NARRATOR
Dan Curry is a filmmaker, artist and visual effects producer with an incredible legacy. His work on Star Trek garnered seven Emmy awards and 15 nominations. He has served as visual effects department head at Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox, and as a governor of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, among other important roles.
Though best known for his visual effects work on Star Trek, he used his expertise in martial arts to develop the iconic Bat’leth, Mek’leth and other weapons used by Klingon warriors. Aside from Star Trek, Dan’s critically acclaimed art has been showcased in over 100 feature films worldwide.
I interviewed Dan while gathering content for the second season of the podcast. His work on Star Trek and beyond highlights the profound relationship between science fiction and science fact — a conversation that has long propelled technology into the future. We also talked about his work with NASA and the Overview Institute, which seeks to educate the public on the sublime, edifying nature of crewed exploration beyond Earth.
I’m Danny Baird. This is The Invisible Network.
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NARRATOR
Good morning, Dan.
DAN CURRY
Hey, how’s it going?
Narrator
Good. So, you began work on Star Trek at a time when many of the digital visual effects tools that are a hallmark of contemporary science fiction had not yet been invented. Can you share what that experience was like? How does that affect your outlook on the medium today?
Dan Curry
Well, when I started, computers were just [beginning] to become part of the film industry. But in those days, they were used primarily for motion control rigs. And the apocryphal story goes that Douglas Trumbull — best known for his work on “2001: [A Space Odyssey]” and other great films as both a visual effects artist and a director — was visiting an aerospace plant and saw this giant milling machine doing the same move over and over again. And Doug realized that that would be the solution to an age old problem where we couldn’t build miniature spaceships with lights bright enough inside to be able to see the lights while we’re lighting the hull.
So motion control changed everything and that’s what led to “Star Wars,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which also Doug supervised.
And so, that was the state of technology when we started, where matte paintings — which are changing an area of the frame by putting in another image. The classic is seeing riders in the foreground riding up to a castle in the distance, and the castle is actually a painting. And in those days, a matte painting was done in oils on either glass or Masonite and it was well before Photoshop.
And we had to use physical objects to create different phenomenon. For example, if you wanted a nebula we would use liquid nitrogen lit in a certain way, as opposed to generating it with computer algorithms. So, I kind of call the evolution from what we had then to what we have now — where everything is created in a computer, and anything you can imagine can be convincingly portrayed on screen — it’s alchemy to algorithms.
NARRATOR
That’s funny. But when developing these visual effects, what sort of efforts do you take to root your imagery in hard science? And what sort of research do you do to prepare?
DAN CURRY
Well, NASA was always very kind to us by providing images of space, especially when Hubble telescope came along. And so, looking at those things, we would do our best to emulate them with the resources available to us at the time.
And there’s always been a symbiotic relationship between science fiction and real science. And that goes back to the earliest days of filmmaking. When Georges Méliès did his late-1800s epic [editor’s note: released in 1902] “Voyage to the Moon,” they didn’t realize that the Moon had no atmosphere. So guys just went in top hats and frock coats and were walking around on the surface of the Moon.
And as science evolved, we realized, “Oh, there’s no atmosphere,” then science fiction would change. And when science — so, a scientific discovery in real science would inspire a dreamer to say, “Oh, now that we know that, what if this?” And that’s pretty much what we were doing on Star Trek.
And then when a dreamer would have an idea, then they would inspire a real scientist. “Well, maybe that can happen. Let’s do that.”
So take for example the iPad. On “[Star Trek: The] Next Generation” we had PADDs, which in our case they were props with a little piece of blue screen on them. And then we would composite the image on the blue screen because nothing like that existed. But that inspired the people at Apple to, “Well, let’s make a real one.”
And what was interesting is: the real iPads, their capabilities are so far beyond what we would imagine would be possible in the 24th century that, then that inspired other stuff. Or even in the original “Star Trek” series, their communicators were flip phones.
