Year 44 Issue 2 | Short Treks | Sf TUBE TALK Science with a Twist | Mars | STIPES VFX 06 08 10 11 07 04
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YEAR 44 ISSUE 2 | SHORT TREKS | SF TUBE TALK SCIENCE WITH A TWIST | MARS | STIPES VFX 06 08 10 11 07 04 OUR 44TH YEAR . ISSUE 2 . NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2018 CANAPT I Kim Smith EDITOR/DESIGNER David Matteson We aim to highlight the interests FIRST OFFICER Annette Sexton-Ruiz CLUB CONTACT Dave Williams of our diverse membership. REC OFFICER Walt Bartlow EMAIL [email protected] Make suggestions or contribute to COMM OFFICER Dianna Hopkins WEBSITE www.u-f-p.org Subspace Chatter. Email us today! the united federation of phoenix IN THIS ISSUE The United Federation of Phoenix (UFP) is the Southwest’s oldest Star 03 Mission Log with Kim Smith Trek and science fiction fan organization, continuously operating since 04 Visual Effects with David Stipes 1975. The club meets bi-weekly at various locations around the Phoenix 06 InSight Landing with Dave Williams metropolitan area. As a group we have picnics, go hiking, watch movies, 07 Short Treks Review by Dave Williams play games, take trips, and are active in the volunteer community. You are 08 SF Tube Talk with Lee Whiteside about to read “Subspace Chatter,” our official bi-monthly publication which 10 Star Trek & Science Fiction News highlights science fiction and fandom events, spotlights our members, and 10 Crosswords of Time provides a resource for all things UFP. If you are in the area and would like 11 UFP News & Information to attend one of our meetings, please email us at [email protected] 11 2018-2019 UFP Club Calendar 2 | SubSpace chatter MISSIon log SCIENCE With a T WIST Pictured above, the newly-elected officers of the UFP gather to plan events. From left to right: Dianna Hopkins (Secretary), Walt Bartlow (Treasurer), Kim Smith (Captain), Annette Sexton-Ruiz (First Officer) Captain’s Log, stardate 201812.4. stomach. and Dianna solving puzzles. The UFP stormed Science with a The bed of Dancing metal shavings and Twist, the 21+ Friday night event nails was a at the AZ Science Center, on big hit as was October 19th. After dinner and the desert drinks, we watched the Stranger weather experience complete with wind, heat lamps, and rain. Then Dr. Dave, Dr. Kim, Annette, and Dianna could not put the body back together, so Jeff floating balls were also amusing. George had Kevin, Walt and the rest enjoyed to come to the wheelchair races and we the rescue! were the last group to leave the Things Laser show in the Metal ring center. Way to go UFP! planetarium. Then we toured the puzzles center with other adults playing kept us just like kids would. First there entertained were glowing scorpions, then the for a while disgusting sounds of the giant with Kim - Dr. Kimberly Smith, UFP Captain SubSpace chatter | 3 THE VISUAL EffECTS OF ConspiraCy by DAVID STIPES | VISUAL EFFECTS SUPERVISOR | UFP MEMBER he crew of the starship Enterprise The property master, Alan Sims, had must overcome Starfleet commissioned another company to T Command officers who create the bug. They had done a are infected by an alien parasite. fine sculpting job but I realized we This is the plot of “Conspiracy,” would have to re-build it for the the 24th episode of the first stop motion animation required season of Star Trek: The Next for the shots. Generation. This episode has the dubious honor of having The creature was cast in a one or more shots censored dense silicone material and as “violent images” by the BBC was very stiff. The legs were in England. It is reported that the small nubs that were not long episode required a warning before enough to reach the floor to propel airing in Canada. the creature along. We set about re- sculpting the creature and giving it longer The story required that the parasite climb the leg legs and defining the body segments a bit more. of an officer then later climb out of the mouth of A plaster mold was made and fitted with a simple another fallen human host and attempt to escape. wire armature and the creature was cast in rubber. Visual Effects Supervisor Dan Curry approached We scheduled the animation time, then were told my visual effects company in April of 1988 with by Dan Curry that the date we were to animate was the project. Animating the parasite bugs for the actually the date they needed the work finished. episode was my first work on Star Trek: We scrambled to get the animation set up. Dan had The Next Generation. provided frames of the woman opening her mouth so we could line up the parasite’s animation with the actor’s performance. I asked Dan if we could have a bloody slime trail from the woman’s mouth Visit David Stipes at davidstipes.com This is an in informative publication only, and is not for profit, for sale, or for commercial use. All “Star Trek” titles, associated names, and imagery are the sole property of Paramount Pictures. Star Trek is a registered trademark of CBS Corporation. Credit: Frame captures are from a video by Greg Stone. 