Friday 12 March 2010

Voyager interior design

The interior sets for Star Trek: Voyager were erected in their place on Stages 8 and 9 at Paramount—literally in their place, for the bridge set occupied exactly the same spot as the Star Trek: The Next Generation set. Similarly the other standing sets of Voyager’s interiors occupied the same relative spaces, including orientation on the stage, as their predecessors.

Richard James, production designer on Star Trek: Voyager, kept to a particular design concept used for sets on previous Star Trek shows: typical TV production sets have only three sides; rarely will they have a fourth wall to make it into an enclosed room and the camera shoots from where the missing wall would normally be. But on Star Trek, most standing sets are six-sided sets: four walls, a fully detailed floor, and a fully detailed ceiling. The extra work involved in construction and sorting out the accompanying logistics pays dividends in that the set gives the TV viewer a far stronger sense of the room being real—no matter what angle the camera shoots from, even through a window, there is always a sense of completeness. Sets are designed to have “wild walls”, that is, walls which can be removed so that the camera can be positioned there.

Traditionally the design of all Star Trek interior sets has begun with the bridge, for it is most often the focal point of the action in an episode, being the show’s actual as well as symbolic command centre. After decades of Star Trek, the bridge of a Starfleet vessel is an instantly familiar place to almost any TV viewer in the world. The design which Richard James needed to produce would be critiqued or approved at the highest level, by Rick Berman, the executive producer and the man to whom Gene Roddenberry had passed the burden of the Star Trek inheritance. Berman’s continuing demand for quality was legendary and very reactive. For his first meeting with the show’s creators and producers, Richard James decided to push the boundaries of everything that had gone before e.g. did the bridge have to be dominated by a single large viewscreen? could command functions be de-centralised? was it time to break the traditional bridge mould?

Richard James asked for concept sketches for Voyager’s bridge from set designers, illustrators and scenic artists including Louise Dorton, Gary Speckman, Doug Drexler, John Chichester and Jim Martin. Because USS Voyager would be smaller, sleeker, and faster than the Enterprise-D, Richard James asked for designs that were more like a military ship. His basic instructions were to “look at everything. No concept is too far out.” He remarks: “I just wanted to feel like we’d explored all avenues by the time we came up with the finished design. I wanted to feel a certain satisfaction that other avenues had been explored. We arrived at the “look” we have for certain reasons, not just because it was the only thing we considered—which it wasn’t. We went through the gamut of ideas and concepts.” Putting aside all preconceptions, Richard James examined exhaustively the dramatic requirements and technological underpinnings of the Star Trek bridge.

However, the further afield he went, the more he confirmed that the designs “just weren’t Star Trek,” and thereby rediscovered the strengths of the basic template laid out by Matt Jefferies for The Original Series nearly thirty years earlier; for example, that a TV audience still relates to the main bridge viewscreen like a car windscreen—therefore the viewscreen has to be mounted on the chosen wall dead centre when aligned horizontally, and it will be the point of reference toward which all bridge personnel face. It was realised it was important to do this on Star Trek: Voyager even though, technically speaking, Voyager’s bridge did not need a back and a front.

The concept sketches which Richard James liked the best, a bridge obviously different and more advanced in appearance and more innovative, were the ones that Rick Berman approved. The bridge was to have a layered look, starting from the back of the room, and then tiered downwards in three levels to the conn position in front of the main viewscreen, and all main officers facing the viewscreen. This design gave the bridge a new type of dimension, making it unique for a Starfleet vessel, and thus desirably setting it apart from previous Star Trek series. At the same time, it is instantly recognisable as a Star Trek starship bridge, thereby maintaining the familiarity which fans love.

