See You April 24th!

That marks the end of another broadcast day! It was one crazy-busy weekend for me! I was just getting started, and suddenly it was over! Thanks everyone for all the wonderful birthday wishes (Matt! You guys  took me by surprise with that B-day post!). Hugs to one and all. Back to Caprica, and rumblings of something new (with spaceships).  See you next month, and in the words of the immortal John Zacherley, “Goodnight! Whatever you are!”

SOTL Flashback – 09

Apollo Commands – John Teska – 2006

In honor of Mike Forest and his B-17 Flight!

SOTL 2011 – Coming this Fall– From Simon & Schuster.

Steve Canyon – 42 – Grand Canyon Sunday 03!

In Theiss-ing

Where do they get these ideas?

Flipping through one of Dorth’s Lucky Magazine issues I came across this unmistakably Bill Thiess TOS look. Love it. Looked futuristic and sleek then, looks futuristic and sleek now.

Okuda Vision

In a rarely seen document entitled “Ideas for developing a graphic identity system for the new Starship Enterprise” dated 1 February 1987, Trek graphic maestro Michael Okuda presented to Gene Roddenberry a variety of possible graphic styles for Star Trek: The Next Generation. As usual they display the deft understanding of clarity and organization that is the hallmark of Okuda. These are just a sampling of a TNG look that might have been. Sometime in the near future we hope to see more of these revealing illustration from Mike.

A God (Apollo) Is My Co-Pilot

The Boeing B-17 has a special place in Star Trek history. (Above)  Second from the left is Sgt Walter M. Jefferies, flight engineer and original Trek production designer, standing with his crew in front of their B-17, circa 1943 in Tunis, Tunisia. Matt peers from the flight deck as he prepares to take a 17 up for flight testing. Design similarities between the 1701 and the 17 are abundant. The flight deck and upper turret reflect the bridge and sensor dome. The front of the engine nacelles only need a bussard collector. In the near future I’ll run an article examining these similarities.

When BarBara Luna introduced me to Mike Forest, we hit it off immediately. When we found that we shared a mutual interest in WWII history, and in particular the Army Air Corp, that was that. When we get together with the girls, Mike and I are off and running, discussing and debating. Every once in a while Luna bangs on the table and pulls us back, “No sidebars!” she scolds. We can’t help it. Last month when Dorth tore an article out of the LA Times saying that the B-17 Liberty Bell would be in Burbank, I knew what we had to do for Mike’s birthday. Diana Hale, Mike’s beautiful wife later told me that Mike was giddy and grinning all week. “He can’t wait! He’s like a little kid!”

(Below) Birds of a feather -  Mike Forest, known to Trek fans as the Greek God Apollo, and oh-so-serious Doug, prepare to get up in the blue via  the awe inspiring 65 year old Flying Fortress Liberty Bell.

OPS – ds9′s Operations Center

(Above) Looking south, Ben Sisko’s office in the DS9 Operations Center, or “Ops”.

Me, Mike and Denise have a lot of memories tied up in the DS9 Operations center. We spent a lot of late nights getting it ready for the first episode. It was a real departure. It was the first time that we had ever spent so much time developing the architecture of an alien race. Federation was curvy and round, while the Cardassian design ethic loved angles and corners. Here we are looking toward Sisko’s office, which had a distinctive eye-shaped window, easy to identify on Tony Meinenger’s DS9 station model. The office was intentionally grand by Cardassian standards, and framed with haughty arches. Unlike many of Trek’s command centers, Ops is punctuated with numerous levels and plateaus. This was considered extravagant because it slowed shooting the episodes. Marvin Rush our DP, bought a light-weight easy to maneuver camera crane to help move things along. Ops was notably the first big set where video graphics were used extensively. A departure from the “pola-motion” back lit graphics so prevalent on TNG. In the picture above, we are looking south toward Melrose Avenue and the famous Paramount Bronson gate. Of interest is the fact that the stage wall is only about three feet behind the window in Sisko’s office. The DS9 sets were enormous, and Herman Zimmerman took advantage of bit of the soundstage.

(Below) Moving clock-wise around ops from Sisko’s office brings us to O’Brien’s engineering station. Th engineering station was the largest station in Ops, and dominated the set. The idea was that keeping the station in one piece was a major story point, so Herman made it intentionally complex.

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(Above) Continuing counter clock-wise, and at our 3 O’Clock, we catch the right side of engineering, a piece of the arrowhead shaped situation table, and the shows trademark operational turbo-lifts. Man, you gotta stand in one of those when some jokester physical effects guy catapults you out of your shoes!

Happy Birthday Doug!!

A little over a year ago, a friend of mine told me that Doug Drexler had started a blog and thought I might like to check it out.  I’m thankful that I took him up on that suggestion because it has given me the opportunity to get to know Doug over the past year. 
 
Doug is a wonderful person.  He is extremely kind and generous.  He is an extremely talented individual, which we see in his work that he so gratiously shares with us through his blog and he has a fantastic sense of humor.
 
I hope you can all join me in wishing Doug a Very Happy Birthday!  We love ya, Doug!!
 
-Matt Boardman.

My other car’s a…

Quick, Spock! Here comes Mrs. Brown!

In the early New Voyages episode “In Harm’s Way”, I had fun putting Decker’s shuttlecraft in a suburban garage. It was my homage to “My Favorite Martian”. To this day I read comments about it on the Internet. Folks think we built a mockup for the shot. A few even think we restored the original prop. Nope, it was CG. I only wish the original prop were in my garage, and yep, that’s my garage in the episode.

A few days ago, Bink, our beloved Enterprise property master, sent me these shots (below). Some clever company came out with a line of large garage door covers designed to impress your neighbors. If you ask me, I think they missed the boat… er… shuttle!

Devore Warship (and a host of others)

(Above) Looking rather like a contemporary stealth fighter, with it’s matte black finish and mesh-like pattern, the Devore warship was what we referred to as a “Get Well” design: a recycled ship of the week that helped extend our budget.

We’re back! It’s March 28th, a date near and dear to my heart… my birthday… and I’m gonna to spend it with my compadres! You! Kick the tires and light the fires! Drex Files is on the air!

The Jörg report:

This ship first appeared in the Voyager season 5 episode “Counterpoint”, where it was seen as the Devore warship. The ship has appeared several times after that, usually in the background or as part of a larger fleet shot. In “Counterpoint” it was supposed to be a really big ship (as can be seen in the screenshots from the episode). In later appearances, it was drastically scaled down. It first reappeared in “Alice” as part of Abbadon’s depository of lost treasures. It was then seen again in “Drive” as a vessel taking part in the Antarian Transstellar Rally. In this episode, it was flying backwards and was just a little bigger than the Delta Flyer. The model then reappeared in “The Void” as a stranded alien ship. Finally, it appeared in an episode of Enterprise, as a Sphere builder vessel in “Azati Prime”. It was part of the  Sphere builder-Federation battle seen by Archer through a window of the Enterprise-J.

Side

A Doug up to his usual tricks

http://the818now.com/2010/03/13/flying-high-with-liberty/

Full story on the 28th. We fly with Mike (Apollo)Forest!