DESIGNING VOYAGER'S ENGINEERING SECTION

Once the design of Voyager's bridge had mainly occurred, 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 USS Enterprise NCC-1701, most of the drama had taken place, apart from on the bridge, in main engineering, sickbay, briefing room and crew quarters, in particular the quarters of the most senior officers. [Star Trek: The Next Generation] added the captain's ready room and the holodeck to the mix, but the Voyager show would not be changing the formula significantly, and thus the new sets would all be variations on 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 it was mandatory to incorporate e.g. the warp core, and in addition these elements had a design history (general shape, size etc) which needed to be adhered to. Luckily all this was not such a daunting task as it might seem because, unlike his predecessors who had to invent their starships almost from scratch, Richard James had six years of experience working on Star Trek sets to draw on.

Below: concept sketch

Source ST:M

He wanted to expand on the available space, and this can be seen in his design for main engineering. His new engineering set would occupy exactly the same place on the sound stage that the Enterprise-D's 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 where the actors could walk all the way round it, 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.

Richard James: "I went back to the first designs and tried to put a new spin on them. But the thing that happens with forced perspective is that you can't put people close to it, and I needed all the space that I could use. There really was a lack of space because we had so many sets. And, if you do a forced perspective, you can't get close to it or you give away the scale; you just can't have action scenes going into that particular area."

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 permits actors to be filmed climbing up to the this level and moving while there. (This can be seen in various scenes in, say, [#157 Shattered].) 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.

Below: concept sketch

Source ST:M

Right: Concept sketch. The floor plan is similar to USS Enterprise-D's but this version of the set has an uper level from where crewmembers can look down on the level below. This design did not take up much more space on stage but did make the room look much larger and, as we know, the approved set works to this concept. The Enterprise-D's "pool table"-style control console was removed from the centre of the room in order to create more space, an important consideration not just for style reasons but for dramatic reasons in allowing directors more flexibility in the space.

Source ST:M

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 which 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 produces footage of the warp-core being ejected, the effect is completely believeable - viewers know the warp core is real as they have seen large parts of it for themselves in main engineering.

The warp-core was ejected in [#13 Cathexis] by Chakotay (the ejection was not seen on screen), in [#71 Day of Honor] by Torres, and in [#170 Renaissance Man] by the Doctor who had moments before been masquerading as Chakotay. Although in [Renaissance Man] Janeway berates the Doctor for stranding Voyager in the Delta Quadrant (due to the loss of the warp-core), there is no mention that a new warp-core could be constructed from the auxiliary warp-core. The show's production staff did not build the auxiliary warp-core although its location within Voyager and basic design was done, driven by the need to produce the Master Situation Display at the rear of the bridge.

warp core ejection (pop-up window) [#71 Day of Honor] and [#170 Renaissance Man] The ECH (i.e. the Doctor) orders the computer to eject the warp core, and the sound of the warp core disengaging and ejecting, from [Renaissance Man]. Picture: engineering after the warp core has been ejected [#71 Day Of Honor]

concept sketch

Source ST:M

Richard James concentrated on giving the warp-core a new look which emphasised how much energy it was generating.

Richard James: "You want the warp core to be very much the focal point of the room. We spent a great deal of time playing around and coming up with the look of it. I didn't want neons going in a relay because that had been done before, so I talked with my special effects guys. I wanted it to look like gases mixing together inside and we came up with a way of using foil and lights. The foil basically rotates and the lights shine and hit it. Then on the back side of the curved Plexiglas there's a rear screen fabric; when it hits that it's like a back projection. It creates a movement that really looks like gases moving around inside. We can go faster, slower, and we had colored gels and so forth. And, it's on set rather than having to be done by visual effects."

