Douglas Hunt Trumbull (; April 8, 1942 – February 7, 2022) was an American
film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
and innovative
visual effects supervisor
In the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director or producers through the use of visual effects.
While it is a creative role, most supervisors possess a st ...
. He pioneered methods in special effects and created scenes for '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', ''
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story ...
Blade Runner
''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...
'' and ''
The Tree of Life
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', and directed the movies ''
Silent Running
''Silent Running'' is a 1972 American environmental-themed apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic science fiction film. It is the directorial debut of Douglas Trumbull, and stars Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse ...
Trumbull was born in Los Angeles. His father was an aerospace engineer who had briefly worked in Hollywood creating visual effects for the 1939 movie '' The Wizard of Oz''.; his mother, who died when Trumbull was 7, was an artist. As a child, he liked to construct mechanical and electrical devices such as crystal-set radios, and enjoyed watching alien invasion movies. He initially wanted to be an architect, leading him to take classes in illustration. He studied technical drawing at El Camino Junior College and joined the Screen Cartoonists Guild upon graduating. However, Hollywood initially rejected his portfolio of spaceships and planetary drawings. Though his abilities in creating photorealistic art led to a job at Graphic Films, which produced short films for NASA and the Air Force.
Career
1960s
Douglas Trumbull's early work was at Graphic Films in Los Angeles. The small animation and graphic arts studio produced a film called ''
To the Moon and Beyond
''To The Moon and Beyond'' is a special motion picture produced for and shown at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair. It depicted traveling from Earth out to an overall view of the universe and back again, zooming down to the atomic scale. It w ...
'' about spaceflight for the
1964 New York World's Fair
The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants, representing 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations with the goal and the final result of building exhibits or ...
. Trumbull, the son of a mechanical engineer and an artist, worked at Graphic Films as an illustrator and airbrush artist. He painted a rotating spiral galaxy, and using a fish eye lens, projected the film onto a custom-built dome. The effect was ground-breaking for its time and the film caught the attention of director
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
, who was beginning work on the project that would become '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. Kubrick hired director Con Pederson from Graphic Films and the company was to work on visual effects for the film. When Kubrick decided to move all production to England, he cancelled the contract with Graphic Films. Trumbull wanted to keep working on the film as he had already done considerable pre-production work, so he cold-called Kubrick after obtaining the director's home phone number from Pederson. Kubrick hired Trumbull and flew him to London for the production of ''2001''. Trumbull's first task was to create the dozens of animations seen in the data display screens in the ''Aries'' moon shuttle and the ''Discovery''. They looked like computer graphics, but they were created by photographing and animating reproductions of charts and graphs from technical publications. Trumbull initially created the shots using a number of
Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor.
Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadge ...
-like contraptions he built with gears and motors ordered from a scientific equipment supply house. Kubrick gave the young effects technician creative freedom and encouragement: "He would say ... 'What do you need to do it?' and I would have complete carte blanche, which was wild as a young guy", Trumbull recalled. "I was 23–24 when I started the movie, and was 25 by the time I was doing the Star Gate. He would say, 'What do you need?' and I'd say, 'Well, I need to go into town and buy some weird bearings and some stuff' and he would send me off to town in his Bentley, with a driver, into London. It was great!"
Trumbull's responsibilities and talents grew as the production continued, and he became one of four special effects supervisors on the film (the others were fellow Graphic Films alumnus Con Pederson, along with Tom Howard and Wally Veevers.) Trumbull's most memorable contribution was the development of the
slit-scan photography
The slit-scan photography technique is a photographic and cinematographic process where a moveable slide, into which a slit has been cut, is inserted between the camera and the subject to be photographed.
More generally, "slit-scan photography ...
process, used in the "Stargate" sequence. "... I just happened to be in the right place at the right time ... We were struggling with the Star Gate. Nobody knew what a Star Gate was; but, I came up with some ideas that I didn't even know at the time were based on some things I was learning as a young guy about street photography and weird photographic techniques ...". He created the Stargate by building a 6ft-tall sheet of rotatable metal and cut a narrow slit in it. The sheet was placed in front of a 12ft-long backlit glass panel, through which lighting patterns were shone. With a long camera exposure, the kaleidoscope of lights appeared to be darting towards the camera from a single point.
