INFO on Season premiere episode " Storm Front" -- Enterprise and All Things Trek

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Date Posted: 02:47:53 08/23/04 Mon
Author: Computer Geek!
Subject: INFO on Season premiere episode " Storm Front"

Brent Spiner is to appear in Season 4

The whole article inside!

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[> Inside: CAUTION possible spoilers inside! -- Computer Geek!, 02:51:49 08/23/04 Mon

07.15.2004
Fourth Season Production Commences Sans Film

UPDATE 07.19.04: The guest appearance of Brent Spiner in Star Trek: Enterprise (mentioned below) has been confirmed by the studio. He will appear in a three-episode story arc which will probably be the fourth through sixth segments of Season 4.

Riding the wave of the digital age, the new season of Star Trek: Enterprise began production today (Thursday) with a whole new approach to shooting the show. The age-old familiarity of celluloid film has been replaced with high-definition digital video.

"Storm Front" is the name of the fourth-season premiere, picking up where the bizarre cliffhanger of "Zero Hour" left off. This morning scenes were shot in Sickbay, followed by the Bridge and Situation Room in the afternoon. The entire principal cast minus Scott Bakula reported to work (he comes in Friday).

Director of photography Marvin Rush has adopted the use of a Sony 900 digital camera, after conducting tests with it last week on the standing ship sets and some exteriors. Those tests proved that the new generation of high-definition video now easily rivals film in look as well as practicality.

"If anything, it's neck-and-neck with film. And I'm just talking about aesthetics, image to image. I'm not talking about other aspects of how easy [the digital camera] is to work with or how flexible it is," Rush told STARTREK.COM.

In two days of tests, Rush's team was able to shoot more footage than planned, in less time than budgeted. And when they showed the footage to executive producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, "they both walked out of the room and said basically, 'Wow, why weren't we doing this before?'"

The answer to that question, he explained, was that the previous generations of high-def digital cameras did not match the quality of film. "This is a third-generation camera, and it's very new � I think this is only a few months old � and they've done some real improvements." Some of the improvements that compelled Rush to make the switch were the new camera's ability to capture detail in the extreme bright areas of a shot, such as when pyrotechnics are used. And it's actually superior to film in some respects, such as in low-light situations. It has better depth of field, no variance in frame registration, and many other advantages that only a cinematographer can explain.

Rush is also very excited about the way the digital camera will change the way he works. "When you look through the lens of a film camera, you're not seeing the film's interpretation of the light, you're just seeing what light is coming through the lens. When you look at a digital camera image on a high-definition monitor � assuming you've properly set the monitor up � you're seeing essentially the final product when you're making it. So it's possible to make artistic decisions about the look, very accurate ones, in real time," Rush explained. Plus, there are a number of in-camera effects he can more effectively achieve. He could've used a digital camera to help him with the "bleach bypass" process he employed in last year's "North Star." There are also significant cost savings to mastering digitally, he pointed out, as well as to the shooting process.

"It's dangerous to over-promise, but I believe that we will actually be shooting faster � not that we're cutting corners, I just don't think it'll take as much work to get a shot ready," he said. "I think that the problems get solved a little quicker with the HD camera. Ask me in a week and I'll give you a full answer, 'cause we'll have done it, we will have shot a show."

But how will this affect what people see on TV? "Artistically, I don't think the audience is going to see much difference," Rush said, explaining that the digital picture will be "timed" (color-corrected) to perfectly emulate film and thus match the look of the show to date. However, he added, "My question is, do you really want it to look the same? I think that there are some aspects to the HD look that are superior � you see a little more detail in the shadows. My personal taste is, why not keep them � it's just more fidelity, you know."

"Storm Front" will be in production through the end of next week. It is the first part of a multi-episode "arc" which will resolve the questions raised from last season's finale.

According to Rick Berman in an interview for the upcoming issue of Star Trek Communicator, the fourth season will largely go back to the stand-alone episode format of Seasons 1 and 2, though there will be several "mini-arc" stories consisting of two or three episodes. Also in that interview, Berman mentions that William Shatner could return to the Star Trek fold this season. "We're hopefully going to have some discussions with our dear friend, Mr. Shatner, and perhaps come up with a small arc that will involve him," Berman said. Such discussions will be contingent on his schedule for Boston Legal, the new series Shatner is starring in this fall.

Something else to look forward to this year is a guest spot on Enterprise for Brent Spiner. Presumably Spiner will appear in a three-episode arc fairly early in the season as an ancestor of Dr. Noonien Soong, Data's inventor. Robert Picardo mentioned this in his Wednesday chat with STARTREK.COM.

It remains to be seen whether an appearance by Shatner would employ the same concept, i.e., he would play an ancestor of Jim Kirk. As the season unfolds, it should all � to use camera vernacular � come into focus.

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[> Thank god they are going back to stand alone storylines ( finish the story in 1 episode) with occasional mini-arc stories!!! SEASON 4 seems very promising! Just hope people start posting on the board again. -- Computer Geek!, 02:54:34 08/23/04 Mon

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