DESIGNING VOYAGER'S BRIDGE
Page 6

In addition, Richard James kept to a particular set design concept used in 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 - the camera shoots from where the missing wall would normally be. But in 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 bridge (or whichever room it is) being real - no matter what angle the camera shoots from, even through a window, there is always a sense of completeness. This is particularly noticeable with the largest standing set that comprises the bridge with the captain's ready room on one side (on the ship's starboard side) and the briefing room on the other (on the ship's port side) - fairly often you can see through from one end almost to the other, and you feel it is all completely real. Of course, the set design and construction alone is not what gives it believeability, but the whole effect which includes, for example, running the videos for the monitor displays, lighting, actors, sound effects etc.

command chairs - captain's chair and first officer's chair with shared control console that rises up between on demand

front area of security/tactical station with view of engineering station in the distance

Doug Drexler: "If you don't believe in the technology, you're not going to believe in any of it. You have to believe that this ship really does work. And that there's a well-organized Federation crew running it. You can't just throw some blinking lights in there and expect it to look believeable. Boy, does it show when someone does that. Look at Babylon Five. As a viewer, I do not believe they run an entire station from that room. It doesn't look functional."

Below: Detail of the completed bridge set, lit and ready for the actors: click to enlarge, full picture size 68Kb the bridge in [#128 One Small Step]

Below:Filming on the bridge: Source STN

camera pans around part of the bridge: part of the helm, science station, ops and the first officer's chair (pop-up window) [#95 Night]

Bridge standing set, kept on Stage 8

part of the bridge ceiling [#46 The Swarm] A full view of the bridge ceiling can be seen in a screenshot from [#120 and #121 Equinox] here.