Trumbull and Kubrick wanted the audience to feel like they were on the adventure themselves, and immersed in the film by participating. This approach eventually led to the Imax system of high resolution projection, which Trumbull helped to develop. Working on ''2001'' hooked Trumbull on the concept of producing immersive film experiences on huge screens — ironically, at a time when the industry was moving towards the multiplexing of theatres with smaller screens.
Although Trumbull's association with Kubrick was a huge boost for his career, he swore afterwards that he would "never work for someone else again", in part because Kubrick "was a hell of a taskmaster ... his level of quality-control bordered on perfectionism."
The film earned an Oscar for best special effects, but the award went solely to Kubrick, with Trumbull receiving none of the accolade for his work. This led to threats of legal action and the two men did not speak for a decade. Trumbull said after Kubrick's death that Kubrick "was a genius", someone whom Trumbull missed terribly.
In 1969 Trumbull was filming the annual Flying Saucer Convention in
Giant Rock
Giant Rock is a large freestanding boulder in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California, and the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms (location ). The boulder covers {{convert, 5800, sqft, m2 of ground and is seven stories hig ...
California. This evolved into a full-length project initially called Giant Rock, Rutabaga Deluxe, and then ''
Saturation 70
''Saturation 70'' is an incomplete film written by American writer-director Tony Foutz, and was to star then-five-year-old Julian Brian Jones, the son of Rolling Stone Brian Jones. The film also starred Michelle Phillips and Gram Parsons, as well ...
: An Ecological Horror Fantasy''. The star of the film was a five-year-old Jason Jones, who was the son of
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones (28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969) was an English multi-instrumentalist and singer best known as the founder, rhythm/lead guitarist, and original leader of the Rolling Stones. Initially a guitarist, he went on to prov ...
, of
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...
fame. The story involved Jones losing his mother in a giant garbage dump and wandering a desolate planet looking for her, while being menaced by gas-masked garbage men and helped by a fairy godmother in a sequined cowgirl creation by Nudie. Some footage includes a battle with a Green Beret and a Viet Cong in a supermarket. Trumbull's partner on the film was Anthony Foutz. A company called Dimension V took over backing of the film.
1970–1974
Having returned to Hollywood, Trumbull set up his own company and subsequently bid on the job to produce special effects for the science-fiction film ''
The Andromeda Strain
''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, his first novel under his own name and his sixth novel overall. It is written as a report documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak o ...
''. ("I was a young guy and very naive", he later recalled, "And I seriously underbid the job – I had no idea what these things were supposed to cost. I nearly went bankrupt as a result!") Trumbull and associate James Shourt produced dozens of shots, including the "electron microscope" pictures of the Andromeda organism and various on-screen readouts. Though many of these looked like computer graphics, they were created using techniques Trumbull had used for ''2001.'' Author
Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton (; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavily feature tech ...
and director
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of ...
were much impressed by Trumbull's work.
Trumbull's participation and success on ''Andromeda'' set him up to direct the 1971 film ''
Silent Running
''Silent Running'' is a 1972 American environmental-themed apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, post-apocalyptic science fiction film. It is the directorial debut of Douglas Trumbull, and stars Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse ...
'', with a script based on his original treatment: America's last great forests are preserved and sent into space inside huge
geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure (lattice-shell) based on a geodesic polyhedron. The triangular elements of the dome are structurally rigid and distribute the structural stress throughout the structure, making geodesic dom ...
s, in the hope that one day they can be returned to an earth that can once again sustain them. When orders are issued by faceless bureaucrats to abandon and destroy the domes, the ship's botanist (
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He has often played supporting villainous characters of unstable natures. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver B ...
