BEHIND-THE-SCENES : [TATTOO]
VISUAL EFFECTS (LIGHTNING)

With lightning, normally it depends on the specifics, but normally Marvin (Marvin Rush, director of photography) will rent a lightning generator for that day, which is a strobe light but it does fast flickers. So that we actually see interactive light on the actors. When we see the physical lightning in the frame, that's animated by hand. Greg Rainoff‡ our visual effects animator, does that one frame at a time on several different paint systems. And in the early days of [Star Trek Voyager] it would've been a Henry.

^‡ Greg Rainoff: ST DVD spelling. This person is not mentioned anywhere in Poe or Encyclopaedia) (I really do mean "anywhere"), so I am unable to check the spelling.

[#25 Tattoo]

screenshots of the temporary footage created by the visual effects department, illustrating the strobe light effect and the later insertion of hand-drawn lightning

And a lot of times when you see interactive light from that effect on somebody, so that we weren't trapped into a timing that wouldn't work later on, we'd request that Marvin does not provide us with interactive light, and then the interactive light is handpainted by the artist on the character as if it were light coming from that particular phenomenon.