A lot of times having someone so close to the project managing it actually damages the final product, rather than help it. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I recall when S2 first came out a lot of people were saying that many of the flaws were a tell of Dan Curry's involvement. He and Lagato had two distinct styles when it came the the SFX, but with Curry's involvement in the remaster, his style began to bleed into Lagato's episodes. That was the claim when the season came out, as to whether it's true or not is anyone's guess.
Season TWO OFFICIAL TNG Blu-Ray Discussion Thread
- Thread starter JJ-R
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A lot of times having someone so close to the project managing it actually damages the final product, rather than help it. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I recall when S2 first came out a lot of people were saying that many of the flaws were a tell of Dan Curry's involvement. He and Lagato had two distinct styles when it came the the SFX, but with Curry's involvement in the remaster, his style began to bleed into Lagato's episodes. That was the claim when the season came out, as to whether it's true or not is anyone's guess.
Well that's the thing, the X-Files is more like a 90's sitcom or drama. AFAIK, it didn't make extensive use of bluescreen inserts and of course didn't have multipass shots of models that need to be correctly re-composited. I believe most things were done in camera. So for HTV they should have a much easier time, they mostly just get to do film scanning, episode conforming, and then recreating the opening/closing titles/credits.
Not too long ago I (attempted) to clean up some of the shots from Season 2 to make them fit in with how CBS D would have done them. Not the greatest in Photoshop but I had a go 
.
http://imageshack.com/a/img839/9319/jxs5.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img811/8311/4rif.jpg
. http://imageshack.com/a/img839/9319/jxs5.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img811/8311/4rif.jpg
You know, these are actually rather good in illustrating what can be done in post processing. I like your versions better, even though the contrast on the Borg cube is a little too harsh.Not too long ago I (attempted) to clean up some of the shots from Season 2 to make them fit in with how CBS D would have done them. Not the greatest in Photoshop but I had a go
http://imageshack.com/a/img839/9319/jxs5.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img811/8311/4rif.jpg
Wasn't that only "Q Who"? I know they did use alternate takes for the extended version of "The Measure of a Man", though I think that's because they were using the takes that were used on that VHS cut.
Haven't seen shots of that, but they're not touching these anyway.
FOX ordered that all FX material is only being UPSCALED from SD for the entire series.
Same thing happened to the show "Firefly" in HD.
I seem to recall some really shitty CGI on XF.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
XF had occasional bad shots, but a lot of the VFX is of the invisible variety, where you don't even know there are VFX.
The 2nd season ender, in a quarry kind of location, looks like it is all red dirt, but according to what I read in CFQ at the time, the color is all a post process (which really blew my mind, because I can usually spot stuff.)
I think there's probably a lot of VFX on XF, which is one reason they decided to just upscale rather than have to spend serious bread.
The 2nd season ender, in a quarry kind of location, looks like it is all red dirt, but according to what I read in CFQ at the time, the color is all a post process (which really blew my mind, because I can usually spot stuff.)
I think there's probably a lot of VFX on XF, which is one reason they decided to just upscale rather than have to spend serious bread.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Problem with the 6ft model is that unless you had the lighting EXACTLY right to highlight the little bumps, it could look like a frisbee. So there are plenty of shots I remember of it looking bad (along with a number that were fine, or as good as you could make that ugly PoS look given its lines.)
Another prob on occasion (and I remember this with guest ships, like the vessel in THE WOUNDED) is when they'd either speed up a shot in post or record it at 30fps instead of 24 (I think that was a Dan Curry thing, never Legato.) The vessel takes on that Telenovela look that screamed (and to me still screams) 'video/cg' ... in essence it is taking a decent model shot and making it look like a cartoon (which also happened sometimes with features ... there's a shot of the X-jet in hanger in the first X-MEN that featured a nice miniature jet, but the scanning and compositing were done in such a way that it just LOOKED like mediocre CGI.)
