“This is a little sequence I shot for the [Esper] Deckard uses. It was interesting, because the idea was that it was a kind of a hologram...machine [where] Deckard is going to scrutinize this photograph... in great detail. I actually moved through the room. Moved past Batty, who’s in the foreground. Go into the next room, look into the mirror on the wall. See the reflection of the woman on the bed, [that’s] not visible from this point of view. I did it by [placing] markers on the floor, and moving a tripod with a Nikon camera. Just shooting exposure after exposure after exposure of single still photographs that Deckard steps through. One of the aspects to Rutger Hauer‘ head was, Ridley wanted it to blur like [Batty] was just turning his head at the moment the exposure was taken. So, poor Rutger had to do that about a hundred and fifty times, on cues from me, and try to do it the same time on every exposure.”

"This is the Warner Brothers back lot. This is what they call the New York Street. Some studios still have back lots. In the old days, they use to have New York street, or a city street, and a western town, and a European street. There’s very few of these left. But there’s some in Warner Brother’s lot. And there’s this street that’s been used in I don’t know how many countless movies and television shows. At the time Blade Runner was being made, not having very much money, Francis Coppola had just wound up production on a movie called One From the Heart. It was not a successful film, and he had gone way over budget. He started financing the movie himself, and went near bankrupt in the process. [The movie] was about a story that took place in Las Vegas. And they had a tremendous amount Las Vegas neon. So, the art director here got a hold of that neon, which they bought for a penny on the dollar. And turned it all inside out, and upside down. And you could probably spend a lot of time and figure out how certain things might have made sense in some other time and place. You can see it’s even on some of our miniatures. They got some miniature neon that we used in some of our miniature sets."

"This is one scene that Richard Yuricich talked of, [On the Edge of Blade Runner] where they started shooting where they hadn’t plan to shoot. It was one of those late, rainy nights. Everyone’s tired and grouchy. But, Richard had to shoot the down-shot, which shows the jeopardy he’s in. So, he shot this extra shot. Which has one of Matt Yuricich’s matte paintings. There’s flying vehicles going by.

"They plan on having a re-release of this film on DVD with the “true” Director’s Cut, which had never been made. And then there will be a theatrical release of the film in theatres in about a year from now.

"One of the things that I was always disappointed about, which...it’s kind of a long story to go into, but...Ridley Scott and the producer Michael Deeley both got fired on this movie before it was finished. The people who financed the movie were really angry that it was going over budget, it was taking too long, and they didn’t understand it at all. There were a lot of angry feelings at the time. And that is when the studio basically took over the movie., added this horrible, fake, happy ending to it, which was footage left over from The Shinning, by Stanley Kubrick. With voice-over narration that was so bad that Harrison Ford was embarrassed to do it, so he did it badly. And it sounds bad. Finally, the Director’s Cut came out. The film was restored somewhat to a better state. But, a few scenes that Ridley shot that were never put in the film. And those are now buried in the vaults in the middle of a very long arduous legal battle that’s been going on since 1983 probably. They finally got this footage released, and that’s what drove this new re-release of Blade Runner. It will have all the new footage in it. One of the sad things that happened when they ran out of money, and pulled the plug on the production, was that we had produced all the visual effects for this movie in 70 mm. Where as the rest of the movie was shot in 35. And we had plans to optically reduce all the 70 mm to the finest looking 35 mm film anybody has ever seen. We had built a very expensive lens to do just this one thing. When the studio pulled the film, they took the film to the lab they did a really lousy optical reduction of the 65mm to 35mm, which went out of focus. And that’s been with the movie ever since. That’s what you see here. I have the original 65mm shots. They have been in vaults, been in my garage, downstairs in our office. There’re sitting next to my desk at this moment. I’m hopefully going to be taking them out to Los Angeles in a couple weeks. And they will be re-integrated into the new Final Cut of the movie. So, you will see something of the movie that you have never seen before. It’ll be gratifying for those of us that are still alive who worked on this movie."

Questions

Were digital effects used in the film?

"No. There’s no digital effects."

Do you maintain contact with David Dryer, Richard Yuricich, or
Matthew Yuricich?

