Interview with Denise and Michael Okuda on the Star Trek: The Next Generation HD Restoration

Adventure and new friends are what awaits you

in Starfleet, the world's largest Star Trek fan

club. Starfleet, the international Star Trek

fan association, is celebrating its 45th anniversary

and with over 4 ,000 members in 75 countries.

It offers camaraderie, educational and philanthropy

opportunities, and a unique membership experience

modeled on the Starfleet organization from the

TV shows and movies. To start your adventure

today, visit www .sfi .org. Space. The final

frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship

Enterprise. Its continuing mission. To explore

strange new worlds. To seek out new life and

new civilizations. To boldly go where no one

has gone before. Hey guys, what's going on? You

are listening to This Week in Geek. Well, more

exactly, alternately. Future Imperfect, our official

Star Trek podcast brought to you by the good

folks over at SFI .org, Starfleet, the world's

largest Star Trek online fan club. And while

you'll notice I'm not flying with my number one

today, I'm not flying with Steve Megatron Phillips

as well. I kind of wanted this one by myself.

I'm not, I'm not. Not going to lie. I actually

got set up by the folks over at Paramount last

night to go check out the Star Trek The Next

Generation Blu -ray screening. So big thanks

to Paramount for doing that for me. And the reason

I bring that up is because they showed... Two

episodes from the upcoming Star Trek The Next

Generation Blu -ray set, which actually comes

out today in North America. And I actually got

a really interesting opportunity. I got contacted

by, once again, the folks over at Paramount to

talk to Denise and Michael Okuda. Now, these

are names you might recognize from the Star Trek

fandom, and they've done a lot of cool things

like technical stuff. Michael did artwork and

even did some stuff for NASA, which is pretty

kick -ass. And these guys are very heavily involved

in developing the Star Trek The Next Generation

HD restoration. So without any further ado, I'd

like to welcome Denise and Michael to the show.

Guys, it is a tremendous privilege to talk to

you because going to the screening last night

is the first time I've seen Star Trek The Next

Generation on the big screen, or at least the

Enterprise D, since Generations came out all

the way back in the early 90s. So it was a real

treat to see this again, and it looks even better

than it did way back then because now it's true

HD. So you guys have done a fantastic job. Well,

thank you. Star Trek has been an amazing family

to be part of. uh... back in the uh... back in

the eighties and nineties when uh... paramount

was making the actual television shows and of

course now uh... now that uh... the cps part

of the family is is is remastering the show and

uh... giving it every bit as much love and getting

to see that beautiful beautiful starship on the

big screen so we've been very excited for today

because of course this is the release of the

blu ray and we feel like we've been having this

christmas present we've wanted to share with

all our our friends around the world who love

Star Trek, and it's finally here and we couldn't

be happier. Now, speaking of bringing this to

Blu -ray, how long has this been in development?

Because in one of the special features on the

Blu -ray, you guys talk about the restoration

process, and you had like 2 ,500 boxes to go

through. That's a lot of damn boxes. So I'm wondering,

when did the entire process start? started way

back around 2005 or so. CBS has wanted to bring

this to HD for years and years, but just figuring

out the logistics, getting the corporate approvals,

just bringing everything together has taken until

about a year ago. Yeah, it was almost an impossible

feat, and really until the technology caught

up. that it was even doable. And you're right

about the boxes and boxes and boxes of footage.

And there is an amazing woman at CBS Digital.

Her name is Sarah Paul, and she is responsible

for tracking down all of the footage. And she

is tenacious, because a lot of times the footage

may not be in the episode box. It may have been

borrowed or reused from a different show, and

so she has to go in search of, and she's amazing.

And, of course, we also have to take up our hats

to our friends who worked the original editorial

project at Paramount. They did an astonishing

job of cataloging and preserving and archiving

all this stuff, and if it wasn't for what they

did, what's happening today would not be possible.

