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[HOPE AND FEAR] : BEHIND-THE-SCENESDesigning the engine room of Arturis' ship |
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Additional commentary by production staff is in this colour.
Scans by Janet.
The design for engineering set began when Richard James modified a Dauntless bridge sketch.
Greg Hooper, Set Designer, who translated Richard Janes' sketch on a wrinkled scrap of onionskin paper into a 3D set: "Richard told me about a concept that involved walking up some steps to a platform that circles the core like a catwalk. The core doesn't go all the way to the ceiling the way Voyager's does, and we can look down into it."
The final set does not exactly match Director Rick Kolbe's extravagant idea from the production meeting: "That idea got nixed very quickly. It would have required multiple optical shots, and there isn't enough time or money, so we're doing it all structurally. It doesn't give us what we all originally wanted, but on the other hand it does give us something rather interesting, and the set certainly looks different from our usual engineering set up."
Plan of the finished design, with labels indicating "real" functions.
Source: TOSTFF
The warp core was completed by making the core from a novelty plasma globe surrounded by the kind of water bubble tubes you can get in knick-knack shops.
On 9th March, seventeen scenes are scheduled to be shot, all taking place on the Dauntless' engineering set. The lighting personnel begin at 6.00 a.m. for a "prelight." Lighting this new set is a unique experience, because in addition to the traditionally lit design elements e.g. computer screens and backlit graphics, the warp core itself is composed of lighting components. Richard James's second engineering sketch was actually based on some commercial lighting equipment.
Greg Hooper: "A fellow came in to show us some neon lighting equipment that he's manufactured. We wound up creating this warp core incorporating a lot of his input."
The Art Department acquired six ten-inch-in-diameter glass tubes that incorporate a variety of elements.
Dick Brownfield, Special Effects Co-ordinator: "Each tube is filled with water and there's a working neon tube in the center of each one." A generator runs the neon. The bubbles that rise through the water enter the tubes via a manifold with needle valves. He controls the speed of the bubbles by increasing and decreasing the airflow, and the size by varying the openings in the needle valves. For his pump he hooks it into the stage's air-conditioning.
In the centre of the warp core, a glass ball crackles with electrical arcs, just like the ones you see in gift shops, only far bigger.
"USS Dauntless" engine room's warp-core, made from wood in Paramount's Mill. The caption printed on the picture reads: Just as the Dauntless warp core reflects the genius of its alien designer, the realized set is a marvel of 20th century filmmaking ingenuity. Picture by/copyright: Elliott Marks.
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