BEHIND-THE-SCENES : [MACROCOSM] VISUAL EFFECTS Page 1 picture: a dead macrovirus with Janeway's knife in it ST DVD screenshots and episode screenshots from [#54 Macrocosm] by Janet.

 

Dan Curry: In the episode [Macrocosm] Voyager encounters large scale viruses. And when we were coming up with a design for those inspired by the design of diatoms which are a microscopic organism on Earth that is used as part of a swimming pool filter system, dyed a tenacious earth to make them look nasty and threatening.

Dan Curry: Instead of having the normal rigid exoskeleton that a real diatom has, we changed the prongs on its tetrahedronal shape into grasping tentacles.

macrovirus model - it is sitting in a bucket, not because it is incontinent,
but to hold the 'stinger' which extends downwards from the macrovirus body

Dan Curry: And then for the stinger a full-scale stinger would be like this [holds up the model he made].

Dan Curry: And there were a couple of scenes where they had to push through the (turbolift) door and squirt their poison on people.

[Macrocosm]

[Macrocosm]

Dan Curry: And there was one scene where Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway was having a close encounter with a giant virus, and as she was laying on the floor it kept trying to sting her in the face. So just out of frame I was standing with this, and making sure I didn't hit her in the face but poking it so Kate could avoid doing it, and when it was over we had a lot of laughs because it certainly was bizarre and very unpleasant-looking.

[Macrocosm]

The computer-generated image of the macrovirus which attacks Janeway was added in post-production. To make it easier to put in the footage of the CG creature later, Kate Mulgrew filmed her dodging movements against a blue screen.

When acting Janeway as she seizes hold of one of the creature's tentacles, Kate Mulgrew mimed the movements. The CG creature was added to the footage later.

[Macrocosm]