Star Trek: The Next Generation behind the scenes round-up

Want to check out some goodies from the making of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Well continue below to have a look at some brilliant examples of production art and technique, and on set fun, in my latest round-up of behind the scenes stuff!

First up, thanks to Heritage Auctions current movie poster sale we have another Star Trek matte painting to enjoy up close. By Syd Dutton, this cityscape was glimpsed ever so fleetingly as Angosia III, in The Hunted:

Heritage have several other matter paintings from other properties currently up for auction, plus another Star Trek one, the Ocampa Homeworld (which was also available last year). Not from Trek, but it certainly could have been, is this personal project by Dutton, another sci-fi city:

If you'd like to get hold of these, you'll need to act quick as the auction closes today! And if matte paintings delight you, check out my coverage from the Heritage Auction last year where there were a lot more on offer!

Another way of representing a location (in pre-CGI days) was to build a miniature. Visual effects artist Doug Drexler shared this photo on Facebook of the warp nacelle interior, from Eye of the Beholder, which he and Anthony Fredrickson built back in the day:

Miniatures were of course also the go-to way to have a ship on-screen. Here's a gloriously obscure one of those; the Yridian destroyer first seen in The Chase. Designer Rick Sternbach shared this rare photo of the obscure ship on the Hero Collector Facebook group a while back, giving us a great look at one of the most unique starships designs in Trek (where's the model Eaglemoss!). Note it does look a little different on-screen, as Sternbach points out "Looks like some VFX folks fiddled with its parts." He also notes that "My design objective was slightly dragonfly-ish.":

This next glimpse behind the scenes is real rarity, some home video from early days on TNG, shared on YouTube by David Stipes, who eventually became Visual Effects Supervisor on TNG and went on to work on later Trek series too. In this video we get to see him at work animating the Conspiracy parasites, and the intricate work building the Who Q? Borg Cube, and the section cut out of the Enterprise, among other things. There's a bit intercutting with other projects here too, but well worth watching through to see how these things were made:



There's a further glimpse behind the scenes from Conspiracy thanks to visual effects artist David Stipes, who has a gallery full of images, on his website, from his work on various Star Trek projects:

Giving the most lively look behind the scenes, Gates McFadden delighted Twitter recently when she shared this photo of her on a unicycle while in uniform, noting "costume department was not thrilled"!

Another personal moment comes from Tom Morello, best known as a member of Rage Against the Machine, but seen here as a Son'a on set with Patrick Stewart during the production of Insurrection:

Finally, and also from the movie era, designer John Eaves shared these photos of the beautiful Scorpion fighter, when it was under construction for Nemesis:

For lots more behind the scenes coverage from all of Trek, check out my behind the scenes tag.