When I was first approached by New
Millennium publishing with writing an article on the making of 2001, we were
fast approaching the actual year 2001 and I , like many fans of the film,
contemplated how influential the film had been on the film industry and society
itself. Many of the speculative components of the film were realized. Kubrick’s
film anticipated flat screen computers (ie: ipads), video phone transmissions, ATM cards,
voice recognition technology, orbital living habitation and nuclear powered
interstellar vehicles and satellites. After 2001, the look of films had also
changed. Kubrick developed camera systems and utilized the use of video
hardware to play back footage in real-time. Kubrick’s production design and
effects innovations brought filmmaking into the modern age. As movie making
entered the digital age in the late 20th century, It became relevant
to look at the enormous influence that this film has had on the creative arts.
It has inspired filmmakers, scientists, inventors, writers and musicians all
over the world and remains (arguably) Kubrick’s most accessable and accomplished works.
Originally Published in Sci-Fi &
Fantasy FX, issue #49
the ultimate trip
A look back at the greatest science fiction film of
all time
By Paul Taglianetti
“I tried to create a visual experience,
one that bypasses verbalized pigeonholing and directly penetrates the
subconscious with an emotional and philosophical content... I intended the
film to be an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at
an inner level of consciousness, just as music does... You're free to speculate
as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film.”
-
Stanley Kubrick
“If God did not exist, Man would be obliged to invent him.”
-
Voltaire
It's
almost here.
The very year
immortalized by director Stanley Kubrick on
film. Released
in 1968 to theatres around the world, 2001: A Space
Odyssey is thirty two years old this year, yet its visual power and profound insight into the human mind and the
wonders of the infinite have not diminished.
It is a film mired in controversy to this day and has been the
subject of constant speculation and debate. The origins of this odyssey can be traced
back nearly forty years to a then unknown independent film maker who had not yet quite reached his
plateau of critical and financial success as a director...
Kubrick during the filming of "Killer's Kiss" in NYC |
Stanley Kubrick was born in July 1928 in the
Bronx section of New York. An average student in standard academics, Kubrick
excelled at photography and had an insatiable curiosity about the world around
him. Eventually, at the age of sixteen, he landed a job for LOOK magazine after
snapping a photo of a newsstand owner on the morning following FDR's death. He
soon sold the photograph to the magazine for $25, and ultimately worked for the
journal for nearly four years, travelling around the world. It was during
these years as a photo journalist that he developed his skill and passion for
photography. In'1950, through a former friend, Alexander Singer, he came in
contact with a film production company interested in creating documentaries
under a running time of ten minutes. Kubrick created Day of the Fight, an eight-minute look
at the world of middleweight boxer Walter Cartier. He followed up that film
with another documentary, The Flying
Padre (1951), about a New Mexican priest who travels to Indian villages in a
small Piper Cub plane. Ultimately, Kubrick would embark on his first
feature, Fear and Desire (1953) with
money invested by relatives. A surreal film about a small platoon of soldiers
in an unspecified war caught behind enemy lines, Fear and Desire clearly showed Kubrick's ability
to photograph stark and daring images. Although Kubrick came to disown the film
(it is not currently available on video), it contains some beautiful
photography and an early appearance (as an actor) of film director Paul Mazursky.
Still image from Fear and Desire, Kubrick's first film which demonstrated his skill as a photographer |
Kubrick and his small crew from "Fear and Desire" |
From there Kubrick ventured into the genre of film noire. Killer's Kiss (1954), which was funded
from money acquired by family investors, showed Kubrick's assured hand as a photographer and storyteller. Kubrick
followed
it with The Killing (1956)
(co-scripted by hardboiled crime novelist Jim Thompson). Later Kubrick scored a major critical hit
with Paths of Glory (1957),
considered by many film critics to be the greatest war film ever made. It was through his
association with Path's lead actor Kirk Douglas that Kubrick was brought on to Spartacus (1960) to replace director
Anthony Mann who was dismissed three weeks into shooting. The success of Spartacus allowed Kubrick a certain
amount of creative freedom away from the Hollywood system and for his next
project he decided to shoot in England. Lolita (1962),
based on the Vladimir Nabokov novel, also proved to be a major critical and
financial success and it was after completing this film that Kubrick decided to
permanently set up his production company, Hawk Films, in England.
Stanley Kubrick had just enjoyed a critical and popular success with the
socio-political black comedy Dr.
Strangelove (1964) in which the filmmaker tackled the extremely
controversial subject of nuclear war. For his next project he would choose
another hot topic: space exploration.
Kubrick approached MGM President Robert H. O'Brien with an idea in collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke about man's first contact with extraterrestrial life. Kubrick decided to base the story on Clarke's short story The Sentinel (written in 1948 and originally titled Sentinel of Eternity).
SPX supervisor Wally Veevers sets up a miniature effects shot for Dr Strangelove |
Kubrick approached MGM President Robert H. O'Brien with an idea in collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke about man's first contact with extraterrestrial life. Kubrick decided to base the story on Clarke's short story The Sentinel (written in 1948 and originally titled Sentinel of Eternity).
Kubrick with speculative science fiction writer Arthur C Clarke during the pre-production on 2001: A Space odyssey |
The short story concerns a
lunar expedition in the year 1996. A geologist on the mission notices a glowing object at
the top of one of the nearby peaks. He eventually discovers that this bizarre,
pyramid-shaped artifact is of extraterrestrial origin and placed on the lunar
surface as a beacon to alert its creators when man has mastered space travel
and reached the moon.
sentinel of eternity short story that 2001 was based on |
Clarke on the Aries lander interior set with Kubrick |
Clarke was considered one of the finest literary masters
of science fiction as well as speculative science-fact as early as 1945 Clarke
postulated the invention and deployment of global satellites used primarily for
communication purposes. In this early phase,
Clarke and Kubrick would spend nearly two
years developing The Sentinel into a screenplay. The working title
for the film would be Journey Beyond The
Stars, although
the actual title of the film went through several iterations. A few that were
thrown out were Planetfall, Tunnel to the Stars, and Universe. Kubrick eventually settled on
the title, 2001: A Space Odyssey,
echoing the literary masterpiece The Iliad. Kubrick
initially set up the 2001 production company,
called Polaris, in New York, but O'Brien's
support eventually moved the entire operation to England when shooting became
imminent.
Pre-Production
“Had I been present at the creation, I
would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the Universe.”
-
Alphonso the Wise (c. 1270)
Kubrick became known for his acute sense of
accuracy and impeccable attention to detail and this was evident to nearly
everyone involved in the process. Apart from writing and directing his own
films, he
is renowned for overseeing every aspect of the production: from designs and
storyboards to editing and sound mixing, advertising and color timing of
prints. As this project would be his most technically challenging to date, he immediately
enlisted the services of scientists and designers who could bring a sense of
realism to the film's visuals. Chief among these individuals were Frederick
Ordway III, special
consultant for the Alabama Space and Rocket Center and industrial and
scientific designer Harry Lange.
Kubrick and consultant Frederick Ordway on the Space station 1 set in England |
Lange and Ordway were currently working on a book for Prentice
Hall Publishing called Intelligence in the Universe. Serendipity would
bring the two together with Clarke and Kubrick in New York to discuss the film
project. Kubrick also became aware of Ordway and Lange's work with famed rocket
scientist Wernher von Braun at the NASA Marshall Center and utilized
their talents and insights for the film's massive technical requirements. Ordway, Lange and
several other members of the crew would spend considerable time at Kubrick's
behest visiting industrial and governmental institutions all over the United
States, gathering scientific and technical data on space travel. It was during
the preproduction period that Lange and Ordway developed much of the film's vehicle technology
such as the Orion shuttle and the Aries orbit to lunar surface
craft.
