"The Man Trap" a quarter of a day faster than the schedule. By the end of the original series, Daniels had filmed more episodes than any other director. During the production of "The Man Trap", Daniels introduced a system in which actors unneeded on a shoot went to a "cast table" area to practice upcoming scenes rather than return to their dressing rooms. Producers felt that this both sped up the filming process and improved the quality of performances. The cast table system continued to be used throughout the production of the original series, even when Daniels was not directing. In post-production, Justman recommended adding an opening narration. Roddenberry agreed and wrote new lines for a Captain's log. Alexander Courage recorded the music for this episode on August 19, the same day as the "Theme from Star Trek", using a 25-piece orchestra. While Roddenberry liked the theme, he hated the music created specifically for "The Man Trap". The optical effects were created more quickly than usual; Howard A. Anderson, Jr. took two months, three times faster than for some episodes. The overall production costs for "The Man Trap" came in under-budget at $185,401. The creature The producers spent some time considering the creature's appearance. Justman suggested to Gene Roddenberry that it could be some sort of "terrifying, young lady" with a similar appearance to the green skinned Orion slave girl seen in "The Cage", but blue skinned and with orange hair. While Roddenberry thought that the idea was good, he already had an agreement with NBC that it would be an animal. Johnson envisaged the creature as a refugee with "ashen skin" wearing "gunnysack clothing". Daniels had some apprehension about using a monster-of-the-week format, asking "Do you go for cheap thrills or a more intelligent approach?" He said that the crew decided to "treat everything as if it were real" in order to help the audience buy into it. It was Johnson who suggested the creature should be a shapeshifter, having used the idea in an episode of The Twilight Zone he wrote called "The Four of Us Are Dying". The creature was designed by Wah Chang. Dancer Sandra Gimpel wore the costume on-screen. Gimpel had previously appeared as a Talosian in "The Cage". The head of the creature costume was sculpted in clay then covered in a plaster cast. Once the cast was removed, liquid latex was applied to