This highly detailed painting has a common feature used in many matte backgrounds: a patch of painted black on the bottom half. This enabled special effects artists to splice in live-action footage with the stationary illustration. One of those scenes featured Captain Picard and Wesley. This matte painting was accomplished in mixed media on 68.5" x 38.75" Masonite. It was painted by Robert Stromberg of Illusion Arts. An enlarged Blu-ray screen cap was added to complete the scene.
Used in the scenes showing the campus of Starfleet Academy in the Star Trek: TNG season five episodes #219 “The First Duty,” which aired the week of March 30, 1992, and #226 “Time’s Arrow, Part I,” which aired the week of June 15, 1992. This painting depicted Starfleet Academy, the primary headquarters and highest institution for the Federation. It was on a large, sprawling campus in the San Francisco Bay Area. Live action was filmed at the Donald Tillman Japanese Gardens in Van Nuys, California. At one point during production of the matte shot, visual effects supervisor, Dan Curry, asked that a flag, filmed as an additional element, be moved to half-staff to account for a significant occurrence in the episode. This highly detailed painting has a common feature used in many matte backgrounds: a patch of painted black on the bottom half. This enabled special effects artists to splice in live-action footage with the stationary illustration. One of those scenes featured Captain Picard and Wesley. This matte painting was accomplished in mixed media on 68.5" x 38.75" Masonite. It was painted by Robert Stromberg of Illusion Arts. An enlarged Blu-ray screen cap was added to complete the scene. Heritage Entertainment & Music Memorabilia Signature Auction #7241, Lot 89192, Friday July 16, 2021.
