Metamorphosis

Filmed May 1967

My second voyage on the Enterprise, METAMORPHOSIS, written by the incomparable Gene Coon, was my favorite voyage of the seven STAR TREKs I directed. It was a strange tale, beautifully written with a potent message. I was really anxious to make this voyage. When you look at the lineup of my voyages, it seems as if I went from one trek to another. Actually there was a three month lapse between THIS SIDE OF PARADISE and METAMORPHOSIS. Part of that time was television’s annual spring hiatus. I also managed to squeeze in the impossible mission of THE TRAIN (which I will write about later). After that jarring trip I was ready for the sanity of outer space.

METAMORPHOSIS had no location work. The planet we would be visiting would be created on the studio soundstage. This actually was the usual standard operating procedure for the show. Of my seven adventures, only two left the studio for location filming, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE (my first) and upcoming BREAD AND CIRCUSES.  But the planet created for this production, I think, was one of the finest of the whole series. And it was the director of photography, Jerry Finnerman, who was most responsible for its unique look. I was impressed with his work on THIS SIDE OF PARADISE. With his contributions to this voyage I knew I was working with an artist. A cyclorama for the sky was the backing for the set pieces that would be placed in front of it. It was Jerry who decided that the sky would be purple. It was also Jerry who introduced me to the fish eye lens, the wide angle 9mm. The soundstage we would be shooting on was not very large; it was one of the smallest soundstages I had ever worked on.

For our opening sequence on this foreign planet, the use of the 9mm lens made the shuttlecraft on the ground seem a great distance away. But use of this lens posed a problem; we were shooting off the set; in fact, we were seeing the ceiling of the soundstage. So Jerry brought in large rocks in the foreground to mask the overshoot.

The series has recently been remastered  for a new DVD distribution. In the new version of METAMORPHOSIS the rocks have been removed and replaced by an open vista of the horizon.

I know it is fashionable for directors to object to “improvements” made to their films, and usually I am totally in fashion; but I have to admit, I like what was done in this remastering. It just shows what we could have done forty-five years ago if we had had computers (or more money).

There was another problem created by the use of the fish eye lens.  When Cochran entered the foreground and ran toward the group at the craft, it seemed as if he had on seven league boots; he was covering what seemed like a football field distance in about five paces. I solved this by filming his approach from several angles, which were then joined together in the editing room.

There was yet another challenge connected with this set. The sky cyclorama was not a complete circle; it was 180 degrees max. So any reverse angle shots had to be filmed against the same cyclorama. That meant we shot everything toward the shuttlecraft and then created other arrangements of rocks and trees against the same cyclorama for the reverse angles.

In the clips you will be viewing, the sky is not always the deep purple I have described. These clips are from an old off the air transcription to which time has not been kind. There are a few shots where the purple has survived, so use your imagination. I do think even faded, Jerry Finnerman’s photography is exemplary.  (The color of the sky in the remastered still shot is the purple we filmed.)

Once all of the scenes involving the shuttlecraft were filmed, that set was struck. Cochran’s home, exterior and interior, was erected, the set dressing crew came in, moved trees, plants and rocks around and overnight, in that same small space against the same cyclorama, we had a totally new set.

I was and still am very impressed with Gene Coon’s script. Two years prior to this he was producing and writing THE WILD WILD WEST. I had directed one show for Gene on that series, and at that time he told me that he didn’t have time to write all of the shows, but that show was so special (as was STAR TREK) that he needed to write them. So what he did was have writers come in and submit their ideas which he would buy, and he would have them write their script. That gave him a first draft which he would then rewrite. I know he didn’t take writing credit for many of those scripts.  METAMORPHOSIS was not a rewrite; it was an original Gene Coon script as was THE DEVIL IN THE DARK, that first script that was assigned to me and then replaced. Compare the wild comic lunacy of THE WILD WILD WEST with the subdued dramatic intensity of METAMORPHOSIS — I guess what I’m trying to say is the man was talented!

