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1984 Making of ST III )
"This set that we're on is part of the Genesis planet... the set is changing until eventually the set is looking pretty dead... The time I came on the job as director of the picture of ST III there was 16 weeks of preparation which meant all of the set -design, the construction, the re-writing and re-working of the script, the casting of the characters, the designing of make-ups for all those various interesting aliens...
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"Then, after the 16 weeks of preparation a total of 10 weeks of shooting, and then after we'll be doing about 6 weeks of editing, initially, and then probably another 2 or 3 or 4 months of postproduction including all the sounds, the dubbing, the scoring and whatever final editing changes we will make... a clip is shown... Star Trek III for me is a story about friendship and loyalty, loyalty between friends. We have a family group of people who have strong feelings for another, loyalty to one another...
"This is a very ambitious production, probably more ambitious physically than Star Trek I or II were." … A clip is shown where Leonard is directing.)
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Interview:
Was the actual production as complicated as you expected it to be? "It was a very complicated production.
The only way to approach it was to be extremely well prepared which is the way I do... anyway I am the kind
of a person who would be terrified as an actor for example to come out on stage in front of an audience and
not be totally ready. We worked for months hard better than myself
getting the picture ready and on the day we started shooting we were totally
prepared and actually there weren't any unpleasant surprises. It all went very
smoothly."
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Therefore if the extra amount of time available for shooting... "Stop right there, stop right there. The
time you are given for a feature is going to be used up. I have never heard of anybody making a movie and
saying 'We've had too much time'. It going to be used up: Your ambition, your imagination, your taste expands to fill the time... you want size, you want scope, you want large crowds see it, you want storms, you want explosions, all of these things need a lot of time.
The time that's allowed on a movie is more generous than what you would get on a television show, but you need it. Isn't that brilliant what I just said?"
Is it going to be a early event? "I seems to me it will be an ongoing event, I don't know about 'yearly'... it takes time to get these pictures ready... I really don't think it is physically possible to turn out a good one. You need about a year and a half to produce a good Star Trek movie."
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Predictions about Star Trek? "Well, I suspect that, when I'm about 85 years I'm going to get a call asking: Well, Leonard, we're going to make another one. Will you come along and be with us? 'Yeah, sure."... "We can hopefully look forward to some more Star trek in the future."
