BEHIND-THE-SCENES : [FUTURE'S END]

ST DVD screenshots and episode screenshots from [#50 and #51 Future's End] by Janet.

 

Several locations in Los Angeles were used in [Future's End] including Griffiths Observatory.

filming at Griffiths Observatory

Starling's imposing headquarters building was actually the Transit building in downtown L.A. but with the Chronowerx logo added in post-production by the visual effects department.

the original building:

as seen in [Future's End]:

above left: director David Livingston and Tim Russ above right: some of the production staff left: Robert Duncan McNeill, ?, and Tim Russ

Visual effects:

Ron Moore: We had the spaceship that had to bust out of a building. So we went out and shot L.A. I enjoyed doing this too because I was able to bring out my old four by five camera from school and shoot a lot of stills on big 4 inch by five inch negative, then we could go in and manipulate the building. We did the Transit Building downtown L.A. It became the building and then we were able to manipulate it for the plane to fly out. We looked all over.

Starling launches Aeon from his office building, [Future's End]

Ron Moore: There was a place - we were up in Starling's office and he looks down, and you can see the timeship inside. We tried to get into TRW which was the place where they shot some of [TOS]. It would be fun to go back down, but we couldn't find a place that we liked that they would let us shoot in. So we finally found a place down in Long Beach where we went in, and there was just this real high-tech, dated for that, I guess, but we had lots of wires and pipes and big tanks and stuff. And Dan and I went out with still cameras and shot all of this, and then we took it back and then added CG ships, and what-have-you, to that.

above three screenshots - background stills shot from real life right - with the Aeon and Starling's logo added

In Starling's office, which was a set, a blue screen was hung to represent the viewing window into the Aeon's hangar. The blue screen was later removed in post-production and replaced by the footage of the Aeon in its hangar. Blue screen work is a common technique in visual effects which allows elements that do not exist in real life together, e.g. live action and footage filmed elsewhere or live action and a matte painting, to be combined afterwards. A plain bright blue screen is used because it is easy to pick out and remove from the film in post-production. (A plain bright green screen is sometimes used instead, or, for the USS Voyager model, a bright orange screen.) Differences in reflected light are also sorted out, as necessary, in post-production.