How did Kubrick do it?
December 22, 2007 4:15 PM Subscribe
How did Kubrick do it? There's a scene in "2001 A Space Odyssey" that has always fascinated and puzzled me. It's the scene on a spaceship in which a character is walking down a circular corridor, moving away from the camera. At the end of the corridor is a rotating ring. When the character reaches the ring she starts walking around it, up the wall. Obviously the camera is linked to that far rotating ring, but the transition between the near corridor and the far ring is absolutely seamless.
Starting and stopping rotation of that entire set would have resulted in some kind of bump or noticeable acceleration when the character steps into the ring. But it's absolutely clean! The only thing I can think of is a very precisely coordinated deceleration of the ring and acceleration of the near set and camera, but that seems like way too much work. Any other ideas?
Starting and stopping rotation of that entire set would have resulted in some kind of bump or noticeable acceleration when the character steps into the ring. But it's absolutely clean! The only thing I can think of is a very precisely coordinated deceleration of the ring and acceleration of the near set and camera, but that seems like way too much work. Any other ideas?
By the way, there was a "making of" book for 2001. That was one of the things they explained in it.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:22 PM on December 22, 2007
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:22 PM on December 22, 2007
I found this. I assume you're talking about this stewardess scene. Anyway, this is what the camera crew would have seen.
Youtube has many lovely things.
posted by Weebot at 4:28 PM on December 22, 2007
Youtube has many lovely things.
posted by Weebot at 4:28 PM on December 22, 2007
Check out the Kubrick doc, A Life In Pictures, they show how this scene was done and the other zero gravity scene where the astronaut walks the length of the donut shaped station.
posted by cazoo at 4:55 PM on December 22, 2007
posted by cazoo at 4:55 PM on December 22, 2007
Excellent explanation SCDB! That scene always makes me smile, but of course there are many scenes that defied easy explanation for that year, and it still looks great today. Much of the CGI used today screams "fake" just as quickly as stop-motion monsters did decades ago.
posted by The Deej at 5:42 PM on December 22, 2007
posted by The Deej at 5:42 PM on December 22, 2007
that seems like way too much work
Ha! For Kubrick, nothing was ever considered too much work!
posted by The Deej at 5:44 PM on December 22, 2007 [2 favorites]
Ha! For Kubrick, nothing was ever considered too much work!
posted by The Deej at 5:44 PM on December 22, 2007 [2 favorites]
Alas, I think I misunderstood which scene the OP was talking about. I was talking about the one in Discovery where the two astronauts enter the big ring.
The one in shuttle, where the stewardess (ahem) walks to a certain point, then walks half way around a ring until she's standing on the ceiling, after which she seems to walk off to the left and exit, was another case of a rotating set. Again, the camera was fixed to the set. It stood still until she reached the ring, and then the entire set rotated 180 degrees, while she walked around the ring remaining at the bottom.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:02 PM on December 22, 2007
The one in shuttle, where the stewardess (ahem) walks to a certain point, then walks half way around a ring until she's standing on the ceiling, after which she seems to walk off to the left and exit, was another case of a rotating set. Again, the camera was fixed to the set. It stood still until she reached the ring, and then the entire set rotated 180 degrees, while she walked around the ring remaining at the bottom.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 6:02 PM on December 22, 2007
Keep in mind that, in film, you only have to do it flawlessly once, as long as the camera is rolling.
posted by smackfu at 7:21 PM on December 22, 2007
posted by smackfu at 7:21 PM on December 22, 2007
For Kubrick, nothing was ever considered too much work!
I read an interview with him, in which he was talking about his never-made biopic about Napoleon. At one point the studio told him he couldn't make it, because he'd have to hire thousands of extras for the battles scenes. And he'd have to clothe them all in period costume. Which would be way too expensive.
So Kubrick contacted armies all over the world, until he found one that would rent him a regiment of soldiers for a really cheap price. Those would be his extras. I forget which country he decided to go with. In any case, he then found a company that would print the costumes on paper! He felt paper costumes would work for all the performers, except for the ones closest to the camera.
This story always inspires me when someone tells me "it can't be done."
posted by grumblebee at 9:39 PM on December 22, 2007 [9 favorites]
I read an interview with him, in which he was talking about his never-made biopic about Napoleon. At one point the studio told him he couldn't make it, because he'd have to hire thousands of extras for the battles scenes. And he'd have to clothe them all in period costume. Which would be way too expensive.
So Kubrick contacted armies all over the world, until he found one that would rent him a regiment of soldiers for a really cheap price. Those would be his extras. I forget which country he decided to go with. In any case, he then found a company that would print the costumes on paper! He felt paper costumes would work for all the performers, except for the ones closest to the camera.
