{"id":192,"date":"2009-05-29T01:00:49","date_gmt":"2009-05-29T08:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=192"},"modified":"2009-10-09T08:58:04","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T15:58:04","slug":"192","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=192","title":{"rendered":"“The Emperor’s New Cloak” vfx"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Eaves has published drawings of the portable cloaking device for Star Trek Deep Space-Nine episode, “The Emperor’s New Cloak” on his blog, Eavesdropping with Johnny<\/span> at: http:\/\/johneaves.wordpress.com\/2009\/05\/27\/klingon-cloaking-device\/<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

When this episode was photographed I was on set as the vis efx supervisor.\u00a0 It was decided that since the cloaking device was “cloaked” or invisible, we didn’t need to do any visual effects. I wondered if the pantomime was going to really sell that they had a mechanical device they were stealing. I kept asking if the producers were sure there would not be an effect; that they didn’t want me to take camera measurements and documentation of the set up just in case. \u00a0I was repeatedly reassured there would be no visual effects.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"cloak_1281\"<\/p>\n

We did set up a rectangle of string\u00a0that the actors playing Rom and Quark held in their hands. This enabled them to\u00a0keep some semblance of size and distance between their hands and each other as they moved along. \u00a0After all, they were supposed to be carrying a rigid heavy device of a specific size together.\u00a0 I am so glad we did that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the show was cut together there was some concern that the audience might not catch what was going on so it was decided that we did indeed need to see the cloaking device phase in and out of visibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"cloak_143\"<\/p>\n

We had to take the full sized prop over to Image G, the motion control vendor that Star Trek used.\u00a0 A special mount had to be constructed to hold the prop for repeat pass motion control photography. Since no measurements were taken on set, the model had to be positioned frame by frame to line up with the Ferengi’s hands and body positions as they moved through the scene.\u00a0 The repeatable camera allowed us to shoot multiple passes for production photography and mattes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"cloak_167\"<\/p>\n

The film was transferred to digital and composited with hand drawn digital mattes to place the device behind the Rom and into Quark’s visible hands.\u00a0 With a little bit of a dissolve and some animated sparking the cloaking device became visible in the culprit’s hands and the audience got to enjoy the visual gag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Eaves has published drawings of the portable cloaking device for Star Trek Deep Space-Nine episode, “The Emperor’s New Cloak” on his blog, Eavesdropping with Johnny at: http:\/\/johneaves.wordpress.com\/2009\/05\/27\/klingon-cloaking-device\/ When this episode was photographed I was on set as the vis efx supervisor.\u00a0 It was decided that since the cloaking device was “cloaked” or invisible, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,34],"tags":[29,41,40,42,79,78],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-vfx-history","category-visual-effects-techniques","tag-david-stipes","tag-ds-9","tag-image-g","tag-motion-control","tag-star-trek","tag-visual-effects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}