STANDING SETS

As often as shooting for the show took place on location, the practicalities and budget of location filming were carefully weighed for the benefit to the development and depiction of the story. Standing sets (permanent sets) for the show were those of regularly used rooms on USS Voyager. Every episode required the use of at least one standing set such as the bridge, and frequently more than one standing set was used. In addition, for certain stories one or more one-time sets were required depicting, for example, a room on an alien world or the interior of an alien ship.

Writer and teleplay writer Lisa Klink explains, concerning [#28 Resistance]:
"Budget was also a problem, because we generally build two new sets, and this whole thing takes place on an alien planet. They have to start out on this journey from someplace and end up someplace, and that's our two sets. Do they go anyplace in between? We have to build that too, then. .... We ended up building three sets: a town square, the prison, and cabin (Caylem's quarters). We tried really hard to set in the cave set which is a standing set, but just couldn't do it. It was a horrendously expensive episode."

From a tv episode producer's point of view, a "bottle show" requires comparatively the least preparation: a "bottle show" refers to one where standing sets only are used. Bottle shows are economical in both time, money and effort as there is not a single new set to design, build, equip and light, and production staff already know the logistics (such as lighting and camera angles) for standing sets. For example, the two-part story [#146 and #147 Unimatrix Zero] required the use of several one-time sets (known as "swing sets"), and numerous CGI shots (computer-generated graphics). In addition, part of the higher budget went on hiring guest stars and extras, and the necessary make-up and costume input (such as Borg drones). Apart from the resources and cost factors, actors and production staff put in extra time and effort on top of their normal punishing workload. Therefore I was not surprised to see that the preceding story, [#145 The Haunting of Deck Twelve], was a bottle show, and that in addition, if considering budget alone, it had only a few guest-stars (the Borg children) with the major CGI effect limited to that of the "haunting" alien presence. [Voyager] bottle shows often concentrate on great character interplay which engages the viewer's attention as it is achieved by superb acting on the part of the main and any guest cast.

part of the engineering set part of the ready room set

Many weeks after writing the above paragraph I came across the following words by Lolita Fatjo, Pre-Production Co-Ordinator for Seasons 1-6 and Script Co-Ordinator in Season 6:

"One thing that's always really welcome are what we call 'bottle shows', which means everything takes place entirely on the ship or the station or on the USS Defiant. A bottle show means we can save some money, by not building any extra sets, not bringing any big guest characters in, and not doing any battle scenes or anything like that. Most bottle shows are character-oriented. ... It's just a way to pull the budget back on episodes. So writing a good bottle bottle show is always a good way to go."

Paramount Pictures/Viacom's Stage 8 contained the standing sets of the bridge, ready room and briefing room (on the tv screen it can be seen that these are all joined together, as indeed they are in "real" life on USS Voyager) and messhall with the adjoining galley. Stage 9 contained the permanent sets, such as the cargo bay and main engineering, and also temporary sets which were built for a specific episode and then struck (dismantled).

Stages 8 and 9 have more or less been home to Star Trek since 1977 when Gene Roddenberry and Paramount were preparing to launch a revitalised series called Star Trek: Phase II. The standing sets for that show were built on Stages 8 and 9, but were never used because Paramount decided not to do that tv series, but the sets were recycled to produce the feature film [Star Trek: The Motion Picture]. As each subsequent feature was filmed, the sets for the ship interiors were also bulit on Stages 8 and 9, again re-using many of the set pieces each time. Stages 8 and 9 were used for the standing sets of [Star Trek: The Next Generation]. After the last episode of that series in early 1994 the sets were recycled as the ship interiors for [Star Trek: Generations] and, as soon as that film wrapped (i.e. production was completed) at the end of May 1994, the sets were torn down and the standing sets for [Star Trek: Voyager] were erected in their place - literally in their place - the bridge set occupied the same spot as the bridge set in [Star Trek: Generations] and, before that, by the bridge set of the Enterprise-D in [Star Trek: The Next Generation]. Similarly the other standing sets of Voyager's interiors occupied the same relative spaces, including orientation on the stage, as their predecessors.

