Cinematographer Gerald Perry Finnerman worked Director of Photography on all fourteen episodes of the Planet of the Apes TV series in 1974. He had established a reputation on Star Trek (60 of the 80 original series' episodes), Rod Serling's Night Gallery (on which he also directed some episodes) and Kojak.
Marvel Comics Planet of the Apes Magazine Assistant Editor, Chris Claremont, visited the set of Apes episode The Trap in 1974, and was clearly a fan: "For the actors, the biggest part of a working day in film is waiting. Waiting for the camera set-up to be completed so they can shoot the scene; waiting for the film to be reloaded; waiting for the director to finish a hurried confab with his Director of Photography - in this case, the Director of Photography being Gerald Perry Finnerman, of 'Star Trek' and 'Kojak' fame, an excellent craftsman who well-deserves his reputation (and a man probably only a few steps removed from Godhood for the work he did behind the camera on 'Star Trek'; that is, if one is a true 'Star Trek' freak; if not, you don’t know what you missed and you might as well go back to 'Planet of the Apes'.) The waiting isn’t so bad if one is a principal character and/or one is in the scene being - or about to be - shot; one can always study one’s script or talk with the other actors about how one is going to play the scene. One can do an impromptu rehearsal - which indicates, to me, one of the crippling faults of the television series as shot in the United States - all too often, the only time actors have to rehearse and work with each other and the director on their scenes is during the camera set-ups. Which leaves the quality of the work done by the actor up to the actor and to the Director of Photography. If the Cinematographer is a real klutz and it takes all day to get the lights and camera set, then the actor has just that much more time to work on his scene; but if he's a pro - and Gerry Finnerman is a pro - the actor can often be up the proverbial creek minus the proverbial paddle, because the only way anyone can rehearse then is by having the crew sit around and wait. And that can be expensive. Which means, simply, that the actors have to be very good."[1]