"Richard Yuricich was my partner for years. He’s out in LA working on a picture right now. I see him periodically, when I go out there. His brother, who was the matt painter...he’s retired. He lives in Los Vegas. Dave Dryer... I haven’t seen for several years. We had a kind of Blade Runner reuniting thing at the Visual Effects Society, three or four years ago. We all got together. Ridley didn’t show up." (Audience Laughs.)

The effects of the beads of water on the windshield of the flying car, that’s not something you just take the camera and shoot it with naturally, is it?

"You’re doing a couple of things. Like with the car interior, when you’re looking forward, you’re looking through a piece of Plexiglas. A lot of stuff on it that looked like water...but not actually moving or dripping. Because the camera is shooting very, very slowly. I don’t remember what frame it was. It wasn’t dripping water. It was little bits of plastic, that looked like water. So it would refract and catch the light."

What is your position on downloading movies on the computer?

"I don’t have, really, a profound view on it. I just know that we are entering a period of film distribution where independent film makers can get directly to an audience without having to go through a major studio. They create this huge economic politic that is very difficult to get through. So, even though people are downloading film to cell phones and pda’s, laptops, all that will just continue to transform and evolve. It’s really quite an opportunity for us."

What’s your next movie?

"I’m not saying yet. (Audience Laughs.) I’ve got a couple of projects. One project is in some Twilight Zone between fictional drama and non-fiction reality. They are merging in a kind of backward way. I can’t write the screenplay. Certain things actually happen in reality and we react to that. I’m very interested in documentaries. I like the way things converge and come natural. "

Blade Runner Trailer

In 1983, Blade Runner was nominated for 2 Oscars, and another 7 wins & 14 nominations. Among them, an Oscar nomination for Best Effects/Visual Effects for Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich, and David Dryer; Saturn Award nomination for Best Special Effects; nominated a BAFTA Film Award for Best Special Visual Effects; and Douglas Trumbull with Lawrence G. Paull, and Syd Mead won London Critics Circle Film Award’s Special Achievement Award, for their visual concept (technical prize).

BRAINSTORM

Brainstorm, Douglas Trumbull’s next film, began shooting October 27, 1981. It starred Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher, and Cliff Robertson. It’s about two scientists, Michael and Karen Brace, developing a virtual reality system that sends sensory inputs into the brain and can record sights, sounds, feelings, and even dreams. The military attempts to take over the project when a senior worker begins to die of a heart attack and uses the system to tape the experience. They will do anything to get it.

The Brainstorm virtual reality sequences were photographed in Super Panavision 70 with a wide aspect ratio of 2.2:1, while the rest of the film was shot in standard 35 mm with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. In the original 70 mm theatrical release, the brain-scan playback scenes appeared dramatically wider and much sharper than the 35 mm scenes, giving them a sense of heightened reality and excitement. The sound also changed dramatically between brain-scan playback and other scenes with playback scenes having enhanced surround effects and other scenes being predominantly centre-channel only.

Near the end of principal photography, the death of one of its lead players, Natalie Wood, died, leaving production in limbo for almost two years. MGM considered offering the rights to Paramount Pictures so the movie could be finished. However, Mr. Trumbull was determined to finish the movie, and created an ending using body doubles and Natalie Wood sound-a-likes, along with already-shot footage, to complete the production.

Brainstorm was released theatrically in the USA September 30, 1983, to 175 theaters. This initial release was only to theaters equipped with 70mm projectors. The film received a wider release to non-70mm theaters in November. While critically acclaimed, the film did not do well at the box-office.

How long do you think it will before we get the experience that Christopher Walken had in Brainstorm?

“In Brainstorm, it was about being able to experience something that is in someone else’s mind. I really don’t have any idea about whether we are going to be able to do that. But I had a really weird experience while I was making Brainstorm. I went to Bell Labs and was asking them about it, about whether they heard anything about brain-sucking technologies. And we were gladly told that the room was bugged and we should stop talking about it. I subsequently met a guy up in Canada who’s doing brain research who can, with a very small device, put you through profound different emotional states. We all live in a huge electro-magnetic field. There are some really interesting studies about how we are profoundly affected by it.” 9

In 1984, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films awarded the

Saturn Awards for Best Actress, and Best Music to Brainstorm. And was nominated Best Director, Best Science Fiction Film, Best Special Effects, and Best Supporting Actress.

The Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival nominated Douglas Trumbull, and Hugo Awards nominated Brainstorm Best Dramatic Presentation.

BRAINSTORM Trailer HERE