Dorothy FONTANA | touring trekland | animated shorts | the glass Tabletop on the cover: Legendary Star Trek scribe, and friend to the UFP, Dorothy Fontana is remembered on page 4.
our 45th year | Issue 3 | january / february 2020
CAPTAIN Kim Smith EDITOR/DESIGNER David Matteson We aim to highlight the interests FIRST OFFICER Annette Sexton-Ruiz UFP CONTACT Dave Williams of our diverse membership. REC OFFICER Walt Bartlow EMAIL [email protected] Make suggestions or contribute to COMM OFFICER Kevin McAlonan WEBSITE www.u-f-p.org Subspace Chatter. Email us today! the united federation of phoenix i n this issue
The United Federation of Phoenix (UFP) is the Southwest’s oldest Star 03 Captain’s Log by Dr. Kimberly Smith Trek and science fiction fan organization, continuously operating since 04 Dorothy Fontana Memorial by David Gerrold 1975. The club meets bi-weekly at various locations around the Phoenix 06 Glass Tabletop by David Stipes & Dan Curry metropolitan area. As a group we have picnics, go hiking, watch movies, 08 Touring Trekland by Dr. Dave Williams play games, take trips, and are active in the volunteer community. 09 Animated Short Treks by Dr. Dave Williams You are about to read “Subspace Chatter,” our official publication, which highlights science fiction and fandom events, spotlights our members, 10 Incoming Transmissions and provides a resource for all things UFP. If you are in the area and 11 Official UFP Briefing would like to attend one of our meetings, email us at [email protected] 11 Winter / Spring UFP Calendar
2 | Subspace Chatter captain'S log BOLD NEW SEASON BY KIM SMITH, UFP CLUB CAPTAIN
Captain’s Log, stardate 202001.13. Walt and Annette delivered them. Then came New Year’s Eve where This December the UFP adopted a Walt was also able to procure a the UFP held a party at Annette’s family down on their luck instead food basket from the Lion’s Club home. About 16 people attended. of participating in our normal for this family. We watched the ball drop in New
Christmas Angels program. Kim, Next up, the UFP held a white York at 10:00. There was lots of Annette, Kris, her relative, David W, elephant gift exchange at Kim wine, food, and even some guests David M, Michael and George all and Dave’s home. We had a that might join the UFP in 2020! went shopping at Target for gifts! lovely time with about 12 people Happy new year! We found something for everyone attending including a new member in the family such as sheets, Michael D. The gifts were actually clothes, games, pajamas, and art nice for a white elephant exchange supplies. The gifts were a hit and and everyone was happy! No gag the family were so grateful when gifts this time. Dr. Kimberly Smith - UFP Captain.
Subspace Chatter | 3 As a senior lecturer at the American Film Institute, Dorothy Fontana taught and mentored many classes of aspiring screenwriters, producers and directors by sharing a lifetime of expertise, craft, heart and integrity.
However, Ms. Fontana gained global notoriety for her writing and story editing on the 1960’s television series Star Trek, as well as the 1970’s animated series, which she also associate produced. Her myth-building work on classic Trek blazed a trail for women, not only in television, but also in science fiction. Her well-known screen “DC” credit kept the fact of her gender a secret from most fans until they saw her picture in Stephen Whitfield’sThe Making of Star Trek.