) rebels and takes over the ship, aided by three anthropomorphic "drone" robots. He steers the ship away from the fleet and hides among the rings of
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
, out of contact (silent running), attempting to keep the forest in good health, alone except for the drones who follow him around like pets.
''Silent Running'' was produced by Universal on a shoestring budget of one million dollars, one-tenth the budget of ''2001''. The film used a number of special effects techniques that Trumbull had helped develop. The spacecraft interiors were shot aboard a mothballed
aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
, which lent its name to the movie spacecraft ''Valley Forge''. Trumbull was not originally slated to direct, but as the start of production loomed he became the obvious choice. (Other newcomers included the script writing team of Deric Washburn and
Michael Cimino
Michael Antonio Cimino ( ; February 3, 1939 – July 2, 2016) was an American filmmaker. One of the " New Hollywood" directors, Cimino achieved fame with ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Bes ...
, who would later collaborate on ''
The Deer Hunter
''The Deer Hunter'' is a 1978 war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Slavic-American steelworkers whose lives were upended after fighting in the Vietnam War. The three soldiers are played by Robert De Niro, ...
'', along with writer
Steven Bochco
Steven Ronald Bochco Masterson (December 16, 1943 – April 1, 2018) was an American television writer and producer. He developed a number of television series, including ''Hill Street Blues'', ''L.A. Law'', ''Doogie Howser, M.D.'', ''Cop Rock'' ...
of ''
Hill Street Blues
''Hill Street Blues'' is an American serial police procedural television series that aired on NBC in prime-time from January 15, 1981, to May 12, 1987, for 146 episodes. The show chronicles the lives of the staff of a single police station loca ...
'' and ''
L.A. Law
''L.A. Law'' is an American legal drama television series that ran for eight seasons on NBC, from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994.
Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it centers on the partners, associates and staff of a Los ...
'' fame.)
When ''Silent Running'' was released, insiders were astonished that the finished film had been produced for so little money. Lead actor Bruce Dern compared Trumbull's creative vision to that of
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...
, with whom Dern had also worked. Trumbull was seen as one of Hollywood's up and coming young directors.
Although a critical success, ''Silent Running'' was a flop at the box office. Trumbull recalled that "It was just a great experience for me as a film maker, but I didn't know that I was part of an experiment by Universal Studios . . . to see if it was possible to have a movie survive on word of mouth alone without an advertising campaign." It was not, but ''Silent Running''s environmental message struck a chord, and the movie has since become a
cult classic
A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...
.
After ''Silent Running'', Trumbull developed a number of movie projects, but a series of misfortunes and bad luck kept them from getting beyond the initial development stage. One project nearly did get into production, and was already being cast when it was abruptly scuttled – the investor had decided to abandon the movie business and build a Las Vegas casino instead. Trumbull described this period of his career as "
development hell
Development hell, development purgatory, and development limbo are media and software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in development for an especially long time, often moving between different crews, scripts, game engi ...
". Unable to live on development fees alone and needing money, Trumbull returned to creating special effects, including some uncredited work using blue screen techniques on the 1974 film ''
The Towering Inferno
''The Towering Inferno'' is a 1974 American disaster film directed by John Guillermin and produced by Irwin Allen, featuring an ensemble cast led by Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. It was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels '' The Towe ...
'', a huge commercial hit.
1975–1980
In 1975, Trumbull turned down an offer to provide the effects for
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...
' ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
'' due to other commitments, but in 1977 he contributed effects to ''
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story ...
''. In late 1978, Trumbull's Future General Corporation, a research/special effects house that was funded by
Gulf + Western
Gulf and Western Industries, Inc. (stylized as Gulf+Western) was an American conglomerate. Originally, the company focused on manufacturing and resource extraction. Beginning in 1966, and continuing throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the compan ...
and
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, was offered the job to produce the special effects for '' Star Trek: The Motion Picture''. Trumbull, already deeply involved in ''Close Encounters'', refused, wanting instead to focus his efforts on his patented
Showscan
Showscan is a cinematic process developed by Douglas Trumbull that uses 70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second, 2.5 times the standard speed of movie film.
