Nice find! Glad to see some things are relatively easy to track down.
Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
Ah yes!! I just saw that loop in the film when doing some research last night! Great find!
This one I found back in 2014 when I did my original builds, and used the graphics in my bridge, which I will be doing so again!
Annnd another! Not useful for the bridge, but definitely for sickbay! Man, I'm on a roll today.
[EDIT] Another from TWOK. The makers of the graphic (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) were even thanked in the credits of TWOK for "Additional computer graphics"
[EDIT] Another from TWOK. The makers of the graphic (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) were even thanked in the credits of TWOK for "Additional computer graphics"
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Don't give JJ ideas.
All this time I'd been impressed thinking that they made so many cool graphics just for TMP. How would those have even been made back in the '70s?
You're on a roll! And apparently so were they!
Stone knives and bearskins, obviously. And to answer: Really BIG computers.
I imagine it being like Doc's ice maker in Back to the Future 3, but that spits out wireframe animations.
My research so far has shown that the more advanced computer graphics on the bridge monitors were all borrowed works from science and engineering labs. I'm on a feverish hunt to find as many as I can. The last two I've found were both products of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, so I keep searching for more of their vintage computer simulation models, but I think I'm hitting a dead end. I have a feeling they're responsible for at least two or three more of the bridge displays I'm looking for.
If I were to guess, and these graphics did come from Los Alamos, they were probably built using CRAY supercomputers.
"Aside from control interfaces, the bridge set was populated with monitors looping animations. Each oval monitor was a rear-projection screen on which super 8 mm and 16 mm film sequences looped for each special effect. The production acquired 42 films for this purpose from an Arlington, Virginia-based company, Stowmar Enterprises. Stowmar's footage was exhausted only a few weeks into filming, and it became clear that new monitor films would be needed faster than an outside supplier could deliver them. Lee Cole, Michael Minor, and Rick Sternbach, worked together with Povill to devise faster ways of shooting new footage. Cole and Povill rented an oscilloscope for a day and filmed its distortions. Other loops came from Long Beach Hospital, the University of California at San Diego, and experimental computer labs in New Mexico. In all, over two hundred pieces of monitor footage were created and catalogued into a seven-page listing." - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079945/trivia
Ahh if I could get my hands on that seven-page listing...or just the whole kit and caboodle of footage.
