I am now the proud owner of "Star Trek 365: The Original Series", a massive house-brick sized book filled with big colour pics and lots of info. Written by Paula Block & Terry Erdmann, from Abrams Publishing (no connection to JJ). It weighs a tonne!
http://therinofandor.blogspot.com/2010/08/star-trek-365.html I've included a few random inside pics from the 365 double spreads.
Drat. I want commission! Have been chatting to Paula Block overnight. It seems as if UK and Australian orders are arriving in shops before the domestic shipment arrives in the USA! I just love being in the right place at the right time. For once.
Hmm looks sort of interesting, but isn't knocking me over. I think this is one I'll have to have a good look through before I decide on whether to get it or not.
I just found out about this yesterday, through idly browsing through the latest issue of Star Trek: The Magazine. That issue includes a short interview with the coauthors. Their intention was to focus on rare images not previously seen. That grabbed my attention in a hurry. As various folks here on the BBS know, Curt M and I have sort of the motherlode collection of rare images. I was not aware of this project. I have been entirely out of the Trek loop for several years. 'Real life' has been quite harsh for me and my wife. To be perfectly honest, as of today, we are living out of our car, as we no longer have a home. Anyhow, it seems to me that if we can get in touch with these people, maybe they would want to make use of our material and produce several more books. This is the kind of project that Curt and I intended several years ago, but various things got in the way of it at that time. Perhaps now, with CBS at the helm, new opportunities are opening up. One of the specifics that the coauthors mentioned in the interview was that they had hoped to find rare images from the time of filming Operation Annihilate! at TRW, but that they had not been able to locate any. Well, it just so happens that I have a photo of two female Trek fans who worked at TRW standing out in front of one of the TRW buildings in full costume and makeup. One as a yeoman in gold and the other as a Vulcan science officer. These were two fans very deeply into Trek not years later, but while the series was still filming. Their home-made costumes and makeup are so well done that it looks as though they could have just stepped off the set. If anyone knows how to go about making contact with the coauthors and/or Abrams, please let me know. I would like the opportunity to share what I put together over the years. I think a lot of fans would be glad to see a ton of images that they never saw before that managed to survive. And God knows I could use some good news from some quarter. Thanks David B
The publisher put out something like this, but say technical manuals or other types of reference books don't sell well? I can see buying this if I was an TOS hardcore fan, but otherwise I will thumb through it at the bookstore or look at it in the library.
This book is from Abrams Publishing, but has no connection to with JJ Abrams. I guess the big difference is that it's not from Pocket Books but is still a semi-licensed(?) product. It doesn't carry the CBS logos, but does thank the CBS Licensing Division, although Paula ran that division for many years so she certainly had an inside track on getting the book through its redtape hurdles. Page 147-148 has a great shot of the landing party dwarfed by the bizarre structures of TRW's "Space Park" at Redondo Beach, CA. As requesting in your PM, I've forwarded your post to Paula Block, but remember that this book has barely come out yet. It would be unlikely to get a sequel all too soon. I would think we'd see a TOS movies or TNG edition before we saw a TOS Book 2. Or, Abrams Publishing would look to other shows entirely. Wikipedia: "Abrams Books publishes illustrated books on the subjects of art, architecture, photography, graphic design, interior and garden design, fashion, music, comic arts and graphic novels, and sports. The Abrams imprint is currently under the direction of Vice President and Editor-in-Chief Eric Himmel and Senior Vice President and Publisher Steven Tager. Books published by this imprint includes the bestselling '365' and 'Discoveries' series." Sure, but these kinds of books - expensive, glossy, full of pics - are expensive suckers and book shops will probably be cautious about stocking too many of them - I can imagine people really damaging these books while riffling them over and over in the shops. Made me very glad to find mine in a shop not too many hours after being unpacked!
All true. Bottom line is...no one gets rich doing these books. (Least of all the author! Ask any of the ST authors on this very bbs--they'll tell ya) None of the image contributors were paid for the use their imagery--they just got my undying gratitude and a free copy of the book. it was a labor of love for everyone involved. But I sincerely hope that life improves very very soon for TrickyDickie!
