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.

 

[Skiffy]

I made a little progress today to familiarise myself with the styles of set dressing used in the series. An awful lot of 'floating' pieces were used, like the overhead beams, pillars, even doors.

There are no detailed materials in the following screenshot but I've added some very rough colouring to make a start.

From left to right - there's an overhead view of the pieces I'm moving around to get the correct feel - then a 'camera view' of the results - then the on-set photograph I'm using for reference. It looks like the photographer used a 50mm lens which has helped me work out distances etc.

Very much a work-in-progress but it's fun to play with.