things you catch on blu-ray

[David Mullen ASC]

Lately I've been noticing little things on the edges of frames that come briefly into view during camera moves -- even though I've seen "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" dozens of times, I never noticed until now that during a fast arcing dolly move, an arm comes into the right edge of the frame... I don't think there are any short-sleeved plaid Starfleet uniforms:

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Must've been a cadet. Sadly my ST:MP is on DVD and I just can't bring myself to re-buy what I already bought.

[Phil Rhodes]

Is that possibly an issue of the rescan for the blu-ray release showing a bit more of the neg than was intended?

 

On the other hand, well, it's scope, so we should be seeing everything anyway. I wonder if it's on the DVD. One might reasonably have chosen to zoom in and lose it.

[David Mullen ASC]

Considering I never noticed it until now, it was probably better to leave it in rather than screw up the composition of Decker walking away down the corridor on the right (and the arm goes away within a few frames.)

 

I noticed when watching "Alien" on DVD years ago that at the end of a handheld POV shot of Ripley running down a hallway, the set basically ends in blackness but through the steam and smoke, you can see an arm waving a black flag in front of a light on the extreme left edge of frame. Not sure if that was digitally erased when they did their major remastering a few years ago but I seem to think it was.

 

On scope, just like the other sound formats, the o-neg has a bit of info on the left edge that is normally covered by the soundtrack, but there is no reason to be accidentally showing that on TV. But there isn't really anything outside of the right edge of theatrical.

[Phil Rhodes]

I think Scott mentions the guy holding the flag in Alien on the commentary track. It's a fantastic example of the things we don't see unless we're expecting them.

 

But now you've gone and made me watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and I still want those two (or is it thirty-five? it feels like it) hours of my life back from last time. Sorry if I'm dumping all over anyone's favourite film here, but it really is a bit slow.

[Freya Black]

Lately I've been noticing little things on the edges of frames that come briefly into view during camera moves -- even though I've seen "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" dozens of times, I never noticed until now that during a fast arcing dolly move, an arm comes into the right edge of the frame... I don't think there are any short-sleeved plaid Starfleet uniforms:

 

Strangely I think it looks kinda sci-fi. It doesn't look like anything obvious and it almost looks like they are wearing strange gloves with it too. I think the big trouble with it is that if there was a wide shot then it might be obvious there was nobody wearing such an outfit.

 

Freya

[KH Martin]

Do the engineering uniforms have a patch above the elbow, like the shoulder ones? If so, maybe that is what it is.

 

If you go back to Kirk's entrance in SanFran, I'm pretty sure there's part of a guy wearing a 70s-era jacket who shows up for about 2 frames at the end of the shot where he emerges from the tram before he starts walking with Sonak. Not anywhere near as objectionable as the painted bg figures in the tram master, which were just godawful distracting from day one, but something somebody caught on DVD 7 or 8 years back.

Edited June 20, 2013 by KH Martin