Visual effects master made breakthrough with ‘2001’
Douglas Trumbull, a visual effects master who showed movie audiences indelible images of the future and of space in films like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Blade Runner,” has died. He was 79.
His wife, Julia Trumbull, said he died Monday of complications from mesothelioma.
Director Edgar Wright tweeted, “RIP to an actual visionary, Doug Trumbull ... he directed a childhood favourite of mine, the sci fi gem ‘Silent Running.’ Watch it tonight.”
Born in Los Angeles in 1942, Mr. Trumbull’s father was visual effects supervisor Donald Trumbull, who worked on “The Wizard of Oz.” He got his start at Graphic Works Films, where a short of his caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who was beginning work on “2001: A Space Odyssey.” At 23 years old, he not only talked himself into a key job on “2001” but helped innovate the process that would be used to create the iconic stargate sequence.
“It was a really unique time because we were at these Borehamwood Studios outside of London and it was a highly unionized studio,” he said in an interview. “Here I am, this weird, L.A., young 23-year-old cowboy kid that they took on as kind of a mascot more than anything. It didn’t frighten them that I would cross over between all these different departments and get components built for me to do the things I wanted to do.”
Over the course of his career, which recently included work on Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” he pushed forward filmmaking techniques like slit-scan photography, which was used for “2001.” He also developed the Showscan film process, in which 70mm film is projected at 60 frames per second to create a sense of heightened reality.
After he made a name for himself on “2001,” he worked on Robert Wise’s adaptation of “The Andromeda Strain,” Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Wise’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” and Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner.”
He made his directorial debut with “Silent Running,” a dystopian sci-fi film starring Bruce Dern in which plant life is becoming extinct on Earth. Roger Ebert, in his review, wrote that Mr. Trumbull “is one of the best science-fiction special-effects men. ‘Silent Running,’ which has deep space effects every bit the equal of those in ‘2001,’ also introduces him as an intelligent, if not sensational, director.”
Mr. Trumbull got three Academy Award nominations for visual effects (for “Blade Runner,” “Star Trek” and “Close Encounters”).