Robert McCall's production art for Space Station One which was used on the film's one sheet poster as well as much of the promotional material released later including the music album and press kit |
Kubrick had
viewed every science fiction film he could get his hands on (Alexander Korda's Things to Come was recommended by
Clarke, but Kubrick disliked the film intensely), primarily screening for
content but also to examine the many effects techniques which were used up
until that time. According to many of his collaborators, Kubrick was very
surprised that nearly all of the films in this genre failed to depict space
travel in a convincing manner. It was his feeling that most filmmakers used the
genre primarily for explorations of fantasy but never for a realistic depiction
of the future. Another goal of Kubrick's was (from a technical standpoint) to
create visuals that would not be dated by time or advancement of future film
technologies. He began to search out the most talented artisans working at that
time to help bring his vision to the screen...
one of Harry Lange's designs for the Moonbis miniature |
It was at The
New York World's Fair in 1964 that Kubrick viewed a film by Los
Angeles-based Graphics Film Corporation called To the Moon and Beyond. It featured some intriguing and visually
arresting images of space travel and the planets. Based on their work on the
film, Kubrick hired Graphics Films to create some preliminary artwork
for 2001. One of their
employees–Doug Trumbull–created much of the artwork for the GFC film and
really admired Kubrick's concepts and ideas. Although the firm eventually
departed from the 2001 project (due
to their great distance from Kubrick's base of operation), Trumbull approached
Kubrick for a job on the project and was hired, first as a graphic artist and
illustrator and eventually as one of the four main supervisors of the Visual
Effects.
Artist/FX co-supervisor Douglas Trumbull works on the Moonbus miniature |
Con Pederson, who also worked on To
the Moon and Beyond, was also hired as one of film's lead visual effects
supervisors. “Kubrick saw the film and was interested in the space effects
in it and phoned Graphic Films,”
notes Pederson. “To the Moon
and Beyond took about five or six months to put together. I don't recall
its exact length, maybe ten minutes. It weighed a lot–I had to haul it to the Fair
myself.”
“(Kubrick) said
he was planning a science fiction film and thought we might be interested,”
recalls Pederson. “In speaking with Stanley I remarked that Dr. Strangelove was one of my favorite
films. He was elated at that, as though he'd never heard a compliment like that
before. He invited me to New York to see the script and discuss the project.
His studio apartment near the southwest corner of Central Park was lined with
large storyboard paintings of fanciful worlds and spacecraft. I read the script
in a nearby hotel room and was enthralled by it, as well as by the fact it was
based on an Arthur Clarke short story I remembered reading some years earlier
in my science fiction fan youth.”
Many filmmakers have often commented on how similar filmmaking is to a military campaign, and certainly Kubrick was no exception to this analogy. For his army, Kubrick would assemble some of the most creative and talented minds in film production. His team included chief production designer Tony Masters; co-production designer (with Harry Lange) Ernest Archer; art director John Hoesi; director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth; second unit DP John Alcott; first assistant director Derek Cracknell; camera operator Kelvin Pike; chief mechanical effects supervisor Wally Veevers who designed many of the film's intricate camera and dolly systems and visual effects rigs; executive producer Victor Lydon; editor Ray Lovejoy; visual effects supervisors Con Pederson and Tom Howard (a veteran of MGM films and Oscar Winner for Tom Thumb) and Douglas Trumbull. Initially, Kubrick had hired a man named Wally Gentleman from the National Film Board of Canada to supervise the effects. Gentleman had worked on the effects for a film called Universe, a short made by the infamous B-unit of the Canadian National Film Board. Gentleman eventually had to drop from the project due to illness but was involved heavily in pre-production.
Many filmmakers have often commented on how similar filmmaking is to a military campaign, and certainly Kubrick was no exception to this analogy. For his army, Kubrick would assemble some of the most creative and talented minds in film production. His team included chief production designer Tony Masters; co-production designer (with Harry Lange) Ernest Archer; art director John Hoesi; director of photography Geoffrey Unsworth; second unit DP John Alcott; first assistant director Derek Cracknell; camera operator Kelvin Pike; chief mechanical effects supervisor Wally Veevers who designed many of the film's intricate camera and dolly systems and visual effects rigs; executive producer Victor Lydon; editor Ray Lovejoy; visual effects supervisors Con Pederson and Tom Howard (a veteran of MGM films and Oscar Winner for Tom Thumb) and Douglas Trumbull. Initially, Kubrick had hired a man named Wally Gentleman from the National Film Board of Canada to supervise the effects. Gentleman had worked on the effects for a film called Universe, a short made by the infamous B-unit of the Canadian National Film Board. Gentleman eventually had to drop from the project due to illness but was involved heavily in pre-production.
original Discovery one ship design created in pre-production reserach phase |
still image from Nation film board of Canada's film "Universe", a film that inspired the visual look of 2001 |
still image from National film board of Canada's film "Universe",effects by Wally Gentlemen |
Kubrick also hired talented
costume designer Hardy Amies, who designed gowns for Audrey Hepburn and the
Royal Family, to design the film's futuristic clothing. 2001's remarkably realistic space environment suits were the
creation of a British firm located in Manchester, England called Frankenstein
Ltd. which was in the business of creating real life hazardous environment
gear and protective suits. Master Models Ltd. of London created 2001 's unique space helmets.
enviroment suit control module |
Other technicians would soon join Kubrick's
consortium. His visual effects team would include amongst its ranks some of the
industry's most talented artists. In addition to those mentioned above, the FX
team included cameraman Bruce Logan; animation cameraman Richard
Yuricich; technician Brian Johnson, technical animation specialist Jim
Dickson; cameraman Zorin Perisic; graphic and effect designer Colin
Cantwell; visual effects cameraman Bryan Loftus; John Jack Malick, and
David Osborne. Several techniques would be utilized to create the films
innovative effects including motorized mounts for shooting miniatures,
slit-scan techniques for film’s climatic “Star-gate” sequence and front screen
projection system which were relative new at the time. Some miniatures were
photographed as high resolution stills and filmed on motorized animation stands
and optically composited over star field backgrounds
Filming on 2001 began on December 29th, 1965 in England at Shepperton
Studios. For nearly three years 2001
occupied all nine stages at the MGM Borehamwood studio and would
sometimes borrow stage space from the Elstree EMI studios. When MGM became
overrun, production returned to the stages over at Shepperton some
fifteen miles away in suburban West London (close to Kubrick's actual
residence). It was decided by Kubrick to give the film its proper scope and to
literally fill the screen. 2001
would be shot in SuperPanavision 70 (65mm negative) with a screen aspect
ratio of 2.35:1. Eventually the film was billed by MGM marketing as a Cinerama feature.
Although the film never used the 'three-strip' projector exclusive to the Cinerama technique
it was shown in Cinerama theatres throughout the United States as well
as regular venues.
The Dawn of
Man
The film opens on a wide-open vista of an arid desert in
an unnamed region of Africa during the Pleistocene era. The title The Dawn of
Man appears and the viewer is introduced to a tribe of prototype man. Not quite
Homo-erectus but clearly at the stage of human evolution where he has formed
factions yet has very little understanding of his surroundings.
Moonwatcher costume being prepared for filming the Dawn of Man sequence |
Rival tribes
are introduced and it is clear that early man has yet to master the ability to
even defend himself from the dangers of nature or his own kind. The incredibly
life-like simians were the creation of Stuart Freebor, a British make-up artist
(whose incredible synthetic creations would be seen again in Star Wars some ten years later).
Freeborn was assisted by British make-up artist Colin Arthur who helped create
the mask's elaborate mechanics.
Stuart Freeborn works on one of the elaborate masks for the Dawn of Man sequence |
Freeborn's
original concepts for the Early-man make-up were more Homo Erectus in outer
appearance. Essentially these would be modern men who had just learned to walk
erect but had shed their vestigial full-body hair. Their facial appearance
would be somewhat ape-like, however. Ultimately the “naked-ape” concept had to
be disregarded due to censorship issues involving the showing of genitalia.
