From AquaTec 8615 to Babylon 5

[Skiffy]

This thread will cover what I learn about how a manufacturing warehouse in Sun Valley, California became the home of Babylon 5 in the early nineties.

I'm an old-hand 3d modeller with a keen interest in (and some practical experience of) set design. I plan to show how John Iacovelli, John Copeland, JMS and the whole team managed to fit the worlds of Babylon 5 into 60,000 Square feet of warehouse with a 16ft ceiling.

 

[Dusty Satai]

Sounds interesting.

 

[Skiffy]

Thanks Dusty Satai. It's interesting to me so hopefully to a few others too.

Here's an image from a very similar space in the same compound to help illustrate what the team started with.

 

[Skiffy]

So, one of my first jobs is mapping out how the three sound-stages fit into the available space, along with the offices, prop stores, workshops etc. The images here are collected from material uploaded to the Internet Archive - drawings produced by John Iacovelli and his team.

These are 'dye-line' prints. The originals were drawn in black ink on tracing paper and prints made via a photographic-style process using ammonia and light sensitive paper. I can still remember the smell from producing this kind of print back in the day.