Production Begins On 'Enterprise' Fourth Season

See Also: 'Storm Front, Part I' Episode Guide

The fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise began production yesterday at Paramount with season premiere episode "Storm Front", for the first time shooting in digital video on a Sony 900 digital camera rather than celluloid film.

StarTrek.com reported on the initial day of filming, with scenes shot on the sickbay, bridge and situation room sets with the entire cast minus Scott Bakula (Archer), whose first day of work for the season was to be today.

Although "Storm Front" is part of an arc encompassing several episodes to resolve the storylines from last season's finale, "Zero Hour," executive producer Rick Berman has said that though there may be several mini-arcs, possibly including a storyline with William Shatner (Captain Kirk), pending his schedule on Boston Legal, the fourth season will primarily consist of stand-alone episodes.

StarTrek.com mentioned reports that Brent Spiner would appear as an ancestor of Dr. Noonien Soong, who invented Data, Spiner's character from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but said that those reports had not been officially confirmed.

Digital video, said director of photography Marvin Rush, rivals film in visual quality and ease of use. He said that when the producers saw footage he had shot with the new camera, "they both walked out of the room and said basically, 'Wow, why weren't we doing this before?'" The Sony camera captured greater detail in extremely bright shots, such as using pyrotechnics, and gives the filmmaker a greater sense of how the final shot will look while it is being filmed.

"Artistically, I don't think the audience is going to see much difference," added Rush, who said that he would try to match the look of previous episodes by adjusting color.

The original report on the first day of filming is at StarTrek.com.

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