i

 

OFFICE MEMORANDU.A © STANFORD UNIVERSITY ¢ OFFICE MEMORANDUM

   
 

fi

Date:
To Mr “fl he
lfrbd A. Knopf publ.)
From Joshua Lederbe:

Susiect: Andromeda Strain

poem “er

You may be interested in the enclosure for
your own information, and I enclose copies also
that I ask be forwarded to Dr. Crichton.

JUL zu 1970

Cordially,

 

RUULIA ALU WIAA BIC AVLULLN | dIaaIU 2UE Aaa AY 2 TU
prize in medicine).
Basic scientists who have worked in the genetics of
bacteria and viruses believe that these discoveries have
ever growing importance for the prevention and healing
of serious human diseases. We live, in the present era,
in an incompletely justified optimism about having
“conquered infectious bacterial disease” as the fruit
of the development of the antibiotics. However, viruses
are in general still beyond the reach of antibiotic ther-
apy. Even bacteria, believed to be under firm control

”

~ o
<
5

.

Isa ban
asures needed
‘arth.

itinuing their own evolution and
; upon human health with re-
ig run, only our continued vigil-_
olution can justify our hope of
lead in this life and death race.
sride I might wish to take in the
ts that may arise from my own
ashes by the application of this
cht for the engineering of bio-
In this respect we are in some-
n as the nuclear physicist who
mnt of atomic weapons, with one
slear weaponry depends on the
ial technology. It has then been
‘eat powers long enough to sus-
‘e of deterrence and to build a
| on non-proliferation. Nuclear
ally, become a stabilizing factor
he status quo in parallel with
sonomic and industrial develop-
(] work just the other way.
Study Report on chemical and
1as summarized some infectious
d as points of departure for the |
sical weapons. Any knowledge-
suggest many more. I will not
details, nor will I bludgeon you
ses that some of these agents pro-
to your own conscience the bur-
nts about using these kinds of
cans would be repelled by the
10 less by exposure to the human
aeussveve we easy veers -orm of warfare. Overriding such
comparisons should be the grave moral issue in a policy
that risks the lives of a world of innocent bystanders.
Fortunately, these concerns actually converge with our
self-interest in calling for a halt to bacterial warfare
before it becomes established in the arms-traffic of the

world.

Mi Y MAIN FEARS ABOUT BW have to do with the
side-effects of its proliferation 1) as a technique

of aggression by smaller nations and insurgent groups

WNaNVaOwWIwW 391970 © ALISSZAINN GHOANVIS ¢ WNGNV¥OWIW 3291440 ALISSZAINN GYXOINVIS

15

Reprinted from Stanford M.D., Fall 1969, Vol. 8, No. 4. © 1969 by the Stanford Medical Alumni Association.
 

A scene from Universal’s ‘The Andromeda Strain”’—“The reality of each shot became a passion.”

DIRECTORS AT WORK-—III

WISE IN
HOLLYWOOD

by ARTHUR KNIGHT

he In thing in Hollywood these

days, it seems, is to proclaim the

death of the big studios, a prop-
osition that is not difficult to sustain
when one visits most of the lots out
here, The silence, the inactivity, the
emptiness are almost oppressive. Sev-
cral studios have closed their once
bustling commissaries. At Paramount,
generally you now can park your car
on the famous Western street, with its
rows of wooden frontier shops and
houses, and a man-made mountain
hovering in the background. Metro has
already auctioned off its treasure-trove

22

of props and costumes; another studio
—no one dares guess which—reputedly”
has had its own inventory appraised
with the same purpose in mind. On a
clear dav, you can almost see buzzards
circling in the skies over Los Angeles.

Without question, the next year or so
will witness drastic revisions and reor-
ganizations within the motion picture
industry. Reshuffling has already begun
in the higher echelons, while staffs
have been cut to the bone. And fur-
ther, many independents have taken
1o searching around outside the indus-
try altogether for their financing,
making distribution deals with the
majors only after their picture has
been completed. Or, more often, they
take the studio’s money and run—run
as far from the lot as possible, in the
manner of Dennis Hopper with Easy
Rider or his forthcoming The Last
Movie, which he shot in Peru.

