I was wondering, in shows like Star Trek, how do they put video on the screens in the show? I’m pretty sure there aren’t TV tubes in them, especial on things the size of the main viewer. A friend of mine tells me it’s digitally edited in, but I didn’t think that kind of technology existed in the 1960s or so. I remember seeing a special once on the making of Star Trek and some of the actors said it was dificult to talk to the view since nothing was really there during shooting. So give me the straight dope… how exactly do they get that footage on the screens?
My guess, given that the actors said nothing was there,
was that they used blue-screen technology, like your
weatherman uses.
A little bird told me that they had problems doing chroma-key mixing for shots that had the whole bridge, because of the blue uniforms, so they’d have to use stationary cameras and just matte it.
Thanks for replying. What exactly is matte? I always thought that refered to matte paintings that were used for back drops. How would they use that for a person talking on a video screen?
A matte is a black screen that is placed over the film in order to block out an area for an image. In the “Star Trek” example, a rectangular black matte would be used to block on the area on the film where the image would be. Then, separately, the actor who’s image goes in the screen is filmed. The two images are combined so that the image of the guy in the screen goes in the spot formerly occupied by the matte.
Also bear in mind that usually on the original series, we see nothing but the viewscreen and the wall it’s mounted on - nobody standing in front of it, no over-the-soulder shots of Kirk. If anything, the camera would be at an angle to put Sulu and Chekhov’s heads below the bottom of the screen. Easier it edit an image in if you don’t have to avoid covering up a chunk of one of the actors.
Poked around a bit to see if I could find some documentation of exactly what they did, (although if memory serves it was certainly a simple matte effect, no chroma.)
Didn’t bullseye it, but I did find this nifty page which has a number of outtakes from the original film, before the effects were added.