page_title: Trials and Tribble-ations
section_title: Directing, cinematography, and music
hierarchical_section_title: Trials and Tribble-ations / Production / Directing, cinematography, and music
caption_attribution_description: DragonCon2010-Sword_and_Laser-9
context_page_description: "Trials and Tribble-ations" is the 104th episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the sixth episode of the fifth season. It was written as a tribute to the original series of Star Trek, in the 30th anniversary year of the show; sister series Voyager produced a similar episode, "Flashback". The idea for the episode was suggested by René Echevarria, and Ronald D. Moore suggested the link to "The Trouble with Tribbles". The two were credited for their work on the teleplay, with the story credit going to Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler, and Robert Hewitt Wolfe.
  Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. In this episode, Captain Benjamin Sisko and the crew travel back in time to prevent the assassination of Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise by a Klingon using a booby-trapped tribble.
context_section_description: A number of directors were considered for the episode, with Jonathan West being given the job. West had previously been the cinematographer on staff for both Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation, as well as directing several episodes of the franchise. He had nine days of preparation time before shooting began. He sought to match the same production values as The Original Series but found that lighting style and color saturation to film had changed in the intervening years.  Visual effects supervisor Dan Curry directed some of the second-unit sequences, and together with West and cinematographer Kris Krossgrove worked to rectify these issues. This was achieved by switching to a finer grain of film, by utilizing different lenses as well as by shooting from specific angles. With Gerrold on set as an extra, West used him as an unofficial advisor on matching the scenes from "The Trouble with Tribbles".
  The actual digital insertion of actors was conducted in the same manner as seen in the film Forrest Gump (1994). The original footage was remastered, and was seen as such an improvement that it inspired the subsequent clean-up and re-release of all of "Original Series" episodes. This remaster was conducted by Hutzel and is the first transfer since 1983, when a version was created for VHS and laserdisc release. Hutzel identified 19 scenes from "The Trouble with Tribbles" which were matched in "Trials and Tribble-ations". The scene matching between the new footage and the old took nine weeks to complete with a budget of $3 million. It involved both two-dimensional and three-dimensional tracking shots as well as insertion of matte shots and the use of both blue and green screens for the actors. The scene where Sisko meets Kirk on the bridge toward the end of the episode was taken from the episode "Mirror, Mirror".
  Due in part to the special effects, the costuming, the set re-constructions, and the residual payments to The Original Series cast, Behr later described "Trials and Tribble-ations" as "probably the most expensive hour of episodic TV ever produced". The only member of The Original Series cast who was spoken to directly by the producers was Leonard Nimoy, who was enthusiastic about the idea and was surprised that it had taken them so long to come up with it. The remaining cast members were each contacted through Paramount's legal department. Dennis McCarthy wanted to re-work the Jerry Fielding score previously used on "The Trouble with Tribbles". He said that he intended to use the production equipment and orchestra available to bring the score up to the same scale previously seen on Deep Space Nine. However, the producers wanted a new score and so McCarthy explained that he composed it in a Fielding-inspired mindset. The only piece that was directly re-recorded by McCarthy is the Alexander Courage "Theme from Star Trek", which involved a 45 piece orchestra.
caption: Original tribbles writer David Gerrold helped to make sure the two episodes matched up
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D90", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.11", "Image DateTime": "2013:01:07 09:35:09", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "Kyle Nishioka", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "6400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:09:05 10:09:09", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:09:05 10:09:09", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "29317/4004", "EXIF ApertureValue": "24361/8200", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "24361/8200", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "199/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "110", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "165", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}