History
Trumbull first came to the public's attention for his work ...
process, a high-speed, large-format movie process that provided unprecedented visual clarity. Paramount awarded the contract to effects house Robert Abel and Associates, and in a move seen by some as payback for Trumbull's refusal to take on the project, all but shuttered Future General.
Robert Abel had produced many high-end, visually advanced commercials for clients such as
7-Up
7 Up (stylized as 7up outside North America) is an American brand of lemon-lime-flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper although the beverage is internationally distributed by PepsiCo. 7 Up comp ...
, but it soon became apparent that their choice of technology, which featured software-controlled camera rigs and graphics imaging systems very advanced for the day, simply couldn't scale up to the volume of material required. In August 1978, with rumors of an impending meltdown at Abel swirling, Trumbull approached Paramount offering to step in and do the effects with partner
Richard Yuricich
Richard Yuricich (born December 1942) is a special visual effects artist. He is the brother of Matthew Yuricich, also a special effects artist. Yuricich is of Croatian descent. He has been nominated for an Academy Award three times.
Oscar Nomin ...
. Paramount declined, hoping that Abel could still work a miracle.
Early in 1979, and with principal photography nearly finished and a December release date looming, Abel was fired after failing to produce even a few seconds of usable footage. Paramount approached Trumbull to take over effects production, which Trumbull did after securing an agreement to be released from his contract at Paramount upon completion of the film. "At the time", he recalled, "I think they would have entertained ''anyone'' who could have pulled them out of the jam." Trumbull reassembled his Future General team, rebuilt his facility which Paramount had nearly gutted, and with a mere six months to create the hundreds of effects shots needed, worked virtually around the clock for months. His team made the date, but their in-house battle cry became "... crop it, flop it, or drop it!" (That is, re-use part of an existing scene, take an existing scene and "flop" it over so that a right-to-left shot of the ship now plays the other way, or "drop" the shot from the script altogether.)
The model of the ''Enterprise'', already built by the time Trumbull's team took over, proved especially tricky. While the model of ''Discovery'' in "2001" was over 50 feet (15 m.) long and featured a wealth of detail (from parts gleaned from, among other things, hundreds of plastic model tank kits), the model of the ''Enterprise'' was only seven feet (2 m.) in length, which severely limited the photographic possibilities. Other compromises had to be overcome. Trumbull had several ideas for unconventional effects – such as a modified slitscan technique to produce fantastic streaks when the ''Enterprise'' went into warp drive, but many had to be shelved due to time constraints. Trumbull also made several contributions to the story line, in collaboration once again with his ''Andromeda Strain'' director Robert Wise.
As Trumbull told Wolfram Hannemann of ''in70mm.com'', "There were as many shots n the movieas "Close Encounters" and "Star Wars" combined ... There were 650 shots, which had to be completed in six months ... and we all worked 24 hours a day for six months. Seven days a week, around the clock, to get that movie done ... I ended up in the hospital – it was a major recovery. I had ulcers, all kinds of exhaustion because I was working seven days a week, almost living in the studio, not getting enough sleep."
1980–1990s
In 1981 Trumbull directed the special effects for the
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is a British film director and producer. Directing, among others, science fiction films, his work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Scott has received many accolades thr ...
film ''
Blade Runner
''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick' ...
''. By this time Trumbull had sworn off doing special effects for other directors, but was lured to the project by the opportunity to work with Scott, and a chance to create something other than sterile, grey and white spacecraft. "One of the things that appealed to me about the project", Trumbull recalled in an interview in
Cinefex
''Cinefex'' launched in 1980, was a quarterly journal covering visual effects in films. Each issue featured lengthy, detailed articles that described the creative and technical processes behind current films, the information drawn from interviews ...
magazine, "was that it was NOT a space movie. I'm just real tired of doing spaceships against star backgrounds." Indeed, the iconic images of a polluted, dystopian Los Angeles, looking more like an
oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, lique ...
