ParagonsParagon

“BEAM ME UP” TRANSPORTER SHOT OF THE “actual  MOVIE FRAME”

Sellek is matted in by my optical printer (shown below). The miniature that I built  is also shown below and I am holding it. Details about the effect  are demonstrated in the “Making of Paragon’s Paragon” video number # 2. If you haven’t seen the Making of Paragon video #2 what do you think the twinkles were, or the explosions as seen on the # 1 teaser video?

Yes, by hand hundreds of silhouettes outlines were traced out , frame by frame, and then inked in with a black marker,  so that the actor could be fit into it frame by frame. For more info see the post on the optical printer.

AN AVAILABLE LIGHT SHOT OF THE TRANSPORTERS  PANEL

A couple of views of the transporter room are shown below.

Notice the blue jeans? If a part of a costume would not be visible on camera then it did not matter what was worn. By the way due to budget reasons we only had three pairs of Star Trek type boots. I purchased two normal sizes and one really large pair. Often actors would be wearing a boot that fit them like a clown shoe because it was too large. As camera angles were changed ,sometimes the boots had to be changed from person to person, because there were not enough boots to go around.

Once again that’s all for this week. Just a simple short article. Hope you all had a nice 4th of July?  Next week a short video post showing some of my old projects to give newcomers to this post a quick update on how it came about.

John

BEHIND THE SCENES SCENES

ELEVATOR

Our elevator was tricky to use. The light for horizontal or vertical travel on the ship was a slit in a large drum that we rotated by hand. It revolved on wood to wood and needed constant greasing. Thick black grease was packed onto the hub. Often right in the middle of filming a loud “squeak” would happen and we would have to re-shoot the shot.

How about that “evil eye” defensive Sellek staring down Kirk?  Is Kirk afraid? Watch the bloopers and see what happens with our total control of his emotions  Vulcan known as Sellek.

That’s me on the left and my brother Bill loading the drum up for a grease job. Bill was our Doctor C0sta in the movie.

OTIS THE ORGANIAN  ORGANTIPUS

“Otis” was the illusion monster. He was named Otis because it was made in  Otisville Mi. where Ted Rae lived at the time. It was about one foot tall. Ted did the armature. The cotton/latex build up I think was done by me?.  The illusion  shot of Otis  did not need to be complicated. Just something simple.  I knew the scene would be short and animated by me. Animation requires patience and an eye for detail.  I lack patience for animation. Ted also did a miniature model space ship for Alien Factor and the head of the Lizard man in Galaxy Invader. These were projects that I let hem help me out with so he could get started with some film credits of his own. This was before  he moved to CA. and became a top notch professional. His first jobs were with  Roger Cormans studio where he got lots of experience and training in sci-fi  film making.

Ted at home working on something or other.

A SHORT NOTE ABOUT ANIMATION

One of my Paragon followers and an old Cinemagic fan: Wallace, has a blog that is like a video version of Cinemagic magazine. In the blog he shows how to make a simple armature and monster to use in stop motion. He also explains how to do it in a clear, organized, and simple manner to follow and duplicate.  If you want to have some fun with a simple beginners hands on project give him a look.

He also has three links to other stop motion sites.

Wallaces blog is at stopmotion.moonfruit.com

CAVERN MINIATURE

The cavern was paper mache” and plaster of paris. It was constructed over a moonscape that Larry Gerardi had made for a theme park demo model. A park that would let you feel like you were on a vacation on the moon. The project never happened.

Lighting and special effects done in my  Optical Printer made the cavern look special.

SHUTTLE ENTRANCE DOOR

Shooting  things like the shuttle door is what makes movies really fun to do. The illusion works. The panels of the shuttle door were set up in my mom and dads family room on top of buckets.  It was the best landing pod we could come up with in the middle of winter with a foot of snow outside.

That’s nuf fer now.  If you are a newcomer and want to learn more about me and how I payed for the movie film and materials go and check out my carpet repair site.

JUST FOR FUN this  is the ORGANIAN ORGANTIPUS under construction for one of the illusions. More about him in an upcoming post. Any creature made for a movie “must” have a name right?! This guy is “OTIS”, so named because he was born a city called “Otisville” in Michigan,  not to far from Flint, MI. My home state” Michigan” is the state that looks like a mitten up near Canada if you give a hoot.

HERE IS part of an update note FROM MY SOUND FIXER-UPPER  “STEVE” concerning Paragons Paragon.

