for me is that the two setups are otherwise nearly identical. Same camera position & angle, same lack of dialog, same blocking of the conn officer starting in the chair, looking at the viewscreen, then standing up out of the chair. The kicker is that they both feature the same four other actors in the same exact seats: Jeannie Malone, Ron Veto, George Takei, and Billy Blackburn. Billy's two poses are virtually identical, to the point that even his shadows look the same.
The Cloud Minders (left); Turnabout Intruder (right)
I gotta believe they filmed both of these sequences specifically for use as stock shots, on the same day. "Thanks Bill; okay Leonard, your turn." If the camera was tied down well, maybe they were even able to use the same viewscreen matte for both.
One final stupid observation: The Turnabout scene is a double cheat: not only is Chekov being faked, so is Janice Lester!
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Yup, that's it!
After reading your reply, it occurred to me that I could hit Memory Alpha > Hadley > Appearances and look for episodes marked "stock footage." There are three. In the first, Metamorphosis, I couldn't find Billy unless it's just his shoulder in one of the Sulu scenes (a shoulder that might be wearing a second-pilot uniform). However, the other two episodes did deliver, and in spades: they gave me a brand-new Hey, I never noticed that before!
The Cloud Minders and Turnabout Intruder both deliver the three-quarter view of Hadley's head, but in two slightly different scenes. The first features Spock; the second, Kirk. The surprise for me is that the two setups are otherwise nearly identical. Same camera position & angle, same lack of dialog, same blocking of the conn officer starting in the chair, looking at the viewscreen, then standing up out of the chair. The kicker is that they both feature the same four other actors in the same exact seats: Jeannie Malone, Ron Veto, George Takei, and Billy Blackburn. Billy's two poses are virtually identical, to the point that even his shadows look the same.
The Cloud Minders (left); Turnabout Intruder (right)
I gotta believe they filmed both of these sequences specifically for use as stock shots, on the same day. "Thanks Bill; okay Leonard, your turn." If the camera was tied down well, maybe they were even able to use the same viewscreen matte for both.
One final stupid observation: The Turnabout scene is a double cheat: not only is Chekov being faked, so is Janice Lester!
Great job !! Yeah, I would have to say that those were filmed minutes/seconds apart. Billy was so quietly awesome—always looking serious without overdoing it, lending gravitas, looking realistic operating the controls. I can fully believe he held the pose for as long as they needed.
I also like seeing Veto manning the aux systems / engineering subsystems station. I liked it when they gave the impression that all 11 seats on the bridge were crewed, because I found that logical and satisfying.
Agreed on all counts. Over the past couple of years I've developed a particular appreciation for the background performers. Now when I watch episodes I'm sort of automatically watching for these sightings. I play a dumb little one-player game where I keep looking for the scenes with three or more recurring known extras together. The new stock shots above certainly qualify as 3-fers. Four's are also not super-rare...
Space Seed — Eddie Paskey, Frank da Vinci, unknown, Jan Reddin, Billy Blackburn
... and I think this one is at least a 5:
Is There in Truth No Beauty? — Frieda Rentie, Billy Blackburn, Eddie Paskey (I think), Frank da Vinci, Roger Holloway
The sequence above is fun because the camera cuts back and forth between two different crew clusters in the corridors, and it looks like Eddie is in both groups!
Also, you can't capture them all in a single screenshot, but the Chapel scene in The Tholian Web is a strong candidate for having maybe the highest "score." At a minimum, I believe I've spotted Billy Blackburn, Dave Cadiente, Frank da Vinci, Lou Elias, Roger Holloway, Jeannie Malone, Robert Metz, and Gary Wright.
Jeannie is one who I kind of silently "root for," since she doesn't doesn't seem to get discussed as much as the others, and yet she's in a metric crapload of episodes. Among background performers, Jeannie's episode count as a Starfleet crewmember (not counting aliens, civilians...) comes in at a strong third place, behind only Billy and Eddie. These three, and Frank da Vinci at fourth, each have more episodes than Walter Koenig. (Those who care can find these kinds of stats on a Memory Alpha page I've helped build.)
One more thing I will say here is that I particularly love it when a longstanding myth or misunderstanding finally gets enough sunlight that it starts to die off. (As an example, the "every ship had its own patch" mis-assumption finally seems to have enough documentation out in the ether that the facts are starting to win.) Another one I would love to see dispelled is the longstanding Memory Alpha mistake that (still) states Ron Veto's character to be Harrison, when the on-screen evidence best shows he could not have been Harrison and therefore was almost certainly intended to be Thule (pronounced "TOO-lee"). This MA assertion has lingered for many years, and has had such a far reach that even Veto himself seems to have assumed it was correct and called himself Harrison at conventions. All of this is a sad loss for what should have been another unique example of Starfleet diversity and the only TOS shout-out I'm aware of to the Inuit people. Anyway I won't clog up this thread any further with that topic, but anyone who wants to dig into the arguments can read Harrison's Talk page on MA. Just please go in with an open mind and a willingness to see the evidence.
I checked out the stats page. The other "recurring characters" pages aren't similarly formatted. Pity.
Yeah, I keep thinking I'll get to that one of these days. We'll see.
In other news, I just stumbled onto a third version of the 3/4 Sulu-Hadley stock shot. And The Children Shall Lead was not included in my initial search because Hadley's appearances do not show the "stock" note for this installment (probably there's fresh footage of Billy in the episode). Anyway, it turns out that there's a version with no conn officer:
Here the shot was used to show us that literally nobody is supervising Tommy Starnes as he cases the Enterprise's control center.
(Hi again, Jeannie and Ron!)
My guess is they may also have filmed Kirk and Spock not just seated in the chair, but entering and exiting, because this gives the most editorial flexibility.Yeah, I keep thinking I'll get to that one of these days. We'll see.