Actor Keir Dullea poses with proto-man design which was ultimately discarded |
Freeborn
came up with a more ape-like creature and Kubrick approved the design. The
director insisted that the masks had to be completely life-like and believable.
Freeborn devised an internal mechanism inside the mask which allowed the actors
to articulate the lip of the mask by simply manipulating the musculature of
their own faces. This gave the actors the ability to snarl and curl up the
upper lip without any external cabling or wires, which would have been cumbersome and have to have been hidden.
Dawn of Man sequence being shot in front of custom designed front projection screen |
Actors that met certain physical
requirements were sought out for this sequence by the production. In order to
maintain the illusion that these were simian creatures the actors had to be of
slim build with extremely slim waists so it would not be apparent that they
were men in skins. The leader of this
tribe of ape-men was Moonwatcher,
played by former mime artist Dan Richter who taught at the American Mime School, the American
Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Gene
Frankel Theatre Workshop in New York. He also spent four years touring the
United States, staging mime shows in major cities and at universities. Richter
was living and performing in England when he was chosen for the film to play Moonwatcher.
Many of the ensuing scenes in the Dawn of Man sequence were created with a
process called Front Projection (known
by many in the effects industry as the Alekkan-Gerrard method). The actors playing the simian/humans were
acting on stage in front of a special screen designed to reflect an image,
which was being projected at a certain angle from in front of the actors. A background plane of the desert was
photographed and transferred to an 8x11 transparency and then projected onto
the front screen material. A lighting
grid was set up and calibrated to match the exterior shots.
front projcetion set begining constructed for 2001's Dawn of man sequence |
It is during this sequence that we are
introduced to the film’s most mysterious element, the monolith. The monolith went through several design
changes through the course of the production.
One of the most intriguing early concepts was a crystalline form. It was
to have been cast in clear acrylic and not completely opaque. However, initial
castings showed many imperfections in the surface and methodology was abandoned.
Here is a description of the monolith from an early draft of the
script:
A10
EXT CAVE-NEW ROCK
It is a cube about fifteen feet on a side, and it is
made of some completely transparent material; indeed, it is not easy to see
except when the light of the sun glints on its edges - there are no natural
objects to which Moonwatcher can compare this apparition. Though he is wisely
cautious of most new things, he does not hesitate to walk up to it. As nothing
happens, he puts out his hand, and feels a warm surface.
From this sequence we segue nearly four
million years into the future. A myriad of orbital satellites appear floating
above the Earth. Although it is never fully elaborated on, Arthur C. Clarke has
maintained (in his book and subsequent interviews) that these are orbital weapons–another
prophetic bit of conjecture. The original narration (which was, of course,
ultimately dropped) also states that these are orbital weapons. The following
is an excerpt from the film's original
narration piece for this sequence:
B1 Earth 200 Miles above
Hundreds of giant bombs had been placed in perpetual
orbit above the Earth. They were capable of incinerating the entire Earth's
surface from an altitude of 100 miles,
Matters were further complicated by the presence of
twenty-seven nations in the nuclear club. There had been no deliberate or
accidental use of nuclear weapons since World War II and some people felt
secure in this knowledge, but, to others, the situation seemed comparable to an
airline with a perfect safety record; it showed admirable care and skill but no
one expected it to last forever.
Suggesting massive technological
advancements, Kubrick fills the space above Earth with these machines. The majority
of the satellite and ship designs were the creation of co-production designer
Harry Lange and consultant Fredrick Ordway, whose experience in aerospace
technology gave the film an incredible feeling of authentication.
The Orion III Clipper and Space Station One
2001 orbital weapons sattelite design |
The Orion III Clipper and Space Station One
Enter into the frame the space transport, the Orion
Pan AM Clipper, on a rendezvous with Orbital Space Station One, a
circular outer space habitat perpetually circling the earth. Close examination
of the model indicates that the station is incomplete (sections can be seen
unfinished). Perhaps Kubrick is suggesting that man is constantly evolving,
changing and constructing-even in an optimistic environment such as this. For
the shots of the Orion approach, a still photo of the smaller ship was
photographed on an animation stand which had the ability to track back and thus
change the perspective of the ship as it moved closer to its destination. The
space station was a model six feet in diameter, which was shot separately. The
stars were also photographed separately and carefully matted together with the
other elements. “Johnny Alcott was assistant to Geoff Unsworth but did a lot of
the model and photo-blowup photography,” recalls Pederson. “I would keep an eye
on some of the lineups. Stanley would approve the lighting from Polaroids if he
was busy on a live shoot on another stage. Wally Veevers set up all the
motorized track work, with George Merritt's engineering department at MGM providing the hardware.”
During the docking procedure, the audience
is treated to a glimpse of the Pan Am
Clipper interior. The ship is shuttling Dr.
Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester) to Space
Station One on his way to the Clavius
moonbase. The cockpit features an array of computer monitors which display
vector graphic read-outs of non-descript computer data. Douglas Trumbull, whose
background was in graphic design and airbrush artistry, was charged with the
task of creating these (faux) digital displays. Without the benefit of actual
computers and the methods to play them back clearly, Trumbull set up an
animation stand and created the graphics by traditional animation techniques.
The graphics monitors were made of rear screen reflective material and dressed
to look like actual monitors. The graphics were photographed on 35mm film and
optically reduced to 16mm then projected from behind the set. Some of the
graphic animations were designed and created by Colin Cantwell who later went
on to design some of the early spaceship prototypes for Star Wars.
simulated vector graphic animation screen for 2001 |
One of the
interior scenes shows Dr. Floyd quietly sleeping in his passenger seat while
his pen drifts weightless next to him. A kindly Pan Am flight attendant reaches out and places it in his pocket.
This fairly simple looking effect was accomplished by veteran British effects
master Wally Veevers. The pen was suspended on a thin filament in the distant
shots where the wire would be out of focus. For the close ups it was glued
lightly to a sheet of acrylic which was completely transparent. The attendant
reached out and simply removed it from the sheet.
To visually illustrate how the
attendants were able move in a weightless environment, a rotating set of the
ship's galley was constructed. The foreground segment rotated with the camera
to give the impression that the shot was “locked-off.” The actor simply walked
on a treadmill in the background set piece. The camera was locked down in the
front section, and then the actress essentially walked in place, thus giving
the illusion of “walking on the walls.”
After the docking of the Clipper,
Dr. Floyd disembarks onto the Space Station. There is visual
evidence of Earthbound references here, a Hilton concierge booth can be
seen in the background as well sign for a Howard Johnson restaurant
(plus, of course, the Pan Am emblem on the side of the Clipper). The
clear intent here was to create a realistic future so emotional connection to
the surroundings. It can also clearly be seen that Dr. Floyd is speaking
on a Bell videophone to his young daughter on Earth (played by director
Kubrick's real life daughter Vivian). Ordway actually visited Bell Atlantic labs
to research their experiments with long range voice and picture transmissions.
a collection of 2001 polaroids taken by Kubrick on set to check light levels |
Clavius and the TMA-l
Now leaving the station, Floyd embarks on the Aries Lunar lander,
which will take him to the Clavius moonbase. The Aries IB Earth
orbit to surface craft was designed specifically for lunar landings, which is
evident from the design of the outer hull and the landing gear researched
carefully by Fredrick Ordway and Harry Lange.
