Douglas Trumbull Dies: VFX Legend On ‘2001,’ ‘Blade Runner,’ ‘Close Encounters’ Was 79
deadline.comDouglas Trumbull, the legendary special effects master who helped create the worlds of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner and Star Trek: The Motion Picture has died, according to a social media post from his daughter, Amy Trumbull.
He was 79.Trumbull developed the slit-scan photography process for Stanley Kubrick’s film. I was used in the “Stargate” sequence. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he later said. “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.”Based on his work for Kubrick, Trumbull was George Lucas’ first choice to head Industrial Light & Magic, but he was already committed to Close Encounters.
He recommended his assistant John Dykstra, who went on to co-found the company, which turned out to be Star Wars. Trumbull was Oscar nominated for Close Encounters, Star Trek and Blade Runner.
Read more on deadline.com
