Why didn't Theiss find a shirt that photographed green, then.

[AshGL1914]

That's my 1st season tunic under direct light taken in my office with flash. See the Cap shield behind it? Those colors are correct. See any green? Under only the hashist bluish floro lighting does it even remotly have any sort of greenish cast.

It's been speculated that when Bill bought the fabric at International Silks & Woolens in LA, that the store lighting was early 60's floro and perhaps the fabric looked like it had a greenish cast to it then. Money was spent then and he had to use what he had.
Who knows? Bill's lost to us, but I personally know the guy who has all his stuff.

1st season was gold. That's it.

I know what it's like to have a firmly held color conviction, but eventualy the evidence won out. That's ok though...
you should see the vets who fought "The Raiders of the Lost Ark: Grey/Brown PanAm Clipper Fedora Wars" over at IndyGear's Club ObiWan. That particular hat was grey by the way. The brown guys had to surrender and everything...sad really.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Query: When James is making those first season tunics, is he matching the color to the swatches, or the dying instructions? I'm wondering about the possibility of that velour having faded regardless of how it was stored, giving us a false result.

 

[AshGL1914]

He has all of Bill's notes and swatches, as for dyeing instructions, I'll have to ask him but we do know that the fabric was purchased outright by Bill from International Silks & Woolens in 1965, finished. Bill didn't dye it. So...

As for fading, the samples James has are of screen used fabric, and the swatches closed in Bill's notes for 46 years. I'm not sure how something might fade when it's not been exposed to the elements for decades at a time.

 

[AshGL1914]

I will offer this though...

The picture I posted of...well this picture of ORIGINAL 1st season fabric with ORIGINAL 3rd season fabric laid over top from the Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Authority. The 1st season fabric IS faded a bit. That's how the 1st season velour fades out. Still gold, but lighter and more yellow than the gold started out. And look how green the 3rd season looks laying on top of that. The diffrence is night and day.

 

[AshGL1914]

And now a short film about lighting from STAR TREK:PHASE II.

http://youtu.be/iy_X9WAuDjk?hd=1

"Here's a video to demonstrate the fact that color temperature of lighting is not the only important factor when lighting for video or still photography. Color Rendition (the CRI), is also equally important due to the dyes used in various fabrics and paints. This also will give gaffers or directors of photography or photographers an idea of why lighting with LED lights (which have a very constrained CRI range) doesnt create the same effect. It also explains why lighting with things like KinoFLOs and HMI still do not produce the same results as true sunlight (KinoFLOs with daylight bulbs and HMIs), nor the same results using KinoFLOs with "warm" bulbs compared to using tungsten lighting.

This also demonstrates a few other things...
(1) Why Captain Kirk's tunic seems to be different colors in different scenes (it's avacado, folks. period.) {Robert's referring here to the Double Knit fabric PHASE II used at the time. James has since switched to the velour as he perfers that. -John}
(2) Why many companies that try to make authentic Star Trek TOS uniform tunics (or tunics for the Star Trek movies or other shows) dont quite get it right... it's not just the color of the fabric that's important; the dyes used (ie: 10% green, 35% red, etc) is equally important, or the fabrics will not appear the right color under each different type of light."

 

[AshGL1914]

Query: When James is making those first season tunics, is he matching the color to the swatches, or the dying instructions?

Oh and to partially answer your question, I still don't know about the 1st/2nd season velour, but at least as far as the 3rd season green double knit is concerned, I found the following quote from Patty Wright:

"No one but James has access to the copyrighted dye formula."

So at least for the green tunics there is in fact a dye formula. As for the velour, I know only that James spent a conciderable amount of money having the velour custom manufactured and that he wouldn't lay out that kind of cash unless it was right. The guy is just a bit nuts when it comes to accuracy.

And I found a quote from James himself on the color and the recreation he was developing at that time:

"The Original velour was NEVER GREEN.
I am working very hard to have all materials developed to exacting standards, and they must absolutely match the originals in color,weight and finish."

 

[Captain Robert April]

In the interests of full disclosure, I sent off a PM to Bjo Trimble, including a link to this discussion, to get her insights on this; besides her uberfan status, she's somewhat of an expert on costuming and fabrics. Plus, her days of access to the set were during the first two seasons (same with David Gerrold, but I'm not sure about his qualifications regarding fabrics, so I'll hold off on bugging him for now), so the only uniforms she would've seen during her time on set would've been the first/second season ones.

For the record, I'm not pushing one way or the other on this one. I just want to know what the hell is going on with this demon velour.

 

[AshGL1914]

Actually Bjo's an acquaintance of mine, and she may or may not respond. She and John are way into 16th century renaissance stuff these days and I think they're on vacation right now to boot, or just got back?...not sure.
As for David he's a new acquaintance by the way who's a member of my Enterprise Restoration Project along with Doug Drexler, Steve Neill, Mike Okuda, Gary Kerr and others.
If you like I could try to ask him to join this discussion but he may or may not join in.
Anyway, you should totally give me a call sometime.
P.M.'ing phone number now.

Cheers!

John

 

[plynch]

1. This is revelatory about S1/2 command velours! Those original swatches seem incontrovertible. It's only been a coupla years since I wrapped my head around their greenness. Now they're not green. My world is crumbling. How did no other authorities around here know this until now?

2. This seems to shoot down the rgb theory to tie in with color tv sales. Any comments on that?

(Clarification: and yes it was a S3! poly I saw in Detroit under museum-white lighting that was chartreuse - green yellow - to the eye.)