So, science fiction goes back to the earliest days of literature. When you think about one of the oldest pieces of European literature, “Beowulf,” that’s really a science fiction story. Or even the great Roman author Apuleius wrote stories about people being transformed into animals and how they would get back, which classifies as science fiction. Or during the Tokugawa period, the Japanese invented Noh theater, N-O-H theater. And they were frequently science fiction stories about strange forces coming from outer space, turning people into mushrooms.
And so it’s part of the — I think — the human desire to be told stories that are based on speculating about the possible. And I think those speculations grow and evolve as real science discovers more things to inspire the dreamers to think about new stuff.
NARRATOR
Taking a sort of sidestep, you’ve designed a lot of combat weapons for, specifically, the Klingons. When designing those weapons and fighting styles, you seem to pull from a lot of various cultures on Earth. What does that process look like? How do you do that research?
DAN CURRY
When I was a boy, my mother gave me a book called “Weapons: [A Pictorial History]” by Edwin Tunis. And “Weapons” was a history of weapons from the Stone Age to the atom bomb. And Evan Tunis was a wonderful illustrator and there’s beautiful pen and ink drawings of the different weapons, which I emulated as a child. And so, that started me thinking about weapons ergonomics.
And one of the things — even as a child going to the movies — that always annoyed me is when I’d see a bogus weapon that was designed to look cool, but was ergonomically worthless. And so I always was opposed to design for design’s sake. They had to be real.
And, after graduating from college, I wanted to serve and I joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to build small dams in remote villages and tributaries of the Mekong River [in Asia]. And each village had an ancient tradition of its own kind of secret of martial arts and I was amazed to watch these people go through their routines. And the villagers — with their great wisdom and kindness — were generous enough to offer the clumsy barbarian to share some of their knowledge of martial arts and it really got me interested in it.
And then when I was in town, the only movies available were Thai soap operas, Indian musicals or Chinese sword flicks. So obviously, I got into Chinese sword flicks and the great films by Shaw Brothers [a film production studio based in Hong Kong]. And seeing what the characters could do both fanciful and in reality, got me interested and I pursued more and more studies of martial arts with different masters.
I had a master in Laos who only taught dagger style and we used to go to the market and slice up sides of beef to get the feel of how a blade moves through meat. And then I had a Tai Chi master in Bangkok. And then I got to study Taekwondo with Kim Myung-Soo, who was considered No. 5 in Korea at the time.
So, at the time, I wouldn’t have realized it, but it all became part of Star Trek years later.
NARRATOR
Beyond the fighting styles, it seems you’ve also pulled a lot of architectural elements from Asia into your designs. Can you talk about that relationship?
DAN CURRY
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, for example, if you’re looking at playing on exteriors, a lot of those are kind of a mixture of Tai, Lao and Nepali architecture. And a lot of those were done by my friend — one of the great artists in America — Syd Dutton, who did a lot of those matte paintings for us in oils.
NARRATOR
That’s interesting. When you design now, do you still take a look at other cultures, maybe even outside of Asia?
DAN CURRY
Always. And I use kind of what I call the Darwinian approach. There’s a famous event — which may or may not be true — where Charles Darwin was visiting an island in the South Pacific and he saw a specific type of flower that had a unique proportion. So, Darwin guessed that there would be a bird that would be able to feed on that nectar. So he did a sketch of a bird and three days later, they found the bird that looked very much like Darwin’s sketch.
So when I’m designing creatures for Star Trek or weapons, it’s form follows function. So, for example, we had a creature on “Star Trek: Voyager” that lived in caves and slithered around through passages. So I imagined what would a creature like that eat? How would it be mobile? And then I figured, “OK, like a blowfish. It could have an expandable bladder so it could stabilize itself in a vertical shaft, but it can also shrink itself so it could slip through a tight passageway.”
