Saturday 04 February 2012

Interview with Andrew Probert

Andrew Probert’s first contact with Star Trek came with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, on which he worked under Art Director Richard Tyalor, designing all space hardware including the refit Enterprise of which the basis design had already been developed by Matt Jefferies and Joe Jenings, who had been Art Director on Star Trek: Phase II. In 1987, he was hired as Senior Illustrator for Star Trek: The Next Generation. During the show’s pre-production and first season, he worked on all starships, sets and species, including the Enterprise-D and its interiors. His latest involvement with Star Trek included the production of conceptual artworks for Star Trek Online.

In July 2005, Forgotten Trek contacted Mr. Probert with several questions concerning the design of the Enterprise’s interiors for The Next Generation. He was kind enough to provide us with his insight which has been transcribed on this page.

Interview

Your first task, upon being hired for Star Trek: The Next Generation, was to provide concepts for the design of the new bridge. An early writer’s bible described the new bridge as combining “the features of ship control, briefing room, information retrieval area and officers wardroom. In other words, much the same kind of things happen here as in the old bridge, but with less emphasis on the mechanics of steering the starship.” How can this new, less mechanistic approach be seen in your early sketches for the Enterprise bridge?

“For one thing, there were fewer monitoring stations, and the ones that were there were placed in a less important position at the back. Gene [Roddenberry] really wanted the ship run by only the “Conn & Ops” positions, forward, with a bridge officer in charge . . . a total of three people. Whenever a crisis would arise, more people would report to their rear bridge stations. They never showed this.”

Some of your preliminary designs feature viewing couches and even a conference table on the bridge. Was the thinking at the time to have such featured on the bridge, or were these your invention?

“The couches were my idea, to provide more of a face-to-face conference environment for the main characters. The table idea (generated by the producers) I hated, because it wouldn’t be logical to furnish a table where everyone would gather to discuss their situations.”

According to The Art of Star Trek, set designers, under Herman Zimmerman’s direction, were careful to incorporate wall angles and window shapes that would correspond to those on the miniature of the Enterprise-D. [ . . . ]

“With my support, Herman [Zimmerman] did pay attention to that important detailing.”

Was this a major concern of yours, and if yes, how did you achieve this?

“This is always my first concern, to fit the interiors into the exterior design, or to design the exterior to encompass the interiors. [...] I hated Ten Forward, because it destroyed the scale of the ship. Besides, I specifically designed large windows clusters all over the ship for that purpose . . . large lounge spaces. Still, if they had insisted on yet another lounge in that saucer-nose position, it would have worked to leave the windows the way they were (at the scale they were) or they could have been modified without alluding to that space being half of the saucer rim's height.

“And there is a lot of talk about how much space the crew has . . . but that was Gene [Roddenberry]’s idea, and one of the very few that simply didn’t work for me. I told Gene that the Galaxy class was designed for a normal complement of 3,600 to 3,800 with a maximum of 8,000. Gene said that the show couldn’t afford the number of background extras it would take to reflect that crew number, so he simply stated for the record that there were 1,100 people aboard.”

We always wondered why we never got to see more lounges besides Ten Forward.

“Cheap production costs. Forget logic here.”

Was a recreation room similar to that as on the The Motion Picture Enterprise ever considered for Star Trek: The Next Generation?

“Only in regard to my exterior window planning.”

There were huge windows on the Enterprise model both on the foreside of the Deck 2 superstructure as well as on the aftside of the saucer, below the Main Shuttlebay.

 

N. Ottens
July 2005

We thank Mr. Probert for answering these questions over email in July 2005. For further information about Mr. Probert’s work and career, visit his website, Probert Designs.

Images courtesy of the artist.