Star Trek: Aliens & Artifacts - Softcover

Chapter One: The Pilots

"The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"

Fred B. Phillips watched carefully from the shadows behind a camera on Desilu's Sound Stage 16 at the studio in Culver City as the first take of the day, Scene 15 in the transporter room of the Enterprise, was about to begin. Already in position on the transporter pads, Captain Pike, Mr. Spock, Tyler, and Boyce were waiting to beam down to the surface of Talos IV in response to a distress call from a science vessel that had crashed years earlier. Fred Phillips, the head of makeup for what he and the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, hoped would become a regular series, looked at the characters for any beads of sweat under the hot lights. Phillips was especially concerned about the pointed ears on the actor Leonard Nimoy, who was playing Spock, the alien on the bridge crew whose makeup was particularly critical to the look of the new show. Even a hint that the appliances on his ears were slipping, a seam between the rubber and the glue, would be enough to ruin the entire shot. But the scene went on, Pike and his team rematerialized on the surface of Talos IV, and the first scenes of Star Trek were laid down on film.

What was unfolding before the eyes of the cast and crew on the day after Thanksgiving, November 27, 1964, was something brand-new, a type of science fiction that owed more to the television adult Westerns of the late 1950s and C. S. Forrester's Horatio Hornblower novels than to the action-adventure science fiction shows of early television. The genre had been popular throughout the 1950s, evolving into The Outer Limits in the early 1960s, which set a standard for the look of otherworldly creatures, bizarre aliens, and odd-looking props.

Critical to Roddenberry's vision of the future was the look of his characters' the costuming and the equipment they carried, and the makeup design of the aliens. From the very start, Roddenberry wanted one of the regular characters on the Enterprise bridge crew to be an alien, part his concept for a multi-ethnic, multispecies future of humanity. The alien on the bridge, humanlike in many respects but definitely an extraterrestrial, was a Vulcan Starfleet officer named Spock, whose makeup would go through several transformations before the show finally found its way onto the airwaves.

In creating Spock, Roddenberry wanted to reinforce the notion that there is always an alien presence on the show. But at the heart of the matter, Roddenberry wanted a different perspective, that of an outsider looking in, a "stranger in a strange land." Makeup was vital to the creation of Spock's character because it was important that Spock not only act different, but look different, without being bizarre or monstrous. Also, Spock had to represent a clean break from 1950s science fiction features; no skintight space suits or oversized helmets. Spock was a real character and not a piece of alien comic relief.

Accordingly, the artistry of makeup and hair would be an essential component of Spock, as well of the other Star Trek aliens. But it was the early 1960s, and what Roddenberry was asking for was difficult to accomplish given the shooting schedule of an episodic television series and the types of makeup and appliances available at that time. Even a short time spent watching reruns of The Outer Limits episodes from the early 1960s will reveal the kinds of makeup devices typically used to create an otherworldly look for alien characters. Roddenberry wanted Spock to be able to amalgamate into the rest of the bridge crew yet stand out just enough to be recognized as an alien. And Spock's character had to have the same range of movement as the human characters. This was a challenge.

In Roddenberry's first description of Spock in the show's bible, he wrote:

The First Lieutenant. The Captain's right-hand man, the working-level commander of all the ship's functions -- ranging from manning the bridge to supervising the lowliest scrub detail. His name is Mr. Spock. And the first view of him can be almost frightening -- a face so heavy-lidded and satanic you might almost expect him to have a forked tail. Probably half Martian, he has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears. But strangely -- Mr. Spock's quiet temperament is in dramatic contrast to his satanic look. Of all the crew aboard, he is the nearest to Captain April's equal, physically and emotionally, and as a commander of men. His primary weakness is an almost catlike curiosity over anything the slightest "alien."

