Star Trek: Discovery season 4 starts production in 2 weeks. How is that going to work, exactly?

Pictured (l-r): Anthony Rapp as Stamets; Michelle Yeoh as Georgiou; Mary Wiseman as Tilly; Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham; of the the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. Photo Cr: Michael Gibson/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

OCTOBER 20, 2020 - Star Trek: Discovery has been officially confirmed, and from a video statement released by CBS All Access last week, it’ll start production on November 2nd. But how will production going forward work with ongoing COVID-19 restrictions?

Star Trek executive producer Alex Kurtzman (along with star Sonequa Martin-Green) spoke recently to IndieWire about some of the technical considerations that helped them finish season three, and will help them start season four. It’s well-known that the special effects and music crews for Discovery season three completed their work from home over the summer. In the IndieWire piece, Kurtzman also explained that there were some parts of the show that needed pickup shots, and to accomplish them, they turned to computer-generated graphics and motion-capture.

“The visual effects team was extraordinary,” he said, “because there are some shots that you will never know aren’t practical, aren’t actually shot on location, that are full CG shots, full CG elements of things that would typically have been an insert.” He went on to explain that some actors actually used motion-capture equipment in their homes to help complete the job. “It’s an actual actor at their home motion-capture studio, which then gets rendered in the computer as a living thing,” he said. “Each of our actors have been scanned, so we can actually impose their faces on a body, which is quite something.”

Shooting season four will be a different beast. According to IndieWire, “The entire cast recently traveled to Toronto to begin their quarantine before production starts, with full COVID safety protocols in place.” IndieWire also notes that while on-location shooting isn’t an option right now, Kurtzman expects that they will make use of an AR wall, a type of virtual backdrop that can replace greenscreen with a computer-generated scene that can move and change with the camera.

Details are thin so far about what we might be able to expect from Star Trek: Discovery season four, but that’s to be expected; season three has just started airing, with episode one, “That Hope is You, Part 1” streaming now on CBS All Access.