POST#  1  A FOUR MINUTE TEASER VIDEO  OF PARAGON’S PARAGON


What a project to get his video and sound  working.

NOTE: The videos are out of order  SCROLL  DOWN for number 2 AND NUMBER 3 VIDEOS  to watch them in order.

THIS VIDEO IS FROM SUPER 8MM TO BETA TO VHS TO DVD AND INTO THE COMPUTER.

BRIDGE was made without official Star Trek blue prints. I did it all by eye.  There were no Star Trek books with blueprints of things when I made the movie. I compared the heights of actors to the size of the object they stood by. People were 5 ft. 6 woman to 6 ft. tall man. Then I shrunk everything a tad to fit it in our basement. When I run some of the bloopers you will get to see behind the scenes just where it all was done.

COSTUMES were done by going to fabric stores and purchasing patterns that were close to what we needed and then altering the patterns or making our own. My mother could sew and mend things and now she took on the task of being a costume designer and maker. She did an amazing job. She was a prim and proper lady and the first version of the mini-Star Trek dress’s were made too long by her. Down to the girls knees. She did that on purpose. Boy was I disappointed. She did not want to shorten them.  However with a little bit of begging she finally gave in and made then nice and “short”.

PROBLEM OF DUPLICATION  How to get everything to look right and also the colors and the music and sound effects etc. SOLUTION. Since photos, videos, vcr’s etc were not available I needed to gather my own. I used a canon 35 mm still camera to take hundreds of photos of the sets and costumes.

MUSIC and SOUND EFFECTS Every night from 6pm to 7pm Star Trek was run on television. I sound recorded each episode ever made. Then I listened to each episode in real time and re-recorded for example: The each unique SOUND FX without music was put on a small reel, and each sound fx with music behind it on a reel. There were dozens of reels of one type of sound fx with and without music. This was so I could later try to find something suitable for Paragon.

The MUSIC was recorded off each episode when there was no talking or sound fx occurring. It was on three big reels. I think I had about 1.5 hours of it. Then I listened to it and sorted it out onto smaller reels of similar types of music. For example the romantic music was on a reel and the fireball chase music on another reel. By finding just the right spot the pieces of similar music blended together into one new longer piece of music. Sometimes 10 small pieces would only add up to 20 seconds.

YES IT TOOK HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS!  Keep in mind their was no music or sound effects or blueprints or costume patterns available when I did this movie.  It was cave man days.

One minute of sound editing took one hour. There were four sound tracks. . Yes 120 hours per finished sound composite tracks. Actually it was more complex than this but you get the idea,lots of time.

One “second” of special photographic effects took one hour to do.

The movie is One Hour and Twenty minutes long.

The film footage editing was done viewing the takes, cut out the one I liked, and hang it on a string. . When a dozen or so were lined up they were spliced (welded) together and viewed to see if it looked correct. The editing was done on a one hour to finish one minute of the movie formula.

Their is also a blooper reel and making of it reel. These were a snap to do compared to the movie. Some of that will be in the blog later.

The article in the Cinemagic Magazine repeats some of this information and you can find it on Freds blog “My Star Trek Scrapbook” There is a link on one of my  posts.

Once again thank you for your patience and comments. It is humbling to know that something that I did years ago had such a positive and lasting effect on people.

I will continue to build the blog with never before seen photos taken during the making of Paragon and also the film clips that I have promised.

NOTE: If you are new to this blog and would like to learn more about me please feel free to go to my web at  www.cosentinocarpet.com . It has always been a one man business with family to help when needed. I did it when I was making Paragon and still do it part time.

Any questions about the teaser? I’ll answer in next post.

Thanks again your friend

John