The 37's (episode)

=== ''Voyager''{{'}}s landing ===
* This episode is the first time in ''Star Trek'' history that a Federation starship lands on a planet and returns to space. (''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'' [[text commentary]]) For the original ''Star Trek'' series, the fact that showing the ''Enterprise'' landing each week would have been prohibitively expensive for a television budget had led [[Gene Roddenberry]] to instead come up with incorporating the time-honored science fiction concept of matter transmission into the series; hence, the [[transporter]] had been conceived, as a quick and inexpensive means of getting Roddenberry's characters from the starship to the surfaces of planets. (''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'' [[text commentary]], ''[[The Art of Star Trek]]'')
* The idea of granting ''Voyager'' the ability to land was conceived long before this episode. In reference to the ship's landing, Brannon Braga noted, "''That's something we've always thought the ship could do.''" ({{STV|5|51}}) In fact, this landing capability was originally suggested by [[Michael Okuda]] during the early stages of ''Star Trek: Voyager''{{'}}s development, as a way of defining the then-new starship design as separate from those of previous ''Star Trek'' vessels; in a {{d|27|September|1993}} memo to [[Rick Berman]], Okuda stated, "''Suggest we give the starship the ability to land on a planet surface. This is not something we'd want to (or could afford to) do every week, but this could be something that sets the new ship apart from previous vessels. Maybe it'd be something we could do two or three times a season.''" (''[[A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager]]'', p. 207)
* Several early design concepts for ''Voyager'', rendered through CGI by illustrator [[Rick Sternbach]], were clearly influenced by the idea of making the starship be the first built to land on a planet. The vessel's designers also purposefully included landing-leg panels on the blueprints of the ship, just in case the writers ever chose to go ahead with the challenge of landing ''Voyager''. (''[[The Art of Star Trek]]'') Rick Sternbach recalled the design process: "''The initial description of the ship said that it had a landing capability. When the miniature was first designed, all we had were four small hatches in a very logical place, at the bottom of the engineering hull, and those hatches were built into the model.''" (''Designing the USS'' Voyager, [[VOY Season 2 DVD]] special features)
* When it came time to write this episode, the prospect of landing ''Voyager'' seemed appealing. "''We were eager to do it,''" Brannon Braga recalled. "''We said, 'Hey, this is the final episode; let's land the damn ship!' So we did.''" ({{STV|5|51}})
* However, it was only after the writers decided to land the ship that the physical mechanism required for it to do so was visualized. Rick Sternbach explained, "''It wasn't until the episode 'The 37's that the legs had to be designed.''" The process of designing the landing legs was somewhat difficult. Sternbach noted, "''The overriding consideration on designing the landing gear was it had to fit in the belly of the ship, so I had a bit of a challenge trying to fold all of the toes and foot parts into the hull.''" (''Designing the USS'' Voyager, [[VOY Season 2 DVD]] special features) One of the blueprints of ''Voyager'', illustrated by Sternbach in April {{y|1995}}, features the finalized look of the ship but a landing-leg design that was still to be slightly tweaked before it was ready. (''[[The Art of Star Trek]]'') Sternbach recounted, "''You know, I went back to the blueprints of the model and said, 'OK, we can have some telescoping parts and we can have the toes unfold.' And, in a series of sketches, we were able to see how the legs could deploy.''" Sternbach and his team then passed these designs to the visual effects artists. Sternbach recalled, "''We gave that all to the CG artists and we saw that ship land on TV.''" (''Designing the USS'' Voyager, [[VOY Season 2 DVD]] special features) One of the visual effects groups that were involved in creating the landing sequence for this episode was [[Santa Barbara Studios]]. ({{STM|10|15}})
