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FilmSkool — a free film school

4 Ways 2001: A Space Odyssey Was a Visual-Effects Pioneer

A quick rundown of the front-projection, slit-scan, centrifuge set and model photography techniques Douglas Trumbull's effects team invented for the film. Explains what each technique achieved without CGI.

Vulture · 5 min · Beginner · VFX · VFX · 2018

What you take away

Name and identify front-projection and slit-scan photography when you see them used elsewhere.

Watch it

Filed under

The films in this lesson

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Oscar winners for visual effects

The Jungle Book (2016)
Gravity (2013)
Life of Pi (2012)
Hugo (2011)
Inception (2010)
Avatar (2009)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The Matrix (1999)

Books on visual effects

The workstation

Corsair 128GB DDR5 kit — For Unreal, caches and twelve open applications
Intel Core Ultra 9 285K — Quick Sync, which some codecs still love
Apple Mac mini M4 — The cheapest Mac that cuts 4K without complaint
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X — 16 cores — the sweet spot for a cutting room
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 — The sensible half-price render card
NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada — Workstation card, single slot, 20GB

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