Dennis Fischer

Real world article
(written from a Production point of view)

Dennis Fischer
Birth name:	Dennis Fischer
Place of birth:	USA
Roles:	Star Trek Author, Performer
Character(s):	Enterprise crewmember

Dennis Fischer was a freelance journalist and reporter who appeared as an Enterprise crewmember in the recreation deck scenes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Fischer, a Star Trek fan as was the vast majority of the extras in the scenes, wore a brown uniform (he considered himself an orderly or a medical cadet), was placed at the back of group because of his height of 6'4" and was surrounded by fellow extras Don Fanning, Leigh Strother-Vien, Katherine Kurtz, Bjo Trimble, Kathleen Sky, and Jay Smith. [1]. He has written a piece about the experience, "Part of the Magic: The Experience of Being a Star Trek Extra", for the fanzine Enterprise Incidents, and in which he described several of the other extras. The piece was published before the movie premiered. Like so many of his fellow performers in the scenes, Fischer was active in fandom, and this was not his first, nor his last contribution to the magazine, continuing to do so after the magazine went professional near the end of 1983. [2]

A prolific writer, Fischer was from the mid 1980s until the demise of the publication, a contributor to the magazine Cinefantastique, submitting numerous articles to the publication, mostly transcripts of interviews he conducted with production staffers and cast of motion picture productions. [3] Several of these concerned Star Trek: The Original Series. "I have been a long-term science fiction fan, as well as a fan of fantasy and SF films, and general all-round film buff.", Fisher once stated, specifically mentioning (classic) science fiction literature, science fiction movies, Star Trek, Red Dwarf, Max Headroom, Game of Thrones and Tolkien, and all of his freelance writings has been centered around these themes. [4] Concurrently, he submitted pieces to the genre magazine Starlog, though none of them concerned Star Trek. Nevertheless, Starlog Press spin-off publications did see Star Trek pieces by his hand, among others, The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine.

Over three decades of profusely writing on the subject, ultimately culminated in Fischer publishing two, massive two-tome reference books, Horror Film Directors, 1931-1990 (1991) and Science Fiction Film Directors, 1895-1998 (2000), both published by McFarland & Company.

Despite his extensive writing he did for a living between 1980 and 2012, it was not Fischer's sole livelihood. A graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles, holding a 1980 Bachelor's degree and a 1991 Master's degree in English Language and Literature, Dennis Fisher has been in daily life also a teacher, having taught English at institutions like schools and the State of California.

Bibliography

Listed below are solely those pieces that Fischer wrote on Star Trek.
(This list is currently incomplete.)

• Enterprise Incidents
  • Issue 7, November 1979, "Part of the Magic: The Experience of Being a Star Trek Extra", pp. 4-8
  • Issue 17, May 1984, "The Making Of The Visual Effects Of Star Trek: TMP, Part 3: Filming The Effects", (with Mark Stetson), pp. 42-51
  • Issue 28, April 1985, "Making a Movie: The Inside Story from the Associate Producer" (with Ralph Winter on The Search for Spock), pp. 59-63
• Cinefantastique
  • Vol 17 #2, 1987, "Photographing Star Trek", pp. 27, 55
  • Vol 17 #3/4, 1987, "Nicholas Meyer, The Man Who Saved Star Trek", pp. 35-39
  • Vol 27 #11, 1996,
    • "Story Editor D.C. Fontana", pp. 45-47
    • "Scripting ""Amok Time"", p. 51
    • "Directing William Shatner", pp. 52-53
    • "Writer Jerry Bixby", Dennis Fischer, pp. 54-55
    • "Writing "The Man Trap"", pp. 100-102
• The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine
  • The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine issue 4, April 1988
    • "Patrick Stewart, Captain Jean-Luc Picard", pp. 10-13
    • "Michael Dorn, Lieutenant Worf", pp. 18-22
    • "Mission Briefings-Database: Tasha Yar, Human Weapon" et.al., pp. 24-27
    • "Mission Briefings-Designing the Enterprise", pp. 29-37
  • The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine issue 8, pp. 24-27, June 1989, "Mission Briefings: Database-Tasha Yar, Human Weapon" et.al.

External links

• Dennis Fischer at the Internet Movie Database
• Dennis Fisher (II) at the Internet Movie Database
• Dennis Fischer at LinkedIn.com