* Visual effects producer [[Dan Curry]] used a five-foot, styrofoam, foam-core mock-up of ''Voyager'' to plan camera angles, scale and perspective from still photos of the mock-up taken during a scouting trip to the filming location of Bronson Canyon. These still photos were subsequently touched up by Curry using acrylic paint, to give an idea of how the actual filmed scenes could later be altered in the "computer paintbox." ({{STC|105|56}}) Curry said of the mock-up, "''It was larger than the available toy, which gave us the opportunity to photograph it as a forced-perspective miniature, so we could see how it would look in frame and we could compose frames to allow for the landed ship.''" Visual effects supervisor [[Ronald B. Moore]] recalled, "''We went out and we did shoot references. And it was all at Bronson Canyon, so we had to paint a lot of stuff out. Dan is... just a genius at doing that kind of stuff.''" ("Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2", ''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'')
* However, Dan Curry determined, at one point, that the ship was too large to fit into the canyon. Also, without visual effects, the side view of the immobile ''Voyager'' would show the Hollywood sign. (''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'' [[text commentary]]) The visual effects team therefore endeavored to cover up these facts of geography. Curry recounted, "''We used the mouth of the entrance to Bronson Canyon and then did a matte painting &ndash; I think I did that matte painting in Photoshop &ndash; so that it extended the space and we got rid of the Hollywood sign and the other things that are normally there, so it looked like a desolated planet.''" ("Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2", ''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'')
* Although Rick Sternbach had created a concept painting that depicted a full-scale landing leg set piece, such a prop was not ultimately constructed. (''[[The Art of Star Trek]]'') Instead, the landing struts were created &ndash; especially for this episode &ndash; as a physical model that was used here in conjunction with a set of computer generated legs. (''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'' [[text commentary]]) The latter set of legs were included in the landing sequence, which was visualized entirely using CGI, whereas surface shots of the landed ship amid live-action footage used models. ({{STC|105|56}}) One reason why the landing sequence was done via CGI was that working the landing struts would be impossible if they were connected to the [[studio model]] of ''Voyager''. Curry recalled, "''The feet mechanism [...] we did CG, because they had to be mechanical and there was no way we could make them fit the five-foot miniature and actually work. But we had little stand-in feet that we could put on that, too.''" ("Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2", ''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'') At least one of the four add-on landing legs were applied to the ''Voyager'' studio model by [[Image G]] employee [[Dennis Hoerter]]. Another reason why the landing struts were not motorized on the model was because, at the start of ''Voyager''{{'}}s first season, no-one knew how long it would be before the original concept of a landable ship would be utilized. ({{STC|105|56}})
[[File:The 37's effects filming.jpg|thumb|Filming the landed ''Voyager'' using brown paper and the add-on landing struts]]
* An added touch to the model was via the use of brown paper, which diffused reflected glare. Dan Curry explained, "''When we shot the miniature [...] we put brown paper underneath the miniature so it would match the color of the ground, so that it would have a true reflection of what a ship in the real context would be like, by creating an environment to reflect light into it that was similar to where the location would be.''" ("Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2", ''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'')
* One problem with the shots including the landed ''Voyager'' was that the producers thought the landing struts, even when fully extended, looked too dinky, scale-wise, in comparison with the rest of the ship. Consequently, the producers &ndash; during post-production &ndash; took steps to strategically place rock outcroppings and other features of terrain so as to partially obstruct the audience's view of the struts. (''[[A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager]]'', p. 255)
* Another problem with the shots was that the visual effects artists had unknowingly made the CGI ''Voyager'' smaller than the ship would be, in reality. Ron Moore recalled, "''We put this all together [but] [...] we had really made the ship too small [....] I don't think you can tell on the show because there's nothing really to relate it to; the people are in the foreground, the ship's in the background and we kinda kept it that way.''" ("Red Alert: Visual Effects Season 2", ''[[VOY Season 2 DVD]]'') Regarding the visualization of ''Voyager''{{'}}s landing, however, Moore additionally said, "''I don't think we did it well. The scale of the ''Voyager'' on the ground was incorrect.''" (''[[Cinefantastique]]'', Vol. 30, No. 9/10, p. 110)