BEHIND-THE-SCENES : [PATHFINDER] & [LIFE LINE]

RICK BERMAN SPEAKS

As we found ourselves getting closer to the end of the seven-year run, and we realised we had to be getting closer to Earth, we wanted to start some contact, but we wanted that contact to be difficult and very sporadic. The storyline that was developed was one where we open the story up a little bit.

We had activity going on that was not limited to the starship. We had Barclay*, who was a character that the fans knew of, and Troi*, who was a character the fans knew of, who were back on Earth and who were attempting to make contact with Voyager. We didn't want that contact to be fluid. We didn't want that contact to be continual, because it would've ruined the whole premise of what we were going for.

[#17 Projections]

* The engineer Reginald Barclay, played by Dwight Schultz, is first seen in Star Trek in [TNG: Hollow Pursuits]. Deanna Troi is a member of the regularly-appearing crew in [TNG], played by ensemble cast member Marina Sirtis who is also seen in [TNG]-films starting with [Star Trek VII: Generations]. Barclay also appears, briefly, in [Star Trek VIII: First Contact]. Barclay's first appearance in [Star Trek Voyager], although as a hologram hallucinated by the Doctor, is in [#17 Projections]. Troi's first appearance in [Star Trek Voyager] is in [#130 Pathfinder].

thanks to Reg Barclay's work, Starfleet's Pathfinder project establishes audio contact
with USS Voyager, in the sixth year of Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant, [#130 Pathfinder]

Because we'd already established, including in the movie [Star Trek VIII: First Contact], Barclay (this wonderful actor Dwight Schultz), a mad scientist who has these incredible abilities and who had a lot of social stumblings, we took this character and we had him attempting to get in touch with Voyager and having his superiors pooh-poohing what he was doing and closing him down left and right; and Troi, who we'd already established was his friend and his shrink, and we had a lot of fun on a number of episodes. And this was part of the whole process of bringing the ship closer and closer to Earth, because we knew that was what it was going to culminate in when we got to the end of the Seventh Season.

Reg Barclay (holding his cat, named Neelix) tells his friend Deanna Troi that he has lost himself in Voyager
[#130 Pathfinder]

BRANNON BRAGA SPEAKS

I always liked Barclay. He was the only character that could really be like you and me. I always figured I'd be like Barclay - you know, I'd be terrified to use the transporter (Barclay's transporter phobia is explored in [TNG: Realm Of Fear]), I'd hate flying around at warp. And he was the only truly neurotic character on Star Trek until Hoshi came along on [Enterprise], and I really liked Barclay, and was trying to find a way to bring him back, but couldn't figure it out because Voyager's lost, but this seemed like a great way of doing it.

MARINA SIRTIS SPEAKS

They called and, you know, said: "Would you like to do [Star Trek Voyager]?" and I said: "Sure." especially when they told me it would be Dwight, that basically I would be working with him. And then I did another one I got to work with Bob Picardo as well as Dwight, and Bob Picardo is one of my favourite people on Star Trek, so that was wonderful.

It was very surreal, because none of the rest of the cast were there when I was working. I mean, Kate wasn't there, Jeri wasn't there, you know. My first episode was just me and Dwight. And they were working on Stages 8 and 9 where we had worked and, OK, their bridge looked a little different, and it was the [production] crew that I had worked with on [TNG] and it was the cinematographer, the lighting camp, I mean it was all the same people, and it was almost like I was doing [TNG], because I was back there and I was like "the queen" again. I loved it. I was really sorry when it was over. I really enjoyed myself. And it was like a little step back, you know - a little bit of history repeating itself.

Marina Sirtis as Counsellor Deanna Troi, [#130 Pathfinder]

top left: Troi interrupts an argument between the Doctor and Dr Zimmerman top right: Troi ponders Zimmerman's personality problems lower left: Troi visits the Doctor in Project Pathfinder's holosimulation of Voyager's sickbay lower right: Zimmerman's assistant Haley, Barclay, the Doctor and Troi after the Doctor starts treating Zimmerman successfully [#144 Life Line]

VISUAL EFFECTS

Dan Curry, visual effects producer

[Life Line] was nominated for an Emmy, which we were all very proud of, and the reason for it was in large due to Bob Picardo's performance as two people. He played Dr Zimmerman, the creator of the holographic doctor that was Bob's usual role, and it was also directed by John Bruno who not only is a wonderful director but he has an extensive background in special visual effects. And we did a lot of real-time motion control.

Dan Curry: Ron Moore was the supervisor on that episode and he put a lot of his heart and soul into making that work right. And the logistical planning of when Bob would make a costume change, because you couldn't remove the camera from its track and shoot something else while he was in the same costume, so we had to plan the costume changes very carefully.

Ron Moore, visual effects supervisor

This one we had money. They were willing to spend a lot more to do this, make it more interesting, the difference being as we go out we do it with a lot of locked cameras and trying to do a lot of tricks where you're looking over a double and, you know, not doing this fancy stuff, when what you really want to do is open it up.

Ron Moore: When you see these two guys and have the camera moving, maybe do a close-up and expand it, well, you know, again, every time you do one of these things you need to get the actor in both make-ups, you've got to have one pass at least in blue screen and have a pass of the empty set with nobody in it, so we need to have three passes which have to absolutely match before we're going to start moving the camera. What we did is we got a very complex motion control system, and we ended up putting down a long track which allowed us to set up motion control shots. We could set it up on computer and do a shot here with the camera moving around, then we would stop that motion and go to another point on the track, bring over the Doctor, shoot another; we did maybe three or four different moves, different parts of the track, all with moving cameras, all with movement, and then we go through we go through each one, we do one at a time, doing the A side, and we program all four moves in, well, essentially, to make a long story short, we ended up taking four or five different pieces of action all with motion control and doing them all in a package, so that with one two-hour turnover for him we manage to get the whole set. Ron Moore: If you look at that one (i.e. [Life Line]), we have almost 12 minutes of visual effects in that show. It is probably the most complex show that we did all that Season. On [#143 Fury] we did a lot of the split-screen stuff traditionally; we locked the cameras down, and any moves that we did we handled manually. With [Life Line] there was so much of it, we decided to go all out with motion control. It was a seven-day shoot, and four days of it were shooting motion control. Bob Picardo is absolutely the best to wrk with on something like this. This is hard, it's time-consuming, and it's especially difficult for him - he had to keep changing costume and make-up. We tried to make that real efficient, so that the motion control didn't cost us shooting time. We had at least three passes on each shot. By using the big motion control rig we could set up one move where we follow Zimmerman, then we'd set up another shot with Zimmerman. Then we might move in for a third shot. Then he would go away and change to the Doctor. Then he'd come back and we'd do all three of those shots. Then he'd go away again, and we'd put the wall in and shoot the wall. It saved us shooting time. I'm sure you'll find plenty of people that would disagree with me, but I know that we did that. It's just when you start setting up these big shots with tracks and computers and all of that, the impression is that the first unit comes to a stop waiting for us. But, the way we did it, we avoided a lot of costume changes.

guess which picture below is NOT seen in [Life Line]!

Roy the fly on Dr Zimmerman's dietary lunch consisting of mixed green leaves, [Life Line]

[Life Line] also features Dr Zimmerman's holographic fly named Roy. It is a humorous moment because at first the tv viewer thinks it is unhygienic but then learns that Roy is a hologram. Bruce Banit at Digital Muse describes the process: We bought a 3D model of the fly (made by a company called Viewpoint), and then one of our artists, Jeremy Hunt, surfaced and modelled it, then animated that onto a background plate. It's one of those shots that no one notices because it just looks so absolutely real.