hi this is Jim from Trek world and in 2006 Paramount Pictures remastered the original Star Trek series to upgrade its quality for modern high definition TV sets and to ensure its longevity for future viewers the process involved cleaning and scanning the original film elements color correcting and digitally removing imperfections original special effects were replaced with newer CGI effects representing the original Vision while still providing a modern look fast forward 10 years to 2016 when the Smithsonian completed a meticulous two-year conservation project on the Star Trek Starship Enterprise Studio model the goal was to stabilize the model document its history of changes and restore it to its appearance at the end of the filming of the Original Series in 1969. now up till now it was believed by many that no official footage of the restored model existed that depicted the studio model composited against the Starfield background to create new visual effects with the restored model so join me after
the break as we take a look at a set of videos the Smithsonian created which were examples of what the model would look like today in many of the classic Star Trek visual effects shots [Music] thank you [Music] now over the past month or so Trek world has done a series of videos that demonstrated AI enhanced versions of some of the raw effects footage that have been taken by Desi Lou in the 1960s TV series Star Trek the quality of the resulting footage as
shown here was of high enough quality that many people asked why Paramount didn’t simply reshoot footage of the model as she resided in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC so let’s take a quick beat shall we this is original effects from before the remastered version and this is the remastered CGI version introduced in 2006. many people criticize it for being cartoonish and primitive but remember it has been over 25 years since those CGI effects were created so there really is no fair comparison between the 2006 work and the 2023 work as shown by the beautiful render that was done for us this year by Tobias Richter and of course this is how she now looks since the incredible conservation was done in 2016. now in season one here at Trek world we did a series of videos that covered the CGI effects that Paramount had done back in 2006. we looked at each original shot
and its CGI replacement it didn’t take long before comments began to pour in from viewers who are wondering why the original effects footage wasn’t used for Star Trek’s remaster instead of a CGI now the bottom line reason for this was that the CGI was for a version of Star Trek to be remastered so that Star Trek would serve as an example of how beautiful the then new HDTV systems would look however there were other reasons as well now some of you folks may remember that Paramount had previously asked the Smithsonian in the late 1970s to let Paramount use the model again for Star Trek phase 2. the Smithsonian decline stating the model was part of a permanent display so after this even asking the Smithsonian to loan the model for filming new footage is pretty much out of the question even more so considering the amount of money time and effort that the Smithsonian is invested in the model since Paramount shipped it to them in various pieces of Decay but that hasn’t
stopped some folks from trying to use the model creatively in the screenshot you see above the YouTube Creator Spock boy used one of several Studio shots to try to recreate the Enterprise in space one more time now over the years many folks have requested to film video of the ship in proper green screen background but the Smithsonian is denied each and every request why well to answer that 64 000 question we need to understand that the Enterprise model actually exists in Two Worlds at the same time in the physical world she’s an 11 foot filming prop that has been preserved for well over half a century however in the creative world she is portrayed as a federation Starship carrying the fictional crew of the Enterprise these two worlds are represented by two completely different sets of legal rights and disclaimers in the first case the Smithsonian has physical possession
of the model as a result of the original donation back in 1974. so they can sell photos of the model and even videos of the model if they want to as long it is clearly being shown as a model and not a spaceship why you ask well that all comes down to the second set of legal rights which refer to the exploits of the fictional Starship Enterprise these rights are called intellectual property and basically this means that only CBS is allowed to legally show the model for the purpose of filming visual effects but that does not mean that the Smithsonian has never filmed the model with the purpose of adding a background to the film in this 30 second clip you’re going to see a rare set of videos that the Smithsonian filmed on the model and then replaced the background with space to recreate a visual effect like Hollywood would do now in these shots they made a few mistakes the first is that even though the entire model is lit then the cell
lights are off the second mistake is on the first screen where the Enterprise veers left they forgot to replace the black background visible between the nacelles and the secondary Hull now the Smithsonian filmed these clips years ago when the last major work was done in 2016. the footage was included in several videos they released in conjunction with the restoration work now as is mostly the case I found them while looking for something else seriously guys this method of Discovery should be considered a life hack you want to find something lost your car keys don’t sweat it instead of looking for them look for something else like the Sunday newspaper that vanished on the way home last weekend from the grocery store while looking for the Snoopy comic strip you will stumble over your keys guaranteed to work every time now just in case you didn’t know the Smithsonian has far more photos and videos in their possession than you may imagine these are generally from private
collections that were shared with Smithsonian in order to assist with the restoration but they do not have the permission from the copyright holders to show them publicly now for those of you who may be interested the various visual effects that were used to film The Enterprise back in the 1960s involves setting the model up on a stand and then pushing the camera which was mounted on miniature train track the miniature was mounted against the blue screen which would then be removed and replaced with a moving star field as seen in this Loop here so you’ve seen the footage where they’ve overlaid it with a star field now I have something very special for you our friends at the Smithsonian have taken about a minute’s worth of video with the Enterprise fully lit up including the cells this time against a black screen this footage can easily be used by editing packages of today Adobe DaVinci Final Cut no problem to Overlay the
image of the ship against the star background to create your own visual effects
directworld would like to invite you to become a VIP supporter you will have access to ad-free versions of all track World videos as well as access to photo libraries containing the photos that we used in our videos and many many more photos that simply were uncovered during our research and lastly all videos will be available without ads one week before they will be released to the general public on YouTube hi this is Jim from Trek world and I am excited today to announce that prep world will be moving forward with season two 70s track for those of you who’ve been around for a while may remember that I did actually refer to 60s track as season one and we’re pretty much wrapping up season one right now although that does not mean that we will not be coming back and continually redoing content from season one however we are going to be introducing content now from season two and some of the content that you can look forward to in season two are videos on the Star Trek fanzine phenomena that occurred in the 1970s we’re going to take a look at retail toys in the 1970s for Star Trek in particular Miko toys
we’re going to take a look at the very first Star Trek convention the very first cruises and we’re also going to take a look at the Star Trek gold D Comics line and then of course the 1970s would not be complete without looking over the Animated Series Star Trek the motion picture Star Trek phase two all of those things that were Michael to happen some did some didn’t we’ll take a look at that phenomenon so if you’ve just found us please be sure to subscribe to this Channel and turn on notifications so that you’ll be notified when these videos come out and if you’ve been with us here for a while I look forward to spending more time with you as usual once again I want to thank you for spending time with us today as this video ends please be sure to grab one of our other videos from this end screen and go ahead and Dive Right In and I’ll see you on the other side [Music]