Spock was originally conceived as a red-skinned alien, according to Samuel A. Peeples, the author of Star Trek's second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before." In an interview in The Star Trek Interview Book Peeples recalls that Spock had fiery ears and a plate in the middle of his stomach. He didn't eat or drink, but he fed upon any form of energy that struck this stomach plate. Peeples told Roddenberry that in his opinion this effectively destroyed Spock as an interesting character, because he was no longer a recognizable human being. It was Peeples's idea, he told the interviewer, that Spock should be half human and have problems resulting from both sides of his character and personality.

Roddenberry took Peeples's advice and brought Spock back to a more human look. He was also being realistic, because the makeup budget didn't allow for the re-creation of exotic designs that would reinvent the makeup industry. They had to use what they had, rely on the resources of the studio as well as outsource to companies that could work on very tight budgets. The budget restrictions also meant that, as much as possible, conventional makeup would have to define the look of aliens. The fundamental differences between aliens and humans would be best represented by different habits and conventions that would be translated into story. As Roddenberry wrote in the show's bible:

Alien Life. Normal production casting of much of this alien is made practical by the SIMILAR WORLDS CONCEPT To give continual variety, use will, of course, have to be made of wigs, skin coloration, changes in noses, hands, ears, and even the occasional addition of tails and such.

As exciting as physical differences, and often even more so, will be the universe's incredible differences in social organizations, customs, habit, nourishment, religion, sex, politics, morals, intellect, locomotion, family life, emotions, etc.

Also for Roddenberry, the look of aliens and strange new worlds on Star Trek was defined by the still infant technology of broadcasting a show in color. A majority of household television sets were still black-and-white. NBC was one of the first networks to have a color television series, gambling that the popularity of Bonanza would sell the concept of color television to America's growing television audience. But by 1964 there was still a lot of uncertainty as to how well television would pick up subtle color skin tones.

Makeup artist Frank Westmore was one of the early explorers in the field of makeup for color television. He was hired by Paramount, where Bonanza was filmed, to run a series of color makeup tests to see how full-color makeup transmitted. His experiment also had to determine the colors most compatible with black-and-white so that broadcasting in color didn't make the images on a black-and-white set look so indistinct that it turned away viewers. For example, if an artist applied a fantasy makeup using bright reds, greens, or blues, they could look indistinguishable on a black-and-white set. So the television production studios needed a color-compatibility chart. Frank Westmore devised a chart, which quickly became a benchmark for color to black-and-white compatibility.

First, Gene Roddenberry had to convince his network that Star Trek had to be in color. NBC was reluctant to make a commitment to color in 1964 because of the expense and the lack of an audience for the new show. Roddenberry explained to the network that one of the most important premises of the show's artistic and makeup design was color. He explained that it would make no sense for the Enterprise to visit strange new worlds only to find that the atmosphere looked the same shades of gray. By the simple use of color filters and lighting gels, the blue sky of Earth would become the red sky of Mars without expensive set design. Color would solve a multitude of production issues.

Color was not only a more effective way to deliver the show's premise, Roddenberry argued, it added a dimension of believability to the series that could not be conveyed in black-and-white. Without color, how could he show the distinction between aliens and humans without expensive and bizarre makeup appliances? If Mr. Spock was redtoned, how would that show up in gray? And how could Vina, the green-skinned yet otherwise perfectly human Orion slave girl, appear to be an exotic alien when she was only a deeper shade of gray in black-and-white? When NBC agreed to finance a color production, Roddenberry moved on to the next issues, the casting and final makeup of Mr. Spock.

After selecting Leonard Nimoy to play Spock, Roddenberry had to work the look of the alien into something believable within the restrictions of his budget. He hired Lee Greenway, the creator of the monster in Howard Hawks's 1951 film The Thing, as the production company's makeup artist, whose first assignment was the design of the alien Mr. Spock. Leonard Nimoy and Greenway had worked together before, in a small feature called Kid Monk Baroni years earlier. Greenway first tried to manipulate some papier-mâché, and then literally poured liquid latex over Nimoy's ears. With no budget and no time to prepare, the prefabricated appliances that Greenway would have liked to create just weren't available. He had to build this character on the spot from scratch.