Aries lander design from 2001's pre-production phase |
The Aries model was about two and a half feet in diameter. Many of the shots of this ship were done on
an animation stand and composited into various backgrounds depending on the
angle Kubrick wanted. The Clavius Moonbase interior where the Aries docks was, in fact, a model nearly
thirteen feet deep. Several control rooms can be seen in the periphery where
actual actors were filmed separately and composited into the final shot. Upon
arriving at Clavius, Floyd conducts a
brief conference with the station’s scientific advisors and administrators and
then immediately departs to the site of the excavation, location of the film’s
mysterious monolithic structure (called the TMA-1
for Tycho Magnetic Anomaly, named
after its proximity to the Tycho
crater).
A giant lunar surface was sculpted in clay by supervisor Doug
Trumbull. It measured nearly thirty feet across. For the actual excavation
shot, Kubrick shot actor Sylvester and his survey team (in environment suits)
approaching the monolith. Since the
camera was ‘locked-off” Kubrick was able to composite the miniature portion of
the lunar surface with the actual live action set of the excavation without a
visible discrepancy in the joining area.
Jupiter mission: The Discovery eighteen months later
Aries 1B lander model during construction |
Kubrick shooting the Pan Am clipper cockpit interior shots |
Jupiter mission: The Discovery eighteen months later
After the monolith directs its radio
emission toward Jupiter, an exploratory spacecraft, the Discovery One, is dispatched to investigate the phenomenon. Leading
the mission is Commander David Bowman,
played by American actor Kier Dullea. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Dullea first appeared
on screen in Hoodlum Priest
(directed by Empire Strikes Back's
Irvin Kirshner) in 1961. He received notice for his starring role in David and Lisa (1962) and received both
the BAFTA and Golden Globe award for best newcomer for that film.
Kubrick with actor Kier Dullea on the Discover One set |
His second in command, Dr. Frank Poole, was played by American
actor Gary Lockwood, a former college football star. Lockwood was born in Van
Nuys, California and became very well known as a television actor, appearing on
such popular shows as Mission Impossible,
Gunsmoke, Earth II, and Emergency Room.
Most science fiction fans will remember him best from the Star Trek episode Where No
Man Has Gone Before.
Inside the Discovery’s main command module is one of the film’s more
fascinating environs–the centrifuge set. Kubrick reasoned that astronauts on a
long interstellar journey would require artificial gravity to sustain them and
to prevent muscles from atrophying. Artificial gravity in this case is created
by a large, drum-like module within: the ship that perpetually rotates.
Production hired British firm Vickers
Engineering to build this massive structure, which would eventually cost
nearly $750,000. The structure took nearly three months to build and was
approximately forty feet in diameter. It required a tremendous amount of
scaffolding built around it so that crew members and technicians could access
any part of the set to make lighting adjustments. Outside observers often
commented on how much it resembled a Ferris wheel from the exterior. Apart from
the sheer mechanical difficulties, the Discovery
centrifuge set presented considerable challenges to the lighting and electrical
crews. How do you keep the lighting throughout the set consistent when the set
is always turning? The crew solved the problem by mounting the lighting array
in a circular formation near the center of the rotational axis.
The camera was secured in the center of the set by creating a thin channel running up the center. The centrifuge was built with a channel running all the way round the casing. An array of flaps was used to cover up the gap so it was not visible in camera shot as it followed the actor. The flaps were made to remain closed throughout the complete rotation. Then the camera was placed on a mount, which poked up through the channel, but was not actually fixed to the centrifuge. When the centrifuge was set to make its rotation, it revolved past the camera. Each part of the set passed by while the flaps opened to make way for the camera mount and then closed immediately after.
Kubrick directing actors from outside the Discovery centrifuge set |
The camera was secured in the center of the set by creating a thin channel running up the center. The centrifuge was built with a channel running all the way round the casing. An array of flaps was used to cover up the gap so it was not visible in camera shot as it followed the actor. The flaps were made to remain closed throughout the complete rotation. Then the camera was placed on a mount, which poked up through the channel, but was not actually fixed to the centrifuge. When the centrifuge was set to make its rotation, it revolved past the camera. Each part of the set passed by while the flaps opened to make way for the camera mount and then closed immediately after.
The design of the Discovery ship itself was based on
considerable study done by Lange and Ordway in pre-production. Every detail and
component on the Discovery was
carefully researched for its functionality and logical purpose by the design
and research team. To gather information on potential long-range spacecraft,
the 2001 team relied on materials
and data provided by National Aeronautics and Space Administration and
several high tech companies in the private sector. For information on the Discovery's
nuclear propulsion system, Ordway traveled to General Electric’s Missile and Space Vehicle Department in
Philadelphia. Kubrick was quite fascinated with a scientific study conducted by
Freeman Dyson, a professor of physics at Princeton University, which described
interstellar spacecraft propelled by an engine core which emits controlled
pulses of exploding nuclear material.
These scientific theories were utilized in the ship design of the Discovery, as described here in the shooting script:
These scientific theories were utilized in the ship design of the Discovery, as described here in the shooting script:
Cl
DISCOVERY 1,000,000 MILES FROM EARTH.
SEE EARTH AND MOON SMALL.
WE SEE A BLINDING FLASH EVERY 5
SECONDS FROM ITS NUCLEAR PULSE
PROPULSION. IT STRIKES AGAINST THE
SHIP'S THICK ABLATIVE TAIL PLATE.
SEVERAL CUTS OF THIS.
Con Pederson was also involved with designing the ship. “I worked on part of the Discovery design, specifically the superstructure behind the command module,” recalls Pederson. “I didn't think the preliminary look was up to date. I worked on that for a while and Stanley liked it, and I asked Harry Lange and Tony Masters in the Art Department to refine the construction details. In my view, Harry really set the look of the film. He also had been at Huntsville, though we hadn't met there. Also I spent quite a bit of time with Stanley storyboarding the final Discovery sequence itself. Despite all the script versions we were well into shooting before the story was locked down.”
Discovery One full scale miniature model on mover rig |
Con Pederson was also involved with designing the ship. “I worked on part of the Discovery design, specifically the superstructure behind the command module,” recalls Pederson. “I didn't think the preliminary look was up to date. I worked on that for a while and Stanley liked it, and I asked Harry Lange and Tony Masters in the Art Department to refine the construction details. In my view, Harry really set the look of the film. He also had been at Huntsville, though we hadn't met there. Also I spent quite a bit of time with Stanley storyboarding the final Discovery sequence itself. Despite all the script versions we were well into shooting before the story was locked down.”
The main command module contains the
centrifuge and the living habitats for the astronauts as well as the EVA/Pod
bay station. In between is a long section of storage modules, which
stretches to the rear module containing the nuclear core propulsion system. To
show the vast expanse of this enormous craft the miniature department built the
Discovery to nearly fifty feet in length. The large command module at
the ship's bow was six feet in diameter. The miniature EVA pods were
thirteen inches in diameter to keep them in scale with the Discovery. Such
a large and unbalanced miniature would prove to be difficult to move and keep
steady. Wally Veevers and his crew built stabilizing mounts that the ship could
be securely faceted to. It was photographed always in a stationary position.
The camera that photographed it would dolly in the opposite direction of its
actual movement to suggest forward momentum.
Jim Dickson recalls the track and rig system built by Veevers for the Discovery: “Stanley ordered (Veevers) to produce 150 feet of precision dolly track 30 feet in the air on a giant stage for [the] miniature of the very long space craft move. He did it and exclaimed to me that it was accurate to .010 across the distance. It was enormous, with scaffolding from everywhere. Then Stanley decided to put it back on the ground without shooting a frame. We had a few drinks over that one.”
Discovery miniature on soundstage |
Jim Dickson recalls the track and rig system built by Veevers for the Discovery: “Stanley ordered (Veevers) to produce 150 feet of precision dolly track 30 feet in the air on a giant stage for [the] miniature of the very long space craft move. He did it and exclaimed to me that it was accurate to .010 across the distance. It was enormous, with scaffolding from everywhere. Then Stanley decided to put it back on the ground without shooting a frame. We had a few drinks over that one.”