than a metropolis, and complete with building-sized electronic billboards and a bulbous blimp circling overhead advertising "Off World" job opportunities became the film's visual trademarks. (Despite the experience and professionalism of Trumbull's disciples, not everything went smoothly. According to Cinefex magazine, a young model maker was giving his girlfriend a tour of the effects shop, and he noticed that a large model of a building being photographed in the "smoke room" – a sealed room specially constructed to provide a smoky atmosphere – was burning fiercely. Thinking this was just another effect, he mentioned it in passing to a supervisor, who immediately grabbed an extinguisher and ran to put out the fire. The plastic and fiberglass model had been mounted too close to a powerful light which eventually set it ablaze.)
Trumbull did not complete ''Blade Runner'', (David Dryer took over as special effects supervisor) leaving the film as agreed about halfway through to concentrate on pre-production for his next directing effort, '' Brainstorm'', a story of two brilliant scientists who develop a revolutionary device to record and vicariously experience other people's feelings and perceptions, a device the military tries to steal for its own purposes.
''Brainstorm'' was to be a showcase for Trumbull's "
Showscan
Showscan is a cinematic process developed by Douglas Trumbull that uses 70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second, 2.5 times the standard speed of movie film.
History
Trumbull first came to the public's attention for his work ...
" process, which used special cameras and projectors to capture and project 70 mm film at 60 frames per second. At the last minute the Showscan process was not used, because theatre owners balked at the idea of installing expensive new projection equipment. The film was shot conventionally at 24 frames per second on 35 mm film, though Trumbull continued his process of shooting effects work in 70 mm. "In movies people often do flashbacks and point-of-view shots as a gauzy, mysterious, distant kind of image", Trumbull recalled, "And I wanted to do just the opposite, which was to make the material of the mind even more real and high-impact than 'reality'".
The film was nearly scuttled by the mysterious drowning death of
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood ( Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles.
Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring r ...
during a break in production. MGM immediately shut down production and initially wanted to dump ''Brainstorm'' (and collect the insurance on the unfinished film). Trumbull argued that the film could easily be finished – Natalie Wood's performance was already "in the can" and only a few scenes would have to be reshot. Lawyers and insurance companies battled over whether to even complete the film. The movie was finally finished two years later when the insurance company supplied the money to finish production. Trumbull had pushed all the while for the studio to finish and release his movie. "I can do this", Trumbull recalled in an interview with GreenCine, "I've got all the coverage ... All you need to do is let me in the editing room and I'll show you. They said, 'No, you can't come back, we don't want you in the cutting room, you can't finish this movie.'" Because of his determination to finish his film, Trumbull became ''persona non grata'' at MGM in the process. Eventually released on a small number of screens and with little publicity (though Trumbull recalled in the Greencine interview that the film became "Quote, Natalie Wood's last film, unquote") ''Brainstorm'' was well received critically but a commercial failure at the box office.
Exhausted from his battles with the Hollywood system ("The movie business is so totally screwed up that I just don't have the energy to invest three or four years in a feature film"), Trumbull retreated to the
Berkshire Hills
The Berkshires () are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that ex ...
of western
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
, to escape "the lawyers, the insurance agents, the creeps", redirecting his career away from traditional Hollywood projects and concentrating instead on developing new technology for movie production, and for the exhibition industry and theme-park rides, such as the Back to the Future Ride at
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
Theme Park. Until recently, Trumbull's Showscan technology could be seen on a theme-park type ride at the
Luxor Hotel
Luxor Las Vegas is a 30-story casino hotel situated on the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The hotel is owned by Vici Properties and operated by MGM Resorts International and has a casino with over 2,000 slot machines an ...
in Las Vegas.
In 1994 Trumbull was briefly a Vice Chairman of
IMAX Corporation
IMAX Corporation is a Canadian theatre company which designs and manufactures IMAX cameras and projection systems as well as performing film development, production, post-production and distribution to IMAX-affiliated theatres worldwide. Founde ...
and President of its Ridefilm division through his involvement in the simultaneous combination and takeover of the Canadian-based private company Imax Corp. and Trumbull Co.
