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Douglas Trumbull (born April 8, 1942) is a film director and special effects supervisor.

Major projects

1960's

Trumbull's early work with NASA and the science film maker Con Pederson caught the attention of Stanley Kubrick who employed him to work on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Trumbull's outstanding contribution to the film was the "Star Gate" sequence which used a revolutionary camera design (see Slit-scan photography).

1970-1974

In 1971, Trumbull directed the film Silent Running which utilised a number of unused special effects techniques developed for 2001. Silent Running was a critical success, but a flop at the box office ostensibly due to poor advertising. During the rest of the early 1970s, Trumbull worked on a number of film projects that failed to get backing.

1975-1980

In 1975 Trumbull turned down the offer to provide the effects for George Lucas' Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope due to other commitments, but in 1977 contributed effects to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

1980-1990's

In 1981 Trumbull directed the special effects for the film Blade Runner.

In 1983 Trumbull finally got to direct a second major film, Brainstorm. The film was a showcase for a new film projection system called "Showscan", but the film was overshadowed by the death of Natalie Wood during production.

Since that time, Trumbull has concentrated on developing technology for the exhibition industry and theme-park rides, such as the Back To The Future Ride at Universal Studios Theme Park.

Showscan Specifications

Trumbull's Showscan system specified 70mm photography at 60 frames per second. The technology can be seen today at the Luxor Hotel.

Today

Trumbull today is held in reverence as a pioneer of the optical and digital effects industry. He has been nominated for Academy Awards on five occasions and has received a life-time achievement Oscar. The majority of the completed cinema projects that Trumbull has been associated with have come to be recognised as classics, gaining audiences over time. His most conspicuous cinematic flop, Brainstorm, predicts the fascination of virtual reality while Silent Running reflected the emerging ecology movement of the early 1970s, and is today regarded as a science fiction classic.

See also

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Silent Running
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture
• Blade Runner
• Brainstorm

External links

• "Total Immersion", Howard Rheingold, Wired Magazine, November 1993 - coverage of Trumbull's VR installation at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas.

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