Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1436283
m ot ion p ictu re s o u n d e d i to r s I 33 Grindstaff was supervising sound editor on One Potato, Two Potato (1964), the interracial drama directed by Larry Peerce that starred Barbara Barrie and Bernie Hamilton. Grindstaff was working on the series Swinging Summer at Goldwyn when he got a phone call from Star Trek creator Roddenberry asking him to work on "The Cage," what would become the first pilot for the series, later repackaged in a flashback episode, "The Menagerie." "Gene Roddenberry didn't relate to me as a sound editor. Then he found out that I had done One Potato, Two Potato and gotten nominated for a Golden Reel Award for it," he explained in Cinefantastique. In several interviews, Grindstaff noted that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry "wanted to paint the whole show with sound like you were painting a picture. Roddenberry wanted sounds everywhere. One time I asked him, 'Don't you think we're getting too cartoony?' because I felt it should be a little more dignified, but he wanted sound for everything. "For example, I worked on one scene where [Dr. McCoy] is giving someone a shot. Gene says, 'Doug, I'm missing one thing. The doctor injects him, and I don't hear the shot.' I said, 'You wouldn't hear a shot, Gene.' He said, 'No, no, this is Star Trek, we want a sound for it.' So, I turned around to the mixing panel and said, 'Do you guys have an air compressor?' And they did. I fired up the air compressor, squirted it for a long enough period by the mic, went upstairs, played with it a little bit, and then put it in the show. And Gene loved it. So, that's how Gene was. He didn't miss nothing!" Star Trek was notoriously under- budgeted for a science fiction show, and Season 1 had numerous scheduling delays which resulted in many shows being in post at the same time. Doug quit during the first season over the hours and disorganization. "When I saw the first credits, and Joe Sorokin's name was on it, and mine wasn't, I turned in my resignation," he said. At that time, only the department head would get screen credit. Roddenberry insisted that they keep him on staff, and he was quickly given screen credit. Grindstaff reorganized the confused sound department from 10 sound editors to seven for the first season so that the sound budget would not be lost before the season was done shooting. "I had a crew of about seven guys for the rest of the season. We would work seven days a week till about 11 o'clock at night." In Seasons 2 and 3, he had three sound editors. At that time, it was extraordinarily rare for a show to create its own new sound effects. Westerns were still the biggest genre on television, and libraries were full of horses and gunshots. Grindstaff and crew Jack Finlay and Joseph Sorokin built their tracks mainly from some material in the Paramount and Desilu sound effects libraries, as well as their own personal libraries. Some sounds came from Paramount's 1953 version of The War of the Worlds, one of which was manipulated to become the sound of photon torpedoes. Most of the library