Despite all this convincing evidence
to the contrary, however, the persistent
rumor that the studios are dead is, as
they like to say about the theater, pre-
mature. There are, and presumably

ever will be, some movies that simply
could never be made without both the
technical facilities and the financial
resources of a major studio. To date,
and without exception, the independ-
ent financing secured outside the indus-
try has been in terms of a half-million
dollars and under; the multimillion-
dollar movie still requires the under-
writing of an established firm that can
amortize the considerable risks of a
single production over a wide range of
films. More importantly, like them or
loathe them, these costly spectaculars
demand stages, settings, costumes, and
sometimes special effects that may well
tax the staff and full resources of any
major studio, but would be utterly im-
possible with anything less.

The Andromeda Strain, currently
nearing completion at Universal, is
such a picture. Actually, as with most
studio-based productions today, it
might best be described as a semi-
independent. Robert Wise, its astute
producer-director, discovered Michael
Crichton’s highly topical science-fiction
novel while it was still in galleys, and

SRYAUGUST 8, 1970
promptly decided that he wanted to do
it. Since his previous efforts had been
The Sound of Music and The Sand Peb-
bles, and he had just finished working
on Star!, he felt that it was time to
break away from a growing identifica-
tion with costumes and musicals. The
Andromeda Strain offered a respect-
able escape route; but the asking price
was $350,000 for the rights, and Twen-
tieth Century-Fox, then Wise’s home
studio, had little confidence in the proj-
ect. It would be difficult to ascertain
whether Universal had any more con-
fidence in Crichton’s novel, still unpub-
lished at the time, but they did want
Robert Wise. This was before Airport
had shored up Universal’s finances, and
the higher echelons at the studio
seemed to feel that, at the very least,
his presence on the lot might shore up
their prestige. Besides, with more than
thirty pictures to his credit in almost
as many years as a director, he was
regarded as a money-maker. He was
worth the gamble. Universal purchased
the story for his independent company
and agreed to back him to the tune of
$6-million (which ended up as closer
to $6.5-million).

Ensconced in a bungalow suite on
the Universal lot, Wise selected Nelson
Gidding, who had worked with him on
many previous films, to prepare the
screenplay on what is known in the
trade as a “step deal”’—meaning that
the writer can be paid off and the en-
tire production canceled after the sub-
mission of a treatment, a first draft of
the screenplay, or even after the prep-
aration of a final draft. But Gidding’s
script won the approval of the gentle-
men in Universal’s “Black Tower,” and
the full $6-million agreed upon was
made available to Wise to proceed with
production. Gambling with their
money, Wise put together a cast that
must have caused the studio consider-
able consternation, particularly since
Universal is known for its aversion to
expensive movies without stars. “I
wanted my set to be the star,’ Wise
later explained. A stubby, graying man
with steady eyes, a straight-line mouth,
and a determined set to his jaw, he
won his point. While the cast that Wise
ultimately assembled, headed by such
seasoned performers as Arthur Hill,
David Wayne, and Kate Reid, could
hardly be termed unknowns, neither
are they of the box-office stature nor-
mally selected by a studio to carry a
multimillion-dollar movie.

From an artistic standpoint, at least,
Wise was completely right. Gidding’s
script is extremely faithful to Crich-
ton’s best-selling novel, which has to do
with a team of scientists in a top-secret
underground lab and their efforts,
dubbed Operation Wildfire, to isolate a
pulsating, mutating new germ, brought

SR/AUGUST 8, 1970

back from a space probe, that can kill
on contact. A few star names could
easily throw the team effect out of
balance; more seriously, the presence
of a number of star faces might well
undermine the documentary style that
Wise had already envisaged for this
science-fiction adventure. To lend a
similar authenticity to the installations
of Operation Wildfire, so vividly—and,
ironically, so easily—described by
Crichton in his book, Wise brought in
another long-time associate from ear-
lier efforts, designer Boris Leven, a
slender, pipe-smoking artist and archi-
tect who looks like a cross between
Sherlock Holmes and Charlie Butter-
worth. Leven designed sets and scien-
tific hardware to dress his sets that,
before the shooting was over, not only
had won the approbation of some of
the leading aerospace experts in South-
ern California but had them trying to
incorporate his inventive concepts into
their own labs, installations, and equip-
ment.