Another prob on occasion (and I remember this with guest ships, like the vessel in THE WOUNDED) is when they'd either speed up a shot in post or record it at 30fps instead of 24 (I think that was a Dan Curry thing, never Legato.) The vessel takes on that Telenovela look that screamed (and to me still screams) 'video/cg' ... in essence it is taking a decent model shot and making it look like a cartoon (which also happened sometimes with features ... there's a shot of the X-jet in hanger in the first X-MEN that featured a nice miniature jet, but the scanning and compositing were done in such a way that it just LOOKED like mediocre CGI.)
Right so that combined with HTV's awful re-compositing/lighting (or rather lack of scene integrating lighting), makes it look all the more fake, even though it's the real model.
The 30fps thing always bugged me too, and it really fooled me into thinking that those shots were done on video for a long time. Makes me glad that the remastering team have been converting those Dan Curry shots into 24fps so that they at least don't stick out like a sore thumb. Did Dan Curry ever explain why he preferred shooting his stuff on 30fps?
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I never interviewed Curry, but for GENERATIONS, I had two very lengthy interviews with Ronald Moore (VFX Moore, not writ/prod Moore) where we covered lots of TNG TV stuff as well as the feature (there was some thought to doing a 'storyboard to completed shot' style book on the VFX, which Curry had been pursuing for awhile, but when Moore approached him again, there was some reason he didn't want to go ahead.)
I don't remember now if Moore was Curry's VFX coordinator or Legato's, but the 30fps thing came up a couple times, and it seemed that it was an expediency thing, like you could get it through post faster for some reason.
Something that hasn't come up very often about TNG VFX is that they were budgeted for only a tiny fraction of each ep's budget. For the first couple of years, I think the pattern was somewhere around 70,000 per ep (out of a budget that was 1.2 mil or thereabouts), which if you adjust for inflation means they may have been doing the work for less than TOS in some instances. (Also kinda makes you wonder where the money went if they were spending over 1.1 mil on the non-vfx aspects.)
Several years back I tried to find a way to get all those old transcripts from GEN and FC off the 3.5" floppies, but since it was done in a weird file format (I used one of those electronic typewriter thingies rather than a computer almost up till the end of the century), I couldn't salvage anything. I have maybe a thousand cut words from the GEN article on hard copy, but nothing relevant to this issue, unfortunately.
I don't remember now if Moore was Curry's VFX coordinator or Legato's, but the 30fps thing came up a couple times, and it seemed that it was an expediency thing, like you could get it through post faster for some reason.
Something that hasn't come up very often about TNG VFX is that they were budgeted for only a tiny fraction of each ep's budget. For the first couple of years, I think the pattern was somewhere around 70,000 per ep (out of a budget that was 1.2 mil or thereabouts), which if you adjust for inflation means they may have been doing the work for less than TOS in some instances. (Also kinda makes you wonder where the money went if they were spending over 1.1 mil on the non-vfx aspects.)
Several years back I tried to find a way to get all those old transcripts from GEN and FC off the 3.5" floppies, but since it was done in a weird file format (I used one of those electronic typewriter thingies rather than a computer almost up till the end of the century), I couldn't salvage anything. I have maybe a thousand cut words from the GEN article on hard copy, but nothing relevant to this issue, unfortunately.
If I missed it in this thread, had there been any discussion of what of the Phase II test footage is included in this set? I read that it was in the "Making It So" segment. Anyone remember how much they showed?
What format or which word processor type? There are services which will recover that data.
Also, re the 6-footer, I was surprised to learn that ILM had built in a nacelle cap flashing effect, since you never really see it on the show.
What format or which word processor type? There are services which will recover that data.
Also, re the 6-footer, I was surprised to learn that ILM had built in a nacelle cap flashing effect, since you never really see it on the show.
Here is a posting in another forum with stills from an HD episode (currently broadcast on German TV), both upscaled FX shots and life action shots:
http://forum.cinefacts.de/208508-akte-x-die-serie-bald-auf-blu-ray-14.html#post7969776
