Greetings from TREKLAND: the place I've lived and worked for some 20 years as Star Trek author, interviewer, editor, commentator, producer, event wrangler.
Now I share the folks, fun, fotos and future of it all here at Trekland — all in my own unique slant. So what are you waiting for? Jump in, sound off, geek out.
After 18 years, you bet that a lot of faces have appeared across the "modern" Star Trek TV incarnation, not to mention the whole 50+ year saga. By now, even those with a one-off guest role, especially with a long credit list elsewhere behind it, get sought out by fans. It's all part of the sparkling Trek tapestry. One of those gems is Mimi Craven—she of many fan-favorite roles over the years even outside of Trek. At a recent signing show in Burbank, I chatted with her about her unusual turn on Voyager as the ill-fated female Vaadwaur, Jisa, in "Dragon's Teeth." The Vaadwaur were designed to be a new culture with much backstory, intended to be a leading face in the last year of the show and launched with a two-parter—but those plans went for naught.
Mimi wore it proudly, though, and has some great moments to share as she was the test case for the makeup, even before shooting her scenes. Find her at a con and she can add insider stories from the original Nightmare on Elm Street, and many more. Good stuff!
Heaven forbid, Treklanders, that all these years of rightly celebrating March 22 as The TNG-film era makeup genius, Michael Westmore. Happy 74th!
Shat's birthday have also taken a chunk of the spotlight away from one of our other notables )and a nice guy to boot): the modern TV and
It always pops up from anyone who talks about him, but Michael has always been both a great friend and an open resource for all my projects, from the TNG days onward, and I treasure that.
In fact, he was one of the early boosters of TREKLAND the blog, and gave us a tour of his house in prep for his upcoming family Walk of Fame star ceremony back in the fall of 2008.
So, to celebrate today, let's go back to the archives and pre-HD days, since many of you just finding TREKLAND may not have been around in the early months (although it still sits right here, along with dozens of other videos). Enjoy!
Here's the danger of only linking your Star Trek anniversary parties to the debuts of series... you miss moments like this:
45 years ago today, the living breathing icon we call the Gorn was born. No, not the aired date of "Arena"—that would be Jan. 19, 1967—and no, not the Oct. 10, 1966 first draft date of the story—with all due respect to Fredric Brown's story, included in Gene Coon's first Star Trek script.
No, I'm pinning this to the date when that script and Wah Chang's budget-classic costume came together at the equally iconic Vasquez Rocks County Park under the direction of Joe Pevney, in his first assignment for Star Trek—on a Wednesday, the second of six long days for the shoot.
And lucky we have Bobby Clark, the stuntman/actor who donned the suit for two days that would forever endear him to pop culture (much more than the other three episodes he appeared in, out of his long, long TV and movie career). I talked to him last year at Vegas, finally, and saved our chat for this day—look him up when you can at the larger cons and shows such as Creation and the 2012 WonderCon, for starters:
I know the New Voyages-turned-Phase II Trek fan films have a great following all their own, as well as recurring and regular characters and actors. I know many of you follow them, and may even go back as far as 2005, when the big news was to be a series of five "vignettes"—short films to fill the agonizingly long gaps between the release times of the all-volunteer projects—usually a year or more. That's because, as a lot of you are aware, the fan films get their slick look from many professionals who do them as "weekend work" to add to their demo reel—or simply out of love for Star Trek.
But in case you haven't heard the amazing news by now, the Klingon-centric and "long lost" No Win Scenario is out after six years, only the second of the three actually filmed to ever be released (you can see it below)—and all because NV/P2's John "Kargh" Carrigan (above, on set lakeside, with "Grolst") was determined to make it so. He's pulled off a miracle here, with the help of many hands, to rescue the pieces and finally make them whole. (See more from John, below the fold).
