Star Trek: The New Animated Series  *UPDATED*

creator/executive producers: Curt Danhauser

cast: Curt Danhauser (as Kirk, Spock, Scotty, etc.), Phoebe Danhauser as Uhura
characters: the crew of the Enterprise from the animated series
characterizations: quite in-tune with that from the animated series; be sure and disregard the events of "The Elements of Surprise"
sets: animated
quality: very good
costuming: animated

special effects: a loving tribute to the animated series; typical 1970's animation style

base of operations: Ridgecrest, California

setting: U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701; series era time frame

music: the original Star Trek animated series music by Yvette Blaise and Jeff Michael

website: last updated on January 2010
ease of navigation: easy
content: excellent

notes: There is a new trailer promoting Star Trek: The New Animated series. It's available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEr5TvcoU-4   and also embedded in the Mew Animated Series site's Main and New Episodes pages. It also includes some new scenes that are from the two new episodes that are in the works.

One of the several new animated Star Trek episodes that being working on is a tale told completely from the point of view of the Klingons, entitled “No Fools in Sto-Vo-Kor.” It is an episode which follows Klingon battle cruiser captain Kang (from "Day of the Dove") as he and the crew become involved with two feuding planets. As he began preparations to make this Klingon show, Curt decided to cut his teeth by making a PSA from the Klingon point of view. The one-minute “Warrior’s Lesson” is an epilogue to the animated Star Trek episode “More Tribbles, More Troubles,” and it was hurried to completion so that it could make its debut along with the other animated Star Trek films at the Animation Supercon in Miami. As a nod to the legion of Klingon fans, Curt produced multiple versions: one in English, one in Klingon with English subtitles and one for Klingon purists in Klingon without subtitles. All three versions appear on youTube. Klingon Translation servies provided by Michael Roney, Jr.

My next episode will be "Ptolemy Wept" about a vast library in space left over from an ancient highly advanced civilization. I hope to have “Ptolemy Wept” completed by early Summer 2010. It is a sequel of sorts to two original STAR TREK episodes. It uses the setting of one episode and a guest character from another. It also features Enterprise historian Lieutenant Erickson seen in the animated episode "Yesteryear." It takes place on the Enterprise and on a space station orbitting a planet and a race against time since the Klingon's are racing towards the space station.

By next week, I will have Public Service Announcements for all 22 of the original TAS episodes on the website.

Curt was very kind to answer a few questions about his production:

Q) What are you going to do next?

A) I am working on the full length episode "And Let the Heavens Fall" of which Act I was released on September 8th. Act II should be ready near the end of October 2008. I have a number of other episodes in the works. The next one is "Ptolemy Wept" and after that an episode called "Zeitgeist." These next stories will be easier for me to produce because they do not call for scenes requiring many new, detailed background paintings and they do not have many alien guest characters.

Q) Why are you doing this?

A) I am doing this to externalize my interests in Star Trek, the original animated series, animation in general and writing. To me it is a dream project to animate a story of my own devising and to produce a work that uses the characters of Star Trek is just icing on the cake.

I am also very interested is how Filmation created the original animated Star Trek show, from script to final episode. By doing episodes of my own, I will understand like no one else can, many of the problems and issues faced by the Filmation staff in the 1970’s.

Q) How are you doing this?

A) The answer to that one has a long answer. Here goes. I first choose a story idea of mine or come up with a new one that lends itself to the limited animation half-hour medium. These are necessarily stories that are plot driven and those which do not require much fast action, subtle facial acting, or subtle body language. The next phase is to brainstorm for the complete beginning, middle and end of the story. This is the story treatment takes the form of around two to five manuscript pages filled with notes and details and perhaps a rough sequence of events. I will then repeatedly review the story treatment over a period of time during which time elements are changed, added and deleted. When the story has only minor missing pieces, I create a beat outline.

The beat outline is a typed list of numbered scenes. The scenes are broken into acts. Each scene’s location is given followed on the next line by a sentence or two giving the essentials of what must occur in that scene to move the plot and subplot along. No dialogue or camera angles are included in the beat outline, but every major scene that should appear in the final script is represented. At the end of the beat outline, I add a list of all internal and external locations and all a list of all characters identified at that point.

