Master storyteller Chester Gould opens our third Dick Tracy case with Tracy and Sam called to the police bomb disposal range. A suspicious package has been found in a bus station locker, but as you might expect in a Dick Tracy adventure, this is no ordinary bomb…
Continue reading ‘Calling Dick Tracy! 90 – New Case Sunday Double Header!’
Me and my NX model built especially for me by The FX Company in Ocala, Florida. Pic snapped last night by Mike Okuda.
Dorth and I were lucky enough to partake in our favorite pizza last night with our favorite peeps, Mike and Denise, at Little Tony’s Bella Vista in beautiful downtown Burbank. Some of you know that Little Tony’s was Matt Jefferies favorite Italian joint in the Valley (Didja’ know that whenever you saw the crew on “Enterprise” having pizza, it was always from Little Tony’s?). Afterwards Mike and Nezee dropped over for desert, say hi to Beaky Boy, and to snap this photic sonar reflection of me and the FX Company’s NX model (http://thefxcompany.com/index.html). They did a stunningly great job. The paint is spectacular. I’ll be sure to run some shots of it in the near future.
(Below) Gooch just sent me this shot he took yesterday. That’s mi maestro, makeup master Dick Smith who stopped by for a visit. Since Dick Smith gave me my start in the business, he’s a sort of grandfather to the NX. What a thrill. If you aren’t familiar with Dick Smith, discover what you have been missing here - http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/21/dick-smith-retrospect/
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Masterful Matt Boardman surprised the old man this week with these banners for the drex files.
Matt! These are freakin’ shiny!
On the skids.
It was during my tenure at Foundation Imaging as part of the Voyager VFX team. I remember Rob Bonchune came to me with an assignment. Our producers wanted some design ideas for a new Borg Cube… a battle-cube. “Rob! It’s a cube!” I laughed. “That’s like being asked to restyle a basketball!” As much as we enjoy having a laugh at the expense of our masters, it does make you stop and think. I figured that I couldn’t go too wrong, you know what I mean?
Remember Spock on “Spitting Image” with the Rubik’s Cube?
What do you do with a cube? You can armor it. The Borg had just had their collective asses handed to them by Species 8472, so I’d design a flak jacket for a Borg cube. Personally I felt adding anything to the cube that gave it personality was a mistake. I happened to love the idea that the design said absolutely nothing about them, while at the same time, everything. “Doug,” said Rob..”You’re the only guy here who wields a pencil, and the bosses are looking for a few sketches, so have at it!” Continue reading ‘Borg Tactical Cube – Design Phase’
The Borg Tactical Cube from Voyager. Variations on a theme.
The Tac Cube was the result of Species 8472 teaching the Borg the meaning of humility. I remember that after so many years of watching the Borg’s relentless advance across the Universe, it was shocking to see them fleeing before an unknown assailant. Who would have thought that one of Trek’s best spaceship designs would be a cube? A stroke of genius that says it all.
“Mr. Five by Five” - With the introduction of the Borg, TNG caught fire.
(Above) Bronson caves… hard to believe that this remote looking cave\canyon combo is just a few minutes from the Paramount main gate. (Above) Bev and Picard egress the Trek side of the cave.
LA trip – day four
My last day in LA. My plane would leave at 2.30 PM so I had until noon to visit one more shooting location. Originally, I had planned to visit the MTA building and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Monday morning, but as I had squeezed that in on Sunday, I had some spare time for yet another location. But where to go? In comes Larry Nemecek to save the day. He offered to take me to Bronson Canyon to see more than just Batcave. I had always thought Bronson was too far away and that I wouldn’t have enough time to go there, so I never took any screenshots with me. I would have to do this one without any research – this made the experience much more memorable, though.
(Below) This location has literally appeared in hundreds of movies and TV shows.
You know how they say it never rains in southern California? Well it really doesn’t (it’s the desert!), and when it does, mud slides, roofs leak, and my Internet goes down (it was the phone line). 5 days to fix it. I’ve switched my service. That’s how I vote. Look for part 4 of Jorg’s LA Away Mission tomorrow morning. This weekend I’ll post on Saturday and Sunday to make up a little bit.
I keep digging through my files, and stuff keeps uncovering itself! What good does it do in a box? By the way, for the Crimestoppers out there we are firing up a new Dick Tracy case, introducing Diet Smith’s Space Coupe. You’ll be amused as Gould weaves it into a trademark\bizarre Tracy crime story. – Doug
I bet you didn’t know we had any weather here! That lil’ bit of rain we had this week has caused my Internet to croak.
Sorry folks!
-Doug
The Chronowerx building from “Future’s End.
LA trip – day three
I had a hard time sleeping the second night in LA, I guess I was still suffering from jetlag and a little nervous because of the upcoming day, so I got up really early and changed my plans for the day a little (I’m glad I did in retrospect!). I had originally planned to visit the MTA building (Henry Starling’s Chronowerx building in “Future’s end I+II”) and the square in front of Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (again Future’s end II, the Doctor meets Paris, Tuvok and Rain Robinson here) early Monday morning, before I had to get on the plane at 2.30 PM. I decided to go Sunday morning instead, which left me half a day on Monday to visit another location.
So, I set off at 6.30 AM to visit two locations from “Future’s end” on my own.
