Page 156 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

So, was Dykstra prescient or just crazy?

Geniuses tend to be a little bit of both. Doug Trumbull, one of the visual effects maestros behind
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, pointed Lucas toward Dykstra when the young director was scouting
for capable (and cheap) visual effects talent. A young Dykstra had impressed Trumbull while
working for him at his company, Future General, on the 1972 sci-fi film SILENT RUNNING...

“What George came to me with was a perfect combination of the stuff that I had been doing with
Doug Trumbull–using fairly low tech solutions [to create visual effects].”
[Source: http://www.propstore.com/john-dykstra-intergalactic-man-of-magic-part-1/]

Chroma key technology, which requires a computer, wasn’t available during the years Stanley
Kubrick was working on 2001, A Space Odyssey; the years 1964-1968. These were the same years,
incidentally, that NASA was gearing up for their Moon missions which would commence in July
of 1969. The “fairly low tech solutions” employed by Kubrick and Trumbull included the front
screen projection system.

Front Screen Projection System

The front screen projection system works by projecting a backdrop onto a mirror, which in turn
projects the image onto a highly reflective fabric screen. The screen is typically made of 3M’s
Scotchlite which consists of millions of glass beads affixed to the surface of a cloth material.
Scotchlite reflects back 95% of the light cast on it. Because the Scotchlite material is so highly
reflective, the required brightness of the projected image is relatively low. This allows for an actor,
or other subject, to stand between the mirror and the Scotchlite, and not have the projected image
show up on them.

Stanley Kubrick made extensive use of the front screen projection system in the opening scenes of
2001, A Space Odyssey. At the beginning of the movie, we are shown a group of ape like human
ancestors in an environment that resembles some areas of Africa.