Posted:
13:40:29 on July 17 2001
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: General Star Trek
Cinepixel has posted a six-part interview with Robert Abel and Associates' designer Richard Taylor, who originally conceived many of the visual FX for 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture'. The feature includes extensive discussion of the FX envisioned for the film -- and never came to fruition -- as well as numerous concept sketches.
Of his original concept for 'V'Ger', Taylor comments, "my whole philosophy on V'Ger was to make it a living machine. It would have "morphed" and on the inside the walls would have been iridescent and changed as the Enterprise moved past them. You would have seen images of the Enterprise along the walls because it was being analyzed by V'Ger and there would have been parts of walls that would break apart like a flock of birds or a swarm of insects. The swarms would go from one place to another and reassemble. You could think of the particles as digital energy or digital information. I wanted it to be a very metamorphical and very mysterious place. For the exterior of the thing one of the design concepts I had was to photo-etch thin metal plates so that the outside surface would have multiple levels which would continually move creating different patterns. We found a material that you could apply like paint that when heated with warm air from a blower would change color. It had an irridescent color quality that I was looking for like a beetles' back or butterflies wings. I wanted V'Ger's skin or surface to change color near the Enterprise as it moved over the surface. I wanted the image of the Enterprise to be left like glowing phosphor images along the walls of V'Ger."
The feature requires the Flash applet and has many stunning visuals throughout the article, documented by Taylor's comments.
One scene that will be changed in the upcoming Director's Edition DVD will be the transformation of V'Ger at the end of the film. Here, Taylor discusses the original concept for this scene:
"What we had storyboarded was that the whole V'Ger craft unfolds and turns into this incredible object in space. That effect would have started where Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the Voyager 6 was and would have radiated outward from there through the ship. There would have been this change the goes through V'Ger's interior and then to the outside, unfolding into a big flower kind of thing with all these radiating colors and such. I think V'Ger more than anything was incredibly compromised because the effects had changed hands and they had to come up with their own solutions in a very short period of time. Doug was not going to use my solution because that model had not been built. We had built test pieces and had done extensive tests of processes we were going to use when we finally began construction. I was told Trumbull described the exterior as a "weird fish" (CINEFEX MAGAZINE, ISSUE 1). That's a pretty subjective description….I don't think many would agree. I have the drawings and one can make their own analogy. My point was that one would never really see the entire shape of V'Ger because the ship was so big….it really wasn't that important. Just show glimpses of the exterior and let the audience's imagination do the rest. The important design elements of V'Ger were the entrance, the interior and the Voyager site."
Visit this timely documentary piece here.
Also, ENTERPRISE junior illustrator Doug Drexler sends in word again of Walter "Matt" Jefferies', the designer of the original
Enterprise, 80th birthday this August.
If you want to take part in this momentous celebration, please take a moment
to pickup and send a birthday card to Matt in care of Doug Drexler, the man
spearheading this Birthday Card Drive. Please send your card to the address
below.
Paramount Pictures
Walter M Jefferies
c/o
Doug Drexler
Star Trek Art Department.
5555 Melrose Avenue
Los Angelas, CA 90038
NOTE: Please make sure your cards are sent out by the end of July, thanks!
