 Many of The Search for Spock 's dialogue sequences feature tight close @-@ up shots . During Kirk and Sarek 's mind meld , Nimoy chose cuts that focused on accentuating the dialogue ; " Instead of watching people 's faces , all you see is the mouth or the eyes and you have the tendency to hear better , " Correll explained . Correll was unhappy that every scene save one was filmed on a soundstage . Feeling that recreating everything on set resulted in a fake look , the cinematographer suggested that Genesis be filmed on Kauai in Hawaii , and that Red Rock Canyon stand in for Vulcan . The production did not have the money to shoot on location , meaning that Nimoy was preoccupied with making sure the various outdoor settings felt believable . While the various vessel exteriors were handled by ILM , Correll was responsible for the look of the interior sets . He preferred to treat these as actual locations inside the ships ; although the sets ' ceilings were designed to be removed so that lights could be rigged in the rafters , Correll used other lighting methods . In the Bird of Prey , he used fluorescent tubes to pick up the walls ' metallic paints , and kept the set smoky to convey a dirty atmosphere . 
