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.