Memory Wall scene?

[Itisnotlogical]

I've heard about this lost piece of TMP history, and I was wondering...
Where the hell can I find information on it!? I can't figure out what happenned in the scene, what part of the movie it happened in, anything! Help

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Here:
http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/tmp_13.php

And this thread:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=83468

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've heard about this lost piece of TMP history, and I was wondering...
Where the hell can I find information on it!? I can't figure out what happenned in the scene, what part of the movie it happened in, anything! Help

It's also illustrated in the Marvel comics adaptation!

 

[Peach Wookiee]

That sounds awesome. ^^

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Here:
http://www.ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/tmp_13.php

And this thread:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=83468

At times i think i have seen everything to do with trek and then more pops up out of nowhere......Brillant.

 

[QuasarVM]

That was our goal...to give the fans something that hasn't been presented in the mainstream media ad nauseum.

I can only say, there is a lot more that what is even at Nick Otten's site...we just haven't gotten access to it.

For one, there's the entire gallery of artwork from Mike Minor for Star Trek II. Only some of it has been printed or presented online -- not all by a longshot.

There's also the storyboards of Ed Verreaux from ST:TMP -- which I know exist in art pads and owned by Richard Taylor. Again, never printed or presented online.

I can only guess at what these look like...and who knows what else is out there.

 

[trevanian]

Personally, I'd like to see more and bigger renderings of the enterprise warp shockwave bubble effect that was shown in a tiny pic in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS. It is the kind of thing that could have been fantastic or ludicrous depending on execution, but it would definitely have made warp drive a memorable and very distinctly cut-above approach to FTL in movies. This is stuff somebody at Abel named Crewson or Frieson drew and developed, and for which they would build a black enterprise to silhouette match the main one to overlay streaked effects for the ship travelling past camera.

 

[QuasarVM]

Personally, I'd like to see more and bigger renderings of the enterprise warp shockwave bubble effect that was shown in a tiny pic in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS. It is the kind of thing that could have been fantastic or ludicrous depending on execution, but it would definitely have made warp drive a memorable and very distinctly cut-above approach to FTL in movies. This is stuff somebody at Abel named Crewson or Frieson drew and developed, and for which they would build a black enterprise to silhouette match the main one to overlay streaked effects for the ship travelling past camera.

Yeah, that was Trumbull who elected to go with the slit-scan effects for the warp drive. Time was running out and they just went with what they knew would work, look decent, and complete in time for the release date.

As you point out, Trev -- Abel wasn't going to do slit scan.

I've never seen the artwork you describe...if you could scan it and put out here I know I'd love to see it.

 

[Maurice]

Personally, I'd like to see more and bigger renderings of the enterprise warp shockwave bubble effect that was shown in a tiny pic in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS. It is the kind of thing that could have been fantastic or ludicrous depending on execution, but it would definitely have made warp drive a memorable and very distinctly cut-above approach to FTL in movies. This is stuff somebody at Abel named Crewson or Frieson drew and developed, and for which they would build a black enterprise to silhouette match the main one to overlay streaked effects for the ship travelling past camera.

Wow, the precision required to do that and make them match would have been tough.

Do you recall how the black model was to function, as opposed to just pulling a matte silhouette?

 

[trevanian]

The little black model would have fibop lighting BETWEEN the nacelles that would serve as the main basis for the warp drive (hence lit inboards) and the black ship would matte out the light effect as the camera moved past the model ... then they'd somehow scale the move so that they could duplicate it on the 8ft model ... and animation would've added the bubble around the ship, which I'm guessing would have also had a reflection of the starfield on it. I think the little pic was in an issue between 10 and 16, and the approach was also mentioned in a Probert interview.

 

[trevanian]

Personally, I'd like to see more and bigger renderings of the enterprise warp shockwave bubble effect that was shown in a tiny pic in ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS. It is the kind of thing that could have been fantastic or ludicrous depending on execution, but it would definitely have made warp drive a memorable and very distinctly cut-above approach to FTL in movies. This is stuff somebody at Abel named Crewson or Frieson drew and developed, and for which they would build a black enterprise to silhouette match the main one to overlay streaked effects for the ship travelling past camera.