I is in the physical backup of a pro-
duction of this kind that the big
studio operation is seen at its best.
While the script was still approaching

its final form and casting had just
got under way, scouts were out on
a six-state search throughout the
Southwest for the ghost town that
would stand in for Crichton’s Pied-
mont, New Mexico (they settled for
Shafter, Texas, 200 miles southeast of
El Paso), and for the uninhabited area
around Flatrock, Nevada, where the
novel had located the Desert Reclama-
tion Station of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture that serves as a “front”
for Wildfire’s five-story underground in-
stallation (Ocotillo Wells, a flat, sun-
baked stretch of sand and scrub south-
west of California’s Salton Sea was
finally selected).

Because the Ocotillo Wells location
was supposed to suggest agricultural
experimentation, early last January—
fully five weeks before the start of
photography—a Universal crew set out
a tremendous network of irrigation
pipes across the desert and planted
hundreds of acres of corn. When desert
winds destroyed the shoots, the crew
replanted with barley. In the center of
the barley, another team of studio
workmen took three weeks to erect the
station—three-quarters of a two-story,
cream-colored, shingle-roofed  struc-

 

“I wanted my set to be the star’ ”’—producer-director Robert
Wise (wearing glasses) during filming of ‘‘The Andromeda Strain.”

23
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Before you have your teach-in, think-in, love-in, or whatever, it’s garbage-out!"

ture with a wide, gray porch, looking
as if it might at one time have been a
comfortable farmhouse. “As it turned
out,” said Leven, puffing on his inevit-
able pipe, “most agricultural stations
are part of state universities. So after
looking at hundreds of photographs, I
had to invent one.” This building alone
cost the studio close to $40,000 to con-
struct. For the shooting, which took

place in May (by which time the barley -

stood perhaps ten inches above the
ground), a caravan of ten trucks and
eighty-eight crewmen left the studio
and spent three days on location. The
entire sequence—building and barley—
remains on screen for perhaps two
minutes.

Meanwhile, back at Universal, the
Wildfire sets were beginning to go up.
One tends to think of a picture as
occupying the whole of a single sound
stage. When a setting is finished with,
it is struck, and, miraculously, the next
one appears there in the morning. Not
at all. A major production may tie up
numerous stages for weeks on end. The
Andromeda Strain required three, and
for just short of six months. Two were
devoted to ingeniously constructed
laboratories and their related rooms in
the underground installation (with
about $3-miilion worth of authentic
scientific equipment on loan from such
firms as North American Rockwell and
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Cav-
ernous Stage 12, one of the largest on
the Universal lot, held the heart of the
film: the vast, cylindrical, metal-lined
core of Operation Wildfire, five stories
high, and also the tubular corridor that
encircles it. Readers of The Andromeda

24

Strain will recall that at each of the
five levels the corridor was painted a
different color—charcoal, blue, maroon,
green, and white in descending order.
Since this set alone cost more than
$250,000, viewers of the film will, hope-
fully, forgive Universal for using the
same plaster-cast, Masonite-lined cor-
ridor—125 feet in diameter—five times
and recoloring it with a different metal-
lic lacquer on each occasion.

According to a sign posted near the
double doors that lead into Stage 12,
it is 200 x 149 feet and measures 50 feet
6 inches from floor to grid. The core
set that Boris Leven designed extends ,
one-and-a-half levels above the grid,
with an exterior elevator to convey cast
and crew to almost the very top. (The
last ten feet or so requires the portage
of cameras, lights—and visitors—over
a series of rickety catwalks and ladders
that would make a superb finale for a
Hitchcock movie.) The set, however,
does not extend merely from studio
floor to ceiling. For the lowest level of
this gray, tubular structure, with its
five levels of metal catwalk and a nar-
row ladder extending its entire height,
Universal permitted Wise’s company
to excavate 15 feet below the concrete
floor of the studio. (A fair-sized moun-
tain of dirt near the rear entrance to
Stage 12 indicates that, once shooting
is over, it will all be replaced.) The
point is that only a studio working on
one of its own productions would au-
thorize such a desecration in the first
place.