What you may not know is that it's been my secret, too—unless you got me to talk about it at a con in recent years. Not on John or anyone else's level, of course, but on the scale of a true fanboy moment—and after years of the pro life, they are so hard to come by. See, I've always loved the Tellarites since "Journey to Babel," always thought they got short shrift next to the Andorians—even did a nose-puttied Tellarite for my make-up class "fantasy character" project in college. Finally, they even turn up on Enterprise for realz (thanks to closet Tellarite fans Mike Sussman and Manny Coto), but I missed getting in line to be an extra in "Demons"/"Terra Prime"—and then date conflicts ruined my other chance, among other UFP alien envoys for Walter Koenig's groundbreaking NV/P2 "fan" film by Dorothy Fontana, To Serve All My Days.
But thanks to head honcho James Cawley and the gang at NV/P2, they still let me come out on my dates, play a cameo in that ep, and THEN converted the Klingon spy role to a Tellarite in Erik Korngold's "No Win Scenario" script just so I could still be a "porcinoid." The professional prosthetics sized and built by Kevin Haney, who counts Mike Westmore's modern TV Star Trek team among his credits, were just a hoot—and my four late-night hours in the chair with talented makeup artist Jimmy Soltis(above, combing my clove-hair) were unforgettable (and thoroughly documented with video and stills, you better believe it.) To top it all off, we discovered that the nose piece was glued down in such a way that trapped air from a normal "huff" breath resulted in a beautiful nose flare that Gav himself would be proud of—all completely unplanned. And all happily utilized on camera by vignette director Erik "Gooch" Goodrich; the 1 a.m. shoot was topped only by my 5 a.m. release from makeup removal!
So see the video below...but I have to share the overall "phoenix" survival story that John Carrigan was good enough to tell TREKLAND—and yes, knowing how much it meant to me for Grolst the Tellarite to see the light of day, I'd been among those he kept in the loop re: the saga's survival:
The main original shoot did not yet have a Klingon bridge set for the "trainer" scenes, John tells me, and was shot before green screen—a first run which later proved too dimly lit to key the background accurately. The actor playing the Klingon trainer also had to be recast. A few months later, the project stalled, John and wife Annie dined with FX donor/producer Doug "Max Rem" Drexler and NV director Jack Marshall among others during a visit to LA, and even saw a rough cut of NWS that showed up those problems.
"In their opinion even the outdoor campfire footage was not good enough," John continues. "Annie and I were really upset hearing this, because I had seen some rushes on set when we shot the campfire scenes and I at least thought we had all done some good work. On the same trip we also hooked up with Jim Van Over (aka Erik Korngold) who wrote NWS, and ...we sat with Jim and watched the [rough cut] video. When it was finished, I still believed what I saw was some very good acting and well worth saving, but I had to agree that because of many technical problems we had filming outdoors and at night, if anything could be saved, it would take a whole load of work."
Back in the States to shoot "Of Gods and Men" in summer 2006, John told NWS director Erik "Gooch" Goodrich he still hoped to find a way to finish the vignette. When both John and Annie reprised their Klingon roles for NV's "Blood and Fire" a year later, they were thrilled that a real Klingon bridge set would be built at last—and perhaps provide a second chance for NWS, if the "green screen" scenes could be reshot with a new co-star. Even having the set delayed for use did not deter him: "I went about the set, quietly telling some people of my intentions and putting together my own little production crew (inside the Phase II production crew) and they pulled out all stops and built the Klingon bridge in 24 hours, as Gooch was only going to be on set that first weekend," he says. With him behind camera and Paul Sieber cast as the Trainer, the "secret" shoots went on at night—including a new insert of a fireside Klingon map John mocked up, complete with an orange-gelled light to simulate the original camnpfire. "It worked so well that you would never know it was shot years apart," he says.
When Cawley decided that all New Voyages' efforts had to go into the main annual episodes, seemingly ending the chance for the vignettes of 2005, John asked "Gooch" to help secure all the footage so that it might be tackled at home in the UK. "He was as good as his word, and I contacted my amazing editor friend Graham O'Hare, and after agreeing that I could only pay him a fraction of what he was worth, we began," John says. The joint choices and all the matching problems were eventually worked out—including the infamous original campfire. "The fire was blazing one moment and gone the next, and was dramatically dead at some points," John laughs. "Graham cured these problems in one amazing go: He created false fire and a glow in the shots which had an amazing effect." Once happy with a rough cut, O'Hare tweaked the audio, and then pulled stock FX shots since even CGI industry friends seemed unable to do the big amounts of original work needed to illustrate Kargh's tale. And then the next Phase II episode "Kitumba" brought John and CGI artist Pony Horton together.
