'765874: Unification' launches today on The Archive web portal and native app, an immersive experiential app designed for Apple Vision Pro. The release is accompanied by new interactive sets, props, and worlds from the 1994 film as well as a 20-minute retrospective by William Shatner himself, looking back over the last 30-years since he played the legendary character, and his aspirations for the future of Captain Kirk as the franchise approaches the 60-year mark. The full experience with all related extra content is available in its entirety in Digital Cinema 4k HDR and spatial video, exclusively mastered at peak fidelity for viewing on Apple Vision Pro.
Iconic characters from classic Star Trek history were brought to life through the live action performances of a talented cast, led by veteran TV and film star Sam Witwer as James T. Kirk, with Lawrence Selleck as Spock. Witwer and Selleck were filmed in costume, performing as Kirk and Spock on set, aided by both physical and digital prosthetics resulting in period-accurate portrayals matching the appearance of the characters as they originally appeared in TV and Film at the time.
William Shatner and Susan Bay Nimoy, widow of the late Leonard Nimoy, served as executive producers on the production.
Mr. Shatner worked with the OTOY team to fine tune the technical and creative direction required to bring his interpretation of Kirk back to live action for the first time in 30 years, including the addition of his voice to narrate a key moment in the experience.
Describing '765874: Unification' and OTOY's digital prosthetic technology used to revisit Star Trek history, William Shatner said it "takes years off of your face, so that in a film you can look 10, 20, 30, 50 years younger than you are." Mr. Shatner surprised fans yesterday when he shared the first private screening of the video at the Star Trek tour in Ticonderoga, New York.
'765874: Unification' was directed by Award Winning Spanish filmmaker Carlos Baena, from a story by Jules Urbach, and features original music by Academy-award winning Star Trek composer Michael Giacchino.
The 8-minute video connects multiple decades of Star Trek lore, with nods to Robin Curtis' portrayal of Saavik (1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), J.M. Colt (from the 1964 Cage pilot) played by actress Mahé Thaissa and Gary Mitchell, Kirk's friend from the second Star Trek pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" performed by original actor Gary Lockwood.
For post-production and special effects work, skilled artists from OTOY and partner VFX studios combined digital and physical prosthetics with live action location photography, virtual production, and beautiful CG set extensions to deliver feature-film quality visuals. Major scenes in "Unification" were filmed twice, ensuring coverage to create video and spatial content mastered for Apple Vision Pro. All outdoor filming locations were scanned in and merged with CG set extensions, becoming part of The Archive's growing library of 3D worlds and locations.
Emmy-award winning visual effects supervisor Mark Spatny led OTOY's international team of artists and animators, including visual effects artists Neil Smith, JJ Palomo, and Aaron Westwood.
Visual effects in 'Unification' were created using OTOY's Octane® rendering software and the Render Network® decentralized GPU rendering platform. Characters and props were digitized using OTOY's Academy-Award winning LightStage™ scanning system.
About The Archive
The Archive is a multi-decade endeavor between OTOY and The Roddenberry Estate, in collaboration with Paramount Game Studios, to catalog key texts and documents from Gene Roddenberry's life and career using immersive technologies. With a mission to canonically memorialize reference 3D models of the Starship Enterprise – including studio models as filmed on set and life-size 1:1 scale 'in Universe' versions – The Archive aims to preserve iconic worlds from the Gene Roddenberry era of Star Trek for future generations to experience in new immersive spatial formats like Apple Vision Pro.
As part of The Archive, OTOY has leveraged advancements in virtual production technology and frontier digital workflows pioneered by OTOY to recreate key pieces in Star Trek history in 1:1 life-sized virtual sets.
The Archive's virtual production and digital makeup technology are used to create documentary shorts and immersive spatial experiences for the Apple Vision Pro. The documentary videos are overseen by Roger Lay, Mike and Denise Okuda, and feature Star Trek luminaries such as William Shatner, George Takei, Walter Koenig, director Robert Butler, Terry Matalas, Robin Curtis, Gary Lockwood, writer David Gerrold, production designer Dave Blass, and stunt performer Sandra Lee Gimpel.
The Archive can be explored as a native immersive spatial experience for Apple Vision Pro, available on the App Store. A limited version of The Archive is currently available in two-dimensional format on the web.
Recent short documentary videos produced for The Archive app experience include:
- The Roddenberry Archive: Behind the Scenes
- The Roddenberry Archive: The Cage
- The Roddenberry Archive: The Next Generation (Returns)
- The Roddenberry Archive: William Shatner
- The Roddenberry Archive: Walter Koenig
- The Roddenberry Archive: Return to Tomorrow (with "Q")
- The Roddenberry Archive: Deep Space Nine
- The Roddenberry Archive: David Gerrold (Part 1) | (Part 2)
- The Roddenberry Archive: All the Enterprises - A to Z
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