2000–2018
Trumbull spent nearly two decades in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, starting and running a series of companies involved in effects production and innovation.
In 2010, Trumbull used social media to publicize a video on Vimeo and YouTube demonstrating an invention intended to cap the BP oil spill with a strong vacuum seal. Although the video "went viral" almost immediately, Trumbull never heard from BP or any of the US government agencies struggling to contain the spill, which left him bemused and mildly annoyed. "I didn't do it with the hope of compensation", he later said, "I did it because I thought it was the moral thing to do."
After nearly thirty years away from Hollywood, Trumbull contributed to special effects work on
Terrence Malick
Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American filmmaker. His films include '' Days of Heaven'' (1978), '' The Thin Red Line'' (1998), for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenp ...
's 2011 film ''
The Tree of Life
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
''. Malick, reportedly a Trumbull fan, approached him about the effects work and mentioned that he did not like the look of computer-generated effects. Reportedly Trumbull asked, "Why not do it the way we did it on 2001?" Recent compositing programs such as Nuke allow practical scenes shot on film to be combined with fewer of the head-aches of "traditional" effects work, such as shooting multiple camera passes on a single piece of film, matte passes, and the like. Trumbull eventually signed on as special effects consultant, working with the film's effects supervisor, Dan Glass. Many of the "organic" effects processes used in ''2001'' and ''Close Encounters'' were resurrected, such as photographing chemical interactions in petri dishes and releasing paints into water tanks. "It was a working environment that's almost impossible to come by these days", Trumbull told The Guardian newspaper in July 2011. "Terry wanted to create the opportunity for the unexpected to occur before the camera, then make something of that. He didn't want to use a very stringent design process, he wanted the unexpected phenomenon to occur – and use that."
In March 2011, director
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
announced plans to film his next ''
Avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
''-type 3D feature in a digital version of
Showscan
Showscan is a cinematic process developed by Douglas Trumbull that uses 70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second, 2.5 times the standard speed of movie film.
History
Trumbull first came to the public's attention for his work ...
. Cameron has been pushing for movie theatres to adopt higher frame-rates to maintain the 3D effect during scenes involving high-speed motion (such as explosions). At twenty-four frames per second the 3D effect breaks down, while at forty-eight or sixty frames per second it is maintained. Sixty frames per second is difficult to achieve with conventional film because of the stress on the medium itself; recording sixty frames per second using a digital camera is commonplace.
In 2012 Trumbull said he was working on a new science-fiction project that he claimed is "way beyond anything that Peter Jackson and James Cameron have been doing", which will probably be shot with a camera capable of recording 120 frames per second, twice the speed of its ancestor, Showscan.
Trumbull was a guest speaker at the Massachusetts Production Coalition in February 2013.
Since 2013 Trumbull maintained a workshop and studio on his property in the
Berkshire hills
The Berkshires () are a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and northwest Connecticut. The term "Berkshires" is normally used by locals in reference to the portion of the Vermont-based Green Mountains that ex ...
of Massachusetts where he continued to develop new tools for film-makers. He often traveled to film screenings and seminars and was enjoying a resurgence of his celebrity among film and visual effects enthusiasts. Trumbull seemed grateful for the recognition and reverence accorded by his followers. "They really keep me going", he told
The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
newspaper in February 2011. "They reinforce some enthusiasm about my work. It's very hard to keep me going, because the setbacks erereally tragic and difficult." When asked by a reporter how he had managed to persevere in the face of setbacks, Trumbull laughed and replied that he didn't know, and "Maybe I'm just out of my mind!"
In 2014 Trumbull announced that he had developed a new digital capture and projection system called Magi. It shoots and projects native 3D in 4K at 120 fps, using an innovative technique he called "cadence", which had never been used in previous 3D systems: "We were shooting 60 ramesper eye, projector was going 120—left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye. You’re shooting the same way you’re going to project it. And that's when this magic happens. It's only one flash per frame, and the sequence is actually temporally correct. There are in fact 120 different positions. Anything that moves in front of the camera is going to have 120 different positions." That year he also produced a short dramatic film, UFOTOG, to highlight the capabilities of the Magi system. The story deals with a man who has developed a sophisticated 3D photographic system to track UFOs and prove their existence, despite interference from a shadowy government agency. The film has been shown at film festivals and industry conferences and to filmmakers and studio executives.