SHOTS OF KIRK, KLINGON’S, ORGANIAN’S, ME, AND SHAMBA

NOTE to newcomers Please play the videos in numerical order. They are more enjoyable that way. Also to learn more about me you can go to www.cosentinocarpet.com

FIRST IS CAPTAIN RICHARD S. KIRK GETTING READY

He was one of the actors that I did not have to help out with make-up duties. Yes all the side burns were real. It was the 70’s.

KLINGON’S DALE AND DAVE HOLT

A  real life married  couple, and we had a good time trying to get Dave to say the word “terrain”. My sister Joan (Larry Gerardi’s wife)  is helping out with the hair on the left photo and I am on the right photo.

KLINGON IMPERIAL RULER LARRY COX

Larry was a fun guy to try to get relaxed. A Tom Collins did the trick.

ORGANIAN ELDERS

Left to right Sam Cosentino (dad), Tony Pagoto (uncle), Chris Cosentino (uncle)

These are the three that I has to coax into being in the movie. There is a story about it somewhere on this blog.

Ayelbourne had to send himself back to his tool and die shop to do some brazing on Earth to keep up the image he created as an earth person.

LT. SHAMBA MOVIE ACTRESS AND BEFORE MAKE UP

Quite a neat transformation. This is Harriet Kline of olden days. She got married and has a new last name now. She never saw the movie. I hope she at least gets to see the blog.

ME IN A TEST OF THE VULCAN “SELLEK” MAKE-UP

Ouch! I tried out the Klingon and Vulcan make-ups on myself before asking the actors to be made up. I wanted to be sure of just what would be required of me on filming days. The first ears “pinched” as the glue dried. I knew it hurt. Eventually I has to change the ears and use foam latex ears form fitted the the actors ears, because the  actor was distracted too much by the pinching. Side burns are not real here. The wig was styled by my cousin Odele.

ME IN THE KLINGON MAKE-UP

I was the Klingon holding the cube with Kirk in it in the illusion on Organia. As you can see I make a better Klilngon than a Vulcan. Boo!

I drove to my sisters as a Klingon and stood at her front door. She did not recognize me. I did not speak . She was frightened and called Larry Gerardi her husband (our Sellek to be ) to the door to protect her from the menacing looking stranger. We had a good laugh about it after.

That’s all for now. Any questions? Feel free to ask on the blog.

R & R,  SOUND SUBS, SCRIPT REHEARSING, SOUND DAMPENING BOX

The photos will give you a good feel of behind the scenes. Most of the movie was done around in the the permanent Bridge area. The sets were put up and taken down on a rigorous schedule.

The box like contraption is my sound baffle box. The Cannon camera made a loud whirring noise. It was a major problem. It was heave and would easily tip the tripod. It was also very awkward to use. The front had a hole cut into plexi-glass with a foam ring to seal the joint. However it was better than nothing. You can probably pick this high angle shot  out, on the bridge,  when you see the movie.

SOUND TECHNICIANS

Anyone not doing anything was given a job to help out. They wanted to rest but in the spirit of things could see that they were needed occasionally to give up acting and do other jobs. I think their favorite job was going out to get the piza for dinner.

R & R

People took breaks whenever and wherever they could. This doesn’t look very comfortable does it?

He really is able to sleep anyplace!

SCRIPT REHEARSALS

The actors actually came prepared. Rehearsing was short and to the point.  The movie was shot on a  3:1 (three to one) film ratio. That is very small.

Well that’s it for this week.

Thanks and I hope you enjoyed it?

Let me know.

SOME OF BLOOPERS

They are self explanatory and as you will see silly at times. This video will also give you a real sense of how we filmed it and where we filmed it.

NOTE: PLEASE VIEW VIDEOS IN ORDER OF POSTING THEM.  WATCH #1 VIDEO THEN #2 VIDEO. AND THEN THE #3 BLOOPER.  It will be more “logical” as Spock might have said.

NOTE: BLOOPERS ON THE WAY

There is a number #1 video, and number #2 video posted that are best viewed before this one. Please watch videos in order. 