The HAL 9000
The instruments
and systems of the Discovery are controlled by the higher functions of
the Hal 9000 (short for Heuristic Algorithmic Learning computer–Hal is
also alphabetically three letters up from IBM). HAL's outer appearance
design turned out to be quite simplistic. Essentially a red eye encased in a
rectangular panel, HAL's appearance is a brilliant example of the
filmmaker's sometimes minimalist design sensibilities. HAL's control
panel consisted of many screens installed onto the set of the centrifuge with
16mm projectors behind them to project the images of HAL's readouts. It
was also used for HAL's main screen which receives the transmissions
from mission control (The voice of mission control was Frank Miller, who was in
reality a US. Air Force Traffic Controller, hired by Kubrick to provide
a convincing voice for the Mission Control center). HAL represents
man's next great advancement as an evolutionary species, a tool that replicates
the mind of a human being. Kubrick and his team carefully researched advanced
computer technology, particularly the work of
Professor
Marvin Minsky at M.I.T., whose
groundbreaking studies in the field of artificial intelligence were
inspirational to the director.
Kubrick on the Discovery one centrifuge set |
Despite his artificial nature, HAL turns
out to be one of the most emotional characters in the film. Canadian actor
Douglas Rain provided HAL's hypnotically dispassionate voice. Rain
studied acting at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada, and
at the Old Vic School in England. He was a charter member of the
Stratford, Ontario Festival Company and he appeared as Henry V in
1966. Whether intentional or not, Rain's stoic interpretation of HAL nearly
manages to steal the show away from Lockwood and Dullea. It has often been
debated by viewers and critics alike whether Kubrick was trying to show the
breakdown to social interaction and communication due to our own technical
advancements. The human actors seem to speak to each other in either quaint
pleasantries or exchange technical information unemotionally. Much of this
analysis comes from the interpretation of HAL, whose higher functions
are meant to mimic the synapses of the human mind. Ultimately HAL discovers
(after falsely predicting a fault in their communications system) that Bowman
and Poole plan to shut down his higher functions (a computer
lobotomy, perhaps?). HAL attacks and kills Poole while he is
inserting the communications module inside the AE35 antennae. He then
kills the three hibernating astronauts by shutting down their life support
system.
stunt performer inside HAL's memory center |
HAL traps Bowman
outside the Discovery without a helmet, forcing him to enter through
the emergency airlock. Kubrick achieved this effect by hanging his stunt man on
a wire rig above the camera which was shooting upward. The actor was released
and then pulled back up as the artificial gravity takes hold. Although this
scene drew criticism from many as being scientifically impossible, Clarke
claimed the scene was very much in the realm of possibility after researching
scientific experiments on animals in short term exposure to airless vacuum
environments. Upon re-entering the Discovery, Bowman immediately shuts
down HAL's higher functions by entering the computer's logic center. The
computer brain consists of thousands of transparent, rectangular blocks four
inches long and two and a half inches high. An early draft of Kubrick's script
briefly explains how scientists engraved these blocks with HAL's intelligence:
C142
CONTINUED
EACH RECTANGLE CONTAINS A CENTRE OF A VERY FINE GRID OF WIRES UPON WHICH
THE INFORMATION IS PROGRAMMED.
HAL's higher function interior or brain center would be
a much more complex design task for the crew. In order to get the wide view of
the interior of HAL's higher function center, the set had to be built
approximately fourteen feet in height and then shot on its side. The only known
injury on the entire shoot was here when a crew member broke his back after
accidentally falling from the top of the set. In the film, the interior of the brain
center is pressurized and kept at zero gravity. To simulate weightlessness,
a stunt man had to be rigged by wires from the top of the inside of the logic
center. The set was turned vertically so the camera was pointing straight up
and he was hanging down by a wire from above. Lighting set up and camera angles
would be crucial in this particular instance so the wires could be kept
invisible. When you strap a wire harness onto someone, where the wire comes out
of the clothing there are always stress lines. To avoid this sort of problem
you suspend the person from the ceiling and work with the camera looking up at
them so the support wires will not be in the camera's field of view.
The
Stargate: Beyond the infinite
“Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape
of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms.”
-
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The film's visual denouement is a dazzling array of light patterns which
burst out from infinity over the alignment of Jupiter's orbiting moons. Bowman
recovers a message from Dr. Floyd on the true purpose of the Discovery's
mission to Jupiter, and, upon his arrival, he pilots an EVA pod to
the floating monolith. Eventually infinity opens up before him. At first
the camera stays on Bowman's face as we begin to see light reflected on
the faceplate of his helmet. We then cut to the Stargate itself-an
immense flooding of color and lights. The effect of the Stargate was
created by a process called slit-scan photography. Developed by Douglas
Trumbull, slit-scan is a process whereby color transparencies are photographed
at an extended exposure rate and photographed through a “slit” or mask in front
of the camera lens.
The camera is mounted on an animation stand, which has north, south, east, and west axis movement. 2001 visual effects cameraman Richard Yuricich recalls the visually stunning “slit-scan” technique developed by Trumbull: “There was a large ‘slit’–from a 16th of an inch to an 8th of an inch wide in front of the lens. Behind it was a giant light source. Between the lightbox and the slit was a series of gels (the artwork containing the various moiré patterns). The artwork was placed on a glass sheet and the glass was connected to a lead screw that would cause it to traverse east and west across the screen. The 65mm camera would be focused (on a track) on the slit and the shutter on the camera was left entirely open so the whole room had to be kept dark. The slit was then lined up in the center of the frame. The camera, with the shutter open, would wipe the imagery through that slit across the frame. So if you could imagine the camera from a distance at the end of the track and seeing this little slit off in the distance. Its height would depend on how much you cut-off on the slit. You would only see the amount of light coming through that slit.”
The camera is mounted on an animation stand, which has north, south, east, and west axis movement. 2001 visual effects cameraman Richard Yuricich recalls the visually stunning “slit-scan” technique developed by Trumbull: “There was a large ‘slit’–from a 16th of an inch to an 8th of an inch wide in front of the lens. Behind it was a giant light source. Between the lightbox and the slit was a series of gels (the artwork containing the various moiré patterns). The artwork was placed on a glass sheet and the glass was connected to a lead screw that would cause it to traverse east and west across the screen. The 65mm camera would be focused (on a track) on the slit and the shutter on the camera was left entirely open so the whole room had to be kept dark. The slit was then lined up in the center of the frame. The camera, with the shutter open, would wipe the imagery through that slit across the frame. So if you could imagine the camera from a distance at the end of the track and seeing this little slit off in the distance. Its height would depend on how much you cut-off on the slit. You would only see the amount of light coming through that slit.”
frame of "Stargate" sequence which uses the technique called slit-scan photography |
Transparencies, which contained various color streaks and moiré
patterns, were carefully picked and approved by the director for the initial
shots of the gate. Technical animation specialist Jim Dickson, who worked with
Trumbull on the film, explains his involvement in the “slit-scan” rig. “I was
assigned by Doug to help him build the slit scan camera rig and I did that
using hand tools and the help of fellows in the machine shop on the lot at MGM
London, Borehamwood, Herts. I built the equipment with Doug and the machine
shop and photographed every frame that appears in the film as the famous Stargate
sequence. This sequence, which is near the end of the film, became very
popular with grass smoking kids in the theatres at the time. It was like a trip
even without pot.”
Dickson is also quick to clear
up any misconceptions regarding who came up with the slit-scan technique.
“Douglas Trumbull is the sole inventor of this system as I was there to witness
that fact. Others have claimed tb.at they did it first but I disagree as I
witnessed what the others had done earlier and it was not the same as Doug's
slit-scan.” Subsequent shots in the gate featured valleys and vistas,
which were photographically treated and manipulated with extreme chroma
aberrations. Some of the visuals were created to depict massive dust and cloud
formations. These were created by mixing chemicals together on sheets of glass
that reacted in a wide variety of colors on contact.