Remembering Dorothy Fontana was responsible for creating Spock’s childhood history, including the essential story “Yesteryear,” which though produced for Star Trek: The Animated Series, is Dorothy as powerful as the best episodes of the classic series. She established the characters of, and relationship between, Spock’s father and mother (Sarek and Amanda) in classic Trek’s Fontana “Journey to Babel” episode. It was Ms. Fontana’s development of the rare emotional travails of a With heavy hearts, the UFP acknowledges half-human, half-Vulcan child... and adult (full of the passing of legendary Star Trek writer and emotions, yet prohibited from expressing them), producer Dorothy “DC” Fontana. She was an that made Spock such a unique character in the email friend of former UFP Captain Jim Strait. history of film and television. To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, the UFP hosted her as the Author Guest of Honor She shared writing credit with Gene Roddenberry at LepreCon, 2016. She was an icon and a on “Encounter at Farpoint,” the feature-length trailblazer whose importance to women in the US television industry was unmatched. premiere for Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was nominated for a Hugo Award. The following article has been adapted from David Gerrold’s original tribute, with Some of Ms. Fontana’s writing credits also comments by UFP member David Bluestein. include episodes of: Then Came Bronson, The
4 | Subspace Chatter Wild, Wild West, Bonanza, The Six Million Dollar Man, Land of the Lost, Kung Fu, The Waltons, Dallas, Buck Rogers, and Babylon 5. Though best known for her television work, D.C. Fontana also wrote novels — including Trek’s “Vulcan’s Glory,” and “The Questor Tapes,” based on a pilot by Roddenberry.
For decades, Ms. Fontana was an ardent and active member of the Writers Guild of America, west, having served on its Board of Directors for two terms. She twice won the prestigious Morgan Cox award for Guild service.
She was and always will be one of my favorites, “ even above many of the stars. She enjoyed life and the appreciation of the fans. I recall her answer to the question of how she came up with the characterizations of Spock’s parents. As we edged forward in our seats to hear her share her creative inspiration for our favorite characters, she smiled and simply said: “I made it all up!” We all laughed! A warm heart and a wonderful soul. She will be missed by all.
- David Bluestein
We are deeply saddened to report that Dorothy Catherine “D.C.” Fontana passed away peacefully last evening at the age of 80 after a brief illness.
Dorothy was born in New Jersey in 1939. She is survived by her husband, Oscar-winning visual effects cinematographer Dennis Skotak. If you would like to honor her, please send memorial donations to the Humane Society (www.humanesociety.org), Best Friends Animal Society (www.bestfriends.org), or the American Film Institute (www.afi.com). Thank you.
- Adapted from a tribute by David Gerrold
Subspace Chatter | 5 When you work on a project for a while David Stipes: When I first got to Star Trek I was a you often develop little rules or concepts that little bit confused by the concept of the glass tabletop will help make the workflow move easily or come and saw it as more restricted than what it actually together more accurately. On the Star Trek TV was; a simple way to keep up and down orientation. shows we had a very odd concept called “the glass I initially thought that all of the spaceships flew tabletop.” Imagine if you will a glass table with all around on a rather flat trajectory and did not go into of the spaceships flying around on the top surface. extreme angles. But Dan Curry shared with me that Anything that is on the top was correctly oriented the “glass tabletop” involved more factors than were right-side up. If you got underneath the glass obvious in its funny name. tabletop everything was upside down. This is one of the reasons why you do not see Star Trek ships or actors flying around upside down even though it is acknowledged that there is no “up” or “down” in outer space.
To help explain how this worked we’ve invited in Star Trek veteran Dan Curry. Dan has worked as a visual effects supervisor, producer, and designer for over 14 years on four of the TV series. Dan Curry: All the ships had a clear up and down, top and bottom, dorsal and ventral side. The ships looked great right side up but would confuse audiences when they were upside down, even though in space there is no up or down. The magnificent Enterprise 1701-D was not very attractive upside down and its iconic lines were not easily recognizable. Flip a couple of stills of the ship and you’ll see what I mean.
The “glass tabletop” wasn’t as rigid a rule as some may remember. We frequently had ships diving and swooping like WWII aerial combat. It was important to the writer/producers that VFX scenes supported the story, which is the purpose of VFX, that audiences could follow the action as it was happening.
6 | Subspace Chatter Davi d Stipes: Dan, you and I got very bold especially on the Dominion War battles in DS9. However no matter how steep the dive or climb the ship remained right-side up. This was achieved by staying on “top” of the glass tabletop to provide right- side-up orientation.
