The Office’s biggest behind-the-scenes debate you never would have expected

After creating a gas station from scratch fit to showrunner Greg Daniels’ exact specifications — according to the book, Daniels was fastidious about the details, to the point at which boom operator Brian Wittle called building a gas station “totally unnecessary [and] way overboard” — the scene was ready to shoot, and the idea seemed completely perfect.

Producer Randy Cordray recalled, “The concept was that the documentarians had followed Jim to the lunch date and missed the exit. Jim made the exit and made it into the gas station, but the documentarians missed the exit and therefore they pulled off on the shoulder and they were shooting across the four lanes of traffic, through the rain. We see Jim arrive. Pam is already there.”

This created, however, a totally unexpected debate once the scene had been filmed and the crew gathered to watch it in the editing suite. Producer Jen Celotta remembered, “There was this massive debate about whether the proposal should have sound or not have sound. Massive. We were in two camps and I think we were just divided down the middle.”

Ultimately, Editor Dean Holland admitted, “That was my fault. We had the scene and there was dialogue and we cut it and everybody loved it and everything was great. And then I said, ‘Greg, I did another version for you and I just want you to see it.’ I showed him a version where you’re hearing the traffic and everything and he pulls up. And what I did is, I just took all their dialogue out. It was as if they didn’t have their mic packs on.”

Written by: Looper