Matte Paintings and Backdrops

I simply said you're correct about the direction from which the lighting appears to emanate. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

 

Aye, I set up myself for that "come back".

Sincerely,

Bill

 

Okay, so I wonder where the term "nurnies" comes from, as everyone I've ever heard that is actually attached to industry (like ILM staffers and so on) have always used to word "Greeblies" as far as I'm aware. And yet every now and again I hear random people from the Internet say nurnies.... Where does that even come from?

And, I'm not trying to be some ass-hat troll, I really want to know.

--Alex

 

Nurnie appears to be the CGI version of greeble, which would explain why Metryq uses it. He's done a lot of computer modeling and illustration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble

"Ron Thornton is widely believed to have coined the term "nurnies" referring to CGI technical detail that his company Foundation Imaging produced for the Babylon 5 series."

 

^^^
That's fascinating! Thank you.

--Alex

 

The gray rectangular panel looks like a mini etch-a-sketch, with the knobs as the controllers. It was an experimental way of communicating with him, beyond the limitations of the yes/no questions.

 

In late 1972 I toured the facility of Linwood G. Dunn's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linwood_G._Dunn special effects shop "Film Effects of Hollywood", and he had several TOS matte paintings on masonite in a back storeroom including a beamdown scene of the iconic square block wall of Starbase 11 with a small black square where the crew was to be composited in. It did not have a place for the fountain used in S01E11. The matte painting that sold at auction in 2011 (from S01E11) sold for $12,000, was a later reproduction for use with the TOS crew that allowed a larger amount of screen space to be devoted to seeing the crew. Dunn's specialty was building in-camera compositing optical equipment and he worked extensively on Trek and the pilot in the early days doing compositing support for the other three optical effects houses. I have no Idea where those matte paintings wound up since his studio was later sold to Francis Ford Coppola.