In 2016, he told Science & Film, "I am planning on making a feature-length movie that will be almost entirely miniatures, but it will be photorealistic, full-scale, epic in quality, and have the kind of things that I like about ''Blade Runner'' and ''2001''."
In 2018, Trumbull provided the visual effects for and
executive produced
Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...
the movie ''
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
''The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot'' is a 2018 American adventure drama film, written, co-produced and directed by Robert D. Krzykowski in his feature debut, and starring Sam Elliott, Aidan Turner, Larry Miller, Ron Livingston, and ...
''. The same year, he participated in the documentary ''Trumbull Land'' (Grégory Wallet, 2018) devoted to him and his universe.
Honors
Trumbull was twice honored by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). Most recently, he received the Progress Medal in recognition of his numerous contributions to photographic processes and technologies in visual effects (VFX) and HFR cinematography. Trumbull conducted pioneering biometric research on audience response to HFR imaging and developed a novel cinematic process using 65mm film at 60 frames per second that resulted in a "Giant Screen" 70mm image with extraordinarily high definition along with smoother and more realistic motion rendering. His work continues to advance stereoscopic 3D and digital HFR imaging including his 120FPS Magi single-camera/single projector "lens-to-lens" system that harnesses existing cameras, post-production tools, and projectors to deliver images and sound that are almost indistinguishable from reality. The Progress Medal is the most prestigious SMPTE award, and it recognizes outstanding technical contributions to the progress of engineering phases of the motion picture, television, or motion-imaging industries. The honor was conferred upon Trumbull at the SMPTE Centennial Gala on October 28, 2016, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood. In 2011, he received the SMPTE Presidential Proclamation, which recognizes individuals of established and outstanding status and reputation in the motion-picture, television, and motion-imaging industries worldwide. Trumbull was honored for his more than 45 years of pioneering work in visual effects photography and groundbreaking innovation in motion picture technologies.
Trumbull was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010, citing first his stature as "innovative master of special effects". He has been nominated for
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
on three occasions and has received the American Society of Cinematographer's Lifetime Achievement Award.
Trumbull received the International Press Academy's Tesla award in December 2011, named in honor of
Gordon E. Sawyer Award
The Gordon E. Sawyer Award is an Honorary Award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to "an individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry." The award is named in ...
in February 2012, an honorary Academy Award given to an "individual in the motion picture industry whose technological contributions have brought credit to the industry", as well as the
Georges Méliès
Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was well known for the use of ...
award from the Visual Effects Society in the same month.
Personal life and death
Trumbull was married three times and had two children. He was in poor health for the last two years of his life, due to complications from a
stroke
A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
and cancer. He died from
mesothelioma
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops from the thin layer of tissue that covers many of the internal organs (known as the mesothelium). The most common area affected is the lining of the lungs and chest wall. Less commonly the lining ...
at a hospital in
Albany, New York
Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...
, on February 7, 2022, at the age of 79. His ashes are due to be sent into space with
Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols (, born Grace Dell Nichols; December 28, 1932 – July 30, 2022) was an American actress, singer, and dancer best known for her portrayal of Nyota Uhura in ''Star Trek'' and its film sequels. Nichols' portrayal of Uhura was g ...
.
See also
* ''
The Starlost
''The Starlost'' is a Canadian-produced science fiction television series created by writer Harlan Ellison and broadcast in 1973 on CTV in Canada and syndicated to local stations in the United States. The show's setting is a huge generational ...
Film Academy Baden-Württemberg
The Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg (German: ''Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg'') was founded in 1991 as a publicly funded film school in Ludwigsburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Filmakademie is one of the most internationally renowned film sc ...