"It wasn't until Annie and I discussed at some length back home about so wanting to get NWS finished that she said, why don't you ask Pony?" he recalls. "What had I to lose? I contacted Pony ... and he said he would be honoured. So after swearing Pony to secrecy we continued: Graham sent him our cut with the temporary SFX in, and Pony went to work. He did an incredible job, but one amazing CGI shot really set the scene for everything to come."
Their rough cut had used the campfire pull-back from Star Trek V but in reverse, going from space to ground: "We had shot the original campfire scene in James Lowe's back garden right next to a river (which nearly claimed our amazing sound man Ralph Miller). What Pony sent to us just blew us away: he had inserted our campfire into an amazing landscape."
"Graham was an amazing co-producer as well as an editor, and he and Pony just went above and beyond for me," John says. "And with a little financial assistance from my amazing wife Annie to pay for some of the long years of work this project took, 'No Win Scenaro' was finally finished. As Kirk said in Trek III, "The answer is no—I am therefore going to do it anyway." And all of this is why 'No Win Scenario' means such a lot to us."
And now that you know The Rest of the Story... please enjoy! And relish in the notion that little miracles still do come true—with enough patience and sweat. And Tellarites.
Well, here's something you don't see everyday--but it is well deserved. On the other hand, after the ever-higher world records of Trek costumees the past few years, maybe it's the wave of the future!
I'm talking about an official Guiness World Record for “most special effect characters portrayed in a career," and a couple of charity events this Sunday, Oct. 9 in Hollywood for both fans and celebs to honor ... Bill Blair!
Who, you say? Well, Bill's been in all your sci-fi faves—and that's the point: He's famous for a career of wearing every other face (and species) but his own—and now been recognized for it.
There's two events Sunday, and tickets are still available but going fast. Both the 3 p.m. public "red carpet" and the 6 p.m. celeb red carpet and party at Trastevere Restaurant, attended by friends and stars of his various series and films, are hosted by the Hollywood Rotary Club, with all proceeds to benefit Rotary's "Global Alternative Energy Alliance" project. Tickets are at brownpapertickets.com.
What's more, this red carpet ain't like any you've ever seen: Bill, who calls himself "The Alien Actor," will arrive as a special-effects character, accept the presentation (and learn the number), and then undergo his "de-transformation" back to human guise with his makeup artist, all while meeting with fans and media. That happens, appropriately enough, outside the Guinness World Records Museum on the sidewalk at 6764 Hollywood Blvd.
I guested with Bill once, at a Galileo-7 convention in Germany in 2001, and danged if I can't find a pic of us together. But that's not the point. Bill's work goes far beyond the work on DS9, Voyager and Enterprise... to include aliens, vampires, and monsters in TV series and movies from Trek to Babylon 5 and Alien Nation and beyond. Rotary's association is a nod to his involvement in social and civic causes as well.
Bill "requests that his fans stand beside him, as he has always stood by them," says publicist Lisa Mueller. "It is Bill's wish to share a few guiding words and to speak of hope, faith, trust, and the never-ending search for a better tomorrow."
I know we've had some loopy surveys and opinion pieces from Russian pols and scientists in the past...
But here comes one, Andrei Finkelstein, who predicts that Earth humanity will have "real" alien first contact far ahead of Cochrane's with Vulcans in 2063—32 years or more earlier, to be exact.
And stop pooh-poohing the bumpy-headed aliens, while you're at it:
"The astronomer added that 10 percent of known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth, making life on such planets highly likely, and that aliens are most likely to resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head, per Reuters."
Finkelstein's remarks came Monday during an international SETI conference in Russia. Ironically, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute in Mountain View, Calif., is suffering from funding cuts and a trimmed budget that has left its ATA program unable to scan the stars for life, even as this bold pronouncement is being made. You can help out by giving what you can to its $200,000 fund drive here.
