Author Topic: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull  (Read 1126 times)

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Offline El Barto

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R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« on: February 09, 2022, 01:07:02 PM »
Largely responsible for some of the greatest special effects movies we've seen, including 2001, Close Encounters, Star Trek TMP, and Blade Runner. The legacy this guy left behind on special effects in filmmaking is simply astonishing. He didn't invent slit-screen photography, but he figured out how to use it for large scale visual effects. Moreover, the effect used for the stargate sequence in 2001 was his answer to a question nobody understood; what exactly is a stargate and what would it look like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY-ajPNQMh0

As I've surely mentioned many times before, Close Encounters is one of my very favorite movies. It's everything a movie should be. Trumbull didn't invent motion control photography, either, but he pretty much perfected it. The scene of the mothership coming in from behind Devil's Tower is as good as it gets. His use of color in these sequences is simply gorgeous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e62D-4I5NXI

The same can be said of ST:TMP. The five minute fly-around of the Enterprise was too long, but it certainly looked fantastic. Lucasfilms was using the same technique in Star Wars, but the space ship sequences always seemed so drab and lifeless. All the colors were the same. There was a vibrancy in what DT was doing, with lots color and life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQTzYp756o

I didn't much care for Blade Runner, so I'm not sure what video I should link to, but I saw it in theaters, and was blown away by how impressive it was visually. His rendition of Los Angeles was nothing short of incredible. It was both beautiful and terrifying.  It always seemed to me that the gist of being a special effects guy is to figure out how to make a building explode, or to find a way to show something that doesn't exist. Trumbull took it a step further. He did those things, but he was a true artist in how he did it. There was a beauty to what he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnyNW8fvRrw



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Offline lonestar

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Re: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2022, 01:12:14 PM »
Always loved that scene from ST:TMP...in fact I always thought that movie took way more shit than deserved, but I'm biased since it was written by my favorite author Alan Dean Foster. Lots of big, big movie moments out of one mind, definitely a big loss to Hollywood.

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2022, 02:28:44 PM »
Oh wow.  RIP.
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Offline Cool Chris

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Re: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2022, 09:07:59 PM »
Knew his name from Star Trek and a few others, did not know he worked on Blade Runner.

Somehow I missed Close Encounters in my childhood and didn't get to it till my 20s. Found it underwhelming but my sensibilities at that stage in my life were probably too narrow and restrictive to fully appreciate it.
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Offline faizoff

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Re: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2022, 09:27:32 PM »
Funny how I knew all his work and always marveled at it but didn't put the name and face together. Guy was super talented, to think you've worked with Kubrik at the age of 25 and make such an iconic movie and be behind all that classic imagery.
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Offline T-ski

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Re: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« Reply #5 on: February 10, 2022, 08:20:08 AM »
Close Encounters is wonderful movie. I remember hearing years ago, and I don’t know if it’s true, but the blue lights on the mothership are an aerial nighttime view of Los Angeles.

It was also the beginning of the Spielberg/Lucas joke of placing characters in each other’s movies. R2-D2 is part of the ship…

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Offline El Barto

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Re: R.I.P. Douglas Trumbull
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2022, 08:58:15 AM »
Close Encounters is wonderful movie. I remember hearing years ago, and I don’t know if it’s true, but the blue lights on the mothership are an aerial nighttime view of Los Angeles.
I'm not certain, but I believe every light in every ship was meticulously placed. I suspect it was before fiber optics, so I think the mother ship was neon installed inside with thousands of tiny holes drilled. It sure does look like a nighttime skyline, though.
Argument, the presentation of reasonable views, never makes headway against conviction, and conviction takes no part in argument because it knows.
E.F. Benson