For TMP Fans: "Lighting V'ger"

[Cryogenic]

Just came across this:

http://www.barbeefilm.com/vgerpage02.htm

Could be old hat to some of you, but was new to me.

Ten passes!!! Extraordinary work.

 

[Christopher]

Fascinating.

Further along, in an area that resembles a valley, with towering rock-like formations on both sides, we saw other cavernous openings; caldera full of electrical activity with lightening bolts discharging freely in every direction. ... Then we placed custom fitted rear projection screen panels in each opening, rear projected images of lightening bolts and shot those passes, which gave us our "source".

Interesting. I'd been assuming they were the kind of electric gizmo used in Borg alcoves in FC and VGR and that you can buy as a decoration. But I guess if the flyover was animated frame by frame, that wouldn't work; it'd have to be something more controllable like rear projection.

The author overlooks a final surface feature, the glowing reddish orbs toward the very front of V'Ger (remember the Enterprise is flying forward from the rear):

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp/themotionpicture0855.jpg

Although those look fairly easy to light -- just stick bulbs in the middle, I guess.

 

[Psion]

I just re-watched that approach and fly-over sequence again last night and now find the lightning bolts rear-projected on a screen to be so obvious that the effect is now a bit diminished. I never thought about it before, but upon reading that description, I can't help but look at it and see how flat the effect is.

Are the multiple passes required to photograph the model the reason that whole scene seems to flicker? The techniques they used to distribute and then measure smoke density are ingenious but there's a tiny bit of flicker apparent, especially in the longer shots where there's a lot of smoke.

Finally, I know this has probably been debated and settled long ago, but I don't recall the discussion ... was that a Cylon Base Star model worked into V'ger, or just a shape vaguely reminiscent? I'm sure anyone reading this thread knows exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Maurice]

Finally, I know this has probably been debated and settled long ago, but I don't recall the discussion ... was that a Cylon Base Star model worked into V'ger, or just a shape vaguely reminiscent? I'm sure anyone reading this thread knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I think it's just reminiscent...the Basestar model was a foot across and would have appeared bigger than the feature on the V'ger model, which while very long, was not very wide.

 

[trevanian]

Finally, I know this has probably been debated and settled long ago, but I don't recall the discussion ... was that a Cylon Base Star model worked into V'ger, or just a shape vaguely reminiscent? I'm sure anyone reading this thread knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I think it's just reminiscent...the Basestar model was a foot across and would have appeared bigger than the feature on the V'ger model, which while very long, was not very wide.

The Gregg Jein article in Cinefex #2 mentions that dozens of cylon basestar models formed the basis for the vger interior, which was then replicated for each 'side' of the hex structure.

 

[trevanian]

I just re-watched that approach and fly-over sequence again last night and now find the lightning bolts rear-projected on a screen to be so obvious that the effect is now a bit diminished. I never thought about it before, but upon reading that description, I can't help but look at it and see how flat the effect is.

Are the multiple passes required to photograph the model the reason that whole scene seems to flicker? The techniques they used to distribute and then measure smoke density are ingenious but there's a tiny bit of flicker apparent, especially in the longer shots where there's a lot of smoke.

I think Trumbull's smoke density measuring thingies were better than Dykstra's, and the whole Apogee Dykstra vger flyover thing was probably compromised by a loss of quality control when assembling the various passes. Dykstra said that the electricity stuff was printed at a light that was inappropriate in his opinion.

 

[Gepard]

Finally, I know this has probably been debated and settled long ago, but I don't recall the discussion ... was that a Cylon Base Star model worked into V'ger, or just a shape vaguely reminiscent? I'm sure anyone reading this thread knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I think it's just reminiscent...the Basestar model was a foot across and would have appeared bigger than the feature on the V'ger model, which while very long, was not very wide.

The Gregg Jein article in Cinefex #2 mentions that dozens of cylon basestar models formed the basis for the vger interior, which was then replicated for each 'side' of the hex structure.

Really? Going over the screencaps at Trekcore, I'm not seeing it. Can anyone point out where this shows up?

 

[Maurice]

Finally, I know this has probably been debated and settled long ago, but I don't recall the discussion ... was that a Cylon Base Star model worked into V'ger, or just a shape vaguely reminiscent? I'm sure anyone reading this thread knows exactly what I'm talking about.

I think it's just reminiscent...the Basestar model was a foot across and would have appeared bigger than the feature on the V'ger model, which while very long, was not very wide.

The Gregg Jein article in Cinefex #2 mentions that dozens of cylon basestar models formed the basis for the vger interior, which was then replicated for each 'side' of the hex structure.

I believe we're talking about a structure on the outside, though.

 

[Christopher]

^I'm not sure what you're referring to. If you mean this:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp/themotionpicture0860.jpg

The shape does bear a vague resemblance to the Cylon base stars from the new BSG. But the ones from the 1978 BSG looked very different:

http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/File:BasestarTOS.jpg

 

[Cryogenic]

I just re-watched that approach and fly-over sequence again last night and now find the lightning bolts rear-projected on a screen to be so obvious that the effect is now a bit diminished. I never thought about it before, but upon reading that description, I can't help but look at it and see how flat the effect is.

