page_title: Context Is for Kings
section_title: Filming and design
hierarchical_section_title: Context Is for Kings / Production / Filming and design
caption_attribution_description: English: Akiva Goldsman at FRINGE On Stage at the Paley Center
context_page_description: "Context Is for Kings" is the third episode of the American television series Star Trek: Discovery, which is set roughly a decade before the events of the original Star Trek series and explores the war between the Federation and the Klingons. The episode was written by showrunners Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, and Craig Sweeny, from a story by series co-creator Bryan Fuller, Berg, and Harberts. It was directed by producer Akiva Goldsman.
  Sonequa Martin-Green stars as Michael Burnham, the first Starfleet mutineer who began the war. Series regulars Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Jason Isaacs also appear in the episode. The series' writers consider this episode to be the show's equivalent of a pilot, introducing the majority of its main cast, the titular starship Discovery, and the beginning of the season-long story. The episode reused the series' starship sets for both the Discovery and its sister ship Glenn.
  "Context Is for Kings" was released on CBS All Access on October 1, 2017.
context_section_description: Filming for scenes set on the Glenn took place on the sets previously used for USS Shenzhou in the prologue episodes. Changes made to the sets for filming in this episode include the adding of "scratched walls, flickering lights, dangling wires, busted doors". The set was decorated with blood and ten corpses, including an actor in Klingon prosthetics portraying a dead member of that species. Another Klingon actor was connected to a pulley system with a special harness and pulled out of shot, to simulate being dragged away by the creature, something that was filmed multiple times to get "just right". To film the following chase sequence, the actors were followed through the set by a cameraman on a Segway. Those same sets were later redressed to portray the Discovery. The shuttle bay of the Discovery is completely computer-generated, and is the most expensive set in the series due to the visual effects requirements.
  Goldsman felt that each episode of the series has its "own tonal components that are driven by script", and that this episode is "mysterious and threatening because I felt Burnham’s circumstance was mysterious and threatening". Goldsman embraced this tone, and incorporated elements of the horror genre. He noted that the producers generally wanted the series to be watchable for families, but they also had the freedom to push boundaries with the streaming format of the series, and so some of the horror elements included in the episode would not be appropriate for young children, such as the corpses of the Glenn's crew, which were described as "swirled up bodies" and were designed in Adobe Photoshop. They attempted to indicate this to parents who may be showing the series to children by giving it a "TV-MA" rating, even though the majority of the episode, and the series as a whole, was not intended to require that higher rating.
  Lorca is first introduced eating fortune cookies, part of his family backstory and one of the comforts that he is allowed in his ready room. Isaacs had to eat hundreds of fortune cookies in the course of filming the scene, and said he did not want to repeat that experience. Isaacs did note the symbolism of Lorca wanting Burnham to read her fortune, "but she doesn't want to do it. The point is that she's gonna create her own fortune by making the right decision by the end of the episode." Saru offering blueberries to Burnham in the episode was a tribute to Fuller who "would walk through the offices of Star Trek, and he would offer you a blueberry."
caption: Executive producer Akiva Goldsman wanted to incorporate elements of horror when directing the episode.
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