P.S. As you can see, I'm not very technically savvy. I inadvertently put several of my responses right after Therin's. Sorry! Hope you can make out what I was attempting to say in my low-tech dundering way!
I'm looking forward to this book. Does it have a photo of Lucille Ball visiting any of the sets? Neil
Sadly, no. Couldn't find one. Closest we could get is a photo of Mr. Spock with Carol Burnett! Lucy is mentioned several times though.
Thanks, Paula. I'm buying the book regardless, but you'd think with it being a Desilu show she may have stopped by just once to visit the set. Seeing her on the bridge would be so cool. Thanks for answering! Neil
She did! There's a wonderful anecdote in an early "making of" book that talks about how the ST production had to stop at a certain time (was it 6pm?) or the studio itself (not Star Trek) was charged overtime for the cleaning crew. Lucille Ball hated waste. IIRC, it was during some hold-ups in the making of "What A Little Girls Made Of?" that caused Lucy to barge onto the set and grab a broom, sweeping the studio floor clean between takes so that the cleaners could do their job and still leave on time and not incur any overtime. Lucy is briefly seen in one of the ST blooper reels, but I'm not sure if the brief shot (I think she exclaims "Egad!") was from the ST set itself, or grabbed from somewhere in the Desilu archives. "The Carol Burnett Show" pic (1967), recently discussed elsewhere on TrekBBS, is on page 228, and shows Burnett holding a baby, mistaking Leonard Nimoy's Spock as the famous baby expert, Doctor Benjamin Spock. Thanks paulablock for responding to our posts so promptly! I've received several emails from people saying they pre-ordered the book from Amazon after reading these posts. Hope you see some royalties!
RE Lucy: Great story about Lucy, Therin! FYI, the brief clip of Lucy in the blooper reel is from "The Lucy Show," which was also airing during that period. Not sure why they included it, although it may have just been an in-joke for the cast and crew's benefit (since the reels were always shown at cast and crew gatherings, generally the wrap party at the end of the season)--or possibly even for Lucy's amusement (as the big boss, they would have invited her to the wrap party, although who knows if she came). Happy to make an appearance on the boards. Re Royalties, well, no chance of that. These days the advance is pretty much the only payment one of us Trek writers receives--that trend started several years ago. The pub industry is not exactly in a financially sound way these days.... However, there's a chance that if the book sells decently, there will be other books like it. There haven't been any nonfiction Trek books in a long time and I was proud to be asked to work on this one.
Clarification on Lucy: As related by James Goldstone in the video version of "Inside Star Trek", it was during the last bits of filming "Where No Man Has Gone Before", during the fight between Kirk and Mitchell on Delta Vega, and they were having trouble getting the last shot, mainly because of the debris blocking the camera dolly and nobody being free to sweep the crap out of the way. Lucy and the assorted studio and network bigwigs are in the next soundstage, all ready to start the wrap party, but they can't uncork the champagne until they get that last shot and declare a wrap, so Lucy, in glittery cocktail dress and flaming red hair, comes in to see what the holdup is. Goldstone tells her, and she asks if there's anything she can do to help. He asks her to grab a broom and sweep the bits of junk out of the way of the camera so they can get that last shot, and being the trooper she was, she grabs the broom, sweeps ahead of the camera, they get the shot, wrap, and the party commences. Think about that for a second. The owner of the freakin' studio chipping in and doing a job that would normally be given to a grip or a gofer. You don't see that sort of thing today.
Lucy was way ahead of her time. When I first began working at Paramount, I became acquainted with an old attorney who used to work for Desilu before it became part of Paramount (he became a Paramount employee after the transition,which is why he was still around). In addition to being in charge of much of the decision making at the studio, she was also known for giving a lot of breaks to minorities, including hiring a black woman to man Desilu's front reception desk--totally unheard of at the time.