4 | SubSpace chatter but he didn’t think the producers would like it. I legs. After a couple of scenes were done, the thought it would help sell the horror of the situation armature wires broke and the body segment with but, disappointed, we moved on. the last two legs fell off the puppet! I finished the shot by animating the now two body sections along Dan has also provided a 4ft x 8ft piece of hard and making them appear as one creature. Formica flooring to match the set. It was so big I had to place it on a sheet of Celotex board on my As I worked, on another stage my assistant, studio concrete floor and animate on my hands Stephen Lebed, animated the parasite climbing the and knees. The surface was tough so I could not leg of the main host, Lt. Commander Remmick. directly pin the model to the floor for the animation Stephen faced his own challenges as the creature process. I had to drill through the hard Formica was difficult to attach and animate effectively on then drive a pin through the parasite’s foot into the the pants cloth. Celotex insulation board below. This prevented the feet from sliding around as I animated the body. It was a challenge but it was fun, and the creature scenes from “Conspiracy” continue to get I animated the creature along by twisting the comments. This episode is often included on lists parasite’s body segments in sequence with the of The Next Generation’s greatest moments. David Stipes is a visual effects consultant, artist and compositor. In 1992 David joined the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” team, and two years later received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Visual Effects. Embracing the change from physical models to computer effects, David championed the use of CGI in several Star Trek series over the years. Recently David has lent his talents to productions filmed right here in Arizona. As a member of the United Federation of Phoenix, David offers his unique insights from his professional life to fellow fans through his contributions to this publication. SubSpace chatter | 5 T he Next Step in Mars Exploration D AVID A. WILLIAMS | ASSOCIATE RESEARCH PROFESSOR | UFP MEMBER onday November 26th, 2018 saw the as a parking lot”, and was chosen to avoid a rocky beginning of the next steps in the exploration surface so that the instruments can obtain the M of the planet MARS with the successful best measurements. landing of NASA’s InSight spacecraft. InSight stands for “INterior exploration using Seismic This solar-powered lander will operate for one Investigations, Geodesy, and Mars year (two Earth years) Heat Transport”. This $814 plus 40 Mars days (or “sols”), million stationary lander’s until November 24, 2020. purpose is to study Mars Most likely it will be able to interior, to determine whether it has a liquid or solid function in an “extended mission” for some time core via seismic waves produced by marsquakes, afterwards to gather more data. to determine the heat flow out of the interior, and a radio experiment to determine perturbations InSight was accompanied to Mars by the first in Mars rotation axis, that might indicate the planetary CubeSats, MarCO-A and B. Mars Cube presence of a core. One (A and B) are the size of shoeboxes, and were used to transmit telemetry information from The spacecraft contains a French seismometer InSight while it was landing. They successfully and a German heat flow probe, the latter of which demonstrated that CubeSats can be used to will drill down 5 meters (16 feet) into the crust for support planetary exploration and bode well for better measurements. Both the seismometer future planetary CubeSats, such as Arizona State and heat flow probe will be placed on the surface University’s Luna-H Map, which will be launched by a robotic arm equipped with a camera. The with the first Space Launch System (SLS) test landing site, in Mars Elysium Planitia, is “as flat flight in 2019. 6 | SubSpace chatter fan analysis: By UFP Member Dave Williams Short trekS This fall Trek fans have been planet’s dilithium resources)! It’s written by Pulitzer Prize-winning given a brand new treat. For the a fun story where we learn more writer Michael Chabon, is full of first time, during the hiatus of about Tilly and another world/ mythological themes and become a first-run Star Trek TV series, race in the Star Trek universe.