and this is the Destiny.

One thing we do when we're designing the set

is we try to keep it as flexible as possible.

Because while we have a certain amount of script to work with,

there's also a bit of the unknown as to what could this room be.

So, we designed the spaces to be reconfigurable in that way.

The production designer, James Robbins,

began working on concepts in fall of last year.

The first thing to do was really establish the plan of the set

and how it would be organized.

This entire set is a historic structure

made of steel I-beams and posts.

We have to order the steel, it do come

so you really have to get this stuff figured out.

About three or four weeks after we started drawing,

a master team of construction workers were in here

undations

pads

structure.

Once the set is underway, all the different departments come together

and discuss what their needs are,

l happening pace.

As you've seen from the show, this ship is incredibly vast,

and so there are literally kilometers of corridor within the actual ship itself.

This corridor we're in right now is about 140 feet long,

our sound stage is 150 feet long,

so we really maxed it out to get this long look,

as well as several offshoots that we have

around various corners and into various rooms.

And it's also interchangeable.

For example, in some configurations we can lift up these walls,

and now we have a new setup.

All the different rooms have to take several different configurations

so that we can have 20 or 30 different sets

all in this one small environment.

For example, in this room we have at least five or six totally different setups.

For example, the Control Interface room

when the control unit comes down.

The chair room where Franklin and Rush both sit in the chair,

that's actually this environment.

We bring in these large buttresses

that go up to the central unit and fill up the space,

and we put new consoles in all the walls.

If you look over here, right now it's set up as just a corridor,

but you put in a round flat here

and this is actually the Kino room.

We have a bed set up, and there's a column unit where he gets his Kino balls,

and he sits at his console here, does his thing.

This room, not really set up as anything right now,

but these walls here actually go away

to create either a two-thirds size or a full size room.

These walls come out.

They can be window walls, solid walls or they go away

as in the case of the observation deck.

If you look through the window you can see the sound stage, but also some handrails,

and this is where our characters often stand when the ship is under attack

or when they're looking at a beautiful nebula.

In our set here we have over 30 mechanized doors.

I'm hammering this door controller, nothing's happening,

but you'll see the characters hammer these door controllers all the time.

These are actually all in actuator motors

that the special effects departments ordered from Japan.

They're also mounted on a very smooth track system,

so that when they operate the actuator, it opens flawlessly.

This is our central corridor leading into the Gate Room,

so a fairly unassuming corridor,

but if you recall from one of the early episodes in the season,

we established a battery charger,

an ancient battery charger that lived in this environment.

We also changed these wals into glass panels,

and that's where we keep our space suits.

And, of course, here we are in the Gate Room.

As well as being the Gate Room, though,

this actually plays as several of our storage rooms,

where we've had the workout room,

Brody's still, one of my personal favorites.

Here we have the Gate Room stairs,

and they only play in this room when it's set up as the Gate Room.

,

these stairs have to come out.

These stairs are constructed out of 2-by-12 steel stringers,

welded steel here, obviously built-in lighting,

rolled steel handrails, and water-cut uprights,

and they probably weigh about 2,000 to 3,000 pounds each,

somewhere around the weight of a car.

And they rig the whole thing on chai on cha

lower it back to the floor, and they've built custom-made dollies

t b

e stairs

You can see up here that there's a large wall

that drops down to cover the gate,

and it cuts the room down by about a quarter

and allows us to play this as a lot of different environments

that aren't the Gate Room.

All these elements are built from steel.

The rest of the set also looks like it's built from steel,

but it's actually various forms of plywood

with a very intensive paint treatment all over it

to create this very aged, textural, rusted look that we were going for.

Something that was really important to the producers

while we were designing the set

was that we include a lot of built-in lighting

so that the set could essentially light itself.

Roll in, turn on the lights and yell, "Action!"

So you can see we have lights built in all over the place,

fr to

here

that are custom VacuForm pieces,

and a very good example, of course, is in our Chunnel out here,

where you'll see 45-degree ceiling lights, wall lights and floor lights.