Dave Rossi on His 14 Years with Star Trek

[A l t e r E g o 9]

Dave Rossi on His 14 Years with Star Trek

 

 

Dave Rossi has spent virtually his entire Hollywood working life on Star Trek at Paramount. He joined the show 14 years ago, which began an association with a television franchise that he had loved his whole life. We sat down with Dave on his penultimate day at the studio where he talked fondly of his many years working on Star Trek.

Can you describe your various jobs working on Star Trek over the last 14 years?

 

Click For Spoiler

Well, it was 14 years to the day. I started on the fifth season of The Next Generation as a PA. For the sixth and seventh seasons of TNG and then the beginning of Voyager, I was Merri Howard's assistant. I then became Rick Berman's assistant and he also created the position of supervisor, Star Trek projects. I've been doing that ever since, but when Enterprise came out I got the title of associate producer, working mainly on second unit.

 

Second unit work is all the little snippets that you don't shoot while you are filming an episode. For instance, you need a close-up of someone pressing a button on a panel. It's very show specific, the audience needs to know they are pressing that button. When the entire cast is there and they are filming, they can't always take the time to adjust the lights, sounds and all those things just for that one little snippet. So they'll save all those and the editors will put in a Chyron (words over a black screen) in the episode. Then, when we screen the episode in post production, we gather up all those little snippets for anywhere from one to three episodes, depending on how difficult they are, and we shoot them on one day. We then have a second unit meeting and basically I would go into the meeting with the tapes and run the meeting, let people know what we needed and let the other departments know what we needed, then I would generate a memo and Merri Howard's office would then put together the shoot. Then I would go down on the shoot day and just work with the director, who 99 times out of 100, was Dan Curry.

 

It would often be just little things. You need to see someone pull a gun out of their holster, footsteps moving, little things like that. Over a shoulder, to a viewscreen — we did a lot of those where we needed an actor to just walk into camera or shoot over their shoulder to the viewscreen, with a green screen.

 

What brought you to Los Angeles in the first place?

I got out of the Air Force in 1988 and went back home to Buffalo, New York. I then got a job as a repo man, which I did for a year. It was not enjoyable. Around this time my dad received a letter from a man out here in California (my dad was in his late 50s) and the letter said "Hey, I was on your 8th grade baseball team way back when and I want to get a reunion together." And so he had my dad assemble all these people. Out of this entire crew there were about two people who had died in World War II. Wherever they were, my dad located them, flew them in to Buffalo, and had this huge party with all these old men wearing name tags because none of them recognized each other. They even had one of their old teachers there, who was 140,000 year's old! But they needed someone there to videotape the party, so I videotaped it for them.

 

My dad had mentioned to this guy from California that I was looking for work, that I was a repo man but didn't like the job. The man was a vice president of a construction company out here in California, so I moved here in September of '89. I did that for about eight months, but I hadn't been to Los Angeles yet. I was living in Palmdale and Lancaster, which is desert, and I was just doing housing construction, digging ditches, customer service, and all kinds of little gigs at this construction site. And I still hadn't seen LA yet, so I drove near to the airport where they were having a convention, it was right after "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" had aired, and it was a big Next Generation convention. I ended up meeting Trent Ganino and Eric Stillwell, who were the two guys who came up with the idea for "Yesterday's Enterprise." We talked for awhile and went had some drinks. I told them I was a big fan of the show, and that episode in particular. They said to me if I ever wanted a tour of Paramount, just give them a call. The very next day the company I was working for went bankrupt, so I didn't know anyone in California who wasn't also out of work! I called Eric Stillwell and said "Hey, can you do anything for me?" And they got me an interview with the page (tour guide) staff and I got the job. I was a tour guide for about 10 months, working in the company store selling cigarettes and gum. Then an opening for a production assistant happened on Star Trek: The Next Generation; I got that position and slowly worked my way up.

 

Were you a fan of Star Trek?

I am a huge fan. Captain Kirk's serial number? SC 937-0176 CEC! Yes, I have pictures of me when I was 8 years old dressed as Captain Kirk. So yes, I was a big fan. I was told when you go into the interview, don't tell them that. They don't want to hire Star Trek fans because they are afraid you are going to go down to the set and be stuck there in awe and not do your job. So when they asked me if I was a Star Trek fan I said, well, you know I've seen the show. I interviewed with Merri Howard and started May 13, 14 years ago tomorrow, which is very ironic and weird.

 

Would you say that your knowledge of Star Trek helped you in your job?

Not at first. Being a production assistant you're really a gopher. When I became Merri Howard's assistant, then that knowledge really started to kick in. Of course Rick put me in charge of these Star Trek projects which meant working with people like [sTARTREK.COM], licensing and all these different aspects. When Paramount Parks did Star Trek: The Experience, that was a big one. My knowledge became a lot more important as I began dealing with studio people because a lot of them who are dealing with Star Trek are not necessarily fans. So I was there to guide them; I would tell them no, this shouldn't look like that or this character wouldn't say that, those types of things.

