I like the unknown. That's what Terry Malick has always really liked. He's always looking for the unexpected.
Douglas Trumbull
I honestly believe that the next big leap in immersive technology will be very much like Brainstorm.
I'm developing some high-frame-rate 3-D processes that are going to be, I hope, indistiguishable from reality. This will be quite an unusual cinematic event - you don't just tell an ordinary story, it's more of a first-person experience where the melodrama doesn't get in the way. Being inside the movie rather than looking at the movie.
I think miniatures are still superior to a lot of computer graphics.
But as far as the concept of HAL, who HAL was, his character - I had no role in creating him.
I wouldn't apply high frame rates to a love story or a thriller or a film noir or a mystery.
I'm fearless when it comes to engineering and motors and gears and pulleys and glass and artwork.
I'd rather have fewer spectacular theaters than tons of cheap little multiplexes.
My particular aesthetic of light and color and design wouldn't change as a result of working with computer graphics rather than with slit scan or miniatures.
Every movie presents unusual challenges, and I like solving the problems with a combination of artwork and engineering.
Clearly, if we'd had the kind of computer graphics capability then that we have now, the Star Gate sequence would be much more complex than flat planes of light and color.
I visited a scientist who had a helmet with magnetic fields controlled by computer sequences that could profoundly affect your mood and your perceptions.
IBM was the original contractor for much of the computer interface design on the film.
It was the point where things became much more abstract and less literal than in the bulk of the film, which was hardcore rockets and space and planets - all a fairly straightforward evolution from what I had been doing before.
My first job on 2001 was to make all of the HAL readouts: the 16 screens that surround HAL's eyes.
The technology of the time dictated the way things looked.
There were IBM logos designed for the film, and there were IBM design consultants working with Kubrick on the layout of the controls and computer screens.
There's a consistency in my work that pops up independent of the limitations of the technology.
We're not that far from being able to plant images, memories, and emotional states directly into the brain.
When I worked on 2001 - which was my first feature film - I was deeply and permanently affected by the notion that a movie could be like a first-person experience.
I meet astrophysicists almost every week who say that they went into their line of work because of '2001.'
Movies used to be called the 'flicks' because they flickered badly: because 16 or 18 frames a second - which was those hand cranked movies on a single-bladed shutter - was really badly flickering.
I took IMAX public back in the early '90s.
It's not appropriate to a love story, or - there are a million stories you could think of that don't need 3D. A lot of movies don't even need color!
There was every reason to honestly say that 3D was a gimmick. And it's largely true. And it's largely pretty bad. When you put a filter in front of the projector, and you put on your glasses and cut the light in half again, the movies are dim as hell, and they give you headaches and eye strain, and it's terrible.
When I was a young man in school, I used to read science fiction and really liked it. And as I became a young artist, I was filling up my portfolio with alien planets and spacecraft and things like that.
I learned a lot on '2001.'
'2001' used a lot of what's called 'front projection.' You project an image onto this giant reflective screen, and the image bounces back and comes back to the lens and seems to be in the background behind the actors. The whole 'dawn of man' sequence in '2001' was projected eight-by-ten photographs of the African savannah.
If you want people to come to theaters, you better do something different.
I got hooked on immersive cinema when I worked on '2001,' which was initially shown on these Cinerama screens, which were all 90 feet wide and deeply curved.
I'd formed a research and development company under the banner of Paramount Pictures back in about 1975, and its mandate was to explore advanced forms of entertainment, not just movies.
The diversity of content is now offered from streaming and downloading, so young people are really not going to theaters because they don't see any particular benefit.
There's been a bit of confusion about Showscan. The basic problem was, it was film and it was 70 mm and it was a lot of it, so the negative cost was very high, the print costs were very high, and it also required conversion of the projectors and theaters and a lot of costs. I just couldn't get any traction in the theatrical movie industry to do it.
Peter Jackson is a real big hero of mine because he had the nerve to make 'The Hobbit' at 48 frames per second.
I think 'Avatar' is much more appropriate to high frame rates because it's like a ride, and it's futuristic, and vividness and sharp edges and clarity would be an asset.
My personal feeling is that ultra-high frame rates and ultra-vivid giant screen movies can be like a window onto reality. And if you recognize it as such, you can write your screenplay, direct your movie, edit it, and present it as a live experience - not like a movie.
I have the deepest respect for Terrence Malick and greatly enjoyed helping him on 'Tree of Life.' I consider him to be a good personal friend and professional contemporary.
Working on '2001' was my film school. Stanley Kubrick was my mentor.