Rick Sternbach, Voyager's senior illustrator, comments on the materials used: "Once that ([TNG]) was done, we rebuilt the sets for the feature. Once the feature was done, the process started all over again. Rip, bang, cut, tear. And Voyager was born. My first exposure to Star Trek was working on the first feature back in 1978. I've seen this lumber a lot."

Rick Sternbach

Richard James, the designer of Voyager's set interiors kept to a particular design concept used for sets 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 and 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 room being real - no matter what angle the camera shoots from, even through a window, there is always a sense of completeness.

Richard James

For, say, the episode [Inside Man], shooting started on Stage 8 with scenes on the bridge, briefing room and messhall. On the second and third days of production filming, Stage 9 was used for scenes in the corridor, sickbay, main engineering and the holographic research lab. The second week of filming took place on Stage 16 which housed the standing set of the astrometrics lab. You might be wondering why these particular scenes and sets and why in that order when the action in the episode begins in a corridor leading to a turbolift, then continues with a scene in the astrometrics lab, then the holographic research lab, while scenes on the bridge occur later. It is because scenes are never shot in the order that we see them on the tv screen: it would be too expensive from various practical points of view such as the time spent equipping and lighting each set and the length of time an actor requires in the make-up chair.

Wherever possible, Richard James, production designer, created rooms, corridor entrances, turbolifts, and other spaces leading directly into or out of a primary set. This technique adds to the viewer's sense not only of the size of the ship but also of direction. Viewers can more easily "follow" Captain Janeway as she moves, from, say, the bridge directly into the ready room, or from a corridor directly into the transporter room. The feeling of connectedness of each separate set being a contiguous part of a larger whole-is enhanced as well. The same design philosophy was applied to the wardroom, ready room, quarters, hangar deck, holodeck, and ship's corridors. Wendy Drapanas: "[TNG]'s Enterprise was like a battleship. Voyager is more like a destroyer. Swift, fast, good killing power, with newer, more updated technology. We extended the corridors so we have a longer "walking, talking" corridor area for filming as opposed to the Enterprise. We don't have to fake it as much on Voyager as we did the corridor shots on the Enterprise. This gives the ship a longer look."

part of the messhall set corridor that leads to a turbolift (the doors at the end)

Richard James also gave it more of the grey look, which brings it down in size a bit and gives it that cruiser/destroyer look.

For the permanent crew quarters sets, basic sets were used with each being dressed according to the occupant and any particular requirements of the episode concerned.

Sets are designed to have "wild walls", that is, walls which can be removed so that the camera can be positioned there, as in this shot which is from the back of the Delta Flyer's replicator as Seven orders it to replicate a slice of New York cheesecake [Body and Soul]. In [Renaissance Man] the camera looks through the back of Janeway's replicator (which has been mostly dismantled) into her quarters. And here is the camera shot of Neelix taken through the back of the monitor screen in the briefing room [Future's End].

messhall looking from the starboard side toward the galley and the port side doors

messhall looking from the starboard side across to the windows

For [Star Trek: Voyager] the standing sets originally envisaged comprised the ones already established by previous Star Trek shows: bridge, engineering, sickbay, briefing room and crew quarters of a modular design for adaptation to suit individual members of the crew. Indeed, the continued use of these rooms (suitably redesigned of course) is something that fans love and had come to expect (quite apart from them being the kind of rooms you would expect on a starship).

the Doctor's office

part of the main area of sickbay, view toward biobeds

[Star Trek: The Next Generation] had added the captain's ready room to the formula, so Janeway's ready room would be a standing set, and the messhall with Neelix's galley would also be a standing set. These sets are discussed on other pages in this section. Other standing sets were built as time went on e.g. the holodeck and astrometrics lab.

empty holodeck i.e. with no active holoprogram [#164 Human Error]

astrometrics lab, looking toward main viewscreen [#116 Someone To Watch Over Me]

With the end of the series in sight, the standing sets were demolished - details later in Demolition of the Standing Sets/[#171 and #172 Endgame] sets.