In other news, I just stumbled onto a third version of the 3/4 Sulu-Hadley stock shot. And The Children Shall Lead was not included in my initial search because Hadley's appearances do not show the "stock" note for this installment (probably there's fresh footage of Billy in the episode). Anyway, it turns out that there's a version with no conn officer:
Here the shot was used to show us that literally nobody is supervising Tommy Starnes as he cases the Enterprise's control center.
(Hi again, Jeannie and Ron!)
Nice! It seems clear now that when they assembled the seldom-needed forward end of the bridge for stock footage, they wanted to get the most versatility out of it. They might even have taken shots that were never used, like Sulu in the big chair and another extra at the helm.
And @Maurice, I think we did see Kirk step over to his chair and sit down from that stock angle at least once. I can't remember when it was used though. But I'd be stunned if they had Shatner and Nimoy there in costume, the bridge set was configured just for this view, and they didn't do a bunch of things with it in a short time.
In unaired crossover episode, invisible Jack O’Neill from SG-1’s “Shades of Grey” decided to give each Enterprise crewman an atomic wedgie, much to Teal’c’s disgust.
“Well, how would you use a personal cloak?”
Maybe help the Federation spy on Romulans and Klingons to prevent a war? Jack…are you still there?
“…..no….”
Stay tuned as Jack steps on a hidden Yautja’s foot in “Pardon Me,” next time on UPN.
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A friendly facebooker by the name of Jörg Hillebrand has compiled the various clips into a full video sequence.Yeah, I keep thinking I'll get to that one of these days. We'll see.
In other news, I just stumbled onto a third version of the 3/4 Sulu-Hadley stock shot. And The Children Shall Lead was not included in my initial search because Hadley's appearances do not show the "stock" note for this installment (probably there's fresh footage of Billy in the episode). Anyway, it turns out that there's a version with no conn officer:
Here the shot was used to show us that literally nobody is supervising Tommy Starnes as he cases the Enterprise's control center.
(Hi again, Jeannie and Ron!)
I've re-uploaded the video to those who aren't on FB but all credit to Jorg!
Unfortunately he did not include the Spock segment.
Nice!
The Nimoy sequence in The Cloud Minders ends with Spock exiting the chair and circling around the end of the helm to roughly face Sulu, much like Kirk does in this montage. It was clever to structure the blocking so they could later snip it into many different clips. I never noticed any of this before, so many thanks to @Mytran and Jörg!
I'm now guessing that it's all one continuous piece of film, and when Shatner waked off they just purposely held for several seconds on the empty chair before Nimoy started his attack run (or vice versa, but I doubt Shatner would've been happy about going second). And man, Billy's hand truly does never leave the end of the nav station!
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I don't mind that they used the shot so many times, because it provides one of our only glimpses of the captain's chair base structure and even just its back, and also it's a cool angle on the bridge architecture.
Exactly. And the port stations are crewed!!!!! Yay!!
"Enterprise, the planet appears to be emitting some kind of field which creates spontaneous wedgies."
This scene/shot is also the "genesis" of the blooper where a young Adam Nimoy appears on the bridge, in ears, and says, "Hi, Daddy"It was probably on another TrekBBS thread, as it was the subject of some discussion a few years ago.
Basically, you are correct: The snippet of Spock used for Man Trap was a bit of unused footage from the scene in Little Girls where Spock talks to Ruk who is impersonated Kirk.
NOTE: In the above screencap the engineering station display appears switched off, although in fact both it and the one to the left flick on and off throughout the scene. Possibly in response to an extra flipping switches, although that's another discussion!
Turns out not only has this subject been discussed before on the TrekBBS (which is not uncommon for most subjects) but it was actually on this very thread! About 2 years ago:
Hey, I never noticed that before....
That's not the only instance of footage from other episodes in The Man Trap, which had many! Here's everything I noticed (including the WNMHGB footage you already mentioned): The opening shot of Spock on the Bridge & Uhura at the Navigation station is lifted from The Naked Time. After Kirk and...
www.trekbbs.com
Hey, I never noticed that before....
That's not the only instance of footage from other episodes in The Man Trap, which had many! Here's everything I noticed (including the WNMHGB footage you already mentioned): The opening shot of Spock on the Bridge & Uhura at the Navigation station is lifted from The Naked Time. After Kirk and...
www.trekbbs.com
Last year, I covered all of those main viewscreen shots on my social media accounts.All those shots (with Kirk in command, Spock in command, Kirk and Spock at the Captain's chair plus "Arena" specific crewmembers (DePaul instead of Hadley) with Kirk in command) must have been filmed at the time when "Arena" was made. The shot of Spock in command appears in "The Cloud Minders" but a small piece of it was earlier seen in "The Paradise Syndrome". That sequence also appears in "The Cloud Minders" however, so we didn't make a video as nothing needed to be "pieced back together".
I just re-watched The Tholian Web for the 1,000 time. For some reason I was focused on Nurse Chapel during the last Transporter Room scenes. I had to do a double take. I really thought to myself, “Is that Susan Oliver/Vina? “ Then I woke up to reality…
**Trek Core graciously supplied these images**
**Trek Core graciously supplied these images**
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I think it's something about the makeup, the bangs, and harsh lighting on the face. Susan Oliver could look incredibly beautiful, but "The Cage" has scenes where they didn't do her justice. The Transporter room shot you cited isn't doing Majel Barrett any favors, either.I just re-watched The Tholian Web for the 1,000 time. For some reason I was focused on Nurse Chapel during the last Transporter Room scenes. I had to do a double take. I really thought to myself, “Is that Susan Oliver/Vina? “ Then I woke up to reality…
**Trek Core graciously supplied these images**
You mean, the wig!
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