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"2001" behind-the-scenes photos


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I don't fault a movie for looking like the period in which it was shot, but compared to movies shot in 1966-1968, "2001" is years ahead in its lighting style, though other movies soon copied aspects of "2001" (such as the white limbo effect in "THX-1138").

 

I put some frames from "Ice Station Zero" (1968) and "Marooned" (1969) to compare with the way sets and people were lit in "2001":

 

compare_2001_1.jpg

 

compare_2001_2.jpg

 

compare_2001_3.jpg

 

compare_2001_4.jpg

 

compare_2001_5.jpg

 

compare_2001_6.jpg

 

compare_2001_7.jpg

 

As I mentioned in my "Help!" thread, some of this soft lighting of sets and emphasis on practical sources was being done on a smaller scale by people like David Watkin, and of course there is Gil Taylor's War Room set lighting in "Dr. Strangelove", but it was pretty rare and hard to achieve with 50 ASA color negative (100 ASA color negative arrived in mid-1968, so half the films released in 1969 were using it.)

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Hey, that THE 2001 FILE book on Harry Lange's designs is out. Not a ton of text but my god, illustrations of so many variants in design for instrumentation, ships, costumes ... and a couple of myths debunked on the first page I read, too. I have all of Frayling's books on Ken Adam (even the one about the art exhibit) and this one is just as worthwhile for design fanatics.

 

Can't really go into any detail on it (have a proposal to interview author and do a review waiting at SMITHSONIAN's AIR & SPACE mag, a market I've been trying to crack this whole century), but if you're a dedicated 2001phile, it's worth the money.

Edited by KH Martin
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You can see the unit creating the slit of light in this photo:

2001_lighting4.jpg

 

The thing though is that I've seen plenty of architectural lighting in rooms that put patterns like that onto objects on walls, etc. for accents.

 

Just noticed what a pain it was to put stands on that deeply curved floor....

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I lowered my standards yesterday and watched it in HD and yes, you can see the patches on the Scotchlite. HD makes a lot of it look like stills and shows up jitter on some of the back projections. Oh for 70mm. with a bit of, you know, grain and weave. Maybe I'll shell out next month at the Prince Charles in Leicester Square.

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Unfortunately the current 2K DCP shows the same problem as the blu-ray version -- I don't know if it is due to the loss of contrast in the negative or maybe now when I see it in 70mm next, I'll now notice the patches in the 3M scotchlite material for the first time....

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  • 2 months later...

That's not Mitchell with the "bug eye", it's an original Todd-AO camera, which is actully a 65mm Thomascolor camera from the 30s.

 

http://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1278/

 

Which in turn was a Fearless Superfilm camera from 1929-30. That is not a mitchell magazine on it.

 

I recall a DTrumbull interview about 'Brain Storm' where he says that Kubrick bought a bug lens from Todd-AO.

& it seems the camera with it.

 

In an interview with SSpielberg about "I.A.", he says that Kubrick told him he has some 65mm cameras that S might be able to use for effects photography. Might the FC be one of them?

 

http://www.in70mm.com/todd_ao/catalog/vol_2/index.htm

 

http://www.in70mm.com/todd_ao/catalog/vol_3/index.htm

 

This one has the baby bug eye in it:

 

http://www.in70mm.com/todd_ao/catalog/vol_1/index.htm

 

 

Also I suspect a 19mm Kowa medium format lens was used for the hand held fish eye shots in Hal's lobotomy scene.

Trumbull used one for the steadicam shots in Brain Storm.

 

 

 

.

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With regards to "getting space right," can anyone name any movie, before or after (even "Gravity" gets several things wrong, although it is better than most) that is as well done as "2001?"

No sound in space? Even "2010" screwed all of that up, ignored its predecessor, had a black wire visible in one shot, got the physics all wrong, suddenly you could hear everything.



Some pedant was criticizing how the artificial gravity on Discovery wouldn't have been Earth gravity as it was too small. Someone came back and shot the pedant down by pointing out that they BUILT THE SET UP TO THE CEILING OF THE SOUNDSTAGE, so I would say that, in my opinion, Stanley Kubrick gets a pass there.

