The 40th Anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey
http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2008/2001.html
Written by Dennis Gonzales.
Photography by Richard Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.
Permission to use for this article.

2001 in 2008: A Cinematic Odyssey, Part Three (Continued)

The doors opened on time and we quickly found excellent seats in the second row left stage, a few feet from the host's chairs. I looked around the huge posh theatre and recognized some familiar faces. It seemed that the 1000-seat theatre was filled almost to capacity. We were in such a rush to claim our territory, I was only just realizing the enormous size of the fabulous Samuel Goldwyn Theatre, and its ten-foot-high golden Oscars on left and right stage, velvet red carpet, modern acoustical padded walls, and large movie screen. I took a quick walk to check out the second level floor of the theatre and to see some film technology relics of the past and some 2001 memorabilia displayed behind Plexiglas.

In the audience were various participants who helped put together the 2001 memorabilia, among them:

• Academy President Sid Ganis
• Stanley Kubrick's daughter, Anya Kubrick
• Actress Maggie D'Abo, who played the first elevator operator in the film
• Giles Masters, son of production designer Anthony Masters
• David Larson, a "2001" historian who provided most of the images for the presentation
• Richard Woods, who played the "One-Ear" ape in the film
• Daniel Richter, who choreographed the ape sequence and also played the "Moonwatcher"

Tom Hanks welcomed Douglas Trumbull and also pointed out Apollo 11 Astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, who was sitting in the audience, and asked him to call out any inaccuracies in the film. Before they began projecting the multimedia presentation onto the large screen behind them, a lovely Pan Am stewardess walked on stage, complete in uniform from the movie, rolling out a cart of popcorn for the hosts (see above picture: Left- Douglas Trumbull, center - Tom Hanks, right - stewardess).

With laser pen in hand, Trumbull and the others began to tell the story behind the making of 2001, beginning with how Kubrick hired Trumbull after seeing his effects work for the 1964 documentary, To the Moon and Beyond (based on scenes in the 1960 Canadian documentary Universe). After screening a brief portion of Trumbull's work in that film, Hanks quipped to the audience "Canadians made this?"


Among the many secrets that Trumbull shared, I was especially intrigued to learn about the idea of using 2-d advance color computer flat screens on the spacecraft using 35mm movies that were rear-projected onto blank screens to give that illusion. They certainly got that technology right! Another bit of special effects magic was used to simulate the Discovery One's malfunctioning equipment. The AE-35 unit was constructed using a large wire-frame model (see left image) and then photographed multiple times to give an illusion of 3-D x-ray graphics. To create the Stargate scene where Dave Bowman is taken to a psychedelic trip from his Space Pod, they filmed a massive art mural through a narrow slit cut into a slide of glass, which gave an illusion of one feeling their rushing into a vast infinite tunnel. Today's software can easily produce the same effect, but I doubt it would produce that organic look Trumbull achived 40 years ago!

Trumbull gave us rare behind-the-scenes views of the sets and models from 2001. I was excited to see top view of a black and white photo of the Clavius Moonbase in detail and another photo of the first stage set of the lunar landscape that looked like the lunar landscape images from the Apollo expeditions. Trumbull noted that Stanley Kubrick had selected a more rugged mountain peak landscape for the movie that didn't match the smooth hilly images people were used to seeing from NASA at the time. Trumbull felt vindicated when he viewed the first images from the Moon years later.


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