Yeah, that was Trumbull who elected to go with the slit-scan effects for the warp drive. Time was running out and they just went with what they knew would work, look decent, and complete in time for the release date.

As you point out, Trev -- Abel wasn't going to do slit scan.

I've never seen the artwork you describe...if you could scan it and put out here I know I'd love to see it.

I'll try to see if I have the article (I know I don't have the mag), but the pic is really tiny, maybe an inch or so. I think they do say they were going to streak the artwork, so maybe leaving the shutter open for a pass would give the inboard effect.

 

[Maurice]

The little black model would have fibop lighting BETWEEN the nacelles that would serve as the main basis for the warp drive (hence lit inboards) and the black ship would matte out the light effect as the camera moved past the model ... then they'd somehow scale the move so that they could duplicate it on the 8ft model ... and animation would've added the bubble around the ship, which I'm guessing would have also had a reflection of the starfield on it. I think the little pic was in an issue between 10 and 16, and the approach was also mentioned in a Probert interview.

Interesting. I suppose the wanted to build the whole ship so they could make sure the effect didn't show through anything, otherwise they could just have made black nacelles.

Still, precisely matching perspective on two different size models sounds tricky as Hell.

 

[QuasarVM]

I wonder if the tests for that are what is on some of those Topps ST:TMP trading cards. You know, all those shots of the Abel Enterprise model with streak effects on them?

If so, those looked BAD. And not "bad" in a good way either...

 

[Maurice]

^^^I'd guess not. None of the stuff on those cards looks like actual VFX footage or even tests. Most looks like photos of the model that were played with during developing. But who knows for sure?

 

[trevanian]

It is definitely Abel era stuff, the spotlight area isn't on the ship yet, I don't think. But since I never saw anything about anybody BUILDING a black E (magicam certainly never even talked about it), it may never have progressed that far.

 

[QuasarVM]

It is definitely Abel era stuff, the spotlight area isn't on the ship yet, I don't think. But since I never saw anything about anybody BUILDING a black E (magicam certainly never even talked about it), it may never have progressed that far.

The black Enterprise thing sounds familiar...I've either read or heard about it somewhere before...

I heard they had some advanced Evans and Sutherland monitors and were trying to use computers to synch up those shots...that's one reason why Abel got into trouble with Robert Wise and Paramount (just all the development time with these advanced and unproven FX techniques) -- running behind because of this kind of stuff.

The Enterprise model in those 1979 Topps cards are definitely the Abel-era model. One way you can tell is by the domed area and bridge on the top of the primary hull...it doesn't have all the detail that Trumbull's team added to it later. In fact, they replaced it completely. This, and of course what Trevanian pointed out about the missing spotlights.

So, it may have been some kind of publicity photography of the model...or stills from test footage. Topps may have told them "Just send us whatever you have" when requesting FX shots.

I don't think there's any completed Trumbull/Apogee shots in those cards at all -- just pictures of models and such.

One of the cards is even from the trench sequence...

 

[trevanian]

Black box models aren't anything new; in CE3K they shot a real tollgate, then, in order to get the saucers to fly through them, Jein built black metal boxes that lined up with the real tollgates, then flew the saucers through them on poles and laid that in over the live-action. Of course, that was a lock-off shot, but since Abel and Taylor were ambitious, it would make sense to try to 'up the ante' on TREK. Plus, Trumbull talks about being able to 'scale' camera moves on CE3K, by just dialing in the difference between models and live-action. THAT sounds like what would have been needed on TREK, so again, maybe they were doing hardware/software stuff so that the E&S previs could be ported from mo-con setup to mo-con setup, with 'scaling' already built into the camera directions.

That trench shot in the cards was the one card I had for awhile. A friend had the set, and I got him to let me have that one when he moved. Looked much better than the test on the dvd.