Engineering

Once the design of Voyager’s bridge was finalized, designer Richard James had a fairly good idea of what he wanted to achieve with the rest of the ship’s interiors. The locations would also be familiar because, ever since Captain Kirk’s first time on the Enterprise, most of the drama had taken place, apart from on the bridge, in Engineering, Sickbay, and in a briefing room. Star Trek: The Next Generation added the captain’s ready room and the holodeck to the mix, but Voyager was not going to change the formula significantly, thus the new sets would all be variations upon a familiar theme. Again, as with the bridge, the challenge was to produce innovative designs without making the rooms uncomfortably unfamiliar to fans. And again, as with the bridge, there were certain elements that were mandatory to incorporate—and in addition these elements had a design history which needed to be adhered to. Luckily all this was not such a daunting task as it might seem because, for unlike his predecessors who had had to invent their starships almost from scratch, Richard James had six years of experience working on Star Trek sets to draw on.

Engineering would occupy exactly the same area on stage that the Enterprise-D Engineering set had. That set had been mostly on one level with a small walkway round the top of the warp core. Richard James wanted to make the room seem much larger. He conceived the notion of a warp core which the actors could walk all the way around, with the camera following them. This would provide huge flexibility, more so than in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as it would afford greater depth and motion, while permitting new camera angles and perspectives.

Because he could not make the new engineering section longer, he therefore concentrated on its height. Illustrator Jim Martin produced drawings which showed the set with an upper level and that conceptual approach was approved. The second floor of Engineering would be centred around the warp core; a catwalk permitted actors to be filmed climbing up to the this level and moving while there. Adding ladders and a small open vertically-aligned lift would add further new potential camera shots. In the final version Richard James pushed the design even further by taking Engineering up to a third level around the warp core.

This increased emphasis on verticalness also applied to the design of the warp core. In various episodes it had been established that this was an enormous device that ran almost the entire height of the ship, but on the Enterprise this was not immediately apparent from a visit to Engineering. Voyager’s warp core disappears into a well in the floor and rises far above the actors’ heads. Thus when visual effects produced footage of the warp core being ejected, the effect was completely believeable—viewers knew the warp core to be real as they had seen large parts of it for themselves in Main Engineering.

Crew quarters

Voyager’s design blueprints placed the crew quarters around decks 4 to 8, in the upper saucer section. As on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the art department adopted a modular design which could be adapted as needed for each member of the crew/ship’s guest on an episode-by-episode basis.

According to Richard James, “The basic space was permanent, but the interior walls had beams across the top and we had channels in there that the walls could go in and out of. Each segment we called a “bay”. Because the design was modular, you could give it two bays, three bays, or one bay. How big it was would depend on the importance of the character. Of course Janeway had, I think, four bays. The beams made niches in the walls and a lot of the furniture could play into those niches and come and go. [...] Each character had their own furnishing. There were some elements that were the same, but we would give everyone something different so the rooms had a personality.” There was another crew quarters set on Stage 9 which did not have windows, implying it was deeper inside the ship. This style of quarters were for junior officers and enlisted crew.

Sickbay

Sickbay is another room where, in every Star Trek show, a good portion of the drama takes place. Voyager would not be changing that aspect of the formula, thus the new Sickbay set had to be a variation on a familiar theme. Again, as with the bridge, the challenge for designer Richard James was to produce a new look while making it immediately recognisable to fans as a Starfleet sickbay. And again, as with the bridge, there were certain elements that it was obligatory to incorporate—the main biobed, recovery beds and a medlab. In addition these elements had a design history which would govern their general appearance and size.

Richard James’ early design for Voyager’s Sickbay echoed that of the original Enterprise as well as being influenced by that of the Enterprise-D. As originally conceived, Voyager’s new Sickbay would be distinctly reminiscent of Dr McCoy’s medical centre, which had combined an office with a lab and a hospital ward. Because of budget constraints, however, Richard James’ bio-lab set was not built until Season Two.

 

N. Ottens
25 June 2007

Sources for this article include:
• “Designing the U.S.S. Voyager,” Star Trek: The Magazine, volume 1, issue 19 (November 2000)
• Several images courtesy of Janet’s Star Trek Voyager Site.