04/25/2002 Entry:
"Film As Experience lecture by Douglas Trumbull"

I don't know if Douglas Trumbull lives in Chicago or not, but this is the third time in as many years he's been in town doing a presentation for one reason or another. This lecture was mostly about Trumbull's early attempts at filmmaking, and how they shaped his desire to turn filmmaking from a third person to a first person experience. He argues that Kubrick did this successfully with the Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite episode of 2001, and since he's been looking for other ways to do so. He covered a lot of ground mostly focusing on various technologies he's been involved with over the years - simulation rides, his Showscan tecnology (a 70mm format projected at 60 fps, more information here), and his recent work using virtual sets on the new Winnie The Pooh cartoons (described here.

This was the second time I had seen Trumbull speak, and he is engaging and eminently knowledgeable. The content of this talk wasn't really my bag, but it was still interesting and he did discuss some things that were pretty fascinating. One thing he talked about, is that when tyou have a fully digital image, it is pretty easy to re-render it at higher resolutions for larger formats. He said he saw some tests of Toy Story re-rendered to IMAX resolution and projected in proper IMAX prints (usually when you see a commercial film at an IMAX theatre, it is simply a normal 35mm or 70mm print blown up to hell.) That is a pretty great concept I hadn't thought about. The virtual set technology is really cool conceptually as well. Entertaining and Trumbull is always worht seeing.