Again, one of the strengths of an
established studio is the well-trained
manpower in its many departments.

Leven has said that only in Hollywood
and England would it be possible to
find craftsmen sufficiently skilled to
meet the special demands of his de-
signs—and in England, he added, they
are far better at creating fancy mold-
ings than the ingenious flats and fit-
tings of his Wildfire settings. Similarly,
studio camera departments are con-
stantly experimenting with new lenses,
new film stocks, new lights to provide
an ever widening range of visual ex-
pression for the film-maker. While the
diopter lens is not precisely new, cer-
tainly it has never before been as inten-
sively used as in The Andromeda
Strain. Essentially, it is a glass placed
over the normal camera lens that mag-
nifies one preselected portion of the
image and reproduces the remainder
without distortion, thus intensifying
the sense of depth or distance within
a shot. Richard Kline, the cinematog-
rapher on the picture, estimates that
one out of every three shots he took
was made in this fashion, often with
a large head in the foreground while
other action, also in sharp focus, took
place beyond.

In one setup, photographed from the
very top of the Wildfire core while
actor James Olson climbs a perilous
ladder with real lasers training their
green beams upon him and supposedly
noxious gases fuming below, Wise
fussed about with an extra-large diop-
ter, a rectangle of glass surrounded by
a pinewood frame. The shot was lined
up, realigned, realigned again. After
almost an hour, the shot was declared
impossible; there was no way to follow
focus as the actor climbed toward the
camera that would not reveal the diop-
ter’s special trick. “But when you
spend three hours setting up the lights,”
Wise said, just before calling a Junch
break, “it would be foolish not to take
another half hour or so to try for a real-
ly exciting shot’”—even though time in
the studio averages out to about $10,000
every hour.

Wise, originally a film editor, was
literally turned on by the photographic
possibilities of The Andromeda Strain.
When ordinary light failed to reveal
with proper intensity the accumula-
tion of corpses in Piedmont, the touch-
down site of the space missile, he or-
dered a second run-through of the
scene, this time with the helicopter-
borne cameras loaded with infrared
film. The whole purpose of building
the agricultural station near Ocotillo
Wells, with its surrounding field of bar-
ley, was to avoid all sense of rear-pro-
jection fakery. When, in a corridor shot
looking out toward the fields, a tractor
featured in the background action fell
into a rut, Wise merely said into his
walkie-talkie, “Bring out the other
tractor.” For a scene in which David

SR/AUGUST 8, 1970
Wayne and Kate Reid drive up a de-
serted road to the installation, he had
a door removed from the car and an
automatic camera lashed to the side,
which Wayne triggered. While Wayne
drove, Wise crouched on the floor in
the rear, following the script and re-
cording the dialogue with a small, por-
table Nagra.

The reality of each shot became a pas-
sion. For the sequences photographed
within Wildfire, with their extended
use of sophisticated, closed-circuit tele-
vision sets, the televised images are not
simulated. Ordinarily, such scenes are
filmed by an optically printed matte
process that invariably gives itself
away by revealing a thin white or pur-
ple line between the TV set and the
picture. Each of the innumerable tele-
vision sets seen in The Andromeda
Strain is for real, with all of the images
fed into them on live channels. What
makes this so extraordinary is the fact
that these images include action—the
proliferation of the strain itself, to be
precise—that, mercifully, does not ex-
ist in this world.

