I noticed a long time ago someone is walking by the window in the rear windows of the bridge dome when the ship flies off at the end of the opening credits. Anyone know how they did that? Its there a little moving part in the model? A screen? A blue screen effect (with none of the matte lines?)?
Hahha... Yeah.. I've always loved that part in the opening.. You can actually see people moving in the observation lounge behind the main bridge.. From what I know, I think it was explained in one of the features in the dvd set.. It was the set of the observation lounge shot from outside while the cast was filming or something like that and than they imposed that exterior shot of the observation lounge against the model of the ship for the opening.. Real magic right there!
I always thought it was Riker. No real evidence, just the way the figure walked made me think of Riker.
Always heard it was meant to be Picard. His introduction in Farpoint is him looking out one of the Obs. Lounge windows. Always found it funny in eps where they use that shot of the E but don't want the figure moving so all of a sudden the windows are light blue?!?
Nope, he's looking out one of the front windows in that scene. Remember the camera zooms in to the front of the ship.
Actulaly, since the wall of that room doesn't have the ship models -or table- and the way the camera "pans" I always took Picard's very first apperance taking place in some room on the saucer rim or possibly on the rim of the bridge "island" and not the ObsLounge.
I always figured it was just some random person. Either way, it's a great touch, brings the ship to life, always love seeing it in the opening.
One of the ILM animation guys -- I think it may be the Takahashi guy who did DEATH BECOMES HER and later moved to Australia to work at WETA -- who animated that little guy, and he has no detail at all, so he really isn't anybody in particular. I think it may have been just a silhouette animated. They pin-blocked the animation so that it would stay in registration with the lil window, which was pretty fancy-ass stuff back then (they won an oscar for doing some of that in INNERSPACE the same year), and almost unheard of for TV work in that era. I think that might be one of the rare bits that was comped at ILM rather than at the SoCal places that finished off and recomped the ILM FARPOINT ship elements ... it just doesn't have much of that video-ish look I associate with most early TNG shots.
The figure can be anybody but as fans we can say it's "Picard" (or the Enterprise maid vacuuming the Obs Lounge.) I like that shot of the figure moving inside the window. It gives you a great sense of scale and a staggering sense of how utterly immense the -D is.
Back to the front window discussion for a mo: Here's the transition frame as the shot zooms into the front of the saucer, then dissolves to Picard looking out a window. I always figures he was in those forward windows in the deck below the bridge.
Isn't there a first-season episode that dissolves from the shot in question to a shot outside the observation lounge with someone roughly matching the motion? "Lonely Among Us", I think? I don't recall who the person happened to be, however. EDIT: Eh, sort of. Here it is, around the 3:30 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6K3PQPpT2Y&feature=related You really can't see the person moving, although it's merely the shot in reverse, but it does cut to Picard pacing; not a great match though. Too much thought put into this now.