By
GustavoLeao /
20:47, 20 January 2012 /
General Star Trek
Star Trek.com posted an extensive 2-part interview with Michael and Denise Okuda and here are excerpts.
What exactly was your starting point on TNG?
Mike: Fortunately, Paramount did a fantastic job of archiving the
material. So, when our friends from CBS actually went through the
archives, went through the reels, they found virtually everything they
were looking for. The scanning technology has certainly improved since
1987. They’re now scanning at full HD. And there’s a certain amount of
dirt and scratch removal, which is pretty normal for the industry. Once
that’s done, the pictures look gorgeous.
Denise: It’s really amazing, the quality. Really early on in the
project, we were still working on “Farpoint,” and LeVar Burton and
Marina Sirtis came in to visit. They sat down and looked at the
difference, and they were blown away. So that was lots of fun. But we’re
just ecstatic about the whole thing.
What are your jobs on this project?
Mike: We start it by examining, very closely, the actual original
version of the episode, doing breakdowns, figuring out which shots were
visual effects, that kind of thing. And then, on a weekly basis, we meet
with our friends from CBS Digital. There are a lot of times when the
original intent of the show may not be all that clear. So we want to
make them sure that they know, “This is the narrative. This is the story
point.”
Denise: We start watching the episodes, we do a breakdown and the
artists are assigned different shots. We go in and we look at the
footage and compare it. If things need to be tweaked and if we have
time, they go back and they tweak them. Also, there may be questions
about the episode, the context of the episode, because each individual
artist, although they’ve seen the episode, they’re concentrating just on
their piece. So we’re there to give an overall vision of that as well.
How far along are you into the TNG remastering?Mike:
It’s kind of hard to measure because we – CBS and us – are
simultaneously working on several different episodes as several
different stages. So it’s hard question to answer. But we are still on
the first season.
From day one to now, how long has it been so far?Denise:
Oh, I don’t know. We got a call a couple of years ago from producers
Ryan Adams and David Grant, explaining the process and asking us, if
this project were green-lit, would we be interested in participating.
After listening to all the details and the complexity, we said, “Sure,
of course we’d be interested.” We hung up the phone and looked at each
other and said, “It’ll never happen.” Then, of course, to our amazement
and delight, a year and a half later it went forward.
Mike: Not only did it go forward, but there are so many ways they
could have cheated the process. The easiest thing to do would have been
to simply upscale the original standard-definition recordings. That
would have been such a cheat, but CBS, to their very considerable
credit, said, “OK, we’re going to bite the bullet. We’re going to spend
the money. We’re going to re-scan the film. We’re going to recomposite
the effect.” So we take our hats off to them.
Will you stick around and work on all seven TNG sets?Mike: I hope so.
Let’s switch gears a little bit. What’s it meant to both of you to have Star Trek be such a part of your lives for such a long time?Mike: Well, both of us growing up separate sides of the Pacific Ocean, we grew up with
Star Trek
and the space program and science-fiction. To be a part of something
that has such a powerful influence on people, it’s not only fun, it’s a
considerable honor.
Denise: I’d say basically the same thing.
It’s just basically a part of our lives. We’ve met so many wonderful
people all over the world who are associated with
Star Trek. We’ve done work with NASA and the folks we’ve met at the different NASA centers, so many of them tell us that
Star Trek
influenced them to choose the professions they are now in. How could
you not be blown away? So we feel very, very blessed to be associated
with
Star Trek and we hope it continues for many years.
J.J. Abrams came along and directed Star Trek (2009).
Fans can debate its merits, but there’s no denying it was a huge hit
and helped reinvigorate the franchise as a whole. What are your thoughts
on the film and its impact on the franchise? Mike:
Star Trek
has always been, at the heart of it, a low-budget television show and a
low-budget movie, so it was great to see the movie getting that kind of
support from the studio. We’d been fans of J.J. Abrams since he did
Alias, and it was an exciting, fun film.
What do you think the odds are that you’ll ever get to work on another Star Trek series?Mike: Never say never.
The full interview is
here and
here