Bowman is eventually drawn into the infinite
by the monolith, which ultimately brings him into direct contact with
the unknown intelligence. Inside a sterile white room decorated in regency
motif, Bowman ages and ultimately evolves into the film's final and most
enigmatic image, The Star Child. This striking final visual was the
creation of sculptor Elizabeth Moore who fashioned the image to loosely
resemble actor Keir Dullea on instruction from Kubrick. Her artistic talents
were seen again in Kubrick's A Clockwork
Orange. (Moore created the Korova milkbar's statuary). Tragically,
she died in an automobile accident in 1976.
An even more enigmatic ended
was planned, one that involved an actual encounter with the absent
extra-terrestrials. “Early on we were planning to do a lot of other-worlds
imagery,” recalls Pederson. “For several months I had a cubby-hole on Stage 5
next to Patrick McGoohan's office (he was shooting the TV series, The Prisoner at MGM.) I was just painting bush-league Chesley Bonestell landscapes
as though we had all the time and money in the world to finish the picture. My
wife–we met in the sculpture department at UCLA–started doing ‘E.T.’ sculptures
with Stanley's wife Christiane at her studio in Elstree. Finally,
Stanley decided we couldn't make a conventional story. The film was heading
toward abstraction and anything else would have been like the old guru jokes
atop the sacred mountain–‘You mean, that's it? Life is a fountain??...Life
ISN'T a fountain?’…So, ultimately, it was dropped.”
2001 became
the most technically complex film of its time and the visual effects turned out
(to no one's surprise) to be the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of
the film's long production. Recalls then visual effects cameraman Richard
Yuricich: “I showed up for the last six months of photography and I noticed
everyone was pretty worn out. I ended up working with the animation camera
which at the time was being operated by Bruce Logan and Zorin Perisic. They
needed a third cameraman because they started a graveyard shift so that it
would be possible to have the camera working around the clock if need be. Most
of the photography I did was element photography, moving stars-stars moving
east, moving west, stars moving north and south, rotating and so on. The
instructions and directions for (the star photography) came from (Con)
Pederson. He had a total handle on what was needed each day. I would get my
notes from Con, which specified what he wanted me to shoot. Doug, at that time,
worked upstairs in the ‘slit-scan’ department. The animation camera in my department
was a 65mm Mitchell mounted on a single column Oxberry stand.
Nothing was blown up. The readouts were shot with a zoom lens with a 35mm
camera but all the effects elements were shot 65mm.”
Most of the
techniques used hadn't been invented yet and the effects crews often had to
improvise and experiment. Yuricich explains the very unique way the animation
crew created their rotoscopes. “We had a large European slide projector which
had a very narrow profile and we used the light source on it to do the
rotoscoping. We used a modified prism in the gate just to throw light. As long
as you put the prism in the same place and you clamped the projector in the
same place you were relatively ‘right on’ as far as line up. It was
jury-rigged very well for repeat usage. It was primarily used for line-up. You'd
get the cels from the ‘Blob’ department with little targets drawn on top of
them and then you rotoscoped those targets down to the tabletop so you would
have a line-up.”
The “Blob factory” (named by Trumbull
after the “blob-like” appearance of the odd shaped mattes) is where the mattes
were painted by hand by the effects crew. Those cels were brought to the
animation department and photographed on the animation stand with the 65mm Mitchell
camera. Yuricich explains the technique used to create the starfields: “For
the stars there were ‘blob’ mattes made and when the stars were printed into
one of the masters there was a bi-pack hold-back matte so that, wherever a ship
or an object crossed over the stars, the ‘blob’ matte would hold back the
exposure of the stars.”
“The last year I was in charge of
assembling all the loose ends, star composites, held-take marry-ups,” recalls
Con Pederson. “The big focus was the 'Purple Hearts' sequence, the colorized Stargate
footage. Tom Howard, who headed the MGM lab, provided to Hawk
Films Ltd. the space and operators for our night crew. Doug and I, and
Jimmy Dickson, Richard Yuricich, Colin Cantwell were employed by Polaris
Productions. I had two assistants, Ivor Powell (who later became Ridley
Scott's associate producer on Alien)
and Brian Loftus, to assign specific shots, usually color wedges. We worked
with color negative and black and white separation masters. There are no
traditional opticals in the film-no dissolves, for instance. Just a lot of
handmade mattes.”
According to Jim Dickson it took quite
a lot of experimentation and testing to get the effects methodology in place.
“Working with Doug, I was responsible for sorting out some of the matte
problems they were having as they had built up a big backlog of partially
exposed latent shots. Time was passing and it was not good procedure so I
performed some tests along with the help of Con Pederson and we developed all
that film and did our remaining mattes and star fields on fresh stock and
bipacked them later into the picture. As far as I can remember the optical
shots in the film were very few if at all. All effects were double exposed or
bypacked in registration printers or matte stands.”
Visual effects shots and elements were
screened nearly daily for Kubrick for approval and comment. Optical print downs
to 35mm were made by Technicolor in London for editing and daily review.
Dickson recalls one funny practical joke played on the normally unflappable
Kubrick during one of the screenings. “Dailies were always fun; sometimes I
would move things the wrong direction or make some stupid mistake. Stanley
would yell from the back of the room ‘Who did that?’ and would proceed to
humiliate me with verbiage. It was a pressure job although it didn't bother me
as we would drive around town in Mini Coopers at lunch shooting 22-caliber
starting pistols and having car chases to blow off steam! One day, I told Doug
to have his gun ready during dailies as I had f* ***d up another scene. This
one on purpose! When Stanley saw the scene which was the last one projected
just before the lights came up in the projection room, he went nuts and yelled,
‘Who shot that scene!!!??'’ Doug jumped up and 1 jumped up and we both began
yelling at each other, ‘You did it!’ ‘No, you did it! You son of a bitch!!!
Take that!’ – and we whipped out our guns and started firing shots (blanks) at
each other and flaying around and falling all over the floor!! It was
wonderful!! You know, I think it was the only time Stanley ever smiled during
dailies.”
According to many of the crew, Kubrick had a
clear mind for how he wanted the shots to look and meticulously examined all
the footage. “Stanley looked at everything, of course, and seemed to favor
purple and yellow a lot, remembers Pederson.” One of his traits was a tendency
to hit on and stick with very simple premises-such as the extensive use of
white, diagrammatic composition without much concern for perspective, exacting
detail for scale in every shot, demand for depth of field and sharpness even if
it may have seemed overly crisp. Over his career–which is now, unfortunately,
complete–his style was that of the still photographer watching the world for
the right angle. In the frame, things take place. It is a bit static compared
to the fast cutting, soft-edged hardness so many moviemakers have used since
television quickened the pace. The fact that 2001 (and we ALWAYS pronounced it without an ‘and one,’ by the way)
is slow-moving with long shots underscores its resemblance to an art gallery
experience, and not everyone goes to art galleries.
The one thing the 2001 crew is almost unanimously agreed
upon is the level of excellence achieved by the effects crew, even with today's
high priced digital factories turning out slick imagery as a yard stick. “I
suppose by today's standards with stepping motors and microprocessors, the
world of motion control (where I o.d.’d in the seventies) one could view some
of the procedures as awkward,” muses Pederson. “Like using still projectors to
roto 70mm mattes on cels, for instance (Stanley and Doug's solution). But it's
not important. It's like what an artist uses to mix paint on–a technicality.
The challenging part is getting a visual concept that's worth looking at.
Everything that goes into it is just nuts bolts.”