Well, I know what you mean. There's no such thing as a perfect special/visual effect. Aside from ubiquitous mattte fringes, there are various anomalies and artefacts in the film's effects work. For example, the transporter beam is kinda cheap-looking, and if you look closely, you'll see that it isn't totally aligned with the overhead ring and pad in this shot, while the Earth bleeds through the Enterprise's starboard nacelle in this shot. The former of those shots also exhibits the scar of incomplete effects work (per The God Thing: those windows were originally blue screen and were meant to be filled in with something interesting, but they ran out of time and just blacked the windows out).

^I'm not sure what you're referring to. If you mean this:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp/themotionpicture0860.jpg

That's a DE shot!


Bleerrgh.


Errrrgh.


*puke*

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, but it's an accurate recreation of the design seen in the original film and thus suitable as reference for the shape under discussion.

 

[Data Holmes]

The transporter effect was interesting in TMP because it involved spinning a very thin wire at real fast speeds while shooting a laser beam at it. I also think that I remember reading that this was done on set with the actors inside the spinning wire, and that this was the first time the effect was attempted practically on set at time of shooting.

 

[The Castellan]

I just re-watched that approach and fly-over sequence again last night and now find the lightning bolts rear-projected on a screen to be so obvious that the effect is now a bit diminished. I never thought about it before, but upon reading that description, I can't help but look at it and see how flat the effect is.

Well, I know what you mean. There's no such thing as a perfect special/visual effect. Aside from ubiquitous mattte fringes, there are various anomalies and artefacts in the film's effects work. For example, the transporter beam is kinda cheap-looking, and if you look closely, you'll see that it isn't totally aligned with the overhead ring and pad in this shot, while the Earth bleeds through the Enterprise's starboard nacelle in this shot. The former of those shots also exhibits the scar of incomplete effects work (per The God Thing: those windows were originally blue screen and were meant to be filled in with something interesting, but they ran out of time and just blacked the windows out).

^I'm not sure what you're referring to. If you mean this:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp/themotionpicture0860.jpg

That's a DE shot!


Bleerrgh.


Errrrgh.


*puke*

I never noticed the nacelle glitch before.

~Looks down~
I am not going to clean that up.

 

[Maurice]

Most people I know mean THIS when they talk about the Basestar on V'ger. (Also here in hi-def)

 

[Psion]

Most people I know mean THIS when they talk about the Basestar on V'ger. (Also hhttp://www.google.com/ig?refresh=1ere in hi-def)

Thanks, DS9Sega! You just saved me from having to capture and post the relevant shot just to prove to Christopher I'm not a complete idiot.

I'm just a partial idiot.

The details look off for it to be a basestar, but the model did come out in 1978, and it's possible they made simple vacu-formed copies and modified them if they really did use them in multiple locations as Trevanian suggests.

I noticed this structure in 1979 and I never saw any indication until Trevanian's post that my suspicions might be warranted.

Thanks guys!

 

[Cryogenic]

What about the Darth Vader-Miss Piggy controversy? Is it really just the result of our anthropomorphic brains hastening to divine patterns in bilateral arrangements? Or was V'Ger a closet ROTJ fan, celebrating the uneasy alliance of patricidal cyborg antagonists and dancing alien muppets (no wonder it had an existential crisis)?

 

[JarodRussell]

What about the Darth Vader-Miss Piggy controversy? Is it really just the result of our anthropomorphic brains hastening to divine patterns in bilateral arrangements? Or was V'Ger a closet ROTJ fan, celebrating the uneasy alliance of patricidal cyborg antagonists and dancing alien muppets (no wonder it had an existential crisis)?

Looks kinda remiscent to this poster:

http://www.popartuk.com/g/l/lgfp1416+a-new-hope-original-movie-score-star-wars-episode-iv-poster.jpg

 

[trevanian]

The transporter effect was interesting in TMP because it involved spinning a very thin wire at real fast speeds while shooting a laser beam at it. I also think that I remember reading that this was done on set with the actors inside the spinning wire, and that this was the first time the effect was attempted practically on set at time of shooting.

No the laser through the wire was a post effect, not on-set, done by Matt Beck of Apogee, who later did X-FILES. ST THE MAG had a lastpage feature on it.

Abel's people actually shot a lot of the transporter accident (from Koenig's account and others), but I don't know what they intended to do visual-wise.

 

[trevanian]

Most people I know mean THIS when they talk about the Basestar on V'ger. (Also here in hi-def)

Well, the vger exterior is something like 68 ft long, so it MIGHT be a basestar model ... but my reference was to Greg Jein's work for Trumbull (not apogee, who did the exterior) on the vger interior.

Actually, since Dykstra/Apogee DID the BSG vfx, it could well be a casting or something of the sort ... in-joke that went untold? According to Dykstra, they used styrofoam coffee cups and whatever was at hand to finish off the vger exterior.

 

[Christopher]

Most people I know mean THIS when they talk about the Basestar on V'ger. (Also here in hi-def)

That doesn't look at all like a Basestar to me, aside from being circular, but tons of things are circular.