American Cinematographer - August 1984 - 63

shots, but they

are

essential. This

model was about five feet tall and
three and a half feet in diameter. It
is very intricate. It took a long
time to get it made. It was difficult
to

mount, too.

"This

was

come

up

fun

light,
with a scheme
that looked good. It had lights in¬
side after the door opens up and
running lights that go inside.
Sometimes it is hard to sync up all
too

-

to

to

those functions with the motion
control system. But I think it
worked nicely."
Th e

all devoted

scene

Trekkies were waiting for was the
destruction of the Enterprise. To
the uninitiated, this might seem
like an obvious story twist. How

times Kirk had started that
destruct sequence in the past! And
at the last moment he would figure
some other way out of the di¬
many

lemma and cancel the order to de¬
struct. Not this time
this time it
blew up and an era ended. Not
->

only that, but Ken Ralston, the
man who engineered its destruc¬
tion, was glad\
"It was something I al¬
ways wanted to do. I hate that
ship. I've said that a hundred
times, but it's true. I think it's
ugly - the most silly looking thing.
The model itself is murder to
work with, so I am glad it's gone. I
would hope that the idea actually
me on Trek II. I
Harve Bennett about

originated with
talked

to

doing that to the ship-blowing it
up. I'd like to take some credit, at
least, for blowing it up - for phys¬
ically doing it. Watching that thing
go was one of my favorite parts.
"There

are a

lot of

com¬

plicated things happening and it's
pretty quick. My involvement be¬
gan at the top of the bridge when
you see it blow up. It was a minia¬
shot with the Bruce
Hill camera. Sean Casey had done
a lot of the work on all those mod¬
ture

that

we

els, mold-making and things, be¬
cause we

before

had

to

do

a

lot of

tests

got to really shoot¬
ing it. The pyro work was headed
up by Ted Moehnke, who did a
great job on the show. I think we
got some real nice pyrotechnics
we ever

and different character pyro¬

technics,

too.

was a full miniature
blown up. Then we had to pull a
matte off that and put some stars
in because it was just shot against
black. Then we cut back to the
Bird of Prey ship moving away
from the Enterprise and dropping
down. The top is blowing up.
What we did
Don Dow shot that

"So it

-

just painted out the top
with black. If it's against stars, you
one

-

we

won't be able

to see

it. We

painted

it real black. We weren't about

to

destroy that $150,000 model that
Doug Trumbull built. I was
tempted though - tempted many
times

to

take

a

mallet

to

it.

"Anyway, we had a pro¬
jector and we were projecting the
explosion going off on the top of
the ship. What you are seeing isn't
the ship moving. The camera sys¬
tem is doing all those moves with
the ship and all the different light

Then

passes.

we come

shut off all the lights.
the explosions on the

back and

We project

ship and re¬
the same moves with the ex¬
plosions going off. It looks like it's

peat

all locked into the same element.
We also put light effects on the top
of the ship.
mous

"Next we cut to the fa¬
number (NCC 1701) being

eaten away and the explosions
going off. Bill George devised a
very light styrofoam that he laid
over
this incredible gridwork
something he came up
-

with in

20

minutes

or so.

It looked

great. We dripped acetone or
MEK or some really vile stuff on
the surface of it and you can see it

eating

away

the surface, but

you

can't see the stuff dripping on it. I
wasn't sure if it would work. The
camera is shooting over a frame a

second, that is why if is hard to see
the drip. We had to get all the light
off it, too, or you would see a light
streak coming down.
"The

grid work was shot
separately from the surface. It was
all put together later so we could
do light effects. And some of the
explosions were just Ken Smith,
the optical photography super¬
visor, burning out certain frames.

August/September 1984

"Then the

ship comes
and the whole
dish blows off. Again, the ship was
shot using all the same tech¬
niques - projection on the surface,
etc. But the final explosion, when
the whole thing goes, is a large
dish shape which Sean made out
of plaster. I sprinkled talcum
powder over it to get more fine
material coming off it. It had sev¬
eral explosives inside that Ted had
come up with. And we shot it at as
high a speed as we could. It still

right

up to camera

wasn't

as

slow

as

Ray Gilbertiprepar
a shot of the moon

I wanted it. The

explosion was supered over the
ship. There is also a stock explo¬
sion from The Empire Strikes Back
in there, too. It comes out from
underneath the dish

explosion
sive and

seem a

not so

to

little

make the

more

much of

an

cohe¬

effect."

The

Enterprise is gone,
fitting sentimental final
moment, it turns into a fiery comet
streaking across the Genesis sky.
This sequence was a series of
matte paintings and animation ef¬
fects as well as elements of explo¬
but in

a

sions filmed

at the Cow Palace.
Ralston concludes, "For a couple
of quickie shots, there's an awful
lot of work in killing that

ship - and it should be. It's like
killing off Spock in Trek II. You
can't bring the Enterprise back - I
hope. In Search of the Enterprise,

American

Cinematographer

61
American Cinematographer - August 1984

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