Today the team behind the upcoming Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind announced a number of exciting developments as the much-anticipated doc is now in the final stages of post-production.
Dennis McCarthy and Kevin Kiner to compose original music
One of the most important parts of post-production for the doc is music and today it was announced that two veteran Star Trek composers have joined to score the film, Dennis McCarthy, and Kevin Kiner. In addition to scoring the doc, the two will also be scoring the Season 8 animated story break, which was announced at the What We Left Behind documentary panel at Star Trek Las Vegas.
Dennis McCarthy is Star Trek’s most prolific composer having scored the film Star Trek: Generations as well as 256 episodes between The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. He was nominated nine times for his work on Trek, including one win for the original theme for Deep Space Nine. Kevin Kiner has also joined to work with McCarthy on the DS9 doc. Kiner is a long-time collaborator of McCarthy’s and worked with him composing the score for ten episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Expanding remastering plan
The original plan was to remaster around five minutes of footage from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, but the final cut of the doc has around fifteen minutes of additional footage from DS9 (20 minutes total). However, due to what producers say is the “incredible look and success,” they are now hoping to get all the clips from DS9 remastered into HD. To aid in this, they have announced one last push to fans to join in and “sponsor a clip.”
What We Left Behind producers Ira Steven Behr and Kai de Mello-Folsom, along with DS9 actor Andrew Robinson, appear in a newly released video to discuss their pitch for more remastering:
The video features a couple of screenshots of a scene from Deep Space Nine with Robinson as Garak to show how much of a difference remastering makes.
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- original image from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
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- HD remaster from What We Left Behind
Sharp eyed viewers may notice that the final version of the footage will be formatted for the HDTV standard 16:9 widescreen ratio to match the rest of documentary. The team confirmed on Twitter that they are consulting with director of photography Jonathan West, who worked on seasons 3-7. West confirmed that they shot those seasons widescreen “safe.” When the raw 35mm film is scanned the full frame has a bit more information available on all sides. So the team decided they could safely and respectfully crop the top and bottom to make it widescreen. The documentary team was careful to note that this is for their own remastering uses only, and not related to anything CBS might do with a future hypothetical full series remastering.
For $500 you can become a “Legacy Sponsor” to support the remastering of a specific scene (or series of short clips). Legacy Sponsors will have their name linked to a specific (randomly chosen) clip and receive a special certificate signed by Ira Steven Behr naming you as the sponsor as well as a collectible challenge coin. The sponsor’s name will also appear in the Blu-ray special subtitle track and appear on the official website as a “Hi-Def Hero.” There is also a $50 Hi-Def Hero sponsorship available which offers a collectible challenge coin and the listing on the official website. And there is even a “Hi-Def Tip Jar” where you can donate as little as $1 to the remastering effort. More details on all of these at the DS9Doc Backerkit site.
Backer premiere events in October
Today it was announced that the London, Los Angeles, and New York backer premieres will all take place in October. These events will be exclusively for those who purchased one of the three specific premiere bundles during the Indigogo campaign, however, some limited tickets may become available in September depending on how RSVPs go after they notify Indigogo backers. The Los Angeles backer premiere will be on Friday, October 12th, 2018 with the New York City backer premiere on Sunday, October 14th, 2018. Locations will be announced later along with the date and location for the London premiere, which will also be in October.
Backer streaming release later this year
What We Left Behind producer Kai de Mello-Folsom tells TrekMovie that plans for a public release are still being determined, but the team is committed to providing an early stream of the film to eligible Indiegogo supporters this year, and releasing the Blu-ray and DVD versions soon after that. According to today’s announcement, plans for the early online stream and the Blu-ray/DVD bundles will be revealed following the backer premiere events in October. It is still possible to pre-order the Blu-ray/DVD combo for $35.00.
Maybe they could tease a frame or two from WAY OF THE WARRIOR space battle …
It’s funny, the HD pic of Garak is so clean it makes him almost look like CG, kinda disconcerting.
They said at STLV they’re working scanning in the simple shots, the stuff that’s just live action, first. So not sure what if anything they’ve done with effects heavy shots so far.
Eh, who needs to pay the rent anyway, I mean really?
Then again, as tempting as it is to pony up $500 and be immortalized in the DS9 universe (or in the subtitles, at least!), I’m already earmarking a lot of discretionary spending for political contributions in advance of the 2018 midterms in this universe. Hmmm…
Oh yay. More Sonic Wallpaper. Yawn..
I haven’t heard any of his non-Trek work but supposedly the sonic wallpaper style on Trek was mandated by the producers. The same will be true for this documentary: if the producers ask for sonic wallpaper he will give them sonic wallpaper. If they ask for a more noticeable score he will probably be able to provide that, as well.
I felt his music for Generations was pretty good. And he still turned out lots of good stuff in TNG even under Berman’s restrictions.
In the Indiegogo campaign I backed for the digital stream. Does anybody know if the digital stream perk also includes the TBA bonus content that will be on the Blu Ray?
It’s not entirely clear. A STLV this year they made mention of hoping to put up a bunch of bonus content (even beyond what they put on disc) up for streaming eventually. So I have a hunch eventually you’d get to see it.