2001's lost
music
Kubrick has always had an affinity to using pre-existing musical pieces in his films. Despite
this Kubrick enlisted Alex North, whom he had previously worked with on Spartacus. However, none of North’s
music was ultimately used in the final of the film. Kubrick became entranced
with the beauty of Strauss' Blue Danube waltz and the Strauss classic Thus Spoke Zarathustra and
decided to use these pieces to replace the original score. Danube seemed
to him to match the elegant grace of the ships travelling through space to a
“T.” Despite North's absence from the film, his original score from the feature
was released for the first time in twenty five years and is available on CD.
Kubrick was also introduced to the music of Gyorgy Ligeti, a Romanian
musician whose pieces Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna, Adventures and Requiem
were featured prominently in the film most notably during the monolith and
the stargate sequences. Kubrick was so enamored of Ligeti's haunting
themes that he utilized his music again ten years later in The Shining.
World
premiere and audience reaction
“In the history of
motion pictures, a film occasionally has captured some moment of the human
adventure in a manner to transcend its initial goal of entertainment. These
films not only are long remembered but also become a vital part of our culture.
In 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Stanley
Kubrick has created such a film. It offers entertainment in abundance. But no
greater compliment can be paid a motion picture than to use it as a yardstick
by which to judge other pictures in later years. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is this kind of picture.”
-
Robert H. O'Brien, President, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., 1968
(from the forward of the 2001
souvenir book)
The World Premiere was held Uptown Theatre, Washington D.C., April 2,
1968. It opened across America to fairly indifferent reviews from critics
(although some critics immediately praised it as one of the greatest films ever
made). Although MGM had hoped to market Kubrick's film as a family
adventure, it was actually America's counter culture youth movement which made
the film popular. In some areas of the United States the film played for two
years consistently–it was rare for a film at that time to play more than two
months at an individual screen. The fact that 2001 is not always clearly understood may explain its success through
repeat viewership. After an initial test screening, Kubrick had approximately
twenty minutes excised from the film (which included interviews with some of
the world's top scientific experts and space travel and scenes from the Dawn
of Man segment). There are no current plans to reinstate any of the cut
scenes. Kubrick has always maintained that the final theatrical release of the
film was the one he was most pleased with.
2001 was not an instant hit at the box
office but, eventually, viewers started queuing up for the feature after
extremely good word of mouth began to spread about this unusual film. Teenagers
and college students in particular where drawn to it by the psychedelic images
in the stargate sequence which many viewers went to under the influence
of hallucinogenic to ‘enhance’ the experience.
“It will be the only picture ever made
after which people who have seen it will say that they have never seen anything
like it-and they'll be right.”
-
Kubrick's former production partner James B. Harris
In 1968 the academy of motion pictures arts and sciences nominated 2001:
A Space Odyssey for four Oscars including best screenplay (Arthur C.
Clarke and Stanley Kubrick). Since the Academy at the time had a limit of only
three names on the ballot for technical awards (there were four supervisors on
the film), it was decided the award would be given to Kubrick who was credited
with the direction of the effects sequences. It also won the BAFTA award
for Best Visual Effects in 1968.
Kubrick's perfectionism in
regards to the film continued long after the feature was released. Richard
Yuricich recalls a rerelease screening in Westwood he attended with Doug
Trumbull in the late '70s: “I went into
an afternoon screening with (Doug) Trumbull and the print was horrible. Doug
and I went up to the booth to talk with the projectionist to see what the
problem was. Then we went outside to a payphone and Doug called Stanley in
England. He said to Kubrick, ‘They're showing (2001) here and the print is
bad!’ and the print was pulled the next day! That's the kind of relationship
they had with each other. We went in to see the film and ended up checking the
print!”
Class of
2001
“Nine long years we were busy, scheming and plotting and planning in every
possible way, and only just managed it, thanks be to God!”
-
Homer's The Odyssey,
Book III
What happened in Sandy Plyos
Due to the overwhelming success of the film,
many of 2001's crew would move on to
have very prosperous careers in the film industry throughout the world.
The critical and financial triumph of 2001 gave effects supervisor Doug
Trumbull an opportunity to direct his own feature, the science fiction cult
classic Silent Running (1973).
Trumbull later went on to direct Brainstorm
(1983) and supervised the Visual Effects for Close Encounters (1977) and Star
Trek: the Motion Picture (1979). His company, Entertainment Effects
Group (with partner Richard Yuricich) created the visual effects for Blade Runner (1982) and Brainstorm (1983). He developed Showscan, a 65mm based special venue
film format and directed the Showscan features Let's Go and The
Big Ball. He directed the ride films Back to the Future: the Ride and
the Luxor's Search For The Obelisk and has founded the Entertainment
Design Workshop in Sheffield, Massachusetts. He was nominated for Academy Awards for both Close Encounters and Blade Runner.
Special effects supervisor Con
Pederson still works in visual effects to this day. He is one of the
co-founders of Metrolight Studios in
Los Angeles. As one of the lead digital artist/designers he has created effects
for hundreds of commercials. His many film credits include Total Recall (1990) and Tom Hanks’ epic HBO drama on the early years of NASA,
From the Earth to the Moon (1998).
Director of photography Geoffrey
Unsworth is considered one of the British film industry’s finest photographers
and his work on 2001 exemplifies
this. His many credits include A Town
Like Alice (1956), A Night to
Remember (1958), Othello (1965),
The Magic Christian (1969), Cabaret (1972), Murder on the Orient Express (1978) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). During the filming of Roman Polanski’s Tess (1979) in France, Unsworth
suffered a fatal heart attack. Superman:
The Movie is dedicated in his memory.
Production
co-designer Anthony Masters continued to work as a production
designer on such diverse features as The
Deep (1977), Dune (1984) and Clan of the Cave Bear (1986). He was
awarded the BAFTA award for best production design (shared with Ernest
Archer and Harry Lange) for his work on 2001.
He passed away in 1990.
Harry Lange eventually settled in England and continued working in film
as a production designer. His list of credits includes Great Muppet Caper (1981), Dark
Crystal (1992) and Monty Python's
the Meaning of Life (1983). He also worked as an art director on The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). He was
nominated for an Academy Award for
both films.
2001 visual
effects photographer Bruce Logan became one of the leading experts in
visual effects photography. He was the director of photography on The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1979)
and the groundbreaking visual effects film Tron
(1982). He currently resides in Los Angeles and runs his own production
company, mainly creating commercial work.
Jim Dickson, who worked as one of the film's technical
animation specialists, went on to become a very successful director of
photography. He has continued to develop elaborate camera systems and continues
to work as a cinema-photographer. He runs A. E. C. Inc. in Los
Angeles where he has developed the new Circle Vision 35mm multiple
motion picture camera mounting system. It allows the creation of filmed and
seamless wide angle shots of any width from 80 degrees and out to a full circle
at 360 degrees.
2001 effects cameraman Richard
Yuricich went on to become one of Hollywood's leading visual effects
supervisors and cinematographers. His many credits include Silent Running, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Star
Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Blade
Runner (1982), Under Siege 2
(1995), Event Horizon (1997), Mission Impossible (1996), and MI:2 (2000). He was nominated for an Academy
Award for his work on Close
Encounters; Star Trek: The Motion
Picture and Blade Runner.
Effects
cameraman Zorin
Perisic went on to win an Oscar for his visual effects work on Superman: The Movie (1978) and a
special achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences for the creation and development of the Zoptic front
projection system used on that same film.
Make-up
artist Stuart Freeborn went on to create other fantastic make-up
creations in such films as Superman
(1978) and Star Wars (1977) (he was
chiefly responsible for creating Chewbacca's suit and mask) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
(creating a workable and realistic Yoda puppet for Frank Oz). He is
Britain's most respected make-up artist and his many credits include Dr. Strangelove, The Omen, Top Secret, Oliver Twist, Superman II and Santa Claus.