For these sequences, the high point
of his film, Wise turned to the youth-
ful Douglas Trumbull, who created the
memorable space flight effects for the
climax of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A
Space Odyssey. Trumbull's specialty is
computerized animation, complicated
in the extreme. For a sequence depict-
ing Andromeda’s growth, lasting per-
haps thirty seconds on the screen,
twenty-two hours of continuous com-
puterized shooting was involved—and
four months of preparation prior to
that. The hexagons representing the
nucleus of the strain explode and im-
plode simultaneously, they change col-

 

or, they increase in volume. Despite the
complex data fed into Trumbull’s ma-
chinery, the sequence still had to be
processed and reprocessed six times to
produce all of the desired colorations
and permutations. Until the animation
was successfully completed, two weeks
later than scheduled, Wise had to shoot
around it, retaining essential sets—and
borrowed, expensive equipment—for
the moment when they, and it, would
play their part in the completed film.
Through it all, Wise remained monu-
mentally unflappable. When word came
to Ocotillo Wells that the animation
sequences were not quite ready, even
though these were the scenes he had
planned to shoot on the return to the
studio, he calmly laid out other se-
quences that might take their place.
When actors flubbed lines, he quietly
paced the set until camera and sound
were ready for retakes. Then, in his
quiet, patient voice, he would say—for
the hundredth time—Here we go now.
Settle down. Action?” The final word
was part command, part hope. The only
thing that disturbs his equanimity is
sheer, almost willful stupidity—a grip
whose feet remain in view of the cam-
era after he has been asked to leave
the set, a workman who leaves tracks

.on a newly painted floor. Then he grum-

bles his dissatisfaction in muttered
asides to the assistants who surround
him. He never purposely seeks to em-
barrass the culprit, which in itself is
rare in Hollywood.

It takes a major studio to muster
the resources that make possible an
Andromeda Strain. It takes the author-
ity of a major studio to empower one
of its minions, on the Ocotillo Wells lo-
cation, to phone through to Wise, “I’m

c

“Where have you been? According to the
radio, you were deposed four hours ago.”

SR/AUGUST 8, 1970

holding a border patrolman here. Shall
I let him through?” (Throughout their
three days in this area, shooting was
frequently interrupted by motor pa-
trols and Piper Cubs on the lookout
for wetbacks.) It takes the staff of a
major studio to. work out the logistics
of support that can keep a large com-
pany functioning smoothly throughout
four months of principal photography.

Just as The Andromeda Strain—both
the film and the novel—is locked into
the implacable present, with its search
for viable ways out for the future of
the human race, so is Robert Wise. “He
is a fatalist,” says Boris Leven, mean-
ing not that Wise looks toward the fu-
ture with doom-cast eyes, but that he
accepts the present as it unquestion-
ably is, and does what he can to make
it better. He accepts, for example, the
studio system, functions well within it
himself, and uses his considerable
power and prestige to assist younger
men in whom he believes. Last year, for
example, he backed the youthful John
Flynn in his first production, The Ser-
geant. This year he is responsible for
James Bridges’s forthcoming The Baby
Maker. (In both instances, because of
his own commitments, Wise turned
over the producer reins on these to
Richard Goldstone, a friend who had
given him his first taste of success with
The Set-Up, more than twenty years
ago.)

On The Andromeda Strain, Wise sur-
rounded himself with young people.
Steven Henschel, a USC undergraduate
with a grant from the American Film
Institute, served as liaison between
Wise and Douglas Trumbull, a chore
that Henschel described as ‘probably
the most important break of my life.”
Keeping track of the extensive paper-
work, including the complicated loca-
tion payrolls, was Walter Dominguez,
a trainee sponsored by the Motion Pic-
ture Association and the Directors
Guild. On his own, Wise added to his
payroll Jon Bloom, a student at Anti-
och College, who functioned as a pro-
duction assistant as part of his Anti-
och work-study program. All are in
their early twenties, while Trumbull,
the computer expert, is a ripe twenty-
eight.

Robert Wise believes in young people.
He also believes that a place can be
found for them within the formerly
inhospitable walls of the studios, if
those walls don’t come tumbling down.
Indeed, he feels strongly that the sur-
vival of the industry depends upon the
encouragement of young people who,
like himself, can fashion a modus vi-
vendi within the studio system. For the
studio system hasn’t died. Not yet. It
is just awaiting the next blood trans-
fusion from another Sound of Music—
or, perhaps, an Andromeda Strain.

25