An absolute classic broadcast this evening on Arte, “Blade Runner” includes some of the most hypnotic shots in the 7th art, starting with its extraordinary opening scene. A look back at its creation, told by master Douglas Trumbull.
Living legend of visual effects, genius inventor, Douglas Trumbull notably created the visual effects of SF masterpieces such as Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind by Steven Spielberg, those of Star Trek and those of Blade Runner.
Three films which each time earned him an Oscar nomination. Without forgetting of course his immense and fabulous work behind the visual effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey. A work entered into the Pantheon of the 7th art, in particular thanks to its visual effects, revolutionary and never seen before.
In November 2016, we had the privilege of speaking at length with the master who sadly left us in February 2022, in particular about the creation of the famous opening sequence of the film Blade Runner; what the person concerned also called the Hades Landscape; Hades obviously being, for those who don’t know it, a reference to the God of the Underworld.
A hypnotic film opening, which stunned even Philip K. Dick. After seeing a short 20-minute montage, the latter declared, in an interview given in January 1982, that “This opening is one of the most stunning things I have ever seen on film.”
Below, the opening in question…
“Ridley Scott approached me and my partner Richard Yuricich, to create the special effects for Blade Runner. At that time, I was going to start working on my next film, Brainstorm, with my new process called “Showscan”; film to be produced by David Begelman, who was the CEO of Columbia Pictures and behind the production of Encounter of the 3rd kind.
He was allowed to have a huge success with this film. In fact, the film even saved Columbia, which was on the verge of going bankrupt. David Begelman was nevertheless kicked out of Columbia and taken over as head of MGM. It was he who finally suggested that I return to directing.
That’s when Ridley came to me to do the visual effects on his film. Richard and I told him, “We can start making them, as long as we start as soon as possible. But halfway through production, we’ll have to leave to make our movie. So we need a third no one to help us with this task.
David Dryer then joins us; he was a brilliant visual effects artist and supervisor. We were thus able to make our transition with him during the production of the film; he was the one who completed most of the visual effects we worked on.
Douglas Trumbull
Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner: same fight
“One of the interesting things about the production of Blade Runner is that we already had the equipment we wanted because it had been used on the filming of Close Encounter of the 3rd Kind. All the cameras we used, the smoke effects machines, Lens Flares, etc.
Everything had already been tested, so it was also a significant financial gain. You should know that Blade Runner was a very low budget film, and we had few visual effects shots; something on the order of 85 shots, where we did more than 350 for Close Encounter of the 3rd Kind.
If you look closely at this level in the visual effects, you will see great similarities between the two films. The luminous appearance in the opening of the film recalls the Mother Ship from Spielberg’s film. It’s exactly the same lighting, the same technique used, same camera lens…Same for the Spinners, including Harrison Ford’s, on which we used the same Lens Flare and animation effects.
The fact of having previously developed what we called the Smoke Room, crossed by a whole set of rays of light, was also decisive; it was exactly what Ridley Scott was looking for. A very foggy atmosphere, due to pollution, where light passes with difficulty, with shadows, rain. He worked on this aspect a lot with his director of photography, Jordan Cronenwethas well as its production designer, Lawrence G. Paull.”