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j u ly . a u g u s t 2 0 1 6 c g w 4 7 diameter. When it hits the ground, it either creates a big tsunami or smashes through half of Washington, DC. It's just of an enor- mous scale," says Weigert. "It was a little like the Death Star [from Star Wars]. You had to get very detailed. It had these hundreds of thousands of tiny little lights on it, but this ship is so alien that you don't even have these lights," Weigert continues. "You have this kind of light pattern on it, and as you start getting closer and closer to it, you have to figure out how to show the surface scale, which is a whole new challenge." Previs (by Uncharted Territory and Meth- od Studios) played a critical role. Emmerich relied heavily on an Ncam system, framing every bluescreen set extension shot. On set, Emmerich was able to see the gigantic han- gar of the Area 51 interior with thousands of aircra inside. Engel and Weigert had a rare opportunity to sit down with Emmerich one last time to make sure all the visual effects shots worked well with all the live action. "Wow, it comes together really nicely," he says. – Linda Romanello Star Trek Beyond The third chapter in the current Star Trek franchise recently hit theaters, with a new face at the helm. JJ Abrams, who directed both 2009's Star Trek and 2013's Star Trek: Into Darkness, took on the role of produc- er for the new release, Star Trek Beyond. Assuming the director role was Justin Lin of Fast and Furious, who applied his own unique style to the Paramount Pictures release, while respecting fans' love of the Gene Roddenberry property. The Enterprise crew of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) all return for the latest sci-fi adventure, which features more than 1,400 visual effects shots that help take audiences to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. Double Negative, with locations in Van- couver and London, served as the lead VFX house on the film, handling nearly 500 shots among its studios. Kelvin Optical and Atomic Fiction also contributed nearly 400 shots, and another 200-plus were created in- house by the production team of Bad Robot/ Sneaky Shark/Perfect Storm Entertainment. Dneg handled much of the heavy liing when it came to the VFX, but elements were oen shared among the different VFX houses. For Dneg, this included the Enterprise, the warp-speed effects, and the Yorktown base. Kelvin Optical designed the CG marauder soldiers, as well as worlds and environments, and Atomic Fiction created many of the elements that were then used by Dneg and Kelvin in their respective shots. Kelvin and Atomic also collaborated on the unfamiliar planet that the crew encounters. Dneg's Peter Chiang served as overall VFX supervisor, and Raymond Chen led Dneg's Vancouver team. "Justin comes from this gritty Fast and Fu- rious-type photography, and that aspect had to translate to this Star Trek film," says Chi- ang. "We did a lot towards dirtying things up, making sure it has that filmic, photographic look and going more for the photorealistic, blown-out, photochemical reaction." According to Chiang, he and Lin realized from the beginning that they would have to observe certain laws of the franchise or suffer the wrath of Trekkie hate mail. "Obvi- ously, this is a Justin Lin film," says Chiang. "We talked a lot about the aesthetic. I knew we were going to present things in a Justin Lin way – even down to the design of the Enterprise and what it goes through." The team made minor alterations to the Enterprise, created by ILM for Into Darkness, keeping the spirit of cra but making sure it fit the narrative that Lin was striving for. In the last film, the Enterprise gets damaged and is rebuilt, so there is a shot at the very end that shows a slightly retrofitted Enterprise, which was only built for that one shot. That is the ship Dneg started with, then fleshed it out and made it into something usable for the whole take-down sequence. The studio's shot count – the Vancouver location was responsible for 274 shots, with London handling another 197 – doesn't nec- essarily represent the true extent of Dneg's work. "A lot of these shots are very large," Chen explains, "especially in the space sequences. There are rotating and traveling cameras. To say it is one shot is underplaying a little bit of the complexity." STAR TREK BEYOND CONTAINS MORE THAN 1,400 VISUAL EFFECTS SHOTS PRODUCED BY A NUMBER OF FACILITIES, WITH SOME STUDIOS SHARING ELEMENTS. THE FILM TAKES MOVIEGOERS TO A NEW PLANET. RIGHT AND ABOVE COURTESY PARAMOUNT