THE GOAL IS TO SUPPLY A NEW POST EVERY SUNDAY.  HOWEVER IF I CAN NOT KEEP UP THEN I WILL DO IT EVERY OTHER SUNDAY. BUT FOR NOW IT WILL BE WEEKLY. THE NEXT FIVE POSTS ARE DONE AND  VIDEOS 4 AND 5 ARE READY. VIDEO 6 WILL BE THE 18 MIN. EDITED VERSION THAT I MADE A LONG TIME AGO. IT IS THE “SOUND” FIX THING WE ARE TRYING TO DO BEFORE DOING THE LONG VERSION.

SEE THE “KIRKIAN”  NERVE PINCH

SEE SELLEK LOOSE CONTROL OF HIS EMOTIONS

HEAR THE  “VULCAN SOUND QUAKE”

EXPERIENCE BEING STUCK IN MICHIGAN WINTER 1974

TRANSPORTER ROOM TOMFOOLERY

KLINGON”S  PREPARING FOR BATTLE?

OUR LEADER “ME” AT RIGHT SIDE OF HELM

OOPS!  US FLYING THE U.S.S. PARAGON

DA DA DA THAT’S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS

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

NOTE:

IF  HAVEN’T SEEN THE 4 MINUTE TEASER VIDEO  posted as   #1 video PLEASE SCROLL UP  AND VIEW IT  BEFORE YOU VIEW THIS VIDEO.

The way the fx were done will surprise you if you view the teaser film “FIRST”.
THIS VIDEO  IS SELF-EXPLANATORY, FUN, AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND.  ENJOY!

(Coming soon posts will present never before seen photos taken for make-up tests, bridge construction, fx set-ups, etc.)

P.S. I am the Klilngon holding the cube in this posts video.

John

TEASER  VIDEO FX  HOW  SOME  WERE  DONE

* **************TEASER  “VIDEO”  IS ON PREVIOUS  POST *******
NOTE: (Go back one post to see the teaser video of Paragons Paragon if you haven’t seen it).

These selected shots here were  done by taking  photos off my blog teaser video.   The chosen subjects here are in general not explained on the Making of Paragon video which is soon to be presented.

MY FAVORITE FX IS THE SPLIT SCREENS

Split screens are a form of double exposures. Split screens were used for the two Selleks in the elevator, and in Selleks quarters. One actor plays both parts but speaks to his counterpart who is actually not there. A matte box, is used to do the fx. One half  of the elevator with Kirk and Sellek  talking is filmed, while the other half of the matte box has a black card in it.  BLACK is nothing to movie film. It doesn’t block out anything and anything can be filmed over it. The camera sees the two actors (for example) on the left half and the right half is filming black.

Next the film is wound back. The black card is put on the other side of the matte box. The actor now goes to the other side and talks to his counter part on the opposite side who really  is not there now. He talks and responds to a tape recording of what was said. It is a fun thing to time out and do.

The actors can not come near the dividing  line where the two black halves meet. In my case it was the blue post next to the red bar. A rock steady claw pull down mechanism is needed on the cameras to make the fx succeed. It it jiggles the two sides would vibrate up and down. I used a Canon 814 super-8mm movie camera.

BRIDGE COMPUTER PANEL BLINKING LIGHTS

The blinking lights were  Christmas tree lights   with blinker plugs.  I collected all our relatives larger outdated lights. Thin foggy acetate behind cut out spaces in black cardboard finished the panels. It took two whole lines ; all of downstairs and part of up stairs to turn on the panel  lights and also the quartz movie lights to do the filming. I used KA 40 whenever I could because it was less grainy and had better colors than the faster speed Ekchromes. The KA 40 needed lots of lights to get a good f stop on the camera. If the television upstairs was turned on during filming it would blow the fuses.

NEGATIVE IMAGE FILM

For this  strange bridge scene I filmed it with B&W movie film, pulled it out of the cartridge, and then took it into my darkroom and processed it as a negative. Photography used to be a hobby of mine.

I took the negative film and projected it through my Aerial Image Optical Printer and re-photographed it with a red filter. The re-filming is done one frame at a time.

AERIAL IMAGE OPTICAL PRINTER

I built my own Aerial Image Optical Printer so I could try out some unusual fx. This type of  printer is what Disney used when he combined cartoon figures with live action actors. The Aerial image is an “image suspended in space”.  Sounds cool doesn’t it .  Perfect for sci-fi movies! Anyhow it uses a projector, a big lens (mine was a  big round magnifying glass), a beam splitter mirror, a camera, and a plate that sits on the face of the lens. A beam splitter mirror is a mirror that allows a percentage of light to pass through it rather than reflecting all of it off.The plate is where fx and mattes and animation figures can be applied and lighted. Both camera and projector must have pin registration or a rock steady claw pull down.

