Is there anyone still alive that worked on the visual effects from the first pilot to turnabout intruder?
TOS VFX people
- Thread starter Ronald Held
- Start date
No one alive or nobody here knows?
Desilu didn't have specific in-house people who worked on all of the special effects throughout the series. A number of outside effects houses were contracted to produce the visuals in various episodes. Anybody employed by those companies probably worked on so many other shows over the years that the whole experience is all a massive blur (just like how Ricardo Montalban didn't really remember working on "Space Seed" when it came time for TWOK, and had to go back and watch the episode and his own performance).
Kor
Kor
Even Howard A. Anderson himself (who died last year at the age of 95) was a bit fuzzy on some of the facts regarding the FX his company did for Star Trek. AMT Corporation wasn't in Arizona; it was in Troy, Michigan. It's AMT's Speed and Custom Shop (which built the full-size Galileo) that was in Arizona. And the AMT Enterprise model kit was fiberglass?
Link to Howard A. Anderson article
Some of the people who worked for the effects houses used by Trek TOS during its original network run -- Anderson, Van der Veer, Film Effects of Hollywood and The Westheimer Company -- are probably still alive. The problem would be locating and contacting them.
The fact several effects companies were contracted explains why the optical effects, particularly the ship's batteries and sidearms looked so wildly different from episode to episode. Considering that, I'm amazed the transporter beaming effect remained so consistent. There were variations, but not as radical as the weapons' effects.
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
I think that's because the transporter effect was a simple shot of aluminum dust falling past a bright light. They only had to shoot the falling dust once, and that original footage could be matted into every transporter scene in the series.
Well, Jim Rugg surpervised the in-studio SFX for the series. He lived just a few minutes away from me. Unfortunately, I didn't find this out until he passed away several years ago. I would have loved to talk with him about his TOS experiences.
As I understand it, Rugg was in charge of the on-set practical effects, like sliding doors and making Nomad levitate. In the old terminology, that stuff was "special effects," while the ship in space and phaser beams were "visual effects." At least, that's the way things were referred to at some point.
One of my favorite Jim Rugg devices was the M-5 computer/Gary Seven console/Atavachron.
This is why are need to hear their recollections at conventions.
Maybe Cushman can contact those who have passed on, since he apparently has lines of communication open with the afterlife.
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