Star Trek PriWatt Smart Glass at Doctor M’Benga’s office
A sickbay office that had to look like the future
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet for Paramount+, the eleventh series in the franchise and launched in 2022, needed the chief medical officer’s office to read as a room on a starship. PriWatt switchable glass is what does that on camera.
The set
Design work started in August 2020 and the series films at CBS Stages Canada. The glass is in Doctor M’Benga’s office, the room where the ship’s chief medical officer works, and where he is quietly trying to treat his daughter’s rare illness. A room with something to hide, and that is a useful thing for a wall to be able to do.
Why a production reaches for switchable glass
A set has to do on cue what a building does over a working day. Glass that turns from clear to opaque in the moment gives a scene a wall it did not have a second earlier, with no door closing, no blind dropping and no grip walking into shot to move something.
- A state change that happens on the take, in under a second
- No blinds, curtains or hardware to keep out of frame
- A finish that reads as installed technology, not as set dressing
- The same panel used clear for a wide shot and opaque for the scene beside it
Specified on this project
PriWatt PDLC switchable glass
Laminated switchable panels: clear with the power on, opaque with it off.
Film and television
Sets, studios and broadcast spaces, in the application this belongs to.
Control options
Switched on cue from a wall control, a remote or an automation system.
Building a set that switches
Send the set drawings or the panel sizes and the schedule you are working to. PriWatt is made in Pompano Beach, Florida.
