Douglas Trumbull obit

Douglas Trumbull, Visual Effects Maestro on ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ Dies at 79

The three-time Oscar nominee also worked magic for 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind,' 'Blade Runner 'and 'The Tree of Life.'

 

 He was not on the list.

Douglas Trumbull, the visual effects visionary who, without CGI, fashioned the kaleidoscopic finale for 2001: A Space Odyssey, concocted the creepy cloud formations in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, filled the Blade Runner universe with smoke and fireballs and helped create the birth of the universe that opens The Tree of Life, has died. He was 79.

Trumbull died Monday after a “major two-year battle with cancer, a brain tumor and a stroke,” his daughter Amy announced on Facebook. She told The Hollywood Reporter that he died in Albany, New York; an obituary from the family said the cause of death was complications from mesothelioma.

“My sister Andromed and I got to see him on Saturday and tell him that we love him and we got to tell him to enjoy and embrace his journey into the Great Beyond,” she wrote.

The son of a man who did effects work on The Wizard of Oz, Trumbull also directed two sci-fi features: the eco-themed Silent Running (1972), starring Bruce Dern, and Brainstorm (1983), featuring Natalie Wood in her final film.

The Los Angeles native received three visual effects Oscar nominations (for 1977’s Close Encounters, 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture and 1982’s Blade Runner) in a six-year span. The Academy awarded him a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1993 for the creation of his Showscan Camera System and the Gordon E. Sawyer statuette in 2012 for his career contributions.

Director Robert Wise hired Trumbull to handle special photographic effects skills for The Andromeda Strain (1971), then asked him to helm two memorable sequences for the first Star Trek movie — the docking sequence aboard the Enterprise and Spock’s spacewalk.

On Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, Trumbull’s responsibilities grew rapidly as production moved along, and he found himself tasked with what would become his signature creation, the out-of-this-world corridor of light finale dubbed the Star Gate sequence.

He recalled a camera technique that he had seen animator John Whitney use at the 1964 World’s Fair where he left the camera shutter open “while you move things around under controlled situations so you can create a controlled blur, and repeat the moves,” he said in 2018.

Expanding on that concept, Trumbull built a six-foot-tall rotatable rectangle of sheet metal and cut a narrow slit in it. The sheet was placed in front of a 12-foot-long backlighted glass panel through which various lighting patterns were shined.

By tracking the camera toward the light source with a long exposure, the kaleidoscope of lights appeared to dart toward the camera from a single point. The whole process took six months.

While on 2001, Trumbull began conceiving his concept for his directorial debut, Silent Running. The film’s ecological theme of a greenhouse botanist in space achieved cult status, all on a $1 million budget.

“I wanted to say something about the future that would be very much human, and very real, but I wanted to take the sterility and the mechanisation out of it,” he said in the film’s making-of documentary. “I don’t think astronauts have to be autonotoms, I don’t think they have to be emotionless.”

Throughout the 1970s, Trumbull was so in-demand, he declined work on George Lucas’ Star Wars.

Around the same time, Steven Spielberg, then 29, began principal photography on his own sci-fi epic, Close Encounters. In preparation, he rewatched Kubrick’s 2001 and found the masterpiece intimidated him more than it inspired him.

He noted the visual effects crew were predominantly based in Britain, except for L.A. resident Trumbull, who was under contract at Paramount Pictures. Spielberg hired him on a loan-out to contribute special effects.

Early on, Trumbull suggested using motion control, a process that allowed filmmakers to pan, tilt and dolly while still locking their visual effects in the frame. It marked a huge leap in technology from the B-grade sci-fi movies of the 1950s in which a model UFO flimsily floated across a locked-off camera.

In one of the film’s most memorable sequences, ominous clouds begin encasing Devils Towers, warning of the alien mothership’s arrival.

Trumbull created the effect in a huge aquarium tank filled with fresh and saltwater and by injecting white liquid tempera paint to create the strange cloud formations.

He also contributed the idea to use hand signals, invented by John Curwen in the 1800s and later adapted by Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, to communicate with the aliens. He knew a woman who taught the method and got her to train Francois Truffaut, who played French scientist Claude Lacombe in the film.

Two years later, Trumbull answered an SOS from Wise, who was directing Star Trek. He was unhappy with film’s visual effects in production, and a lawsuit loomed from exhibitors if the movie was not delivered on schedule.

Trumbull agreed to take on the tight deadline — six months to complete more composites than Star Wars and Close Encounters combined — in exchange for a considerable fee and release from his Paramount contract. Three crews worked across 24-hour periods, seven days a week, to beat the deadline.

Wise allowed Trumbull to re-conceive and direct the film’s most celebrated sequence, the shuttle pod circling the majestic Enterprise before docking. It contains no dialogue, a decision Trumbull credits from working with Kubrick, who taught him to “stop talking for a while and let it all flow.”