If you're a special fan of makeup folk and the creatures both alien and horrific they create for film, then you already know about the third Monsterpalooza show THIS weekend in beautiful airport-adjacent Burbank. Or ought to!
If not, here's the Trekland scoop: "modern era" Trek make-up supervisor Mike Westmore—a good friend to me and this blog—has a noon Saturday panel called "Behind the Mask," the actor's perspective on wearing such a prosthetic load. He'll be joined by Curtis Webster, his co-host for the "Spirit of Star Trek" series., now on hiatus awaiting a new home, and his daughter McKenzie—she of soap-opera Passions fame and now Face Off host (and, yes a TNG "Angel One" youngster and Voyager's Ens. Jenkins of "Warhead.") PLUS Richard "Admiral Paris" Herd, who also went under the latex to play the Klingon L'Kor on TNG's two-part "Birthright."
It's a great chance to see them all in this context and gleam some great make-up/character stories. You might even get sucked up into the rest of the show!
I swear, Dr. Selar may be the biggest cult Vulcan in all Star Trek.
I know she was way too cool for the rest of TNG's still-wobbly second season. She was so underused in "The Schizoid Man," and then never seen again—a terrible waste of a svelte, sexily cool, typically detached Vulcan, but female! I was so impressed when she first graced the screen—Whoa! Finally using Vulcans! What a well-done, TOS vibe!
The rest of the writers knew it, too; Ron Moore and the rest typically had Dr. Selar mentioned or paged a half-dozen more times; she was in a line cut from "All Good Things..." at the very end, and even got written into the New Frontier novels as a regular. Well, at least the amazing Suzie Plakson, under those ears, got to return with Klingon headbumps as K'Ehleyr and... oh wait. We know how that ended, too.
Well, now look what's come out of the closet: those eartips are on eBay through Sunday evening the 17th, the third item from Suzie's Trek years she's put out for fans. Again, with the Selar ears comes a signed letter from Suzie about her feelings about Selar, on-set and now. And what's more iconic from Star Trek than Vulcan ears?
Maybe you can't ever hope to bid for a pair of Leonard's Spock ears—from any timeline. Or even some of Tim's, or Jolene's, if they are even out there to be had. But what better Vulcan to grab a piece of than Suzie's Selar? You can believe these ears.
It's been a while coming, but the entire Westmore family legacy of Hollywood make-up legends is prepping for the unveiling of their new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Oct. 3. That includes the brothers who each ran all of the major studios at one time, and modern Star Trek's own Michael Westmore, their son/nephew and now partly retired. Here he tours us on just part of the history wing of his house; we'll have more of our visit later—stay tuned!
For those in the SoCal area who can make it, the star ceremony is 11:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 3, at 1645 Vine Street in Hollywood, on the west side of Vine just south of Hollywood Boulevard. It's open to the public--but there will be a crowd.
It was a shame that only 100-some people caught a truly historic moment for the Empire recently... the Klingon variety, that is.
Our two favorite chancellors, JG Hertzler and Robert O'Reilly, took the incredible step a few years ago and appeared in Germany in full makeup and costume as their famed alter egos, Martok and Gowron. The FedConUSA (eventually, no relation to its German cousin) tried the same thing on US soil—but after the con famously shuttered its doors one day in, let's hope the boys get to recreate this moment somewhere else in the States for a lot more live eyeballs.
Til then, here for all posterity are just a few seconds of the sage (and surprisingly catty) insights of our good buddy, JG/Martok... on his way out the door.
After 18 years, you bet that a lot of faces have appeared across the "modern" Star Trek TV incarnation, not to mention the whole 50+ year saga. By now, even those with a one-off guest role, especially with a long credit list elsewhere behind it, get sought out by fans. It's all part of the sparkling Trek tapestry. 
The Vaadwaur were designed to be a new culture with much backstory, intended to be a leading face in the last year of the show and launched with a two-parter—but those plans went for naught. 
