Watching now.
"Yorktown: A Time to Heal" - Official thread for the Sulu fan film!
- Thread starter Captain Atkin
- Start date
Congratulations to all concerned for getting this one done and out in the wild. It was a hell of a lot of fun to watch, and you should all be very proud of the remarkable journey this film has had. Well done all, and thanks for all the work you put into it. It is appreciated. 
Seen it a few days ago, congratulations on getting it out, it was fun trying to guess which was old footage and which was new. Special commendation for your music: great to see so much of original scoring in a fan film.
Well, my point is their names generally don't matter to the audience since these people are just button pushers. The helmsman and navigator on Exeter are never referred to by name onscreen (albeit the Helmsman's name is Cray). You give orders to the station, like "Helm. Thirty degrees to starboard," because different people take that station, and it's sometimes clearer to the audience who is doing what job when you refer to their position. In fact, Roddenberry told Fred Freiberger to have Kirk occasionally call Spock "science officer" so that new viewers would know what his job was.
John and Co. did a good job of that and I can see that most viewers/the average viewer aren't going to necessarily easily spot the difference.
In my case, as someone who used to shoot Super 8 back when Star Wars was still in theaters, I can instantly spot what's what because I know the characteristic "look" of the actual film stock. The giveaway is the color space, especially when the light is low. When I saw the documentary 54 about Studio 54 the very first thing I said when they cut to some vintage footage was "16mm" because I scanned tons of that stuff for the Internet Archive and I recognized all the blue that shows up in the underexposed areas.
Last edited:
I'm no expert, but in some cases it was clear that the scene was ancient footage, in some others I really wasn’t sure. I seem to understand that the new footage was processed to look grainy, in order to fit in with the old, that helped a lot.
I think that the only scenes that REALLY gave that “old home movie” feel were the ones in the admiral office, and probably due to the peculiar lighting.
I of course know that all the scenes with Sulu must have been old, but they didn’t particularly stand out in that regard to me.
I liked it, except fir the Federation breaking the Organian peace treaty and a xenophobic faction within the Federation. Those things have been done too often in official Trek already for my tastes: it's starting to seem like the rule rather than the exception.
Yeah, but the meat of the story was written forty years ago.
There were times when you couldn’t tell what was new and not. In fact, I’m sure that in some scenes 80s people are talking to 2010s people? Wibbly wobbly timey wimey as a certain Doctor would say. . But it’s well mixed!
I could tell, but then, as above, I've worked with 8mm/Super 8 film and I can spot it at a glance. And I've worked with the same scanning gear listed in the credits.
Top tier fan film. I'd have to call it outstanding.
Dramatic opening. Well conceived and tight story. One of the pluses is that things are always on the move; getting bogged down is a trap that so many fan films fall into.
The original footage is remarkable, and I'm glad we got to see it.
Congratulations to all involved.
Dramatic opening. Well conceived and tight story. One of the pluses is that things are always on the move; getting bogged down is a trap that so many fan films fall into.
The original footage is remarkable, and I'm glad we got to see it.
Congratulations to all involved.
Speaking only for myself as a film junkie, it's the imperfect rough-edges that most interest me about this. We're so used to the slickness of CGI that the Super 8 material feels delightfully raw and visceral and roughly-hewn by comparison. Had this been my project to finish I'd have leaned super hard into that analog look and done sort of what we did with Exeter: do only things that would have been possible given film/optical tech of the era c1986. But it wasn't my stone to push uphill so I can't complain that other decisions were made.
Last edited:
Very enjoyable and nice to see Sulu in action one more time.
I hear what you are saying. At an early stage, it was decided that CGI models would be used, with film grain added to them. Using (and creating from scratch) physical models would have been a challenge, especially with all these ships being so unique to the film. Having said that, with the film now online, an ambitious fan could always revisit the project and add physical models for their own cut of the film.
Well, my point wasn't necessarily to use the technology of the time (albeit some miniatures were built and used, but not where most people would expect them), but since OUR show was shot to look like it was filmed c1970, where we used CGI it was employed to do things you could actually have done with dolly track and models on stands and wires, slit-scan effects, and lots of double and triple exposures (all the "weirdspace" stuff). We shied away from complex shots with many objects moving in different directions at once. Hell, I deliberately left some subtle matte lines in a few shots! Our tactical displays look like stuff you could have created using backlit hi-con negative artwork and colored gels on an Oxberry animation stand. It was about everything looking like a cohesive whole.
Last edited:
Hey, my nickname in high school was Cohesive Hole.
I hope your moniker was also a typo.Hey, my nickname in high school was Cohesive Hole.
Last edited:
Well, my point wasn't necessarily to use the technology of the time (albeit some miniatures were built and used, but not where most people would expect them), but since the show was shot to look like it was filmed c1970, where we used CGI it was employed to do things you could actually have done with dolly track and models on stands and wires, slit-scan effects, and lots of double and triple exposures (all the "weirdspace" stuff). We shied away from complex shots with many objects moving in different directions at once. Hell, I deliberately left some subtle matte lines in a few shots! Our tactical displays look like stuff you could have created using backlit hi-con negative artwork and colored gels on an Oxberry animation stand. It was about everything looking like a cohesive whole.
Yorktown wasn't made to look like a 1970s film or TV show. It was shot in the mid-80s, when TNG was in production. It takes place after the original series. It didn't need to look like the 60s show in its execution, even though the bridge is a replica. The film has it's own unique look, and I think it gives it lots of character. If someone ever wants to go back and try their hand at building and filming physical models to add to the film, power to them, but I don't think it's necessary. Even the first episode of TNG had CGI in it.