Oh, and insurance would never cover that today. That giant wooden human hamster wheel was a death trap!



Looked through all the photos, they're great! Only criticism is there's one shot where they have it flipped from the proper orientation, as you can see the writing on the slate is backwards.

And what's the deal with all those Polaroids? Is Kubrick using them to figure out the exposure or something? All the Pola shots have shutter and aperture settings scrawled n them.

Edited by Ari Michael Leeds
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You can see the unit creating the slit of light in this photo:

2001_lighting4.jpg

 

 

I shouldn't bring this up but I really want to know now!

Those are really interesting stands the flag is attached to.

Is there a name for those?

The flat feet are interesting.

 

Yup I went there...

 

Freya

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It seems the folding leg C Stand was introduced in !974, according to the Matthews Catalogue..

 

"In 1974 Matthews Studio Equipment introduced the industry’s first folding base C-Stand. (C-Stand and Century Stand are registered trademarks of Matthews Studio Equipment.) Matthews now produces a wide range of C-Stands and related accessories to assist the motion picture, television and photographic professional in lighting and lighting modification support."

 

So the stands in the picture are ones typical of the period.

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They probably made a special base for their c-stands to deal with the angled floor.

 

...but with a c-stand you can adjust the height of each foot independently right?

(not that I'm an expert on c-stands)

 

...so they would be better suited to this situation presumably than the flat based stands in the pic.

 

Freya

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It seems the folding leg C Stand was introduced in !974, according to the Matthews Catalogue..

 

"In 1974 Matthews Studio Equipment introduced the industry’s first folding base C-Stand. (C-Stand and Century Stand are registered trademarks of Matthews Studio Equipment.) Matthews now produces a wide range of C-Stands and related accessories to assist the motion picture, television and photographic professional in lighting and lighting modification support."

 

So the stands in the picture are ones typical of the period.

 

 

Brian, that is VERY interesting. Do you have any idea what the older kind of stands were called?

 

Freya

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There is a wooden gangplank in that photograph with transverse battens on it. So I reckon the stands either used the battens as stops or were fastened to the plank- one of the stands has hole in the legs- depending on the slope.

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And what's the deal with all those Polaroids? Is Kubrick using them to figure out the exposure or something? All the Pola shots have shutter and aperture settings scrawled n them.

Yes. he and Unsworth worked out a system, mostly for the high-key scenes. Meters and rushes weren't good enough for Kubrick.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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Brian, that is VERY interesting. Do you have any idea what the older kind of stands were called?

 

Freya

 

 

I don't know the British film industry term was at the time, but looking in an old copy of Gerald Millerson's "The Technique of Lighting for TV and Motion Pictures" it has "heavy duty castored stand", but I suspect floor stand would be the term used in the TV industry (he was a TV studio lighting director for the BBC at the time.). No doubt there was a more colourful term used on feature films.

 

Just looking at old Mole Richardson stands, they seem to be given the name of the light eg Junior or Senior stand.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
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...but with a c-stand you can adjust the height of each foot independently right?

 

Usually not, unless you get a rocky mountain leg c-stand, like so: http://setlighting.tumblr.com/post/70543147590/rocky-mountain-high

 

Even then, it's usually just the top leg that is height adjustable. They work well on stairs but not so well on curved surfaces, hence David's idea of a custom c-stand base.

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I don't know the British film industry term was at the time, but looking in an old copy of Gerald Millerson's "The Technique of Lighting for TV and Motion Pictures" it has "heavy duty castored stand"...

 

Okay so maybe what is going on here is they took the wheels / castors off the stands so they wouldn't roll downhill.

This explains why they have that flat design to and why they don't look like anything we have seen before, they just modified them a bit.

 

That's my guess anyway but who knows!

 

I think Phil Rhodes has a stand like this so maybe he can recognise them?

 

Freya

Edited by Freya Black
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