Re: Star Trek TOS Season 1 coming to BD in May-what we know so far
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Originally Posted by Nelson Au
That's my understanding too Douglas. What I'm curious about, because I am not in the film business, would this camera negative be called a "master" or some sort of similar term given that all the duplicates are made from that?
I guess the term camera negative is the literal piece of film in the camera they actually exposed the day they filmed the scene and edited together to make the whole episode. Which also includes the dissolves and effects. What I noticed on the remastered SD sets of S2 and S3, you can actually see some live action shots that look pristine and others not so. One shot will be on Kirk and then cut sway, then back to Kirk and it's quality has degraded a bit and it's sometimes right before a dissolve or edit. So it's obviously been processed.
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Yes the original camera negative or ON is what went through the camera on the day the scene was photographed. Over the years the ON has been treated differently. At one time all prints were made from the ON. Later an internegative was created to make prints and save the wear and tear on the ON. This is one reason that a movie you see in the theater is not as sharp as what the director saw in the screening room. The internegative would be the Master, though they aren't referred to as such. Master is a video term and not typically used in film.
In the case of an optical effect, the final composite would be the "master". Its unlikely that the original effect elements still exist for Star Trek. Roddenberry was stealing them from the editing rooms even as the last 2 seasons were being made in order to sell them at sci-fi conventions. Its a shame because it would have been interesting to see how good those shots might have looked if they could have been re-composited digitally.
In the case of some live action shots looking soft or slightly grainier, generally they are because there is some kind of optical in that shot, such as a dissolve at the end. When a dissolve is used, the whole shot becomes an optical.
A good example of this is the episode The Conscience of the King. There is the scene where Kirk brings the body of his friend back to his wife. The scene starts with a dissolve, and that whole next shot is soft. Then it cuts away to the body, and then back to Kirk and the wife. That shot is now very sharp. It cuts away to the body again, then back to Kirk as he calls another ship on his communicator. That shot is now soft again, because there is another dissolve at the end.
Doug
