Hey, peeps! Thought I'd drop a line and show off the video of the work we're doing on the Roddeberry Archive! Lots of stuff I've personally crafted is featured in this video, including all of those Cage sets (except for the underground Talosian corridor that was crafted by coworker Geoff Holman). Towards the end we show off some TMP work, and in the middle of the video there's a cool bridge evolution video I crafted! Also, a giant piece of white fuzz is on my chin in the couple of interview clips of me shown! My first filmed interview and HOLY CRAP A PIECE OF FUZZ IS HANGING OFF MY FACE Check it out! Was an honor to see my work behind Bob Butler while he was being interviewed about his direction of The Cage! DISCLAIMER: I can't really answer any of your burning questions. Please just enjoy the video and trust we're working hard!
Very cool @Donny ! Just noticed... bummer - the "The Cage" briefing/conference room is missing the exit where everyone walks out on the side. Oh well.
Just saw that and immediately came here! Your work is unmistakable. It really looks like an amazing project, and I can’t wait to see how it comes together and is made available to us. And that actress is a dead ringer for Laurel Goodwin! From maps for Elite Force to rubbing shoulders with Trek royalty - the boy done good.
So nice to actually hear your voice! And some of this is so beautiful (even as WIP) I cried. I'm so happy you have this opportunity and really excited to see what you all come up with! PS - I wouldn't have noticed the fuzz if you hadn't mentioned it.
I'd like to know who that amazing stand-in for Laurel Goodwin is! (And I didn't notice the fuzz, either.)
Excellent work, Donny! It must be an amazing feeling to see your work featured with some of the original creatives behind "The Cage"! I assume the TOS engine room featured in the video is your work as well, right?
Excellent points about the use of colour in lighting. Star Trek was produced at that rare intersection between B&W and colour, so it takes an experienced eye to spot the nuances when painting a CGI set, plus what that meant to the audiences at the time and how they would have experienced it.
Yup. Any TOS Enterprise interiors were mine, as well as the TMP bridge and TMP engine room, as well as all the bridges seen in the bridge evolution portion. A lot of this work was stuff I've done before joining OTOY that is now going to be part of the archive; but the Cage corridors, briefing room, transporter room are all new stuff I've done since joining the team. So many people see "The Cage" sets and just think they're grey. And they were. But they miss the subtle colored lighting, namely the hues of purple, green, gold, and blue seen in all the Enterprise sets in that episode. On that note, I must've sat in that chair and talked for 45 minutes about so much interesting stuff, but the only thing that made it into the final video was that comment about lighting That's show business, I guess! Fun note: the piece of fuzz was noticed about halfway through filming...I was hoping they'd use stuff after we removed it from my face It was also the first time I'd met Mike and Denise in-person, despite having worked with them over Zoom for several months. Denise gave me a big hug when I arrived! They were in the background during the entire interview process and asked me some additional questions that were quite great. The team and I got to spend the day with them and then we all went out to dinner later. Was so great to finally meet them in person. They really are some wonderful people that really, truly love Star Trek.
More info on OTOY's blog post: https://home.otoy.com/roddenberry_a..._h0S_L_QOf0dVmKhyhqYRiCeFwzkDfIDVGi0b1LY-XPPM Here you can see some other new work I've done since joining the project, namely phasers, lasers, communicators, clipboards, and for the keen-eyed....a hospital room and a wheelchair
Did you have to guess at the lighting or were there setup notes to help with that? The briefing room had a mix of lighting that drove me bonkers. Dude, you look awesome
I am so excited to see this project come to fruition and see your contributions take a front seat, Donny!
Cool work Donny. I watched that video and I still have no idea what this project is meant for. They're obviously monetizing all this, but I find it so strange that they haven't actually explained anything. Is it going to be like a VR experience/game?
Yeah I assumed it's a kind of virtual museum/experience for VR, though they've been quite vague so far. The original press release talks about "public life-sized hologram installations" which I guess could be travelling exhibits a bit like the Van Gogh "immersive experience" I went to recently. But they also mention NFTs... I doubt @Donny can tell us much more so we can move the speculation to a separate thread in Gen Trek if that's better for you!
The NFT thing makes me wary. I hope they don't scan reference images, claim digital rights to them, and then issue takedowns to any fans posting the same images online.
I didn't realize you were working on this and was quite (pleasantly) surprised when I saw you pop up in the video! Fantastic work as usual. I'm glad to see your skills are being put to work on such an amazing project. I found this little tidbit from the link you provided quite interesting: I think it would be amazing if they could recreate her voice. They're doing some pretty amazing work in this field these days.
I have a vague recollection of some fairly advanced signal processing tech that was just starting to emerge in the last decade, taking a sample of someone's voice, having someone else say some words, and the algorithm would map the sampled person's voice over the second speaker. An audio deep-fake, basically, without having to impersonate someone else's voice. "I can only assume they've reached stage two by now."
They made all of Luke's dialogue in the Mandalorian that way. And since she's the computer, any slight "robotness" would be almost better than perfectly lifelike.