TNG “Conspiracy” bugs (revised)

“Conspiracy” was season-1, episode 25, of  Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Enterprise crew must overcome Starfleet Command officers who are infected by an alien parasite. This episode has the dubious honor of having one or more shots censored as “violent images” by the BBC in England.  It is reported that the episode required a warning before airing in Canada.

The story required that the parasite climb the leg of an officer then later climb out of the mouth of another fallen human host and attempt to escape.

Animating the parasite bugs for the episode was my first work on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Visual Effects Supervisor, Dan Curry, brought the job to David Stipes Productions, Inc. in April of 1988.

The bug was reportedly designed by Andy Probert. (1)  The property master, Alan Sims, had  commissioned Makeup & Effects Laboratories (2) to create the parasite.  They had done a fine sculpting job but I realized we would have to re-build it for the stop motion animation.

The original creature was cast in a dense silicone material and was very stiff. The legs were small nubs that were not long enough to reach the floor to propel the creature along.  We subcontracted Starlight Effects to re-sculpt the creature, give it longer legs, and define the body segments a bit more.  A plaster mold was made and fitted with a simple wire armature and the creature was cast in rubber.

Photo by Roger Sides

We scheduled the animation time then were told by Dan Curry that the date we were to animate was the actual date they needed the work finished. We scrambled to get the animation set up. Dan had provided frames of the woman opening her mouth to line up the parasite’s animation with the actor’s performance. I asked Dan if we could have a bloody slime trail from the woman’s mouth but he didn’t think the producers would like it. I thought it would help sell the horror of the situation but, disappointed; we moved on.

Dan has also provided a 4ft x 8ft piece of hard Formica flooring to match the set.  It was so big I had to place it on a sheet of Celotex board on my studio concrete floor and animate on my hands and knees.

The surface was hard so I could not directly pin the model to the floor for the animation process.

I had to drill through the hard Formica then drive a pin through the parasite’s foot into the Celotex insulation board below. Pinning the feet of the model prevented it from sliding around as I animated the body.

I animated the creature along by twisting the parasite’s body segments in sequence with the legs.

After a couple of scenes were done, the armature wires broke and the body segment with the last two legs fell off the puppet!  I finished the shot by animating the now two body sections along and making them appear as one creature.

As I worked, on another stage my assistant Stephen Lebed animated the parasite climbing the leg of the primary host, Lt. Commander Remick. Stephen faced his own challenges as the creature was difficult to attach and animate effectively on the cloth of the pants.

It was a challenge but it was fun and it continues to get comments. This episode is often included on lists of The Next Generation‘s greatest moments.

Article updated March 1, 2024

Credits: Frame blow-ups are from a video by Greg Stone.

(1)   Rick Sternbach, Facebook post 2/28/2024,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/starshipmodeler/posts/

(2)  Douglas Newton, Facebook post 2/28/2024,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/starshipmodeler/posts/

The next best thing to knowing something ….

At times students contact me about how to do certain effects or procedures in After Effects. Since I can’t always be available, I wanted to remind you that:

* You have an interactive “Help” menu at the top of your After Effects tool bar or you can hit “F1” 

* Within the Help Menu, there is an “effects reference” help section that will cover most, if not all, the effects menu.

* Also check the wonderful text book Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects by Trish and Chris Meyer. 

* It is a valuable reference and belongs in every animator’s, editor’s and VFX artist’s library.

* Look up the topic in the back, in the index, and it will take you to the pages that cover the subject of interest.

* You can also Google topics like “puppet tool in After Effects”  or “How to use the puppet tool in After Effects”

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Graduation day!

Saturday March 28th was graduation day for The Art Institute of Phoenix.  I say, “Congratulations and well done!”  to all my students.

I pushed them hard now they are going off to show what they can do.

Colin McKee was gracious enough to share a photo with me. Colin is an Media Arts & Animation graduate interested in 3D animation and digital art.