Trumbull also helmed Spock’s spacewalk, which clearly borrowed from his 2001 Star Gate sequence. “I thought it would be fun to just get kind of abstract and make it a fantasy dream sequence in a way, not literal,” he said.

As special photographic effects supervisor for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Trumbull devised the concept of projecting images onto blimps and buildings and was the driving force behind the use of smoke to create the illusion of depth and distance.

For the famous opening of fireballs exploding over Los Angeles in November 2019, Trumbull used unreleased footage of explosions he had shot for Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970).

About one-third into principal photography, Trumbull left to begin work on Brainstorm, a sci-fi concept of transferring images and sensations from one human to another.

The film was to introduce his Showscan process (70mm film photographed at 60 frames per second) during the virtual reality sequences, but MGM balked at the idea because of the cost. Then, during a production break in November 1981, Wood drowned under mysterious circumstances during a boat trip to Catalina island.

MGM filed an insurance claim, and Lloyd’s of London put up the remaining money to complete the film. The dedication “To Natalie” appears after the closing credits.

The circumstances of her death and his battles with MGM affected Trumbull greatly, he said, and he moved to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. “I just had to stop,” he told THR‘s Scott Feinberg in 2014.

“I had been a writer-director all my life,” he noted, “and I decided it wasn’t for me because I was put through a really challenging personal experience. … I decided to leave the movie business.”

Producer (7 credits)

 2018 The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (executive producer)

 1993 In Search of the Obelisk (Short) (producer)

 1990 To Dream of Roses (Short) (executive producer)

 1983 Brainstorm (producer)

 1980 The Starlost: Deception (TV Movie) (executive producer)

  The Starlost (TV Series) (producer - 12 episodes, 1973 - 1974) (executive producer - 4 episodes, 1973)

- Space Precinct (1974) ... (producer)

- The Beehive (1973) ... (producer)

- Farthing's Comet (1973) ... (producer)

- The Return of Oro (1973) ... (producer)

- The Implant People (1973) ... (producer)

1972 Silent Running (producer - uncredited)

Hide Hide Director (13 credits)

 2011 Golden Eyes (Short)

 1993 Luxor Live

 1993 Theater of Time (Short)

 1993 In Search of the Obelisk (Short)

 1991 Back to the Future... The Ride (Video short)

 1989 Leonardo's Dream (Short)

 1985 Let's Go (Short)

 1985 Tour of the Universe (Short)

 1983 Big Ball (Short)

 1983 New Magic (Documentary short)

 1983 Brainstorm

 1978 Night of Dreams (Short)

 1972 Silent Running

Hide Hide Visual effects (11 credits)

 2018 The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (visual effects)

 2011 The Tree of Life (visual effects consultant)

 1982 Blade Runner (special photographic effects supervisor)

 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (special photographic effects director)

 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (special photographic effects)

 1973 The Starlost (TV Series) (visual effects - 1 episode)

- Voyage of Discovery (1973) ... (visual effects - uncredited)

 1972 Silent Running (special photographic effects)

 1971 The Andromeda Strain (special photographic effects)

 1968 Candy (opening and closing sequences)

 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey (special photographic effects supervisor)

 1964 To the Moon and Beyond (Documentary short) (special photographic effects)

 

Additional Crew (2 credits)

 2021 Phenomenon Blade Runner (TV Movie documentary) (archive footage provider)

 2011 Secret Access: UFOs on the Record (TV Movie documentary) (archive footage)

 

Actor (1 credit)

 1991 Back to the Future... The Ride (Video short)

IFT Scientist (uncredited)

 

Writer (1 credit)

 1985 Let's Go (Short)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director (1 credit)

 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (second unit director - uncredited)

 

Thanks (14 credits)

 2021 5-25-77 (special thanks)

 2020 Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (TV Movie documentary) (special thanks)

 2019 One Child Nation (Documentary) (special thanks)

 2016 Approaching the Unknown (special thanks)

 2013 Back on Earth? (Short) (inspirational thanks)

 2013 C: 299, 792 Kilometers Per Second (Short) (special thanks)

 2011 Exploring 'the Tree of Life' (Video documentary short) (special thanks)

 2011 Secret Access: UFOs on the Record (TV Movie documentary) (special thanks)

 2009 Delroy Kincaid (Short) (acknowledgment)

 2002 'Silent Running': By Director Douglas Trumbull (Video documentary short) (special thanks)

 2002 Douglas Trumbull: Then and Now (Video short) (special thanks)

 2002 Silent Running': A Conversation with Bruce Dern, 'Lowell Freeman (Video documentary short) (special thanks)

 2000 On the Edge of 'Blade Runner' (TV Movie documentary) (acknowledgment: still photographs provided by)

 1990 Spaced Invaders (special thanks)

 

