Props Re-used
- Thread starter Neroon
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Greg, thanks for showing us these photos and details. It's really interesting to learn about the attention to detail and optimizing of props that took place in this production. Although quite Spartan in comparison with the series that followed, the TOS props have a kind of clean, uncluttered, and artistic flair. I realize some of that was due to budgetary constraints, but I think in a way it worked nicely. Because the one of the key things you don't want doing is attracting too much attention to the tool, keeping it more on the actor and action at hand.
Btw, I noticed in The Corbomite Maneuver that Balok served up Tranya in a glassware set of similar style to what you've shown. Was it the same maker?
Btw, I noticed in The Corbomite Maneuver that Balok served up Tranya in a glassware set of similar style to what you've shown. Was it the same maker?
I don't know if the martini glasses I have in my post are the same maker as the set we see in "The Corbomite Maneuver" (and a few other times).
The two I showed have the conical shape typical of martini glasses, but the stem is actually just a bulbous solid glass base. These were also used in Star Trek--although I haven't gone through to find all their appearances. You can see one of these glasses in "Court Martial." Dr. McCoy orders a drink at the "M-11 Starbase Club:"
I don't have a screen grab handy, but Mister Spock's mother Amanda drinks from one of these solid bulbous stem, clear martini glasses, also.
Martini glasses are alike in many ways; that's why they are martini glasses. But unlike the solid clear glass bulbous base ones I have, the martini glasses you see in "The Corbomite Maneuver" seem to be a cobalt blue color and the base seems to be a complete hemisphere which is hollow--almost like a small cordial glass turned upside down. In fact, we actually do see a smaller cobalt blue cordial glass in a lot of other episodes--earlier in "The Corbomit Manuever," in fact. So, if these "Corbomite Manuver" martini glasses are part of a set, they probably belong with those other cordial glasses, rather then belonging with these similar styled bulbous stemmed martini glasses.
Star Trek barware: a whole topic unto itself.
As long as the subject came up, I'll try to post something about the small cobalt blue cordial glasses.
And you're right about the props being clean, uncluttered, and Spartan. (The set decorations are the same way.) And indeed, they need to not be distracting--to where people are more interested in some elaborate prop or doohickey in the background than they are interested in the dialog. So they need to be somwhat bland--futuristic but bland.
The problem we face in our Phase II productions is making our props similarly (identically?) bland, with the knoweldge that we (unlike back in 1966) are shooting with HD cameras that pick up every little detail. So we walk a fine line between blandness and having enough detail. I guess the gist is that in an HD camera era, blandness itself becomes distracting, so the things that are distracting now aren't necessarily the things that were not distracting forty years ago.
The two I showed have the conical shape typical of martini glasses, but the stem is actually just a bulbous solid glass base. These were also used in Star Trek--although I haven't gone through to find all their appearances. You can see one of these glasses in "Court Martial." Dr. McCoy orders a drink at the "M-11 Starbase Club:"
I don't have a screen grab handy, but Mister Spock's mother Amanda drinks from one of these solid bulbous stem, clear martini glasses, also.
Martini glasses are alike in many ways; that's why they are martini glasses. But unlike the solid clear glass bulbous base ones I have, the martini glasses you see in "The Corbomite Maneuver" seem to be a cobalt blue color and the base seems to be a complete hemisphere which is hollow--almost like a small cordial glass turned upside down. In fact, we actually do see a smaller cobalt blue cordial glass in a lot of other episodes--earlier in "The Corbomit Manuever," in fact. So, if these "Corbomite Manuver" martini glasses are part of a set, they probably belong with those other cordial glasses, rather then belonging with these similar styled bulbous stemmed martini glasses.
Star Trek barware: a whole topic unto itself.
As long as the subject came up, I'll try to post something about the small cobalt blue cordial glasses.
And you're right about the props being clean, uncluttered, and Spartan. (The set decorations are the same way.) And indeed, they need to not be distracting--to where people are more interested in some elaborate prop or doohickey in the background than they are interested in the dialog. So they need to be somwhat bland--futuristic but bland.