The production staff spent two months trying to agree on the colours to use in creating the swirling, gaseous effect created by Dick Brownfield. They decided on a combination of straw, yellow, white and blue. But then Winrich ("Rick") Kolbe, the director of the first/pilot episode [#1 and #2 Caretaker], did not like the colours. This prompted a visit to the engineering set by the executive producer, Rick Berman, who wanted to see firsthand what it was that Kolbe was objecting to. Rick Berman visiting the set was a major event: in attendance were Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, Richard James, Rick Kolbe, Marvin Rush and some of the shooting crew. Bill Peets lit the set, and Dick Brownfield ran the warp core so that everyone could see the effect he had created. The heart of Dick Brownfield's design was a series of four motors, each driving the rotation of an aluminium-encased hull, and each ball set at a different axis angle to the others. Interior lights were reflected off the balls, onto the surface (the skin) of the warp core. The motors determined the speed of the swirling effect, and dimmer switches controlled the intensity of the lights. The result looked as if the warp core was filled with a swirling, multi-coloured gaseous material. Rick Berman watched for a few moments and listened to the comments of those around him. He told Rick Kolbe to shoot some footage of the warp core in operation. They would then reconvene in the Cooper Building and screen the footage to see what it actually looked like on film. Comments after the screening included Rick Kolbe's who again objected to the colours, saying they looked artificial, not real enough. The gathered staff also discussed the speed of the swirling (the faster the motors turned, the faster the swirling effect) - some felt the motors should run more slowly, others felt the motors should run more quickly. Eventually Rick Berman decided that the colours would be taken away, with the warp core using blue only, and the motors would run at full speed. However, the controversy did not end there. Well into the show's Season Four, conflicting positions would be taken by various production staff regarding the speed of the motors - if you look carefully you will see that the warp core "runs" faster in some episodes than others! For Dick Brownfield, a more persistent problem was noise, as the mechanism inside the warp core was anything but quiet. This was a real problem because it would interfere with the sound recording. Alan Bernard's sound equipment was very sensitive.

Dick Brownfield: "I could easily solve the whole problem right now, by just going out and buying a new plasma field, but I can't find one. The stores all seem to be out of them at the moment."

Below: Blueprint of the engineering set.

click to enlarge, 1148x770 pixels,
Source Poe

Despite all the differences he built into the new engineering set, Richard James originally planned to include a tip of the hat to Herman Zimmerman's original design for the Enterprise-D's engine room.

Richard James: "Motifs have a way of re-appearing, and in a couple of areas I made a conscious effort to pay tribute to the Enterprise. One place I did that was the railing in engineering. Because I had used so many cool colours around the ship, I thought it might be interesting to do something different. They had used a kind of an orangey colour in [The Next Generation], so I did the railing in orange. But, because it stood out, Rick Berman said to me: 'Why did you do that?' When I told him I did it kind of as a pickup, he said : 'You don't have to do that!' So I toned it down and put more blue in it; it's still toward the orange color but it's cooled down." See the screenshot from [#70 The Gift] immediately below.

[#70 The Gift]

Below: the finished set.

[#94 One]	[One]
[#94 One]	[#70 The Gift]

Below: the finished set, with the flats on the upper level visible which would not be seen on tv.

Source ST:M

The following are TOSTW photos of the engineering set - they are shown as the basic lit set, and lighting would be adjusted or added for particular scenes.	part of the base of the warp core
warp core seen from the upper level	looking up at the warp core from the upper level
looking up at the warp core from the lower level	warp core, looking across at it from the lower level
personnel lift between lower and upper levels	ladder between lower and upper levels
view into engineering looking from next to the entry into the Jefferies tube, looking toward the warp core	part of main area, lower level

Compare Voyager's engine room with that in [Star Trek: The Next Generation]: screenshot

Right: Director Rick Kolbe directs Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway on the engineering set, in [#1 and #2 Caretaker]. From the look of it, I surmise it is when Janeway awakens on being returned to Voyager after, like the rest of the crew (bar the EMH) kidnapped and "sampled" by the Caretaker.

Source Poe