Richard James Fan Answers Online

Over at the official Star Trek site, they've put up the first set of answers from Richard James, who serves as Production Designer on 'Star Trek: Voyager'. Fans were recently able to ask him questions online, and here are his first two answers:

Ryan W.: How do you like being the Production Designer for Voyager and what are you responsible for?

Richard James: Well, a production designer of any show, not justVoyager, is basically responsible for anything you see on the screen, except the actors of course. On a science fiction show like Voyager, it's pretty extensive because you've got a lot of visuals. Science fiction is unique in the sense that it isn't based on history or architecture — it's trying to get away from the familiar. So, for a production designer that makes it much more interesting because you're limited by your time and budget for the concepts, but it makes it interesting for design purposes.

Dennis D.: How hard is it to create something new and exciting in terms of production design, while being constrained by the Starfleet designs we've seen so often in the past?

Richard James: The difficulty that we have in design is not so much the constraints of what we've done with Starfleet, but the materials that are readily available. The time is crucial and there's always the budget. We do a new episode every seven days, so it doesn't give us much time. At the time we get the script we design and come up with the concepts, designs, and budget for painting, construction and dressing. It all has to come together pretty fast. The constraints mostly are availability of material and the time element.

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