The problem we face in our Phase II productions is making our props similarly (identically?) bland, with the knoweldge that we (unlike back in 1966) are shooting with HD cameras that pick up every little detail. So we walk a fine line between blandness and having enough detail. I guess the gist is that in an HD camera era, blandness itself becomes distracting, so the things that are distracting now aren't necessarily the things that were not distracting forty years ago.
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This is interesting. I have this same bottle (I found it at a flea market) but it's not "bent". Did you bend yours or were there different models produced?
I never knew it was called a "kluk kluk", but it certainly does make that sound.
I see what you mean... you get a nice super clear HD shot of an actor using a prop like the emergency beacon, and then it becomes noticeable as this overtly simple grooved silver Nerf ball object that strains at believability of being a real tool.
In that vein, has there been any consideration of very subtle upgrades to props? The idea being to stick with the original design as much as possible, but for consideration of HD resolution show some surface detail that was "lost" in the low resolution of the original footage? So perhaps the emergency beam emitter might have a few subtle access panels on it and maybe a muted LCD screen? Just enough to create a greater feeling of realism without attracting unnecessary attention?
You can get pinched-in "kluk kluk" bottles that are straight and you can get them "bent over" like was was used in Star Trek. (I didn't bend mine; it was made that way, but not all of them are.)
Sure--I think about that all the time.
So far, I've been fortunate. The only changes I've needed to make to the prop reproductions are making sure that they are made far more cleanly and professionally that the original crappy balsa wood-type things were. So far, I haven't had to add more detail. The original designs have been fine; I just need to make sure that on *our* props the wood grain doesn't show and paint brush strokes don't show and stuff like that. But I'm sure the time will come when we might need to add a level of detail that wasn't there.
In fact, we recently upgraded all our little blinky monitors on our bridge stations from Christmas tree lights behind wax paper contraptions to flat screen monitors with Flash animation that displays the appropriate bridge displays. (What is that--eight different bridge stations with eight separate 15-inch monitors?) So, yes, we upgrade the stuff for our production, but so far it has been sufficient to simply upgrade the *quality* of the prop or set piece, not really introduce new design detail. At least not yet.
When I saw closeup photos of original fabricated props that have been up for auction, I was shocked at how crappy some of them looked (even when assuming that they've weathered over the years). I'll bet if some of them were used as-new in the current production, there would be detail issues. So I definitely relate to the baseline advantage of a quality upgrade, versus detail additions. Of course, it's also great to have the advantage of superior materials that are far more accessible (and cheaper), when fabrication is necessary. The original production staff were so limited in money and resources, always having to push the edge of creativity.
That's great to hear about the LCD monitor upgrades. What a significant advantage over the original series, which also introduces the possibility of incorporating full motion view ports for displaying technical scanning results or even video scans. It must be gratifying to give the original set this superior facelift while still maintaining the original designs.
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Anyway, this device was reused in a manner of speaking. The 3 "prongs" of the device were cannibalized and used for some sonic disruptor weapons in A Taste of Armageddon.
Um, not to excessively pick nits, but the Eminian disruptors came first.
Already discussed at length way back on Page 4 of this thread:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=2577132&postcount=61
I went back through the thread to see if someone had discussed this point before making my post. Not sure how I missed that one.
A frequently seen prop that shows up in nearly every Star Trek TOS episode is the communications earpiece used on the bridge by Lieutenant Uhura. We first see it in the very first regular production episode "The Corbomite Maneuver:"
(While we're at it, notice that in the first two regular production episodes "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "Mudd's Women," Uhura is wearing a green/gold uniform. In fact, she wears a green/gold uniform with what we now call a "Sciences" division patch--generally seen on the blue uniforms.)
At any rate, Uhura isn't the only one to wear these earpieces. Other communications officers (on those few occasions where someone other than Uhura was at the communications bridge station) would wear the earpieces, too.
Lieutenant John "Johnny-O" Farrell (played by Jim Goodwin) in "Miri:"
Lieutenant Palmer (played by the late Elizabeth Rogers) in "The Doomsday Machine:"
Lieutenant Palmer again in "Way to Eden:"
(Lieutenant Palmer must have been a fine communications officer and computational linguistics expert in her own right and probably contributed much to Starfleet's development and programming of the Universal Translator. In fact, Universal Translators in Starfleet during TOS--notably as seen in "Metamorphosis"--even "speak" using Lieutenant Palmer's [Elizabeth Rogers'] voice. But I digress.)