I gotta say, you guys have accomplished something

quite technically amazing. The fact that you

guys are able to restore this, because this is

the original film kind of negative, and that's

something I think a lot of people don't realize.

When you go back and restore something to HD,

it's not just as simple as upscaling it and maybe

taking the scratches off of it, because it was

still filmed on 35mm. whatever it was. And it's

kind of like when they restored Star Wars. If

they didn't do it now, it wasn't going to happen.

But it seems like the film itself was particularly

well preserved, was it not? Yes, they literally

stored it in a salt mine in temperature, humidity

controlled conditions. So the negative was beautifully

stored. And yes, you're also right that simply

upscaling the original video just would not have

been satisfactory. It's not just that there's

less detail, because there is less detail, but

also there's a lot less color information per

pixel. So by going back to the original film

negatives, you get the additional picture detail,

you get the additional depth of color, you get

so much more that was in the original film that

was lost in the murkiness of standard deaf television.

Now, one of the other things I wanted to talk

to you guys about, and because I have a background

in sound, I'm a huge fan of the Blu -ray sound

mix. Can you guys tell me a little bit about

that? Because the original show was mixed in

stereo, but the new Blu -ray is in 7 .1. Well,

one of the cool things that, again, CBS wanted

to do is they created a 7 .1 mix, which was,

of course, based on the 5 .1 Paramount mix. but

they also preserved and presented the original

stereo track. So you can have the best of both

worlds. When you were putting everything together

and you're seeing the process of all these episodes

come together, what was that like just to see

everything in HD for the first time? I think

I've said this before, but it's so true. Every

Wednesday we get together with the folks at CBS

Digital and we have a visual effects review.

And they will put up on the monitor, they'll

put up the standard deaf reference, and then

we'll take a look at the high deaf. And there

have been many times where the entire meeting

comes to a complete halt while all of us just

say, wow, and admire the image we're looking

at. I mean, it's literally taken our breath away

a couple of times. Now, one of the other cool

things that you guys have done, and I'm really

happy with this, is you guys put a lot into the

special features. In fact, I dare say with the

feature, you've more or less created a new 90

-minute documentary working with Roger Lay Jr.,

who's previously done some work with the most

recent Captain Power release on DVD, but also

the Masters of the Universe documentary. So what

was it like to work with someone you know who

has a... who has a lot of nerd cred, to put together

a real interesting set of special features. We

love Roger, and also we love his partner, Robert

Meyer Burnett, who, as you say, has got a great

deal of nerd cred. They know the stuff. They

share our passion for Star Trek. And they're

also both excellent, excellent filmmakers. And

they, along with CBS Home Entertainment, were

just determined to make the ultimate document

of the making of this series. And it's not just

them. They had support going very high up in

the corporation. And everyone just wanted to

treat Star Trek with the importance that it is

due. They wanted to show pieces of the story

that had never been told before. Because even

though you've heard this, stories over and over

again. Now that it's 25 years later, people can

speak more freely than they did back then, and

they can look back at it with a little more perspective.

And I think if you saw those wonderful pieces

from Rick Berman, just getting his perspective

on this was just fascinating. Yeah, we're really,

really pleased with the value -added material.

Behind the scenes, the interviews, we think Roger

and Rob and everyone at Home Video has done a

fantastic job. And we continue to be just absolutely

delighted with the support from CBS. The people

that we're working with, they couldn't be more

passionate about this project, and it's just

thrilling for us. I mean, that's one of the reasons

why I was really happy I got this set early is

the fact that I can take in some of these special

features because that's really what I buy Blu

-ray sets for is specifically the special features.

And with Star Trek being such a landmark franchise,

I'm really happy to see the care was taken to

create something interesting. So I guess that

kind of leads me to my next series of questions.

What interesting materials turned up while you

guys were building? the HD remaster? Did you

find stuff you didn't expect? For example, people

are talking about the 20 minutes that was lost

in Measure of a Man in Season 2. Did you guys

come across anything like that in Season 1? You

maybe couldn't necessarily put the tape because

it was damaged or just too far gone? The single

most interesting piece, at least for me, was

that tiny little clip of film. from the main

title sequence. I think you may have seen it.