Dan Curry: Face-offs between two ships looked strange and disorienting to the producers when the ships were too far apart from sharing vertical axis, especially when more than 45º. So it was intuitive to orient things to the audience’s gravitational axis. meaningful compositions if objects had a similar up and down orientation.
Most importantly, that’s how the executive producers liked it. If we got too wild they would kick shots back to be redone.
David Stipes: Right, Dan! None of us liked redoing our spaceship shots.
Friends at NASA say that free-floating astronauts in zero-G intuitively orient themselves to the same up and down position when chatting or working in a group.
David Stipes: Here are examples of how disorient- ing and confusing this can be for the audience.
However, there were a few times where I deliberately violated the “glass tabletop” and the shots were accepted. We will reveal that in the next issue.
About the authors: Dan Curry: That may be intuitive in general, Dan Curry is a visual effects producer, supervisor, and as Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Star Wars, title designer, best known for his work on Star Trek: The Next and other space operas tend to do the same thing. Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. His work on these series has earned him seven Emmy awards.
There was also a practical “stock-shot” David Stipes is a visual effects supervisor who worked on Star Trek since 1992 and received an Emmy Award for consideration. Star Trek needed to re-purpose Outstanding Visual Effects. As a member of the United certain model shots to re-composite with different Federation of Phoenix, David offers his unique insights to models and/or planets and it was easier to do this in fellow fans through his contributions to Subspace Chatter.
This is an informative publication, and is not for profit, sale, or commercial use. All “Star Trek” titles, associated names, and imagery are the sole Subspace Chatter | 7 property of Paramount Pictures & CBS. Learn more about david stipes at davidstipes.com, and dan curry at memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Dan_Curry ring tou with larry nemecek
the polo field at Will Rogers State Park near Beverly Hills. They just built the descent ramp on location, as the ship was cloaked.
By Dr. Dave Williams, UFP member TreklandAfter a drive through Beverly Hills and past UCLA, Larry showed me the site of Gene and Majel’s home Last December, in between days of NASA meetings (it has since been torn down). in Pasadena, California, I took a “Trekland Trek” to visit location filming sites from various Star Trek The third stop was at Adamson House Park where productions. I was led by “Dr. Trek” himself, Larry they filmed the outdoor scenes of planet Risa from Nemecek, whom many long term UFP members the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Let He Who will remember was our Guest of Honor to celebrate Is Without Sin.” This location has a grassy, tree- the UFP’s 30th Anniversary in 2005. He is also covered park next to a sandy beach on the Pacific the author of “The Ocean.
Our final stop of the day was down the road in Malibu, at the “Dowd House,” the home of Kevin and Rishon Uxbridge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Survivors”. The house is listed for sale but there were dogs in the house and furniture, suggesting that someone Star Trek: The Next lives there. The exterior appearance of the house Generation Companion” and the remains virtually unchanged from when the episode “Stellar Cartography” book of star maps. Larry offers was shot in 1989. his Trekland Trek tours of four filming sites of your choice through his website at: larrynemecek.com/treks If you are vacationing in the Los Angeles area and are interested in sightseeing the various Star Trek On this trip we visited four filming sites near the Pacific filming locations, I encouraged you to purchase Coast. First up was the Franklin Canyon Reservoir, your personalized guided tour with Larry. which was used as the Native American Indian village They are great fun! in the Star Trek original series episode “The Paradise Syndrome” (aka Miramanee’s planet). Larry pointed out where they set up The Preservers obelisk and the view across the lake.