And so that Darwinian approach of, you know, “What world does it live in? What does it need to survive? How does it move? What’s its energy source?” And those factors lead me to design stuff. And I loved doing that even as a boy, I have reams and reams of drawings my mother saved from my childhood of weird creatures.
NARRATOR
So, in the past, you’ve worked with NASA to show the public the influence of science fiction on science fact. In your estimation, what is that relationship?
DAN CURRY
I would say, on my side, it’s kind of being a NASA geek. I have the greatest respect for what NASA is doing and the brilliance of their scientific minds. So any opportunity to spend time with the great scientists from NASA is totally geeked-out-land for me. And a lot of the NASA scientists seem to have been influenced by “Star Trek” at one point or along. And a lot of them think that that may have been an inspiration to pursue real science. So just like the relationship between science fiction and real science, it’s — at least on my end — it’s a kind of a hero worship of what NASA accomplishes.
NARRATOR
I think it’s an understatement to say that NASA employees have been inspired by “Star Trek.” But what lessons do you think that scientists and engineers from NASA should take from science fiction? What are the most important stories you think?
DAN CURRY
To me the most important thing scientists can get from science fiction is inspiration, a dream, a, “What if?” And, a lot of times, scientists are so focused on fact and reality and exploring things based on real knowledge that it can be useful to them to have somebody dream way far away or way out of the box and say, “Wow, that’s an interesting idea. What if?” And then they might pursue a line of research based on that dreamer’s dream, like Arthur C. Clarke imagined orbiting communication satellites.
NARRATOR
That’s just like our TDRS, [Tracking and Data Relay Satellite,] constellation. So, as NASA journeys the Moon and Mars, how do you think science fiction will change as those dreams of yesterday sort of become the realities of now?
DAN CURRY
Well, it will change the basis that all science fiction has to be successful in reality. So as we learn new things, science fiction must change. Just like when we learned there was no atmosphere on the Moon, then science fiction realized we need space suits.
So, I think it will change. Issues will change. Especially, the overview effect has changed how people understand the planet, unless you’re a flat-earther. And I can remember seeing that first photograph of the Earth taken by the Apollo 11 astronauts. And you see the lunar landscape in the foreground and you see Earth floating in space. And only the most perceptually challenged individuals would not conclude that we have a very special jewel in space, maybe the only place where life can exist as we could know it.
[Editor’s note: Many Apollo missions captured images of Earth with the Moon in the foreground. The most famous of these photos, Earthrise, was taken by Apollo 8 astronauts.]
I think that inspiration changed how we depict planets. If you look at early science fiction films — like the great George Pal films — you could tell, you know, Earth was a painting and it didn’t look very realistic. And then the great work of the artist Chesley Bonestell should not be underestimated. He was a science fiction illustrator and his work influenced a lot of people. And his attempts to make things look as real, I think opened the door regular citizens to realize, “We do have access to space, and it can be real, and this stuff looks like we can readily accomplish it.”
NARRATOR
So, you mentioned the overview effect. What in your estimation is that effect?
DAN CURRY
Yeah, I was brought into that [The Overview Institute] by one of the leaders, David Beaver and also the author Kevin Kelly, who wrote “The Home Planet,” and we’ve remained friends. And the overview effect is the internal perceptual change someone might have as a result of seeing Earth from space, because you realize there are no borders. All the borders are the result of human imagination and they kind of drift from eon to eon as power shifts among different populations. And just the idea that we live in a very small space and Earth is a spaceship.
And so, the overview effect is how internally you change. And whether you’re a Russian cosmonaut, or an astronaut from another country, or an American astronaut. I think they all go through that and I know I would. Looking at how just seeing a photograph of Earth from space has changed my feeling about our place in the universe, it must be exponentially greater from somebody really experiencing it firsthand.
NARRATOR
And in your work with The Overview Institute, you try and share this effect with the public. What do you think is the importance of the general public sort of having an understanding of this effect?
