{"id":1052,"date":"2021-04-29T15:42:10","date_gmt":"2021-04-29T22:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2021-05-01T23:07:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T06:07:37","slug":"a-point-of-light-in-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=1052","title":{"rendered":"A Point of Light in the Stars."},"content":{"rendered":"

A unique effects solution to a Star Trek send-off<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Deep Space Nine, the space station, was always a physical model except for the last shot of the series. For the final episode, \u201cWhat you leave behind,\u201d the last shot in the script called for a camera pull-back from Jake and Kira out a DS-9 window and away until the station was just another point of light in the stars.<\/p>\n

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The challenges of this shot were enormous.\u00a0 We had to film a live-action camera zoom-out from Jake and Kira in the window on the set and later match that move and extend it to an infinite pull-back from a model.\u00a0 Using the existing DS-9 model was going to be a problem.<\/p>\n

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Cameraman Stephen Lebed with 6 ft DS-9<\/p><\/div>\n

The physical DS-9 station model was only six feet across, so the windows were much too small to pull a camera lens through.\u00a0 We had access to a 32-foot motion-control track, but it was still too short to get the physical model small enough to work as required.<\/p>\n

I approached the series producers expressed my concerns, and proposed a CGI (computer-generated imagery) solution. I encountered resistance to using a CGI DS-9 station initially because of budget fears and anti-CGI bias. Despite the success of CGI in the “Dominion war” sequences, there remained doubt that a digital DS-9 station would be good enough.<\/p>\n

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Meni Tsirbas<\/p><\/div>\n

Because of prior visits with friends at Station X<\/em>, a visual effects company in Los Angeles, I knew that one of their principal people, Aristomenis (\u201cMeni\u201d) Tsirbas, <\/em>had constructed an accurate LightWave 3D version of the DS-9 station as a fun project for himself. It was an excellent piece of modeling based on the DS-9 Technical Manual.<\/p>\n

Meni was eager to work on this shot and would make his digital model available to Star Trek. We visited the motion-control facility, Image G, and photographed the DS-9 station for subtle detail and textures. Meni and fellow artist, Enrique Munoz<\/span>,\u00a0 enhanced the CGI model textures to photo-real levels.<\/p>\n

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I showed Meni Tsirbas\u2019 DS-9 model and storyboards to the producers and convinced them that this approach would work well.<\/p>\n

As was typical to the Star Trek workflow, the film editors dropped in an eight to twelve-second slug of black leader into the show, represent the timing length for the pull-back shot.<\/p>\n

Watching second after second of black leader feels excruciatingly long, so the producers balked when I suggested that the final shot be 30 seconds or longer.\u00a0 They complained that they had never incorporated that long of a VFX scene on DS-9.<\/p>\n

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In response, Meni and I roughed out an animatic (a simple animation move test) to show what the pacing would be like on the final shot.<\/p>\n

The animatic sold the timing, and Meni went to work with the final pull back.<\/p>\n

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Meni enlisted Peter Baustaedter to paint a glorious nebula for the background.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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There were some versions with a sun and additional space ships, but the producers settled upon a solitary DS-9 station.<\/p>\n

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With the credits and the live-action, the pull-back turned out to be about 50 seconds long and was a beautiful, poignant send-off of the series.<\/p>\n

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