Next was the landing site for Klingon Bird of Prey in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Although the Bird of Prey landed in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, the actual filming location was
8 | Subspace Chatter the animated adventures a review of the first animated star trek episodes since 1975, by dave williams
Short Treks are 8-15 minute the night sky. This episode is ship as it zips through scenes from short stories set in the Star Trek a visualization of the opening the classic episodes “Space Seed”, universe, often focusing on a narration that Michael Burnham “Who Mourns for Adonais?,” “The single character. They serve as recounts in the Discovery season Doomsday sources of backstory and as a test 2 opener. It is a wonderful tall tale Machine,” bed for new storytelling ideas. Up that is brought to life with great “The until last month, all the prior Short animation and terrific storytelling Trouble Treks were in some way related to by Mr. Green. It is clearly With the Discovery storyline. intended to inspire and entertain The latest Short Treks saw the small return of Star Trek in animated form for the
Tribbles,” and more. A time jump occurs and we see the movie Enterprise battling the Reliant in The Wrath of Khan and a Klingon Bird of Prey in The children, and it Search for Spock. All the while the first time since reminds us how Star Mother Tardigrade is trying to get 1975. These two Trek: The Animated back to her eggs. All seems lost stories, “The Girl Who Series similarly was when the Enterprise explodes over Made The Stars” and “Ephraim inspirational in its stories. the Genesis planet, but DOT has and DOT,” are NOT related to either rescued the hatching tardigrade of the upcoming new Star Trek In “Ephraim and DOT,” we see eggs and all is well. Although there animated series. a different animation style in a are canon inconsistencies, this madcap, Tom & Jerry-type story episode is intended to be a more In “The Girl Who Made The Stars”, when a mother tardigrade’s slapstick jaunt to entertain and not we see the child Michael Burnham (Ephraim) search for a nest for be taken too seriously. being comforted with a bedtime her eggs is disrupted by the story from her father, who tells appearance of Capt. Kirk’s USS The final Short Trek of the season, her the tale of a young girl in an Enterprise. After laying her eggs in “Children of Mars,” airs on ancient African tribe who led her the Enterprise’ Engine Room, we January 9th, and is said to provide people away from fear of darkness see a DOT-7 repair robot chasing backstory on Star Trek Picard. and opened up the wonders of the tardigrade in and around the
Subspace Chatter | 9 R emembering new trek movie a are you prepared René Auberjonois return to tradition for picard?
René Auberjonois, who played Paramount surprised fans when Phoenix-area Star Trek fans: We Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space they announced Noah Hawley will be doing a free screening of Nine for all seven seasons, has would write and direct a new the premiere of Star Trek Picard passed away at age 79. Star Trek movie. This came after on Thursday, January 23 at ASU’s plans for a fourth Star Trek with Marston Exploration Theater on Auburjonois had a long and Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto the Tempe campus. Event starts amazing career even before fell through. ~5:00pm, screening of episode
taking on the unforgettable role of When J.J. Abrams rebooted Star starts at ~6:30pm (pending Odo on DS9. He began in theater, Trek in 2009, it opened with a confirmation of airing time by landing his first Broadway role in massive space battle and kept CBS - watch for updates). Event 1968 and soon appearing in three the pace up throughout. Star Trek will include a panel discussion, plays simultaneously, alongside has become summer tentpole raffle of ST-Picard items, and future DS9 co-star Frank movies full of action. Hawley free refreshments. Co-sponsored Langella. He eventually became a says he intends to get back to by the ASU School of Earth and director as well. the original essence of Gene Space Exploration and the United Roddenberry’s show. Federation of Phoenix. Please We mourn the loss of this great RSVP for this event. actor and human being, who “Star Trek is such a special story played Odo with such grace, about exploration, empathy, Here’s what to watch to prepare depth, humor, and complexity as diversity, creative problem for ST-Picard before its premiere: he fought for justice, struggled solving and humanity at its best. with his identity, discovered his It was never designed in its Star Trek: First Contact origins, fell in love, and sacrificed origins as an action series. It was “I Borg” - TNG, Seas 5, Ep 23 for those he loved, trading verbal always about humanity having “The Gift” - VOY, Seas 4, Ep 7 quips and insults with Quark to fit into the universe and solve “The Best of Both Worlds” at every step along the way. problems through diplomacy and - TNG, Seas 3, Ep 26, Seas 4, Ep 1 Condolences to his friends and outsmarting their opponents. So “Family” - TNG, Seas 4, Ep 2 family. We are heartbroken. I’m excited to get back to that.” Star Trek Nemesis
10 | Subspace Chatter northern az road trip are you with us in 2020?
