RECREATION
DECK
| When the script
(everything starts with the script) called for a large
never-before-seen room on the Enterprise, the question was "Where would
it be?" "Where SHOULD
it be?" I thought it would fit nicely on the saucer centerline,
below the officer's lounge, as a two-deck space, because it would have
provided balcony space for a lot of crew members during the V'ger
briefing. Unfortunately, creating unique windows, which would be seen from interior spaces, gets very tricky because it can be perceived as dictating, to the Production Designer, just what he/she must do to accommodate us,... the effects team. Because of Hal's seniority (compounded by his lack of S.F. savvy), this situation was never comfortable. Nevertheless, because of how it would look on the miniature, I suggested this location. Some of you will find this drawing interesting because it shows the ship as it existed in June of 1978, with several modifications still left to do, the superstructure, sensor dome, torpedo tubes, etc. Notice also, the deck level indications. The angled lines, going back, are rough field-of-view indications. |
| Continuing
with my centerline window campaign,... I submitted this scene proposal
of Spock's shuttle arrival and how it might look through those
windows, trying to create some visually dramatic reasons to consider
incorporating them.. Today, this scene would be easy to shoot on a blue-screen stage,... but back then, a Production Designer would look at it and worry that they can't get glass that big. Hal had planed a lot of phenomenal foreground miniature shots throughout his career, so special visual shots weren't anything new to him. A shot like this, however, may have seemed a bit challenging and expensive, when added to an already stressful production. |
| Hal agreed that the
saucer centerline was the place for the Rec Room, but at the back of
the
saucer, where windows would be a lot easier to build. I explained
to him
that there was a huge engine in that location and it would be way too hot there. Still
maintaining his sense of humor, he decided to go & have a look at
the miniature for himself and discovered a cluster of windows just to
the right of that Impulse Engine. By modifying those windows, he
knew he could provide a matching group for his Rec Room interior set,
on stage. |
| Realizing that the
Enterprise wasn't as familiar to Hal, as it was to the rest of us,... I
rushed back to Abel's and put together the sketch below, in order to
familiarize Hal with the saucer's cross section and how it was shaped
at the rim. I hoped he would see the value in maintaining that
level of
continuity and suggested that terracing would add a tremendous amount
of visual
interest while allowing everyone to see the V'ger briefing on some sort
of screen by the windows. Kirk might stand beside it on the
window-level
walkway. (Because I'm
now blatantly
intruding on Hal's 'interior'
territory, I included the notation in the lower left corner.)
Anyway, Hal blew it
off in favor of his oversized (for the space) set saying that
"no
one goes to a
movie with a slide rule in his hand!"
He
don't know us vewerry well,
do he?
|
| Then I also produced this original-to-modified windows sketch, as I recall, in an effort to provide Hal with smaller windows, in case he wanted to reconsider using those larger deck spaces below the officer's lounge... and they still would have looked cool on the miniature. |
| Well, the set turned
out very well and only a few of us slide rule carriers would ever know
the difference. |