Some unnamed communications officer in "The Gamesters of Triskelion:"
"Lieutenant Lisa" (played by Barbara Baldavin) in "Turnabout Intruder:"
The earpiece for Lieutenant Uhura was always worn in the left ear. Always, always, always. (The earpiece was molded in such a way that it only fits in one ear and not the other, so it was impossible for her to use the wrong ear, actually.)
However, there was another earpiece molded for the right ear. It was most often used by Mister Spock at his science station. Spock's earpiece is always in his right ear. Always, always, always:
Evidently there may be some kind of communications frequencies that navigators need to monitor, too. We saw navigator Lieutenant Dave Bailey (played by Anthony Call) with an earpiece in "The Corbomite Maneuver:"
And we saw Ensign Pavel Chekov with an earpiece in "Spock's Brain:"
At any rate, here are my earpieces. Both of these are molded for a left ear. (I have a right ear version around here somewhere, too.)
Interestingly, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture was made, they thought of everything--except an earpiece for Uhura. All the scenes from the very first day of shooting The Motion Picture show Uhura without an earpiece, since they never thought to have that prop ready. Here's a shot from the first day of shooting, where they didn't have an earpiece for her:
However, after some quick thinking, Prop Master Dick Rubin and Associate Producer Jon Povill went digging in the dusty old prop closets and found two original Uhura earpieces from the Original Series. So Nichelle Nichols was able to have an earpiece for her scenes for all the other days of her filming. Her earpiece is the only prop from The Original Series to be used in The Motion Picture.
See the slideshow of these images here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157603457124963/show/
(While we're at it, notice that in the first two regular production episodes "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "Mudd's Women," Uhura is wearing a green/gold uniform. In fact, she wears a green/gold uniform with what we now call a "Sciences" division patch--generally seen on the blue uniforms.)
At any rate, Uhura isn't the only one to wear these earpieces. Other communications officers (on those few occasions where someone other than Uhura was at the communications bridge station) would wear the earpieces, too.
Lieutenant John "Johnny-O" Farrell (played by Jim Goodwin) in "Miri:"
Lieutenant Palmer (played by the late Elizabeth Rogers) in "The Doomsday Machine:"
Lieutenant Palmer again in "Way to Eden:"
(Lieutenant Palmer must have been a fine communications officer and computational linguistics expert in her own right and probably contributed much to Starfleet's development and programming of the Universal Translator. In fact, Universal Translators in Starfleet during TOS--notably as seen in "Metamorphosis"--even "speak" using Lieutenant Palmer's [Elizabeth Rogers'] voice. But I digress.)
Some unnamed communications officer in "The Gamesters of Triskelion:"
"Lieutenant Lisa" (played by Barbara Baldavin) in "Turnabout Intruder:"
The earpiece for Lieutenant Uhura was always worn in the left ear. Always, always, always. (The earpiece was molded in such a way that it only fits in one ear and not the other, so it was impossible for her to use the wrong ear, actually.)
However, there was another earpiece molded for the right ear. It was most often used by Mister Spock at his science station. Spock's earpiece is always in his right ear. Always, always, always:
Evidently there may be some kind of communications frequencies that navigators need to monitor, too. We saw navigator Lieutenant Dave Bailey (played by Anthony Call) with an earpiece in "The Corbomite Maneuver:"
And we saw Ensign Pavel Chekov with an earpiece in "Spock's Brain:"
At any rate, here are my earpieces. Both of these are molded for a left ear. (I have a right ear version around here somewhere, too.)
Interestingly, when Star Trek: The Motion Picture was made, they thought of everything--except an earpiece for Uhura. All the scenes from the very first day of shooting The Motion Picture show Uhura without an earpiece, since they never thought to have that prop ready. Here's a shot from the first day of shooting, where they didn't have an earpiece for her:
However, after some quick thinking, Prop Master Dick Rubin and Associate Producer Jon Povill went digging in the dusty old prop closets and found two original Uhura earpieces from the Original Series. So Nichelle Nichols was able to have an earpiece for her scenes for all the other days of her filming. Her earpiece is the only prop from The Original Series to be used in The Motion Picture.