We recently had a fun-filled and Welcome to the UFP’s 45th year. educational road trip to Flagstaff We have a lot of exciting activities to visit the Museum of Northern Continuing adventures coming up and we want you along Arizona and Lowell Observatory. for the ride! Yearly membership fees Although the Star Wars Native The next meeting will be January of $15 were due in September. If you American exhibit “The Force Is With 18th where the UFP will hike North wish to continue your membership
Our People - a look at how Star Wars Mountain and then play games at with the UFP, please remit your pro- has influenced Native American art” Walt’s home followed by a business rated payment ($11.25, or $1.25 per was closed due to water damage, meeting. On Thursday January month) in person or via our P.O. Box we got a guided tour of the rest of 23rd, the UFP will be screening the today. This small annual fee goes MNA (geology, archaeology, history, Star Trek: Picard premiere episode towards our charitable efforts, like art of Northern AZ), and two guided at ASU’s Marston theatre. Please buying presents for children in need tours at Lowell (Mars and Pluto). look at our Facebook page to RSVP. during Christmas Angels, and for And we will start February off with a sponsoring guest speakers to come If you are interested in visiting, wine and cheese tasting where we to local conventions! We look forward Museum admission is $12, and will be sampling Château Picard! to having you as an ongoing part of Lowell admission is $22. We hope you can join us in 2020! our family in 2020 and beyond.
UFP event Calendar winter 2019 - spring 2020
Saturday Nov. 23 8:00 am road trip Lowell Observatory and Museum of Northern Arizona Saturday Dec. 7 10:00 am christmas angels and Lunch at Paradise Valley Mall Saturday Dec. 21 1:00 pm White Elephant Christmas Party in North Phx Tuesday Dec. 31 8:00 pm new year’s eve party and Chinese Gift Exchange in Cent. Phx Saturday Jan. 18 1o:00 am hiking north mountain and Gaming in Glendale Thursday Jan. 23 5:00 pm Star Trek: Picard Premiere at Marston Theater ASU in Tempe Saturday Feb. 1 2:00 pm wine & cheese tasting and watching Picard episodes in N. Phx Saturday Feb. 15 8:00 am Arizona Renaissance festival the faire in Gold Canyon Saturday Feb. 29 1:00 pm gaming and potluck in the West Valley Saturday mar. 14 1:00 pm Hike Lookout Mountain and Video Watching in North Phx Saturday mar. 28 1:00 pm calendar planning and Bat walk in North Scottsdale fri-sun, apr. 10-12 weekend LepreCon 46 Convention at the San Marcos Hotel in Chandler
Subspace Chatter | 11 thu e nited federation of phoenix
Welcome to the Southwest’s oldest Star Trek and science fiction fan organization, continuously operating since 1975. The UFP is a collective of like-minded men and women from all walks of life who get together to have fun, engage in activities, and celebrate our shared love for Star Trek. Inside these pages is “Subspace Chatter,” our official monthly publication, which highlights science fiction and fandom events, spotlights our members, and provides a resource for all things related to the UFP! If you are into Sci-Fi and are in the Metro Phoenix area, consider attending one of our meetings. We would be glad to meet you. Drop us a line at [email protected] for more info.
isen id this issue of subspace chatter
We honor legendary Star Trek scribe Dorothy Fontana. Emmy Award-winning visual effects supervisors David Stipes and Dan Curry demystify the “glass tabletop” technique. Dr. Dave Williams reviews the first new animated Star Trek adventures since 1975, and also joins Larry Nemecek on a tour of Trekland. Captain Kim Smith discusses recent holiday events, such as New Year’s Eve and the white elephant parties, and previews events of the future in her Captain’s Log. All this and so much more awaits you inside this latest issue of Subspace Chatter!
The United Federation of Phoenix P.O. Box 37224 Phoenix, AZ 85069