This story always inspires me when someone tells me "it can't be done."
posted by grumblebee at 9:39 PM on December 22, 2007 [9 favorites]
The complement to Weebot's YT link is this one showing the scene in the movie (ignore the added dance music) in which you can see that she does in fact stumble a bit as she walks out.
posted by planetkyoto at 6:25 AM on December 23, 2007
posted by planetkyoto at 6:25 AM on December 23, 2007
Response by poster: Excellent links, everyone. I guess my mind was mixing up the two similar scenes - one in the the shuttle and one in Discovery. The Discovery scene seems to me to be the most complicated because of the rotating ring, requiring two different moving set pieces to be coordinated.
posted by schrodycat at 7:20 AM on December 23, 2007
posted by schrodycat at 7:20 AM on December 23, 2007
As well as the book that Steven C Den Beste mentioned, there's an issue of Cinefex magazine ('the journal of cinematic illusions') with a huge retrospective on the special effects in 2001. It's one of the most jaw-dropping things I've ever read. For example:
* the little wire-frame diagrams seen rotating on various computer monitors in the fim aren't CGI. They're wire models, animated in stop-motion.
* and those aren't computer monitors, which would have flickered on film. There was a full 16mm cinema projector behind each of those screens, synched to the camera.
* the reason the Star Child glows the precise way it does is because it was shot through fifteen layers of a gauze made from rare European pre-WWII women's stockings.
Recommended.
posted by Hogshead at 9:46 AM on December 23, 2007 [3 favorites]
* the little wire-frame diagrams seen rotating on various computer monitors in the fim aren't CGI. They're wire models, animated in stop-motion.
* and those aren't computer monitors, which would have flickered on film. There was a full 16mm cinema projector behind each of those screens, synched to the camera.
* the reason the Star Child glows the precise way it does is because it was shot through fifteen layers of a gauze made from rare European pre-WWII women's stockings.
Recommended.
posted by Hogshead at 9:46 AM on December 23, 2007 [3 favorites]
This was not a "new" technique. Fred Astaire used it to dance on the ceiling in Royal Wedding.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:15 PM on December 23, 2007
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 2:15 PM on December 23, 2007
At one point the studio told him he couldn't make it, because he'd have to hire thousands of extras for the battles scenes. And he'd have to clothe them all in period costume. Which would be way too expensive.
Should have gone to Russia - unless 17,000 extras were too few....
posted by IndigoJones at 3:14 PM on December 23, 2007
Should have gone to Russia - unless 17,000 extras were too few....
posted by IndigoJones at 3:14 PM on December 23, 2007
This was not a "new" technique. Fred Astaire used it to dance on the ceiling in Royal Wedding.
True, and that was an awesome sequence. However, the the new twist (pun!) was to have one part of the set rotate during the first part of the sequence, then another part of the set, along with the camera, rotate during another part, and to make it so seamless.
2001 took a lot of time to show how things might work in weightlessness. The film was educating its audience, since the public wasn't yet familiar with how things worked in zero-g. That made the pacing necessarily, um, deliberate, let's say.
The irony is, although a circular walkway and grip (velcro?) shoes might indeed work that way, we now know that such an exercise is superfluous. We have seen enough video from space missions that we know a simple hop and twist would accomplish the same thing. And let's not even get started as to whether it would be necessary to have 2 levels of a craft share the same ceiling from from opposite sides. Except because you could.
Even so, I ever get tired of watching every second of that film.
posted by The Deej at 3:45 PM on December 23, 2007
True, and that was an awesome sequence. However, the the new twist (pun!) was to have one part of the set rotate during the first part of the sequence, then another part of the set, along with the camera, rotate during another part, and to make it so seamless.
2001 took a lot of time to show how things might work in weightlessness. The film was educating its audience, since the public wasn't yet familiar with how things worked in zero-g. That made the pacing necessarily, um, deliberate, let's say.
The irony is, although a circular walkway and grip (velcro?) shoes might indeed work that way, we now know that such an exercise is superfluous. We have seen enough video from space missions that we know a simple hop and twist would accomplish the same thing. And let's not even get started as to whether it would be necessary to have 2 levels of a craft share the same ceiling from from opposite sides. Except because you could.
Even so, I ever get tired of watching every second of that film.
posted by The Deej at 3:45 PM on December 23, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
That ring scene was one of the most challenging ever made, because the entire thing could rotate in that way. The scene with the guy jogging all the way around it, earlier than the one you mentioned, is an example. The jogger was always at the bottom. The ring turned underneath him as he ran. The camera (and cameraman!) were connected to the ring, and as it turned, the cameraman kept the camera pointed at the jogger, at the bottom.
Of course, when we view it, we think of the camera as fixed, so we see the jogger go "over our heads".
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:20 PM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]