Star Wreck Arvoton

I’m going to wade into an area that’s just a wee bit soggy with controversy:  starship sizes. It’s controversial because… well, starship sizes tend to change from time to time. The reasons are varied: older special effects techniques, difficulty judging distances in space with no objects of relative size for scale, arbitrary decisions during production… However, I have a cunning plan to keep that from happening in my production.

Things are moving ahead, albeit slowly.  The Arvoton model still needs a few tweaks here and there, but as I posted earlier it is largely done.  The next project, the Plingon Battlebruiser, is underway but at this point is probably about 30% complete.  I’m trying to finish it in a few weeks (as opposed to a few months for the Arvoton).  My ultimate goal is to be able to build a quality model in 40-80 hours.  According to designer Doug Drexler’s blog, that’s about how much time was available to build a cgi model while Enterprise was still in production and if I’m ever going to make a living at this, I need to be as fast.

I’ve also managed to get two scripts, Gift Horse and The Pirates of the Torribeon, very close to half an hour in length.  Woo-hoo!  A bloody major accomplishment, if I do say so myself.  I was beginning to think it couldn’t be done without sacrificing story–or worse, some gags.  A major rewrite is in progress for Better Red Than Dead.  It needs to focus more on the mayhem, but I have an idea how to get into the thick of things much faster.

I was originally hoping to round up some actor friends and record the dialog for a couple of episodes this summer, with the aim of having at least one of the short test scripts produced by Christmas.  I’m not sure if I can keep that timeline though I am confident that I will definitely have an episode or two produced for 2011.  I just have to keep on keepin’ on.

…And I have to say it’s pretty good.  The story is solid and the quality of the production is impressive.  Of particular note is the character of T’von, played by Roy Stanton.  His performance exceptional, as is his makeup–his “pointy ears” prosthetic is seamless.

The only thing I really had a problem with is enunciation.  Some of the actors hit all the right marks physically and emotionally but spilled out their lines in a sibilant-laden gush.  I’m hopeful this can be corrected in future episodes, especially in light of all the attention paid to other details in the production.

Check it out – you can view the episode directly from the site.

http://www.stphoenix.com/

A lovely little creation from Push It Films…

Can’t find an actual site to link to, but here’s a link to a YouTube blog they’ve got going…

Here’s a first picture of the almost very nearly completed ship our “heroes” will ride from disaster to disaster.

The Arvoton is a multi-purpose ship intended to fulfill a wide variety of roles in P-Fleet including courier, survey and light patrol duties.  It’s a small ship, with a crew of about 80 to 100 depending on the specific assignment.

It’s not a typical P-Fleet ship.  It’s not armed (and armoured) to the teeth, although it does have a bit of a bite.  It is, however,  fairly agile.  One of the reasons why the ship has remained in service for so long is that the damned things are so hard to hit–a perfect asset for captains who prefer cowardice and flight as combat tactics.

This is actually the third version of the ship.  The first version would have been more at home in the armada for Star Wreck:  In the Pirkinning, but I scrapped the design because I wanted a ship that didn’t look that tough or dangerous.  The second design was more in line with the original Star Trek series from the ’60s, but after some considerable thought I decided to follow the design of the new ships from last summer’s Star Trek movie in order to give the Arvoton a more unique look.  Since I’m technically working in the “history” of the Star Wreck universe I figure if I can give this series the impression of being distanced a little from the existing Star Wreck stuff I can be more easily ignored if I go completely out into left field…

P-Fleet’s Not-So-New, Rather Ineffective Class of Starships

I just learned something about the 3D software I use:  If you have to move your model files to another hard drive, it defaults all the file path for all the textures to the textures folder on the hard drive where the program is installed.  There is, apparently, no central setting to change the texture path to where it should be on the new hard drive.

So, essentially, I now have to “repaint” the entire model.

Not a happy camper.

Just sleeping!

Well, not really.  A couple of personal things tied up my time seriously for the first few months of the year, including a health issue.  I have started back into the scripts again – I have two scripts running too long and one script that I think needs to be revised to get into the thick of things faster.  I know I can really just make these scripts any length I want, but the point of the exercise is to produce something that fits into a certain time-frame.  So the extra pages have to go…

I’ve also been remodeling the Arvoton itself.  I’m going for a look closer to the ships from the JJ Abrams movie last summer as I think it will make the look a bit more distinctive.  I’m almost done, but progress has been slow.  Since this is the main vessel of the series, a lot of attention is being paid to details that I don’t think will be necessary for ships with less screen time.  Plus I’ve figured out how to make things look like scrap metal!  Hee-haw.  Pictures coming soon.  Promise.

It’s been a while since I posted, not including the last few things that went up just now.  Demands of the season keeping me busy, plus a few curve balls at work (please keep the comments family-oriented, please).

Best wishes to all this holiday season.  I hope the [meaningful holiday] sees you getting lots of [season-appropriate items] and that [applicable gift-giving entity] was [behaving appropriately] to you this year!

I just saw a link to this…

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/d00d/

Gosh, no major spoilers for Better Red Than Dead there…  Of course, it’s pretty obvious if you are familiar with Star Trek red shirt jokes…  And if you are wondering, yes you still have plenty of reasons to watch that episode when it gets produced.

I hadn’t meant to leave things for so long since the last post.  Ideally I would like to post once a week to show off the latest developments.  This schedule assumes that I don’t get caught up in other events, like real life or maybe actually working on the show instead of just posting blog entries about it.

I finished up the first draft of The Penultimate Percolator, and in honour of that accomplishment I’ve added an “Episodes” section to the site with very short descriptions of each story as well as where that story is in terms of the production process.

I’ve also created title cards for each episode in the style of the original Filmation animated episode title cards, though less cartoony.  Here’s an example: