Here is an excerpt from Billâs Star Trek Memories.
As originally scripted, the scene would have begun with Spock walking down a corridor openly sobbing. At that point, weâd cut away and find that another infected crewman has begun frantically running around the ship, slapping graffiti paint jobs all over the walls of the Enterprise. In subsequent shots, weâd find several more crewmen beginning to lose their inhibitions, and just when the pandemonium is beginning to overwhelm the ship, weâd come back to Spock.
Spock is now riding in an elevator, crying. He gets to his floor, and when the doors open, the graffiti guy runs up and paints a big black mustache on Spockâs face. At that point, Spock cries even louder. Leonard continues:
Now, thatâs very imaginative, very inventive, very theatrical and very funny, but I felt that it was not really significant or appropriate for Spock. I mean, Spock was crying⊠but so what? There was no context for it, no discernible root force, no underlying cause for whatâs going on. You know, in a strange way, this one-shot extra whoâs walking around doing the paint jobs all over the place is a lot more interesting than Spock, whoâs weeping. It seemed to me like we were wasting some really strong dramatic possibilities, all for the sake of an easy sight gag.
So I said all of this to John Black, and I also said that what I felt we really need to do her was a scene in which Spockâs basic inner conflict, the human versus the Vulcan, rises to the surface and motivates his tears. I mean this draft of the script found Spock fighting through all this emotion in public, and I felt that would be a terrible thing for Spock, because heâs a very private person.
So I said to John, âI think Spock would look for privacy when he feels the urge to cry. When he can no longer resist his tears, he would probably look for a private place in which to battle it out within himself.â
And Johnâs reaction was very negative. It was typical producer/writer-under-pressure kind of stuff. âCâmon, leave it alone because Iâm working on next weekâs script. Shoot it, just shoot it.â This kind of thing. And he complained about hurting the rhythm of the script.â
Iâve got to break into Leonardâs story here to explain that âit hurts the rhythm of the scriptâ is a sort of basic, all-purpose producerâs excuse thatâs fed all too often to actors seeking script changes. Good, bad, legitimate, frivolous, it doesnât matter. If a producer doesnât want to deal with your suggestions, heâll probably just tell you that what youâre suggesting âhurts the rhythm of the script.â Itâs the TV producerâs equivalent of âthe dog ate my homework,â or âthe check is in the mail.â Itâs just an easy, somewhat plausible excuse that generally has no basis in reality. With that in mind, Leonardâs determination and fiercely protective nature in regard to Spock drove him over Blackâs head to Roddenberry.
I called Gene about it, and I told him just what Iâd told John. In talking to Gene, I was very careful to be politically supportive of his producer but about an hour and a half later, here comes John Black out to the set. So now Iâm feeling, âAhh, this great!â Iâm feeling that someoneâs actually listening to me.
And Black was funny, he cam onto the set and said, âLetâs go talk someplace.â We went to my dressing room, and he said, âOkay, tell me your idea again. Daddy says I have to listen to you.â And I had already formulated a basic concept of the scene, so I said, âLook, John, just get me into a room, and write me a half-page, a quarter-page, where you see Spock walk down a corridor and slip inside a door. As the doors close behind him, heâll burst into this emotional struggle.â And John asked, âWell, whatâs this struggle all about?â And I said, âItâs about love and vulnerability and caring and loss and regret, versus C=pi-r-squared and E=m-C-squared. Spock is a scientist, he is logical, and he feels this canât be happening to him. Itâs that kind of struggle. Itâs logic versus emotion. Itâs rational control versus uncontrollable urge. With that in mind, going behind closed doors will speak to the basic privacy of the character.â
So John wrote that and some other stuff, six or eight lines maybe, and it was exactly what I needed. Spock was now able to slip inside a door, close it behind him, struggle for a moment, then cry. At this point, he would start babbling, and the cause of the internal struggling would become obvious. Problem was, when it came time to shoot this stuff, a whole new set of obstacles had to be overcome.Â
Marc Daniels, who was directing this particular episode, came up and asked, âWhat do you have in mind for this scene?â So, playing director, I said, âJust put the camera here, behind the desk. Iâll come in the door, Iâll walk toward you, Iâll come around, Iâll sit in the chair, and Iâll start this babbling conversation with myself, and Iâll cry. Now, if youâll dolly around getting closer and closer we can meet at the end of the scene. We can see Spockâs entire breakdown in one long dramatic shot.â
Okay, now itâs five-thirty, I got out to get my ears and makeup touched up, and the time is important because weâre on a very rigid schedule. With overtime being so ridiculously and prohibitively expensive, weâd have to wrap each evening at exactly six-eighteen. Didnât matter if you were in the middle of a sentence, come six-eighteen, we wrapped.
So now Jerry Finnerman starts to light the scene and itâs obvious that this will be our last shot of the day. Iâm in the makeup chair, getting touched up, and now in comes Cliff Ralke, our dolly grip, who was always a very supportive person, and he says, âExcuse me, Leonard, but youâd better get out there, because theyâre changing the shot you guys just talked about.â
So now Leonard comes out to the set, and the director has indeed changed the shot theyâd just agreed upon. Itâs important to note, however, that the reasoning behind this change, though not particularly sensitive to Leonardâs needs, was rational and perfectly valid. You see, as previously discussed, this shot would have entailed a one-hundred-and-eighty degree camera move starting from one side of the set, then slowly dollying completely around to the opposite end. This caused problems because the long, involved shot required a lot of lights and a time-consuming, involved setup that Jerry Finnerman didnât think could be accomplished without going into overtime. Finnerman discussed this situation with Daniels, and together they decided that the most efficient way to shoot this scene would be in a series of brief cuts, each of which could be lit quickly and with relative ease.
They were going to have Leonard enter in a wide shot, then cut. Next, in a slightly tighter framing, theyâd follow him as he crossed the set and sat down. Cut. An even tighter frame would catch the beginning of the speech, and they planned to cut once more, zooming to a close-up as Spock began weeping. This made sense in terms of production efficiency, but Leonard felt this shooting sequence would really damage the dramatic impact of the scene. He continues:
I said, âYouâre going to lose the continuity and fluidity of the scene if you shoot it this way. I will not be able to do it as well, and I think the end result will just seem choppy and phony.â
By now itâs five forty-five, and with no time to debate the situation, they got hold Gregg Peters, our first A.D., who was the equivalent of the hatchet man. He was the guy whoâd always call the six-eighteen wrap, and we all discussed the situation. Finally Marc Daniels said, âLetâs go for it. Letâs try to get it done.â
Now the lighting crew ran around setting up the shot, and I think it was about six-fifteen when they finally said, âWeâre ready.â Marc had me walk through it once, and by now production types were standing around behind the camera, looking at their watches and saying, âHe wonât make it. Heâll never do it.â So the tension was really mounting.
So basically I know this has got to be a flawless, one-take thing. Yâknow, Iâve got one crack at it before they shut us down for the night. If I were to screw up, weâd almost certainly have gone right back to the cut-and-chop scenario come morning. Anyway, this was the scene that Iâd asked for and fought for, and now the logistics of the situation were such that there was absolutely no room for error. There was a lot riding on this, and I wouldnât have been so adamant in my battling if I hadnât felt that this scene was extremely important. I felt like it merited my efforts, in that it truly defined, for the very first time, what the Spock character was all about.
Now the lights go on, the cameras roll and we nail it. They get the pan, get the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree dolly shot and the scene was ultimately worked really well in illustrating Spockâs inherent inner conflict. This went directly to the heart of what Gene and I had originally spoken about in regard to the character of Spock. It was an opportunity that I absolutely did not want to miss, and an opportunity to plant a seed in defining a certain edge of the character.
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