See the slideshow of these images here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10901121@N06/sets/72157603457124963/show/
Illuminating as always, Greg, thank you - and it must be awesome to have such accurate props that you can actually hold in your hand! Like holding future history - very cool.
Hmm...
But then...
Hmm...
But then...
I guess Palmer and Spock might have had something going on...
More good stuff, Greg.
Unfortunately, Pocket did a book on props a while back, and I don't think it did well.
Of course, nobody takes into account that it was a lousy book....
Of course, nobody takes into account that it was a lousy book....
Great details on that earpiece prop--thanks, Greg.
I wonder how well they fit in the ear. The design looks like it might not stay in very well. Perhaps they fell out from time to time or actors had to reposition them in between takes. I bring this up because of the way earpieces of today fit to the ear. Of those that are supported only by the ear canal, they're all quite light and unassuming. Were these machined from stainless steel or aluminum?
I wonder how well they fit in the ear. The design looks like it might not stay in very well. Perhaps they fell out from time to time or actors had to reposition them in between takes. I bring this up because of the way earpieces of today fit to the ear. Of those that are supported only by the ear canal, they're all quite light and unassuming. Were these machined from stainless steel or aluminum?
Great details on that earpiece prop--thanks, Greg.
I wonder how well they fit in the ear. The design looks like it might not stay in very well. Perhaps they fell out from time to time or actors had to reposition them in between takes. I bring this up because of the way earpieces of today fit to the ear. Of those that are supported only by the ear canal, they're all quite light and unassuming. Were these machined from stainless steel or aluminum?
Well, they are on the heavyish side. (They aren't like present-day plastic Bluetooth receivers.) They are machined out of aluminum. They are made by Steve Horch and Michael Moore at HMS Creative Productions (http://www.hms-studios.com/).
I think they actually aren't as accurate as they could be, but only crazy anal-retentive propheads would notice. Heck, even these Top Dogs at HMS didn't get them quite right. Basically, the bridge receiver thing is just a cylindrical chunk of aluminum with eight cuts made into it leaving nine exposed ribs. But how deep do those cuts go? It's hard to see by looking at screen shots exactly how deep the cuts should be. And you can see that HMS made their cuts only an eighth of an inch deep or so--just deep enugh to make some nice visible ribs.
But there are some screen shots (I wish I could find one now), where you can tell--not by looking at the prop itself, but by looking at the shadow it casts--that the cuts are actually made very, very deeply. When the lighting angle is just right and the light shines all the way through the device and casts a shadow on a back wall or across Nichelle's cheek, you can see that the cuts are a half an inch deep and the inner uncut "core" is just about 3/16 of an inch in diameter--not an inch in diameter like on these reproductions. The ribs don't just stick out an eighth of an inch; practically the whole thing is nothing but ribs. So, the gist of all this is that these are kind of heavy, but more accurately made reproductions would be much lighter since there would be a far smaller aluminum core.
For what it's worth, these prop reproductions made by HMS use Jabra brand eargels:
http://www.amazon.com/Jabra-1202-EarGels-Clear/dp/B00004WINT
Jabra makes eargels in three different sizes for the left ear and three different sizes for the right ear. I've tried all the different sizes on all of our actors who might be wearing an ear receiver and keep notes as to who needs which size eargels for a nice sug fit.
If I were really ambitious, I'd have perfect casts made of the actors' ears and I'd go to a place that makes hearing aids to have really, really tight-fitting custom made ear plug things made. But the Jabra eargels give a really nice snug fit at one hundredth of the cost of a custom fitted earpiece--and we're on a shoestring budget. The Jabra eargels will have to do. The person who would be most affected (Kim Stinger, our current "Uhura") seems to get a nice tight fit and doesn't seem to need to constantly hold or play with the receiver and she never complains. (But in fairness, Kim is so sweet, she's probably the last person in the world who would complain about anything anyway.)
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