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| - However, already four months later, early January 1978 , the initial VFX commission of Magicam was rescinded after Paramount had decided to upgrade Phase II to the theatrical movie project, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for which they brought in Robert Abel & Associates (RA&A) at the start of the new year, deemed more capable to handle the VFX requirements for the production of VFX of a big screen production. Yet, Magicam was retained as model company, its model shop headed by Chief Modeler Jim Dow, especially when RA&A's VFX Designer Richard Taylor and the producers decided in the previous month that the models already built or in the process of being built, were unsuitable for big screen requirements. To gain the new commission though, Magicam still had to compete with their now former
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| ImageCap
| - Busy day at Magicam; L-R, Stetson, Simpson, Scott Farrar , Ron Gress, Gregg, and Bishop in the lower right
- The advertisement Dow took out
- Part of the modelshop team; L-R , Swansea, Elliot, Gress, Stetson, Schultz, Simpson and Andy Probert
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| abstract
| - However, already four months later, early January 1978 , the initial VFX commission of Magicam was rescinded after Paramount had decided to upgrade Phase II to the theatrical movie project, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for which they brought in Robert Abel & Associates (RA&A) at the start of the new year, deemed more capable to handle the VFX requirements for the production of VFX of a big screen production. Yet, Magicam was retained as model company, its model shop headed by Chief Modeler Jim Dow, especially when RA&A's VFX Designer Richard Taylor and the producers decided in the previous month that the models already built or in the process of being built, were unsuitable for big screen requirements. To gain the new commission though, Magicam still had to compete with their now former sub-contractor Brick Price Movie Miniatures, which was at that point in time slightly favored by Taylor. (Starlog, issue 30, p. 8) "Even though we were a Paramount company, we had to submit bids just like any outsiders. We were expensive, because we're a[n] union shop, but they knew we could do the work.", Melcher clarified. (Starlog, issue 27, p. 26) All Phase II studio models, which were in various states of conclusion and which included an early cigar-shaped version of the V'Ger model [1], were scrapped (with the exception of the D7-Class model, which Jein retained) and Magicam had to start all over again, rebuilding the models to higher standards. (Star Trek: Creating the Enterprise, p. 46) The most notable of these was the larger eight-foot refit-Enterprise studio model, the build of which been reverted to Magicam from Price, whose partially completed model was likewise scrapped. Magicam worked in close cooperation with Astra Image Corporation, the visual effects shop of RA&A. Upon completion of the bulk of the construction work on the models, a number of model builders legally moved over, as did the models, as model handlers to the respective effects houses, firstly Astra and subsequently Entertainment Effects Group (EEG), the company that took over the VFX work from RA&A in March 1979 . They also continued with detail work on the the models, mostly additional painting and applying further refined lighting and redesigned elements, usually requested by Douglas Trumbull, EEG's visual effects supervisor. The company was in existence from 13 February 1974 [2] until 1982, when the shop was closed down and Paramount began using Industrial Light & Magic for the pre-production of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, though, as of 2010, the essentially empty shell company was still listed as one of the subsidiaries of current holding company Viacom. [3] Prior their involvement with Star Trek, Magicam worked on the effects for the television shows The Space-Watch Murders and The UFO Incident (both 1975). The only credits of the company after The Motion Picture were Carl Sagan's Cosmos (1980, and that earned the company three Emmy Awards) and the The Greatest American Hero (1981) television shows. Upon closure of the company, several employees moved over to Apogee, Inc., that was also one of companies that worked on the visual effects of The Motion Picture.
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