It's the last shot in the main title sequence

where we can see people walking around in the

observation lounge windows. I actually knew that

it was simple pencil animation, but I had never

actually seen the raw film. It just looks so

crude and so simple, and yet it's a testament

to the brilliance of the visual effects artists.

Because they knew exactly what we were going

to read on camera, exactly what it was going

to take the film to fool the eye. And of course,

when you saw the original, it just looked like

people walking in the window. And now even more

so, people who had never noticed it before are

going, oh my God, there's people there. One of

the things that I noticed specifically relating

to that is just before the Enterprise jumps to

warp in the opening sequence, I never noticed

it until the AC transfer. It actually says Enterprise

right on the hull section, right by the main

deflector dish. And I never noticed. I mean,

I've got the original Playmates toys hanging

from my living room ceiling because I'm a huge

nerd. And I never noticed that was actually included.

And that's something that a lot of your work

has really brought up. You really notice a lot

more details in the models. Well, there's a lot

of detail on the models, on the sets, on almost

everything that originally was included really

just more as texture than anything else. And

thanks to the clarity of HD, you're being able

to see a lot of artistry that was in there, that's

always been there. But you never could really

make out. And that's one of the fun things about

just going through these things and finding these

little Easter eggs. Yeah, I mean, it's a real

treat as a guy who loves practical effects. I

mean, I'm a huge fan of anything that's done

by, like... ILM and Stan Winston before he passed

away. I mean, I love practical. I love models.

I love miniatures. One of my favorite movies

is Aliens, and that had extensive miniatures

in it. So I guess as we begin to kind of wind

things down, guys, what can we look forward to

in subsequent seasons in terms of things that

look really spectacular or upcoming special features?

Right now we're... We're just focused on the

episodes themselves, so we do know, for example,

that they're going to put a lot of effort into

trying to make the extended version of Measure

of a Man happen, and that's something we're very

excited about. The actual extended cut, it's

not that different from the original. The plot

is pretty much the same, but there's more character

development in it. Yeah, and the Measure of a

Man is one of our... favorite episode so uh we're

really hoping that they can pull it off and we're

really excited if it does happen that everybody

will be able to see it one of the episodes i'm

really looking forward to seeing you guys work

on it's not until the fifth or sixth season um

descent part one and two those were the first

episodes i ever saw of star trek so literally

i was assimilated by the borg and became a huge

star trek nerd after that but I really got to

say thank you guys for taking all the time and

effort and the meticulous eye to detail to make

these sets worth it for the next generation,

pardon the pun, of Star Trek fans. Well, you're

welcome, but it's not just us. There's a whole

bunch of people that are working very, very hard

at CBS, and we couldn't be happier. Well, all

I have to ask is from all of us Star Trek fans

out there, give a much... needed round of high

fives. You guys have done a fantastic job on

this set. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

And thank you for watching the show. My life,

I don't know where it would be if I wasn't watching

Star Trek, and that's kind of weird to admit.

So, like I said, it's fantastic. So hopefully

we get a chance to actually speak to you guys

again. That'd be great. Well, guys, that was

my interview with Denise and Michael Okuda. These

guys, like I said, class act. They were very

awesome during this interview. And like I said,

go out, check out the Star Trek The Next Generation

Blu -ray set. Really cheap if you look on places

like Amazon, but go to Walmart, Target, wherever,

buy this set, support it, and who knows, maybe

we'll see other cool Star Trek series restored

in the future. I know it'll be a little bit more

difficult, but who knows? You can always hope.

So anyway, guys, this is MikeTheBirdman. signing

off for this week in Geek .net's Future Imperfect,

brought to you by the good folks at SFI .org,

Starfleet, the world's largest Star Trek online

fan club. Until next time, guys, live long and

prosper.