Yet?! Implying that there might be a was at some point (e.g., "Starship Exeter: "The Tressaurian Intersection" was released on DVD")?!
What Happened to Starship Exeter—The Completion of a Fanfilm
- Thread starter Maurice
- Start date
The Axanar blog's Fanfilm Friday just covered "The Tressaurian Intersection" here (link), but as much of the material is largely sourced from this very thread, you're likely not to learn anything new (and a few things in it are wrong).
A previous entry about "The Savage Empire" can be found here (link).
A previous entry about "The Savage Empire" can be found here (link).
The hell you say!
Real life intrudes. I'll get to it when I can.
I have nothing to do with the documentary at this time. I've been too busy.
Maurice,
I have not read the entire thread, but have read your posts to get a better idea of BTS of a fan production.
First of all, thank you for sharing. Fan production can be largely thankless (at times, depending on the role) so I want to take the time to say thank you.
Secondly, I appreciate the insight in to this production and am actually more engaged to view it than I was before. BTS and production insight do more for me to get me engaged with a film than trailers or promotional material (except for toys).
Finally, I wish you well in your future endeavors
I have not read the entire thread, but have read your posts to get a better idea of BTS of a fan production.
First of all, thank you for sharing. Fan production can be largely thankless (at times, depending on the role) so I want to take the time to say thank you.
Secondly, I appreciate the insight in to this production and am actually more engaged to view it than I was before. BTS and production insight do more for me to get me engaged with a film than trailers or promotional material (except for toys).
Finally, I wish you well in your future endeavors
Thank you, Maurice. We will be waiting patiently the next chapter.
PART 9: Shakes, Sparks and Stabs
The fourth act of TTI is the most action-packed part of the show, and a big chunk of it (literally 4:28, or 268 seconds) is spent with the ship racing through Weirdspace, shaking and rattling the whole way. Crew bounce in their seats. Redshirts try to maintain their footing. Forcefields sizzle out in a shower of sparks. And a heroic young redskirt gets shivved by lizard claws.
So here's a bit about that.
Shakes
Many of the shots in those 268 seconds were shot with a camera which was shaking. Not a "shaky cam" in the modern filmmaking sense (handheld, bouncing around), mind you, but where the camera operator tapped or shook the camera slightly to create a sense that the ship was being practically rattled apart as it drives through the strange environment at ludicrous speed. Occasionally the ship is hit by enemy fire, hits a WeirdSpeedBump or otherwise jolts. To cue in the cast and camera crew as to when these bangs would happen director Scott Cummings would yell "boom!" at the moments he wanted the camera and the cast to lurch. But in reviewing the raw footage it was obvious this wasn't necessarily the optimal solution. "Boom!" is kinda nonspecific and it doesn't tell anyone which way to go, so people lurch in all different directions and it doesn't feel as real as if everyone were thrown in the same direction. "Boom!" also is sudden, and—as people have different reaction times—frequently results in some characters lurching before the camera jolt, and others several frames after, which feels less real than it ought to. After seeing this happen on both TTI and Polaris, I've become convinced that the better way to do it is like this:
"Okay. Small lurch to camera left in 3. 2. 1. BOOM!"
Which, like a band going "and a one and a two", gives everyone the "beat" to which to hit it and also a direction to throw themselves. The camera should lurch in the opposite direction to sell it.Now, as you've probably guessed, this didn't always work out as planned. For one thing, given how much Act 4 was rearranged in editing, shots with little or no shaking got moved into the midst of shots which were shaking a lot. As such, sometimes we had to introduce artificial camera shake. In some cases this was done manually by blowing up the shot to 105% (so it was slightly bigger than the frame) and repositioning it a frame at a time. A faster effective solution for me was to use the Final Cut "earthquake" filter and tweak the values every few frames until it got the same feel as the on-set camera shakes.
In a few places I felt we needed to enhance/control the existing shake. For instance, when Richards runs down the corridor she's thrown into the wall twice but the way the shot shook it didn't feel right. So, what I did was blow up the shot as described above, and just before Richards lurched screen left I moved the frame screen right to create the sensation that the deck was being yanked out from under her feet.
Sparks
When the lizard escapes the brig the only practical effect on set was to dim the lights and turn off those for the forcefield door. It seemed to me it would be more effective if the controls for the forcefield visibly shorted out. We had a cascade of sparks amongst the stock pyrotechnic library in the project, so I decided to put that atop the shot starting a few frames before the forcefield goes out. Now, one thing that bugs the fuck out of me in a lot of fanfilms is that when such pyro elements are added to shots the effects almost never look like they are happening in the shot. The performers don't react to it, the elements frequently look pasted on and there's no interactive light (flames and sparks give off light). As I was determined to make this shot look like real pyro had happened on set, here's how I made it work:
- Match-moved the source of the sparks to the panel from which they were supposedly emitted, frame by frame
- Used a directional blur filter and adjusted its angle and amount frame by frame to match the live camera vibration thus the sparks blurred the same as everything else in the shot
- Used a soft edged mask to selectively brighten the walls around the panel, so they appeared to be illuminated by the sparks
- Finally, I used a garbage matte so that the sparks didn't go over the table in the foreground, which sold that the sparks fell between the table and wall
Stabs
Here's a fun bit of fakery for you. As originally filmed the escaped Tressaurian didn't stab Richards. It knocked her down and then she phasered it into lizard-scented vapor. At some point after the pickup shoot it was decided to show her being stabbed. Dave Weiberg concocted a clever way to do this, which involved cutting a hole in the gut of a mannequin torso and dressing it in Richards' uniform. Because of the hole you could stab right into the body. He then mounted a photo of a Tressaurian hand onto a cardboard cutout and thrust this contraption in, ergo the claws could vanish into her side. (VFX added a wound for when the claws are pulled out, which I thought was a bit needlessly gruesome.)
Next up: The finale: Wrapper's Delight
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I think the only way for Starship Exeter to ever have another adventure is if somebody else does all the hard work (Scripting, producing, the whole kit and kaboodle) in a way that would convince the main cast to jump aboard as actors only...not an easy thing, given Jimm and Josh Johnson's high standards, and their noticeable aging after more than a decade.
Also, from what I remember of their various episode plot outlines that used to be on their website years ago, I always got the idea they had intended the final episode to be their last one. IIRC it was an adventure involving the Exeter and other ships and a giant space battle back in Earth space, and it read like the Exeter would get destroyed during this battle...Of course I might be remembering this wrong.
Also, from what I remember of their various episode plot outlines that used to be on their website years ago, I always got the idea they had intended the final episode to be their last one. IIRC it was an adventure involving the Exeter and other ships and a giant space battle back in Earth space, and it read like the Exeter would get destroyed during this battle...Of course I might be remembering this wrong.
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