 

[AshGL1914]

Well, for one you would have to have been a part of CWI and CWII at all of the boards dedicated to STAR TREK uniforms and costumes only to really know. Those were some remarkable times, with heroes on both sides. You should have seen The Springweave Battles. Heads were popping like balloons...Or the Golden Sparklefields...those fields looked like an engenering tunic by the time we left. Boys, they were just boys...


I think someone needs to buy the good captain a drink. He's kind of like the "Greens" we found up in The Avocado Caves months after The Last Great Color War. They were starving, wearing only the tatters of their Adam29 3rd season Double Knits...they had started to eat their dead.
Great. I won't sleep tonight.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Sorry, I'm going to go with conjecture here.

1) The green does not necessarily "photograph as gold." There's been a great deal of still photography floating around for years showing the velour as green.

2) In the color-corrected Remastered version of the series, the command tunics usually appear as a shade of green.

I'm guessing that it was a combination of the specific exposures and stock used to strike prints for the network (and many more, later, for syndication) and the vagaries of broadcast transmission that caused the shirts to go off-true. It's not that odd for people in production, especially with new tech, to misjudge the kinds of problems that will be created, and there are good precedents/other examples for this. Video engineers, for example, will still sometimes clear on-camera talent to wear tie patterns, close stripes etc that don't cause problems on the studio video monitors (which are directly connected with industry-grade cable and connectors) but which then produce moire patterns on over-the-air broadcast transmission and reception. Heck, clothing colors that create holes in the chromakey process still occasionally make it through.

So, Theiss and the others didn't necessarily see gold tunics during screening of dailies or examination of set photography. By the time anyone noticed what the outfits looked like at home given the broadcast and color TV tech of 1966 the investment would have been made in the season's wardrobe and a fair number of episodes committed to film. At which point, it would also have been clear that this was not a Big Problem that required correction by spending significant money that the production didn't have lying around anyway.

 

[AshGL1914]

I'm Sorry.
I'm so sorry, but this battle was ended long ago at Starfleet 1701st, StarTrek Uniforms and Costumes, The Star Trek:Phase II Costuming Board, ASAP, The RpF, Star Trek Props and Costumes, and all of the other major boards that are ONLY concerned with props and costumes.
It's over.
You all missed it.

Some of what you see now in the color correction of the remastered version of the series are corrections made by people who now believe that the tunics regardless of season were green. Just like the color processors who kept returning prints of Vina as the Orion slave girl corrected to normal human flesh color. They didn't know at first that she was supposed to be green!

Look, it's like all of those people (even companies!!!) who base replicas and new products of the original Enterprise based on what's now displayed in the Smithsonian! The ship was changed and damaged durring the 1991 restoration that Ed performed, but that doesn't matter, people see what's in NASM and assume that's the way it looked in 1969, when in fact it's not even close.
See what I mean?

 

[plynch]

I definitely did miss all that. I don't even know the acronyms.

Then, the question remains why Mr. Theiss would buy mustard/gold velour, if green was originally visualized (my assumption based on the jumper/wraparound/dress shirts).

If you note my avatar (a publicity photo wherein the tunic looks brown! but let's not go there), you'll understand my interest in asking: James Cawley does Elvis!? Can you elaborate? He definitely has some decent resemblance to the King. Thanks for all the direct knowledge (swatch photos, especially).

 

[AshGL1914]

Oh, I don't know if you "missed" it. It was bad. You'd go to sleep at night dreaming of baionetting Bill Theiss on the day in 1965 that he bought that damn velour, just to end it.

Most of us suffer from PTSD (Post Tunic Stress Dissorder). It's not pretty.

As for your question...we'll never know, but and this is for your own sanity...let it go. There's no reason to it, stop looking for it. There's a need in every fanboy to assign a "cannon" reason for everything or to beleve that even backstage things must have been done for a reason right?
Nope.
Somtimes things just get f'ed up. Especially in production, be it theater, tv, or film.

James did tell me though, by the campfire the night before we took Theiss Tower, that if Bill knew how many hours, resources, and minds had been waisted trying to figure out that damn velour, he'd laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

John

p.s. Since you asked...
James Cawley has been ranked the Number 1 Elvis impersonator in the USA by a committee of Elvis fan club presidents out of 2500 contestants. His amazing resemblance to "The King" in appearance, mannerisms, and voice have also earned finalist status in the Worldwide Elvis impersonator contest.

 

[AshGL1914]

Oh..and here is an authenticated 1st season original series command tunic with a piece of actual 3rd season double knit on top. Both with perfect provence from the collection of Paul Savoy:

 

[Maurice]

I'm Sorry.
I'm so sorry, but this battle was ended long ago at Starfleet 1701st, StarTrek Uniforms and Costumes, The Star Trek:Phase II Costuming Board, ASAP, The RpF, Star Trek Props and Costumes, and all of the other major boards that are ONLY concerned with props and costumes.
It's over.
You all missed it.

While I and most other here appreciate the information you're sharing, your tone is coming across as needless patronizing. As was mentioned earlier, we're not children here, so talk to us like adults, please.

 

[Captain Robert April]

How does the six shooter figure into the mix?

 

[AshGL1914]

Sorry. I was in no way trying to be patronizing, just trying to keep the discussion somewhat light and punchy. This can be really touchy and by making somewhat light of it to include the concept of a long drawn out conflict, I was hoping to keep it fun. That's all. Though I do forget occasionally that humor and sarcasm rarely works on the net without the liberal application of emoticons.

 

[AshGL1914]

Oh...I beleave that was the actual prop pistol used in "Shore Leave"

 

[AshGL1914]

Capt.,
Got your pm and I think our respective projects dovetail perfectly. I'll try to get back to you either later tonight or in the morning, as I'm keeping one eye on this topic and one on my 6month old.

Sorry everybody, I now return you to this particular topic already in progress.