 

What Star Trek show did you most enjoy working on the most?

Once I became Rick Berman's assistant the job wasn't show specific. I was working on Next Generation movies, Voyager, Deep Space Nine. I was working all over the place. But The Next Generation was my first show, first in Hollywood. So I have very fond memories. That's the cast that I'm closest to. And that was the height of Star Trek's popularity as well.

 

What was your first day like, if you can remember?

My first day on the job, the show had already wrapped for the fourth season of Next Generation. But there was, oddly enough, second unit to be done and there was no stage space available at Paramount so they rented out a stage at Raleigh Studios which is across the street. They were doing a visual effects shot for "In Theory" and they had a cardboard cutout of this woman, a crewman, who was going to be phased into the floor. They had a cardboard cutout of half a woman stuck on this piece of corridor they had built and it was my first experience with production ever, and it was really interesting to watch that side of it. That was my first day. After that was done, the show was done for the next month and half so I just sat there, reading things to catch up on the show and try to understand production reports and call sheets. Then, when the show kicked back into production, it was like a whirlwind.

 

What are some of your favorite episodes, and why?

"The Measure of a Man" and Data episodes like "A Fistful of Datas." But my favorite episode is "The Defector." That got me in the end — when the Klingon ships decloak around the Romulan ships, they had me! But when you go back and look at the episode, you notice that Worf says to Picard on two occasions that he's receiving messages from some Klingon ship or captain. And Picard just says, Mr. Worf, will you go handle that for me. So they slip it in, and you don't even realize what's going on 'til the end. I just thought it was a sad but brilliant story about this poor man who'd been totally raked over the coals by his government, but he was willing to give up his entire family. I just thought it was a wonderful story. I think that Ron Moore is one of the best character writers we ever had on the show.

 

Did working on Star Trek ruin your enjoyment of the show at all?

Ruin is not the word I would use. It changes it a little. I remember the first couple days of shooting — I'd been on the show two months at that point — but nothing was done because the sets were dark. When we first started filming I remember the first set I saw lit was Engineering and everyone else was in Sickbay shooting; they were getting ready to move into Engineering. So I was there in Engineering, all alone holding a stack of call sheets, I was just stunned. I remember thinking, Oh my God, I'm here in Engineering! It was freakish. And then the Bridge, of course. Captain Picard's chair was there, the set was all lit and I thought, am I allowed to sit in the chair? Nobody was there so I sat in the chair and as I sat there, outside the viewscreen which was just the stage, some grip walks by smoking a cigarette and says "Hey, how you doin'?" And I was like, Ohhhh! it's not really the Bridge. It's a different feeling, because you know all the ins and outs and you know the people, versus the actors. So it does change it, certainly. Frankly, it's not that I'm not a fan, but I am looking forward to being a fan again, the way I was before and looking forward to whatever comes out next. There's a certain excitement, but it's also mixed with a lot of sadness from not being here anymore.

 

You made a lot of good friends here at Paramount over the years. What were your feelings as things wrapped up? Bittersweet?

Well, everything right now is the "last time." When I leave [your office] and take the Star Trek production golf cart back to my office, that will be the last time I ride the Star Trek cart. Everything is a last time — the last lunch I'm having with this person ... It doesn't mean I won't see these people down the road; there are a lot of people I'm going to keep in touch with. Bittersweet is a good word. I don't know what I expected from Paramount, but it seemed like so little fanfare for a show that did so much for the studio over the last 18 years.

 

How did you get hooked on the Original Series?

I had very dear friend growing up named Will and he was a huge Star Trek fan. I was six at the time and I think he was 8 or 9. I discovered it because Lost in Space wasn't on that the time. I was actually looking for Lost in Space and I stumbled upon the episode "This Side of Paradise." Spock is the only alien in that episode, and it wasn't Lost in Space, it was something cool. Lost in Space was really hokey. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was as I was only six. I'm sure it was the action/adventure; there were fistfights, Spock and Kirk fighting ... The more I watched it, the more I realized that these are great stories. It was like a show I had never seen before. And when I told Will I started watching it, the show then exploded in our neighborhood.

 

We used to play Star Trek — I was Captain Kirk and he was Mr. Spock — and we would even have Star Trek school for all our friends, all these wacky things. Back before VCRs, every once in a while the local affiliate would have one of those Star Trek marathons and for 12 hours straight they would play Star Trek episodes. I had one of those old, flat tape recorders where you push the buttons down and I recorded probably 50 of those episodes onto cassette tapes and whenever my family went on vacation I would take them with me. My brothers and sisters hated me for it because at night, there weren't any headphones, iPods, anything, and everyone heard everything. I remember one time playing "Court Martial" over and over and over. And the next morning my brothers were quoting me lines from it.