Whereas LA had been intimidatingly crowded Friday night at the Walk of Fame, downtown was eerily quiet and deserted Sunday morning shortly after sunrise. I got to see a completely different side of the city that morning. I took the empty Red line subway to Union Station and got off to see my first downtown shooting location: the MTA building. It was funny seeing the building without the Chronowerx signs added in post production but visiting this place before the morning rush was really something. There was nobody except for me on the long plaza, so I took countless photos from all angles. I had forgotten my sheet with screenshots of the building, so I tried to remember the few camera angles that were used. Funny how I expected the Aeon to smash through some upper windows any second! After getting my shots, I went down to Union Station again to cross over (under?) to the other site of the highway. I could have taken the subway to Civic Center to quickly get to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, but I wanted to take the scenic route, past the famous LA City Hall. I had used google Earth to memorize the trip from Union Station past the City Hall to Dorothy Chandler Pavilion so it was easy finding my way around. I passed some interesting sights, especially The Times building seemed really spooky and Hollywood-like.
(Below) The MTA building which doubled as the “Future’s End” landmark.
Arriving at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I realized that not much had changed since Future’s end was shot in 1996. I was able to recreate many of the shots from my screenshot worksheet and it took several attempts until the fountain on the square was sputtering water in the same formation as it had on my screenshot of the Doctor in front of the fountain (it annoyed me that I had forgotten the screenshots of the MTA building so I had to do this as accurately as possible 
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(Below) The good Doctor at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion from “Future’s End”.
(Above) The Chandler pavilion as it appears today, in downtown LA.
After that, I took the still deserted subway back to my hotel and waited for Jeff to pick me up to see the two biggest shooting locations: the Tillman water reclamation plant (actually the Japanese Garden in front of it) and Vasquez Rocks.
(Above) Otherworldly and wonderfully atmospheric, the “Shangri La-like Vulcan of “The Search For Spock”.
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Jörg, who on “some sort of Star Trek”, knocks one out of the Quadrant with part 2 of his LA Away Mission…
LA trip – day two
On my second Star Trek shooting location day in LA, a Saturday, the real fun began. To prepare myself, I had rewatched the relevant episodes to get a good grasp of the locations and the various camera angles used and compiled dozens of sheets with 9 screenshots each of the various locations I wanted to visit.
Originally, I had thought I could do this trip all on my own, using LA public transportation to get from a to b. In retrospect, I can say I would never have seen as many locations as I ended up seeing that way, and would probably have died of dehydration on that hot and dry weekend if it weren’t for Jeff Zucker who graciously offered to be my companion on this trip and take me from place to place. I had met Jeff through the Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Board, a place for collectors of authentic Star Trek costumes and props to talk about their collections, help identify rarely seen items, have a good time and much more. Reading about my plans for the LA weekend, Jeff offered his help and I couldn’t have done most of it without him (and also wouldn’t have all those pics of a grinning me at those shooting locations gracing this article )
I will only briefly report about the current appearance of the shooting locations today in this sequence of articles, as I plan some larger articles with comparison screenshots of the various locations for Ex Astris Scientia.
Jeff picked me up Saturday morning and we headed to our first location: the Lucille Y. Gilman Memorial Fountain at Occidental College, Eagle Rock.
The fountain was originally not on my list, but buddy Ian aka Therin of Andor suggested this location and as it lay conveniently between Huntington Gardens and Griffith Park, we decided to check it out, too.
Jeff parked his car next to a sports field and we slowly approached the Vulcan fountain near the Bird-of-prey landing spot from Star Trek III. Not much had changed since 1983/4. As can be seen, only the first three flights of chairs are actually really there, the rest was added in post production. After taking a number of photos, trying to match the camera angles from Star Trek III as well as possible, we headed off to our next location: Huntington Library and Gardens.
(Below) Jörg at the planet Vulcan location, the Lucille Y. Gilman Memorial Fountain in Eagle Rock.
Jörg at the gateway to nearly every Star Trek adventure ever filmed.
Having freshly returned from the land of dreams, Drex Files contributor Jörg takes us along on his trip to Hollywood. Part one of four.
LA trip – day one
On Friday the 25th of September I headed off to LA to spend an amazing Star Trek weekend in the city. My plan was to visit as many Star Trek shooting locations as possible and meet fans and people that worked on the shows, some that I had known for years through the internet but had never met in person. I can certainly say that my expectations were exceeded by far!
Now, I’m sitting here back home in Germany in front of my computer, looking at all the homepages of those shooting locations, all the sites still open on my browser three weeks later. Funny looking at the photos and information again, now that I have seen all of it! A piece of advice for people who want to go on a similar trip: Internet research using google maps, google earth and analyzing Star Trek screenshots certainly pays off, it made finding the right spots quickly much easier. If only I had also written down not only the addresses of the places but also the “how to get theres”, it would have made Jeff’s life (and that of his wife at home on the phone) much easier…
Anyway, you wanna hear about the places I visited and people I met? Here we go!
The first place I saw, actually from the plane, was Griffith Observatory, which was featured in “Future’s end I”. Right, it was just a white blotch in the distance, but as it was located to the east of another white blotch, the Hollywood sign, I realized I had come to the right place.
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