With the finalized beat outline in hand, each scene of the script can be written. When the first draft of my script in pencil is done, I go over it a number of times and add and reword dialogue. Once the first draft script lies flat, I type it into the computer in correct script format. In addition to the title page and cover, I also add a character list and set list. I print out a copy right away and re-read it several times, scribbling notes all over it its pages. When I feel that all of the important changes have been noted, I type in these changes which may include rearranging and deleting scenes. This is effectively the second draft of the script. At this stage, I will review the second draft and print out a few copies to be given to friends and colleagues to review. I give my reviewers instructions not to concern themselves with spelling or diction, but to make notes regarding plot holes, confusing or contradictory scenes and whether the characterizations seem correct, (i.e. McCoy’s lines need to sound like something he would say). I then add changes from the reviewers and from my own final review. The resulting third draft then becomes the final draft, and my script is ready to begin the production process.

A storyboard is created in pencil at this stage and it includes a frame for every animated scene and includes dialogue spoken, sound effects, music cue/sting placement, scene transitions and camera movement such as pans and zooms.

The next phase involves the capturing from DVD the scene frames that can be reused from existing original episodes. These are captured one frame at a time. These will be edited with Adobe PhotoShop as necessary. Some few scenes can be wholly reused while most others will only supply foreground character action that can be reused. Yet other scenes will yield clean or near-clean backgrounds. This refactoring process is incredibly time consuming.

Next, new characters are designed and foreground elements of their movement and speaking are created. New backgrounds are created also. All scene frame sets are created at this point, ready for rendering into scenes. I record the voice parts and locate and/or create sound effects at this point. Clean music cues (without dialogue or sound effects) are harvested from the eleven or so hours of animated STAR TREK episodes. Some of these are modified to work as loops to extend the meager seconds of clean music which can be gathered from existing episodes.

To get several scenes in the can right away, I render all non-dialogue scenes next. This includes characters walking in or out, starship passes, establishing shots that will be used with voiceovers and reaction shots of characters. Next comes the most laborious phase - lip synching of dialogue. I open the individual scene sound files and obtain durations of word bursts (pieces of words) from the sound waveform. These are somewhat like syllables, but are geared to what needs to be seen on an animated character’s lips. These durations are converted to frames by multiplying by 24. These frame counts are recorded along with lip positions on a timing sheet which includes the dialogue words broken up into bursts. The lip positions that I and Filmation before me employed are: mouth fully shut, mouth open a bit with teeth visible, mouth open more showing black inside the mouth, mouth open a lot, mouth starting to form the "oo" sound as in the word moon, and finally the mouth position fully forming the "oo" sound. These timing sheets are used to string the named scene frames together to be rendered at 24 frames per second via the QuickTime Pro application.

Scenes requiring pans and zooms are first rendered normally without these camera moves and then they are taken to NeedlessFilms’ founder Mike Hill who adds the camera effects via Adobe AfterEffects.

Lastly, all of the finished scenes are placed in proper sequence into iMovie where they are combined with the sound effects, dialogue and music tracks. Lastly, all transitions are added such as fade-ins, dissolves and fade-outs. The final file is rendered out as a QuickTime ".mov" file. This file is taken back to Mike Hill who masters the Flash version of the film and hosts it on his server provider.

Q) Are you soliciting material?

A) Not yet. I am a writer in my own right, and part of the whole reason I animate is to animate my own stories and share my own vision. I have about ten story ideas that I am currently working on. The next several episodes are currently in the beat outline stage.

Since the release of Act I of "And Let the Heavens Fall", one writer from the original animated series has approached me about creating his tale as an animated episode which I hope to do as my third half-hour animated Star Trek episode.

Our thanks to Curt for providing such detailed information about his production!

episodes: (2)
download sites:  visit their site for downloads: http://www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSeries/NewEps.html

Episode 01: The Element of Surprise   (click on title to read Fred Dixon's review) writer: Curt Danhauser Quality Rating: 75% Gene Roddenberry often argued why he didn't want psionic beings aboard his starships, and this short episode clearly illustrates the folly of including one in the crew as all drama and suspense are eliminated. Not to be taken very seriously as the writer is trying to make Roddenberry's point in a thoroughly obnoxious way. ;)
Episode 02: And Let the Heavens Fall (click on title to read Fred Dixon's review) writer: Curt Danhauser Quality Rating: 93% The Enterprise crew comes across a planet with a pre-industrial civilization that seems to be sending radio transmissions into space. While rendering aid to a crippled courier ship in orbit of the planet, they begin to wonder if the two situations are related. As the situation becomes more clear, the Starfleet crew is constrained by the Prime Directive. And unless they can find away around this steadfast rule, the planet's society is endanger of being manipulated by an alien with a god complex. Thoroughly enjoyable, and well told. This episode is clearly on par with those of the animated Star Trek series.
Episode 03: Ptolemy Wept writer: Curt Danhauser Now in production.

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