Makeup
assistant Colin Arthur also went on to an illustrious career in
film make-up and special effects. Most notably creating key make-up effects for
the Harryhausen epics Clash of the
Titans (1981) Sinbad and the Eye of
the Tiger (1977) and Conan
(1982).
Editor Ray Lovejoy went on to become one of England's most
talented film editors, working on other fantasy films such as Batman (1989), Krull (1983), Lost in Space
(1998) and Kubrick's The Shining. In
1986 he was nominated for an Academy Award (TM) for his work on Aliens (1986).
Second unit cameraman John Alcott eventually went on to be the
director of photography on Kubrick's Clockwork
Orange, Barry Lyndon and The Shining. His last film was No Way Out in 1986. Alcott passed away
in 1987 from a heart attack in Cannes, France
Musician Gyorgy Ligeti's music appeared in two other Stanley Kubrick
films–The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Since 1959, he
has been living and working in Vienna, becoming an Austrian Citizen in 1967.
From 1969-70 he was a fellow of the German Academic Exchange organization
in Berlin and in 1972 became Composer in Residence at Stanford
University. Since 1973 he has been a professor of Composition at the Hamburg
Music Academy.
Although 2001 did not
eventually contain any of his music, Alex North supplied many other films with
his talents. Among his credits are: Spartacus
(1960). Willard (1971), Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), John
Huston's Wiseblood (1979), Dragonslayer (1981) and Good Morning Vietnam (1987). He passed
away in September, 1991.
Novelist Arthur
C. Clarke would become one of the world's most well-known and widely read
authors of science fiction. Clarke served in the RAF from 1941 to 1946.
He first sold his science fiction writing to Astounding magazine, a
mainstay for young science fiction" looking for exposure. One of his very
first non-fiction books was Interplanetary flight: An introduction to Astronautics published
in 1950. His fiction novels include Rendezvous with Rama (1973), Childhood's
End (1953), Earthlight (1955) and Imperial Earth (1975). He
lives in Sri Lanka, which has been his home for over thirty years.
Stanley Kubrick went on to direct some
of his best (and critically controversial) work following 2001. He directed the Pavlovian socio-black comedy Clockwork Orange (1971) based on the
Anthony Burgess novel, (a film also mired in controversy to this day); the
Victorian Epic Barry Lyndon based on
the Thackery novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon and the Stephen King horror
epic The Shining (1980). After
nearly seven years Kubrick returned with one of the most powerful depictions of
the Viet Nam war put on film, Full Metal
Jacket (1987). Kubrick's work has frequently been hailed and acknowledged
for its excellence and technical sophistication. He was nominated for an Oscar
for best director four times (for Dr.
Strangelove, 2001, Barry Lyndon, and A Clockwork Orange) and for best screenwriting five times (for Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange,
Barry Lyndon and Full Metal Jacket). In 1976 the BAFTA
(British Academy of Film and Theatre Arts) awarded him best director for
his work on Barry Lyndon. Last year
saw Kubrick's final effort as a filmmaker, Eyes
Wide Shut, based on Arthur Schnitzler's novel Traumnovelle. The film
(like 2001) concerned an odyssey,
but one of a sexual and psychological nature. It was none the less visually
stunning and strangely ambiguous, as 2001
first appeared to mainstream viewers in 1968.Just days after officially
completing work on the film, Kubrick died of natural causes at his home,
Childwick Bury in Hertfordshire, England, on March 7, 1999.
This December, thirty two years after
its initial release, Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros will
re-release 2001: A Space Odyssey in
the United States, restored with a new digital sound track and improved picture
quality. It will be released on New Year's Eve, 2000, in accordance with the
wishes of Stanley Kubrick. “This is something Stanley himself was very, very
desirous of,” said Turner Entertainment Co. president Roger Mayer, who
is working on the rerelease project. According to a recent press release,
print elements of the 1968 film have been kept in pristine condition, and new
protection elements were pulled from Kubrick's negative in 1982. “At Stanley's
instigation, the color timing was freshened up a few years ago, with new 35mm
and 70mm prints made,” said Dick May, VP film preservation at Warners, which
holds ‘Odyssey’ through its
acquisition of Ted Turner's MGM/UA library. Hopefully this re-release
will introduce this wonderfully unique and technically superior film to a whole
new generation of filmgoers to ponder.
To say that the film has had a major impact on the modern film industry
is an understatement. To merely state that the film is a cultural phenomenon is
doing it a disservice. The feature has literally etched itself into the minds
and memories of almost everyone who has seen it. Rock star David Bowie based
his classic album Space Oddity on the film and has stated many times
that 2001 had an impact not just on
his music but his entire performance and persona. Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam, frequently spoofed 2001 in many of his animations on the
popular British comedy. The American animation favorite The Simpsons also frequently had references to Kubrick within the
show. One of the most memorable had Homer Simpson inside a weightless
space shuttle, spinning gracefully-like the Orion Clipper munching
floating potato chips to the tune of the Blue Danube.
This year elder statesman
comedian (and Forbidden Planet star)
Leslie Nielson will star in the science fiction spoof 2001: A Space Oddity. It would also be fair assessment to say that
a lot of today's modern digital film technology originates with 2001's groundbreaking visual feats. It
literally broke the barrier of what was possible and impossible with its
stunning effects techniques. Without the technical breakthroughs provided by
Kubrick's film, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Alien and The Matrix
would certainly never have existed.
For many who remember this brilliant film, it is as relevant and
baffling as the day they first experienced it. The film's many themes and
arresting thought provoking visuals still seem as perplexing and mystifying as
ever. It leaves the viewer in a ponderous state, seeking the answers. Kubrick
refused a pat answer. If he spelled it all out, it would have no meaning. “I'd
rather not discuss the film,” was usually his response to inquisitive reporters
and interviewers seeking clarification on the themes of 2001.
Kubrick rarely gave interviews, shunned the Hollywood spotlight and
preferred to let his films speak for themselves. The questions and themes
invoked by 2001, like the mysteries of life itself, are complex and often
confusing and we are forever left to contemplate and interpret their meaning.
To Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey
was all about the journey, not the destination.
Production Photos Copyright © 1968, 2000 MGM and Turner
Entertainment.
Article/ Interview and text Copyright © 2001 by Paul Taglianetti
Article/ Interview and text Copyright © 2001 by Paul Taglianetti
Special Thanks: The author wishes to
thank the following for their insights and participation with the creation of
this article:
Richard Yuricich, Con Pederson, Bruce Logan, Jim Dickson,
Bob Skotak, Frederick Ordway III, Rhonda Gunner, Tibor Szakaly, Brian Anthony,
Mike Reccia, Lee Shargel, Hollywood Book and Poster, Hollywood Collector's
World and MGM archives.
Shots compiled by Paul Taglianetti; selected shots courtesy Phil Rae, Brian Anthony, Forrest J Ackerman, Robert Skotak.
Stanley Kubrick Filmography
Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
Full Metal Jacket (1987).
Shining, The (1980).
Barry Lyndon (1975).
Clockwork Orange, A (1971).
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
Lolita (1962).
Spartacus (1960).
Paths of Glory (1957).
Killing, The (1956).
Killer's Kiss (1955).
Fear and Desire (1953).
Seafarers, The (1952).
Flying Padre (1951).
Day of the Fight (1951).
Paul Taglianetti is an educator and visual effects and digital media producer. His film credits include The Matrix, Escape from LA, Clear and Present Danger, Failure to launch, Stepford Wives, Se7en, Nomad, Jade, exceutive Decision, Switchback, One fine Day, Demolition Man, Starship Troopers: Marauder, amd Here Come sthe Boom. He has taught film and post production at Quinnipiac University and Idyllwild Arts Academy. He is a graduate of Emerson College's film program.