Jerry Finnerman also contributed another effect for the set. He thought our sky should have clouds, so when we were ready to film, the doors to the soundstage were closed, the fans were turned off, every person was instructed to stand perfectly still, there could be NO movement. The special effects people then came in with their bee smokers and wafted smoke up above the trees. Presto — we had clouds.

The Companion was going to be a matte added in post production to what I filmed. The producers asked me to plan my shots to avoid the necessity of a traveling matte. Let me explain. If I shot a wide shot with Cochran standing at one end of the frame with the Companion superimposed at the other end of the frame — when the Companion moved across the screen to envelop Cochran, that would be a traveling matte. That would be more costly than a stationary matte. So instead I shot a full figure wide shot of Cochran, panned the camera left across the set and stopped, held frame long enough for the matte to be superimposed in the center of the frame, then panned back to the original shot of Cochran. The Companion, superimposed and centered in the frame, now enveloped Cochran.

But then came a sequence where there was no way to avoid a traveling matte.

I was not present in post production when an actress recorded the speeches of the Companion. But I was there to view the film after her speeches had been integrated into the assembled footage. And nobody disagreed with me when I declared the performance, which had been uttered in a robotic monotone, was unacceptable. Another actress was hired, and this time I was present to direct the performance; this time the actress played the MEANING, the humanity of the scene.

At the viewing of the dailies the day after we filmed the scene between Kirk and the Companion, Gene Coon said, “And that’s why we pay him the big money.”

I have read in an interview of Elinor Donahue that she said she was called back to the studio for a retake. I did not direct that retake. Under the agreement between the Directors Guild and the Producers Association, if there had been any major scene to be refilmed, I would have had to be contacted. Obviously the retake was minor. I have studied the film carefully and think I have spotted what was reshot — the long zoom into Nancy when she stands in the doorway. If you look closely I think you will see that her face shows a loss of weight.

When in the arts, if you copy someone, that’s plagiarism, unless you copy a large amount, then it’s a tribute. What is it if you steal from yourself? Because that’s what I did for the final sequence in this episode. The genesis for the opening shot of the scene was an episode of THE FBI (THE ESCAPE) that I had filmed the previous year. In that lakeside scene, the young girl, having made love to her fugitive lover, looks at her surroundings through a pink chiffon scarf. Maybe life now would be rosier for her.

I needed something to start the final scene between Cochran and Nancy. I decided I would have this cloud, recently turned into a human, look and marvel at the scarf that Nancy had in her possession. I would like to take credit and say I planned the unexpected added dimension this gave the scene, but I have to admit, not knowing at that time what the Companion was going to look like, that was not my motivation in doing this. At that point the fact that the vision of him through the scarf was as she was used to seeing him when she was a cloud had no significance for me. As it turned out it was an unforeseen bonus that added a stunning nuance to the scene.

One day walking back to the office after a screening of the completed film, Gene Coon said to me he was just amazed; how had I created that wonderful moment of her looking at Cochran through the scarf as a remembrance of how she had once seen him when she was a cloud. And I had to admit it was just one of those freak wonderful miracles that can happen in film. Now from the vantage point of forty-three years later, I can wonder —  when did the lab start working on the effect for the Companion. We didn’t shoot the Cochran-Nancy scene until the final day; in fact I think it was the last scene to be filmed. Did the lab start work on the Companion before or after that sequence was in the can? Did they see that scene before or after? We’ll probably never know. But who cares! It worked!

There was another question that remains unanswered. Gene Coon told me one of the advantages of being on STAR TREK was that he was able to deal with issues that he couldn’t do on any other series. For instance he had written an episode that emanated from his own anti-Vietnam War feelings. The race issue was a major issue of the sixties. I never asked Gene, but I have since wondered if the cloud-man love story in METAMORPHOSIS was his way of dealing with that issue.

There was something else I didn’t know then but was to learn when I returned for my next flight. Desilu Studios had been sold to Paramount Pictures, a new regime was about to take over, and life in outer space was going to take a sharp turn for the worse.

The journey continues