Self (45 credits)

  Untitled Ralph Mcquarrie Documentary (Documentary) (filming)

Self

  Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey (Documentary) (post-production)

Self

 2021 Phenomenon Blade Runner (TV Movie documentary)

Self - Interviewee / Visual Effects Supervisor of 'Blade Runner'

 2020 Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind (TV Movie documentary)

Self - Director, 'Brainstorm'

 2018 Trumbull Land (TV Movie documentary)

Self

 2018 James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction (TV Mini Series documentary)

Self

- Intelligent Machines (2018) ... Self

 2018 Chesley Bonestell: A Brush with the Future (Documentary)

Self - Director

 2017 Since '45 - In the Extraordinary House of History (Documentary)

Self

 2016 Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Centennial Gala (Video)

Self

 2015 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies (TV Movie documentary)

Self

 2015 Gravity: Looking to the Stars - The Evolution of Space Films (Video documentary)

Self

 2015 Movies and Stuff (TV Series)

Self

- Douglas Trumbull (2015) ... Self

 2014 The Real History of Science Fiction (TV Mini Series documentary)

Self - 2001: A Space Odyssey / Visual Effects: Close Encounters of the Third Kind / Self / ...

- Invasion (2014) ... Self - 2001: A Space Odyssey / Visual Effects: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

- Space (2014) ... Self

- Robots (2014) ... Self - Visual Effects, 2001: A Space Odyssey / Director, Silent Running

 2012 10th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards (TV Special)

Self

 2012 2001: The Science of Futures Past (Documentary)

Self

 2012 Ain't It Cool with Harry Knowles (TV Series)

Self

- The Future of Cinema with Douglas Trumbull Part 2 (2012) ... Self

- The Future of Cinema with Douglas Trumbull Part 1 (2012) ... Self

 2011 The 16th Annual Satellite Awards (TV Special)

Self - The Nikola Tesla Award Recipient

 2011 Exploring 'the Tree of Life' (Video documentary short)

Self

 2011 Secret Access: UFOs on the Record (TV Movie documentary)

Self - Director & Photographic Effects Supervisor

 2008 Miradas 2 (TV Series documentary)

Self - Interviewee

- Episode dated 8 October 2008 (2008) ... Self - Interviewee

 2008 HypaSpace (TV Series documentary)

Self

- Episode #7.1 (2008) ... Self

 2007 Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner (Video documentary)

Self

 2007 2001: FX and Early Conceptual Artwork (Video documentary short)

Self

 2007 Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick: The Legacy of 2001 (Video documentary short)

Self

 2007 Vision of a Future Passed: The Prophecy of 2001 (Video documentary short)

Self

 2002 'Silent Running': By Director Douglas Trumbull (Video documentary short)

Self

 2002 Douglas Trumbull: Then and Now (Video short)

Self

 2001 The Andromeda Strain: Making the Film (Video documentary short)

Self

 2001 The Making of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (Video documentary)

Self

 2001 Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (Documentary)

Self (as Doug Trumbull)

 2001 2001: The Making of a Myth (TV Movie documentary)

Self - Special Photographic Effects Supervisor: '2001' (as Doug Trumbull)

 2001 2001 and Beyond (TV Movie documentary)

Self

 2000 On the Edge of 'Blade Runner' (TV Movie documentary)

Self

 1997 The Reality Trip (TV Movie documentary)

Self

 1996 Cyberspace (TV Mini Series documentary)

Self

- Electroculture (1996) ... Self

- Virtual Worlds (1996) ... Self

- Through the Looking Glass (1996) ... Self

 1996 Lights, Camera, Action!: A Century of the Cinema (TV Mini Series documentary)

Self

- The Grand Illusion (1996) ... Self

 1990 Making Close Encounters (Video documentary)

Self

 1985 Les ateliers du rêve: les grands studios de cinéma dans le monde (TV Mini Series documentary)

Self

- Etats-Unis, Grande-Bretagne ou les nouveaux magiciens (1985) ... Self

 1984 Monsters, Madmen & Machines: 80 Years of Science Fiction (TV Movie documentary)

Self (uncredited)

 1982 Blade Runner: Convention Reel (Video short)

Self

 1982 The History of the SF Film (TV Movie documentary)

Guest

 1979 Fantasy Film Festival (TV Series)

Self

- Douglas Trumbull (1979) ... Self

 1979 Since '45 (Documentary short)

In new expanded version

 1974 The Making of 'Silent Running' (Documentary)

Self

 1973 Starlost (Documentary short)

Self

 

Archive footage (2 credits)

 2015 Some Jerk with a Camera (TV Series)

Self

- Back to the Future: The Ride - Part I (2015) ... Self

 2013 Jodorowsky's Dune (Documentary)

Self - Special Effects Artist