 

[QuasarVM]

Black box models aren't anything new; in CE3K they shot a real tollgate, then, in order to get the saucers to fly through them, Jein built black metal boxes that lined up with the real tollgates, then flew the saucers through them on poles and laid that in over the live-action. Of course, that was a lock-off shot, but since Abel and Taylor were ambitious, it would make sense to try to 'up the ante' on TREK. Plus, Trumbull talks about being able to 'scale' camera moves on CE3K, by just dialing in the difference between models and live-action. THAT sounds like what would have been needed on TREK, so again, maybe they were doing hardware/software stuff so that the E&S previs could be ported from mo-con setup to mo-con setup, with 'scaling' already built into the camera directions.

That trench shot in the cards was the one card I had for awhile. A friend had the set, and I got him to let me have that one when he moved. Looked much better than the test on the dvd.

Your description of the E&S previs sounds like what I recall hearing about from Taylor...but it's been awhile, so...

The Zero-Gravity Adventure card was one of my favorites as well...I still have the whole set.

 

[Maurice]

Black box models aren't anything new; in CE3K they shot a real tollgate, then, in order to get the saucers to fly through them, Jein built black metal boxes that lined up with the real tollgates, then flew the saucers through them on poles and laid that in over the live-action. Of course, that was a lock-off shot, but since Abel and Taylor were ambitious, it would make sense to try to 'up the ante' on TREK. Plus, Trumbull talks about being able to 'scale' camera moves on CE3K, by just dialing in the difference between models and live-action. THAT sounds like what would have been needed on TREK, so again, maybe they were doing hardware/software stuff so that the E&S previs could be ported from mo-con setup to mo-con setup, with 'scaling' already built into the camera directions.

That trench shot in the cards was the one card I had for awhile. A friend had the set, and I got him to let me have that one when he moved. Looked much better than the test on the dvd.

My point is that in most SF movies no two models of the same craft at different scales are identical. The black model examples aren't generally objects that shift perspective during a shot. This is why I say I think it would be difficult to make elements with two different models match, especially given issues with perspective, etc. that you'd get from having the models of different sizes. I'm not saying it's impossible...just difficult.

 

[trevanian]

Black box models aren't anything new; in CE3K they shot a real tollgate, then, in order to get the saucers to fly through them, Jein built black metal boxes that lined up with the real tollgates, then flew the saucers through them on poles and laid that in over the live-action. Of course, that was a lock-off shot, but since Abel and Taylor were ambitious, it would make sense to try to 'up the ante' on TREK. Plus, Trumbull talks about being able to 'scale' camera moves on CE3K, by just dialing in the difference between models and live-action. THAT sounds like what would have been needed on TREK, so again, maybe they were doing hardware/software stuff so that the E&S previs could be ported from mo-con setup to mo-con setup, with 'scaling' already built into the camera directions.

That trench shot in the cards was the one card I had for awhile. A friend had the set, and I got him to let me have that one when he moved. Looked much better than the test on the dvd.

My point is that in most SF movies no two models of the same craft at different scales are identical. The black model examples aren't generally objects that shift perspective during a shot. This is why I say I think it would be difficult to make elements with two different models match, especially given issues with perspective, etc. that you'd get from having the models of different sizes. I'm not saying it's impossible...just difficult.

Oh, I quite agree. And from a straightforward execution standpoint, I don't know that it would be worthwhile unless you had a TON of at-warp flybys (which might be the case, if they portrayed the vger approach as scripted.) But I'd figure it would be easier -- though timeconsuming -- to achieve the effect via rotoscope rather than match the models, while shooting some interactives on the inboards to tie the animation to a practical source.

Come to think of it, they could have just rigged the fibop stuff between the magicam model's nacelles and shot it on a separate pass, like running lights and windows. That is certainly the simplest solution, and depending on the exposure times, you might actually get true interactives showing up on the model.

EDIT ADDON: Right after I sent this, I remembered Trumbull saying that Abel's people were shooting the models without motion blur, like stop motion setups (like Ferren/Wallach stuff in TFF, to give a more painful example.) There is support for that story, since Magicam said Abel's folks were claiming the filaments on their model lights would be visible on film and blow the scale, and I can only imagine that being the case if everything was absolutely still in frame. If they really were going that route, it might be because they couldn't figure out how to program a natural blur motion move for something that size, and if that were the case, they'd have to achieve their inboard effect some other way at some other scale.