Douglas Trumbull

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PRESENTATION
BIO

Kosmorama, Nova Cinema, movie theatre # 9, March 12, 2016.

SYNOPSIS for Meta.Morf 2016

Douglas Trumbull (US)

Ever since working with Stanley Kubrick on his masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, I have continued to strive to build upon that immersive cinematic experience of “Being In Space”. This was enabled, in part, by the enormous hundred-foot wide Cinerama screens, stereophonic sound, 70mm film, and specially equipped theaters. Kubrick developed a “first person” cinematic language that allowed viewers to feel engulfed by the film, as opposed to using conventional melodrama, and soon the film was branded
“THE ULTIMATE TRIP”.

Sadly, shortly after the release of the movie, the global cinema industry embraced the multiplex concept of many smaller screens, rather than single giant screens. Cinerama and 70mm became extinct. Television began to dominate, offering tremendous diversity of content and convenience at a low price.

At this time, many movie-goers are finding that the experience of a movie is adequate on a television, computer, tablet, or even smartphone. Small is in.

In order for me to reclaim and even surpass the spectacle of 2001, and its powerful story of Man’s encounter with highly evolved alien intelligence, I have made it my mission to find an inexpensive technological solution that offers a powerful sense of immersion by embracing the potential of advanced digital photography, post-production, and exhibition. In this endeavor I have discovered an elegant solution that vastly improves upon cinematic conventions of 24 frames per second images projected dimly onto flat screens. The result is a screen image with 5X the conventional frame rate, 4X the conventional resolution, 4X the brightness, and 4X the field of view. The result is a level of immersion that seems to be a real experience with vast dimension, and viewers feel that they are IN the movie, not just looking at it.
Since my personal movie-making passion is to explore the vast potential of science fiction as well as science fact, I am devoting tremendous energy and resources to making and presenting space-related experiences in a manner that will not only be entertaining, but transformational.

We have created Trumbull Studios as a unique new facility to explore the new technology and its creative applications, using advanced production tools and methods that will enable the production of space movie experiences at low cost. Included in our philosophy is a strong belief that computer graphics imagery does not age gracefully, often becoming dated or even obsolete in just a couple of years. To address this issue, we enjoy the creative/scientific/chemical exploration of natural phenomena that offer surprisingly realistic and naturalistic visuals that are almost inconceivable using CGI. For example, to make a truly effective computer simulation of complex fluid dynamics and gravitational effects such as galaxies, interstellar dust clouds, supernovas, etc., supercomputers and massive data are often necessary. By experimenting with various chemicals in tanks, we have found that we can create amazingly powerful visuals at very low cost – with the added bonus of discovering events that would be impossible to imagine, much less write computer code to simulate.

At Trumbull Studios we are reinventing the movies and the way they will be presented in theaters. We are creating an entirely new kind of theater to make this possible. We are doing it all with existing off-the-shelf cameras, post-production tools, projectors, and sound systems.

One of our favorite projects being developed is based upon the concept of a “HUNDRED YEAR STARSHIP”, as has been promoted via the NASA, JPL-Caltech, and NOAA, sponsored events and symposiums of the same name.

Douglas Trumbull, Oct. 30, 2015

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Oct. 30, 2015

Douglas Trumbull

Visionary filmmaker, innovator and entrepreneur, Douglas Trumbull has enjoyed a long and prestigious technological and creative career in filmmaking and entertainment technologies. Following his breakthrough pioneering work as one of four photographic effects supervisors on 2001: A Space Odyssey, his name rapidly became synonymous with some of the greatest effects work of its era on titles such as The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner.

Trumbull directed Silent Running and Brainstorm, and he has also directed numerous Expo and special venue films, videos and attractions. Along the way he has been awarded more than twenty patents, including one for the first entertainment simulator ride (Back To The Future – The Ride at Universal Studios) and another for the Academy Award-winning Showscan® process for high speed 70 mm cinematography. He was recently awarded the coveted Gordon E. Sawyer Academy Award for his contributions to cinema technology.

In 1994 Trumbull merged his company Ridefilm Corporation with IMAX and helped launch the successful IMAX IPO that brought IMAX into the commercial feature film marketplace around the world.

While continuing to write and direct, Trumbull continues to tour and speak to film students and technology companies around the world, Trumbull has continued to be fascinated with the challenges of making movies using advanced production technologies, while also developing an immersive cinematic language. He has set up Trumbull Studios in Western Massachusetts and continues to experiment and push the edge of giant screen, high framerate, extreme brightness 3D and virtual digital production, recently producing an experimental demonstration movie titled UFOTOG, shot and projected in his new MAGI process of 4K 3D at 120 frames per second.

Douglas Trumbull - PORTRAIT BY WES CU 2

Photo by WES

SYNOPSIS for Meta.Morf 2016

Douglas Trumbull (US)

Douglas Trumbull

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