DAN CURRY
Well, I think the importance is that, philosophically, the average person should understand how precious and unique our planet is and also perceive the fiction in a lot of what we believe about international relationships and what the Earth is really about.
I remember seeing at NASA Headquarters a projection of a planet — in kind of an amphitheater-like theater where we would see projections on this spherical screen — and we could see phytoplankton blooms in different periods and how temperature changed. And it was eye-opening that we could know that much about our planet. And I think the more we know about the world we live on and the true independence of all people on Earth, the greater our chances for prosperity and international peace.
NARRATOR
And, as a visual storyteller, how do you imbue a sense of this overview effect into your work?
DAN CURRY
Same thing: like on Star Trek, I remember we did an episode where we go to a planet that had been colonized a long time ago and people basically had a technology level like the old west. And I remember doing a matte painting of a western town in the desert. And there’s a scene that was written where they brought one of the residents of that planet onto the ship and they could see the planet from space for their first time. And that was a depiction of the overview effect, because the person suddenly had a sea change in how they understood their culture, their place in the universe and her individual self.
NARRATOR
Wow. So all of this has been so wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to speak with me. If listeners are curious about your work, though, where can they learn more?
DAN CURRY
Coming up — September 2020 — I have a book coming out, co-written with Ben Robinson in London, commissioned by CBS. And it’s about my work on Star Trek, and I’ve tried to keep it from an individual perspective rather than presumptuously speaking for all my colleagues that worked on the visual effects team. I felt it was unfair to them.
And it’s a celebration of all the really incredibly talented and dedicated people I worked with — the army of people that were required to produce the visual effects for Star Trek — and also focusing on the evolution of technology that — going back to it — alchemy to algorithms. And how we would do these really weird out-of-the-box ways to accomplish things and how that changed as computing power and computing technology got better and better.
One time I had to do a shot where an invisible spacecraft enters. Geordi [La Forge, a character on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”], wants to reveal where it is but they can’t see it because it’s got a cloaking device that makes it invisible. So, he figures out by luring it into a planet atmosphere, it will — the heat signature will — expose where it is.
And how I did that was, I made a model covered in black velvet and glued slivers of shopping bag onto it and shot that with the shutter open for three seconds a frame on our motion control system so the flapping plastic just looked like hot gases because of motion blur. And then I shot some old newspapers in a barbecue with the camera turned sideways and keyed the newspaper fire through the flapping plastic. But, when you see it on screen, that looks like reentry heat from a spacecraft.
NARRATOR
That’s amazing. And all that would be done digitally now, so it’s so different.
DAN CURRY
Yeah and much better than we could have done.
NARRATOR
Oh, I’m not sure about that.
DAN CURRY
And I’m sure — in 50 years — people will look back on what we’re doing now as, as quaint as what Georges Méliès was doing in 1895.
NARRATOR
They’ll be shooting live reentries.
Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
DAN CURRY
Well, thank you so much. It’s been a privilege. Anything — as I said, I’m a huge NASA fan — so, anything I can do that supports any activity of NASA, I’m there.
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NARRATOR
This season of “The Invisible Network” debuted in November of 2019. The podcast is produced by the Space Communications and Navigation program, or SCaN, out of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Episodes were written and recorded by me, Danny Baird, with editorial support from Matthew Peters. Our public affairs officers are Peter Jacobs of Goddard’s Office of Communications, Clare Skelly of the Space Technology Mission Directorate and Kathryn Hambleton of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.
Special thanks to Barbara Adde, SCaN Policy and Strategic Communications director, Rob Garner, Goddard Web Team lead, Amber Jacobson, communications lead for SCaN at Goddard, and all those who have leant their time, talent and expertise to making “The Invisible Network” a reality. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. For transcripts of the episodes, visit NASA.gov/invisible. To learn more about the vital role that space communications plays in NASA’s mission, visit NASA.gov/SCaN.