Pressing on, Greenway next covered up the outer half of Nimoy's eyebrows with mortician's wax and began the painstaking process of gluing a new eyebrow, this time slanted up toward the pointed ears. Then came the deep-reddish-tint skin dye, and Spock was ready for his first screen makeup test. The test was shot on the set of The Lucy Show, which was being taped later that evening. As the cameras rolled film, Nimoy turned his head to the left and right, capturing as many angles of the alien makeup as possible for this first test, which would tell the producers if they'd achieved the alien look they were after.

But this first stab at alien makeup didn't work. On the color monitors the makeup looked passable, but for the majority of homes that still had black-and-white televisions, Leonard Nimoy looked like he was wearing pasty Halloween makeup. Roddenberry decided that the color base had to be changed for the next screen test. He also wanted other changes to make the character look less like he was a human being wearing funny appliances and more like a humanoid whose features were just different enough to make it clear that he was not of this Earth. Oscar Katz, the president of Desilu, wrote a memo to Roddenberry that read:

EAR: Tone down the pointed ear. It should be cupped more so as to create a more natural look.

HAIR: Should have a bowl shaped haircut with a frayed or jagged look.

EYEBROWS: Should be shaped so as to lead up toward the ears.

Roddenberry next memoed his production team that they needed to find a permanent makeup man with experience in network television series and an ability to create designs for alien characters in a science fiction series. "Is it possible," Roddenberry wrote, "to get a blend of these two qualities?"

Robert Justman, recently hired by Roddenberry as the assistant director and associate producer for "The Cage," knew you needed someone who understood the intricacies of television production but appreciated the complexities of special makeup. Justman also understood that Star Trek needed someone with experience in other science fiction television shows who was capable of setting up his own shop within the production unit, because Desilu Studios had no makeup department. All makeup, except for Lucille Ball's makeup, was done on portable tables right on the set. The new makeup director had to establish what amounted to his own department.

Bob Justman chose Fred Phillips to take over makeup, in part because the two of them had worked together on The Outer Limits, and Justman knew that Fred Phillips understood the genre of science fiction and the importance of not having his extraterrestrials look like the aliens of 1950s B movies. Phillips had also developed a series of prosthetics and appliances that could be mixed and matched and that helped manage a makeup and effects budget that could have gotten out of control.

Time was very tight as the Star Trek team approached the first day of shooting for the pilot. Spock's makeup had to be fixed, and Phillips had another major test to perform. It was on the character of Vina transformed by the Talosians into the green-skinned Orion slave girl. This was an especially important test, almost as important as Spock, because the appearance of the slave girl had to sell the tension of the scene by shaking the reserve of Captain Pike, who must refuse to succumb to the intense sexuality of the mate selected for him by his keepers, the Talosians. As the script described Vina:

Wild! Green skin, glistening as if oiled. Her fingertips are long gleaming razor-edge scimitars, her hair not unattractive but suggesting a wild animal mane. She is moving out to the open rectangle in front of the table, eyes wild. We feel she's larger than before, immensely strong. The female slaves have hurried off, frightened. But one is slower and Vina suddenly pivots with a CAT SOUND, bars a frightened female slave's escape.

This was a critical test of how the green would look in color as well as black-and-white. However, because actress Susan Oliver had not yet been selected to play the role, the only woman on the set was the actress playing Captain Pike's first officer, Number One, Majel Barrett. She agreed to be the stand-in for the test.

In those days of early color television, the processing of the film could make colors read very differently from the way they were shot. As a result, the early television makeup artists went through much the same processes as their feature-film counterparts did in the early days of Technicolor. But for Gene Roddenberry and Fred Phillips, this was a first. No one had ever tried to make an actress green on television before, and not even Fred Phillips was sure how it would turn out.

Phillips applied several different shades of green greasepaint to Majel's face and arms before she was set up on Stage 15, where she was to be photographed in front of a neutral gray backdrop. Then, in test after test, they shot footage of Majel at different exposures and with different changes to the lighting on the set. They experimented with different angles to see how the green would register under a variety of conditions, espe...