Behind the Scenes at CBS Digital, Where Trek Is Remastered

[Vic 17]

Production crew talks new Enterprise, opening credits, staff enthusiasm for original Star Trek.

 

By Michelle

November 22, 2006 - 10:58 PM

CBS Digital introduced its twenty artists and showed off some of the elements being remastered for the new syndicated original Star Trek episodes, showing new model renderings and admitting that some of the production crew appear in miniature in the refurbished scenes.

 

TrekMovie.com visited the offices at CBS Television City, housed in a dim room formerly called "the morgue" to avoid glare on computer screens. "For me it is kind of a dream project," Visual Effects Supervisor Niel Wray said, explaining that while not everyone on the team is a lifelong fan, they are all familiar with the TV show and films' special effects.

 

Producers David Rossi, Mike Okuda and Denise Okuda - all long associated with the Star Trek franchise - come up with the initial list of shots they want to recreate digitally from original series episodes. The focus is meant to be on space shots and exteriors, but the producers have worked on action shots as well. "It’s beyond the scope of the work, but because we are all huge fans of the show and we want to do everything we can to make it look fantastic," Wray explained.

 

To shoot the Enterprise, Wray said that they begin with a model which is given texture by painters and then rendered for color, shadows and other enhancements. "Then the planets and the star fields which are their whole separate thing." Different artists work on different aspects of the shot.

 

The team is so pleased with the new model of the Enterprise that they plan to redo shots that have already been remastered. "You will never see that [old] model again - it is gone," Wray stated. Even the opening credits will be altered, beginning with third season episode "Wink of An Eye" which will air in January. "I don’t want to take us out of 1966 Star Trek but I am willing to push it a little bit...I know what I can and can’t get away with," said Wray.

 

Wray and another team member appear in "Devil in the Dark" in a remastered scene where workmen are seen working in a tunnel, and he said that when Starbase 11 appears in "The Menagerie", there will be miniature versions of Rossi, the Okudas and others. Cliff Welsh, a 2D Compositor, said that he became hooked on the show after seeing "The City on the Edge of Forever" and admiring the quality of the story, so most of the team wants to become a part of the onscreen franchise.

 

The original article with images is here.

 

http://www.trektoday.com/news/221106_02.shtml

[trekz 7]

There was a presentation about the remastering at the 40th anniversary convention in Las Vegas this summer. Dave Rossi made a presentation and then offered to take questions. He got rather testy after a few people criticized the concept. People were concerned about the idea that something that was a creation of the time, in a sense an artistic creation, was being altered to appeal to the younger generation that supposedly wouldn't watch because of the old fashioned special effects. Some were also concerned that beyond the changing planets and star fields, other changes might be slipped in.

 

Well, surprise! The remastering team is slipping itself into the series, by having themselves appear in the background of some episodes. I understand the temptation to do that, but IMO this is arrogant and self-serving. The original episodes are canon and shouldn't be messed with, becase once you start changing them, where does it stop? Today background shots, tomorrow what? Deep Space did their Tribbles story, which was interesting and enjoyable, but also set a precedent that more such stories could be rehashed and that characters could be slipped into the main story.

 

I think that the remastering looks great, but that changes should be very limited. So what if some shots look old fashioned? I always watched for the story and the commentary being made about humanity and our society: to me that's the big point. Should every Science Fiction movie be redone because "we can" or should such works be judged on their own merits? I think the many merits of Star Trek stand up very well to the test of time. IMO Rossi should respect the original Star Trek and not insert hinself and others into it!

 

I recently saw a remastered Mirror, Mirrror episode and was shocked and annoyed that this was one of the "edited" versions - only 44 minutes versus the original 47 minutes - created so more commercials could be aired. I understand business, but this editing hack job left out Spock's commentary about the landing party's duplicates from the mirror universe "being fine examples of your species ..." etc.! This to me was a crucial bit of dialogue and deserved to be included. I am strongly against editing TOS episodes! Again, they are canon, so leave them be!!!!!

Edited November 23, 2006 by trekz

[VaBeachGuy 12]

Interesting stuff.

[recycle 0]

Thats too cool, also fasciating stuff there.