AURA AND OPTICAL PRINTER

The aura was created using the optical printer. I filmed Ayelbourne , who in real life was my Uncle Tony. Then re-copied him in the printer as I  frame by frame moved a special Vaseline gel with a matte over the plate and around his face and body. (see the Making Of Paragon when I drop it in the blog).

My dad and uncles are typical kind, but macho Italians. It took some finagling to get them to agree to be in my what they might have called it “silly little outer space movie”. They were Earth people not Oraganians.  I started with my dad and he said “I don’t think so John” I said what if Uncle Chris and Uncle Tony do it. He said “Ok if they agree to do it”.  I don’t think he thought they would agree. I asked my uncle Chris next. He said “No thank you”. I said but my dad said he would do it. He said “ok”.  Uncle Tony would be tough. He said “no” I said ”  But Uncle Chris and my dad are going to do it. He said”Well if they are going to do it I guess I could.  I think you get the idea. I was a fun task to tackle; getting them in the movie. We had to make big Q cards for my uncle to read when he did his part. I have a great family!

CAVERN MINIATURE AND ACTORS

The cavern was a 4 by 8 foot Lunar landscape (seen in previous post) re shaped into a 2foot tall,      4 x8 foot cavern. A 35 mm slide was taken of the cavern.  Actors were filmed in a field at night. Using simple BACK PROJECTION onto foggy acetate the actors were projected into a dark area of the slides projection on the acetate.  This is very much like the technique used in the old B&W King Kong 1933 movie.  The old black and white King Kong is one of my top ten favorite movies.  The colored lights floating around in the cavern was done using another projector with mattes and Luma fx.

LUMA  SPECIAL EFFECTS

Luma was a term Edmund Scientific Co. used for exciting lighting effects.  It was used as a Disco effect. Remember this was done at a time not to far from psychidelic  Hippie days when dance places would have weird lighting designs floating across their walls to match the weird designs floating around in a lot of peoples minds.

Its primary component is an aluminum foil type material which is crinkled up and put on a rotating wheel. Then a spot light (in my case a projector light) was beamed through another rotating multi-colored rotating wheel and onto the Luma wheel and then it bounced onto a foggy acetate back projection screen. I filmed it.

This film was processed and I used the Aerial Image printer to combine it with a slide or movie of the ship. It depended on what I wanted. Or I could matte out the ship to keep the lighting behind it. Or I could do the lighting fx film back projected and then double exposed over the model of the ship. Lots of ways to do it depending on the way I wanted it to look.

WELDING EFFECT

Carrik welding  was very simple. A 4th of July sparkler was moved under the electronics board and the actor on top matched his moves to the sparklers.

COMPUTER ELECTRONICS PANEL

The electrons panel in the Shuttlecraft was long rolls of actual computer control tape used to tell machinery how to perform various operations. Tape with holes scattered about. That is the modern era that Paragon was conceived and made in. Pretty antiquated aeh? Anyhow A black cardboard with slots to fit the tape and machined to unroll the tape past Sellek as he speed them up. Our motors were three people pulling the tapes across the black panel and then rolling them back up by hand for each re-take.

There was a lot of impatience with flubbed lines by the people who were working the tapes.  The actors wanted to get home. We did a lot of filming after people finished their real jobs.  The schedule was pretty precise.  We filmed every other day. I had to wait for film to be processed. And I needed time to set up the different scenes scheduled for every other day.  It was complicated. People had their own lives to live , but they really did a good job of working things out.

The weather was horrible. Lots of snow storms 8 inches deep. Some it the snow is seen on the bloopers and I changed a scene in the movie  into one with snow because it snowed!

TRANSPORTER MINIATURE

The back wall had string glued to it and then Aluminum foil glued over it. The top light pods that flashed on and off were the cardboard tubes that come inside of toilet paper rolls. The twinkles and the actual making the thing work is shown on the making of Paragon video. And once again the Aerial image printer and mattes were used.

EXPLOSIONS

The miniature of the front of the bridge was filmed with the blinking tracking light. The second piece of film would be the explosion or explosions. The two pieces would be combined in the Optical Printer.   Oh yeh, How did I do the actual explosions?   It  was so simple and turned out so good that I am saving it for you to see on the “Making Of Paragons Paragon”.

Any guesses?