The signature transporter effect in Star Trek was not originally created as a showstopper effect, but was initially a cost-saving measure: Roddenberry and Co. couldn't afford to build shuttle craft for planetary landings. While the transporter is a pretty miserable plot device at times, presents all kinds of philosophical/paradoxical problems (e.g., clones) and is one of the more improbable technologies on the show, the effect is remarkably easy to execute. We're going to look at how to adjust your pattern buffers and tweak your Heisenberg compensators to get just the look you want. An authentic, original series optical effect is fairly tricky and involves multilayer traveling mattes or masks. Whether you use new-fangled tools to create a simple effect with the spirit of a Star Trek transporter or whether you analyze a scene from the show frame-by-frame to get it exactly right, if you aren't afraid of spreading your molecules all over the universe, then this is the effect for you.

I promised to have more information about three aspects of the video:

• Where'd you get that nerdtastic $7 uniform?
• Are there any specific tutorials for creating the interior mask effect?
• Where can I get an authentic interior sparkle effect?

$7 Uniform

The uniform is the easy bit: I found a longsleeve exercise shirt from Athletic Works at Walmart on a clearance rack for $5. It's kind of a spandexy thing that I might enjoy wearing if I was in better shape, but the primary reason I got it was color and the fact it was $5. The craft department had silver ribbon for 97¢. The insignia is cardboard painted with silver paint and I used a sharpie to draw a border and science department logo on it. Underneath I'm wearing a black mock-turtleneck sweater, which is really comfy in the winter, but not so much with a spandex top over it outside in early May in Florida while shooting video. Is this authentic? No. Does it work for the video, sure! Is it cheaper than the $42 official shirt that'll be out too late for my video shoot anyhow and too late for the premiere? Heck yea! Am I even going to buy an offical version or even go stand in line for the premiere on May 8th? Not likely.

Not incidentally, if you really want to go authentic, check out the spectacular Star Trek Uniform Guide, for high resolution images of the new uniform and insignias.

Tutorials

Here's what I have done for tutorials so far (only Final Cut Pro is missing at this moment). I intend to turn these into video training shortly, but I need a script first anyhow and I really find these text & illustrations to be useful references and companions to video training anyhow, so here ya go:

• Sony Vegas (text & illustrations)
• Adobe After Effects (text & illustrations)
• Apple Final Cut Pro + paint program of your choice(text only, draft procedure)
  
• Adobe Premiere + paint program of your choice (text & illustrations)
• Traveling Mattes and Masks (Photoshop, Gimp or any image editing app - need this to create mask for Premiere and FCP tutorials)

And to those of you using Edius, Avid, Pinnacle and Ulead apps: sorry! I do believe that the concepts I've taught here are general enough that you can look up the appropriate procedure in your software, specifically: matte, traveling matte and mask.

Sparkle Effect Analog Media

Finally, I have analog media files of alka seltzer in water for that authentic sparkly background! Now I realize I promised to upload these almost SIX YEARS ago and, here they are. Sort of. I've uploaded some H.264 compressed clips, about 30-seconds worth, into a 39MB zip file. I honestly can't afford the bandwidth to give away higher quality versions, which will easily top 100MB, so I'm looking at some other solutions. What I've learned is: complete pixel chaos is really a massively difficult compression problem and even 10Mbps H.264 gets very very unhappy in a blocky sort of way. (In fact, these files are so good at stressing compressors, they actually make great compression test files!) In any case, I think these clips are very usable, kind of fun and worth a download:

* SD-alka-particles.zip (39MB)

References:
* Star Trek Uniform Guide
* My original Vegas Transporter article from six years ago
* Compositing The Beam-Out Special Effect, from 9 years ago, complete with a real transporter model
 

*** Copyright Addendum ***

I'm getting a bunch of e-mails complaining of authenticity. Sorry. There are two things going on here: (1) I hope my tutorials TEACH more than they allow you to simply robotically duplicate my crappy effects and (2) I am also not going to violate Paramount (or Desilu) copyright. Although I use tons of clips from the show as examples (covered by Fair Use doctrine), I do not use Star Trek music in the background and don't distribute original sound effects. Do I use these elements in my home video productions? Sure! But if the video is going to be seen in public, I don't. If you are making a parody/satire, then you can also use original Paramount material (again, Fair Use doctrine), but my video isn't a parody. There's a fairly good argument to be made that fanfilm remakes are also covered by Fair Use and I'd bet dollars to donuts your fan flick will not ever result in any sort of legal action, but I also did not make a fanfilm. Just my opinion. In any case, there are plenty of places to get authentic Star Trek sound effects and music, for your authentic listening pleasure, for example Star Trek: Original TV Series Sound Effects or Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Original Soundtrack).