The Production Guide
Martin Landau archives
A and B units

This is a letter dated Thursday 7 November 1974 from producer Gerry Anderson to stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. At the time, Gerry Anderson was in Los Angeles, probably as part of the ITC effort to sell Space 1999 to the US.

The episode is The Last Enemy. The 8 "A" unit days started the following day, Friday 8th November and lasted until Thursday 19th. The one "B" unit day is Wednesday 20th November 1974, when the B unit would film the alien planet scenes with Dione and Talos. The main unit on the same day would be shooting the start of the next episode, The Troubled Spirit, with the Main Missions scenes.

Television and even film are sometimes split into two units, a main "A" unit with the stars, with a secondary "B" unit filming action scenes or supporting cast. This is not unusual. Several entire episodes of Year 2 would be filmed simultaneously by two units. Previously in year 1, B units had shot several stunt scenes and inserts (close-ups of screens, pressing buttons). They had done this recently in October, filming the pit scenes from Full Circle with a B unit, while the A unit shot the Landaus on another episode.

So why were the Landaus concerned, and why did Anderson have to write this letter to reassure them? The Landaus contract was "pay or play", which meant they got paid for every day of shooting, even if they were not in the scenes and didn't even have to come to the studio. If there was only an A unit, they would have had a day off with pay. Alternatively they may have been worried that The Last Enemy looked like a "bottle show", filmed in 8 days (instead of the standard 10-12) on standing sets to save money. Anderson's comment on special effects would highlight this was not a cheap show.

7th November, 1974.

Dear Martin and Barbara,

You will see that the attached Schedule is for nine days, eight 'A' Unit and one 'B' Unit.

I thought that I would drop you this note simply to explain that this is not an endeavour to cut down the quality of the shows, but is simply this way because the picture has a high special effects content and the story presents us with an opportunity of shooting with two Units simultaneously on the same day.

All future pictures will be scheduled according to the demands of the script but I think it most unlikely that we will be lucky enough to have another one like this.

Tried to bring back some sunshine for you from Los Angeles but was told that they have not found a way yet of canning it.

See you soon.

Kindest regards.

GERRY ANDERSON

c.c. Sylvia Anderson

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