How long did you actually work on Star Trek and what were the biggest changes during that period?

I came to Star Trek: The Next Generation at the beginning of the second season as a temporary production designer. As it worked out I became permanent. We were having troubles in several areas. One was the star fields.

I had worked on Battlestar Galactica so I told the producers, "The only way you�re going to get star fields that you�re going to be happy with, is you�ve got to go with black velvet, and you�ve got to glue on the glitter by hand." They were doing star fields made out of black duvetine which they would spray with mastick, 3M, I think it was, and throw glitter at, and then take a broom and brush some of it off.

It wasn�t working because in the first place, black duvetine doesn�t absorb light like black velvet. They said "You mean, we�re going to put glitter by hand on these enormous, er, star fields?" And I said, "Yeah. It can be done."

How big are we talking?

Well, they�re twenty-five feet to thirty feet high, and maybe eighty to ninety to a hundred feet long. I did a diagram because we were going to see these all the time. I didn�t want anything to look like constellations that were noticeable, or any kind of grouping that would catch people�s eyes. It had to be very generic.

We used three different sizes of glitter and they were very successful. That�s what they still use for their star fields.