 

What are some of your other interests outside of Star Trek?

I'm a fan of a lot of different things. I'm a big geek. Obviously comic books; I think I bought my first one when I was 10 or 11. My dad had bought me those oversized comics, they were reprints and they were huge. He bought me Superman, Shazam!, The Avengers. I was a big Marvel Comics collector. My very first comic was Iron Man #99. Comics were a big part of my life, then I stopped collecting.

 

In my yearbooks from high school, and from when I was in the Air Force, everybody writes: To Kirk, To Mr. Star Trek. It just follows me. That and Superman seem to follow me, but now that I work on Star Trek, it's all Superman. Also, every Wednesday night I play HeroClix at the place where I buy my comics. It's a geeky little superhero game. I love science fiction and I can't wait for the Firefly movie to come out. I'm a huge fan of the new Battlestar Galactica. I just love it. Also a huge fan of Farscape, "Star Wars"; I like all kinds of science fiction, fantasy films. I'm into all of it.

 

What are some memorable moments from working on Star Trek?

Every year William Shatner does his horse show, where he raises money for kids' charities, and every year his office would call us and ask if we could provide a certificate allowing someone to do a non-speaking walk on role, or an autographed script. And this always seemed to fall in to my lap. One year when I was Rick Berman's assistant, William Shatner's office called and said, "Bill would like to have lunch with you." And I said, "You mean he want's to have lunch with Rick [berman]." She said, "No, he wants to have lunch with you." And I said, "Me, ME?" She said that he wanted to thank you for all the times you've helped us out over the years. So I said, "You got it!" We ended up going to a sushi restaurant about a week later. He was in jeans and t-shirt, we sat down and he was just so charming, so easy to talk to. It was great. It was like, my childhood hero was there eating a salad with me. It was very bizarre, but that was one of the highlights. I have a lot of great memories. There was a lot of fun stuff. But my very first day of work, I accidentally slammed Jonathan Frakes's fingers in the door of the stage. He was coming out and I was going in when I pushed the door and jammed his fingers. I thought, Oh my God I'm going to get fired! But Jonathan is just the coolest.

 

I inadvertently came up with the Bajoran nose. Mike Westmore had given me, back when I was a PA, two plaster casts of noses to bring up to Rick Berman's office to get a clearance on. So I brought them up and Rick chose the one he liked. I then brought them back down the stairs, put them in my bike basket and strapped them down and drove off to the makeup lab. When you're a PA, and you're on that bike all day you're hitting all the speed bumps and you're getting air, you're making it as fun as you can. But what I didn't realize is that these nose casts were clay. They weren't rubber. So when I got back to Mike's office and took the strap off, it was just a mess. I was terrified and called the makeup lab to talk to Mike but nobody was there so I started walking to his office and I ran into one of our other makeup guys and I said "Look what I did to this nose. What's going to happen?" He said, "Oh my God, Mike is going to kill you. He's been working on that all morning. I would tread softly." He really played it up. Then he ran to a phone, called Mike Westmore and told him to give me hell about it because he knew it would be an easy fix. So when I got there I gave it to Mike and said, "I am so sorry." And he tore me up one side and down the other. He berated me and said he was going to have me fired. I was totally deflated. Then he said, "I'm just kidding." And he took out this little tool and, where the bike strap had made some weird indentations on the nose and Mike sculpted them back, and used some of them. He then said, "Here, bring this back up to Rick and see if he likes this. Don't use your bike strap!" So I went up and Rick liked it and that ended up being the Bajoran nose.

 

Assuming that Captain Kirk is your favorite captain, what moment or TOS Episode would you have to pick that exemplifies what you love about the series?

Favorite Kirk moment? He's just the man. Kirk beats everyone. For episode I'm gonna go with "Balance of Terror." I have a few, "Mirror, Mirror," "Doomsday Machine," "The Ultimate Computer" — there are a lot of great ones. But "Balance of Terror" because I'm a big Naval strategist buff and that's a very "Run Silent, Run Deep" kind of episode with the Romulan ship being the submarine and the Enterprise being the ship that's got to look for it. Favorite movie, I'm gonna go with "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" followed by "First Contact."

 

Last question: The future of Star Trek?

Well, I'm sure it will be back; films, television shows, made for home video ... Aside from it being a huge creative canvas to play with, it's a solid business thing for the studio.

 

I just hope it's something good. And I want to like what's coming out.

 

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news...280.html?page=0

[Kor37 9]

Great interview! I never even heard of this guy before. Sounds like a good guy to be working on Trek.