00000Mr. Trumbull is the legendary special effects master of the Universe. He first came on the international scene with his production design for "Space Oddesy 2001" for Stanely Kubrick. That movie changed forever how space operas looked, and his award-winning dark mood for "Blade Runner" set him apart from his peers. He was one of the first to foresee totally immersive motion picture making, which was reflected in his "Back To The Future" motion simulation ride installed in MCA's theme parks. He also crafted the "In Search Of The Obelisk" at Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. In addition to special effects, Mr. Trumbull launched large film format SchowScan, and is currently both a stockhholder in and working with IMax. Back in his home state of Connecticut Trumbull is working on all-electronic film production where virtual sets promise to replace those of wood and paint.
He is the digital master of Hollywood...all from Connecticut.
HDTV NEWS ONLINE: How do you see the HDTV movement today? Are we moving along, or are we stuck?
I have felt that it's been stuck for 20 years! It's very frustrating, recently.
One of the suggestions I made to Sony, and others, was that they explore shooting video at 24 frames, rather than 30 interlaced. That was ignored for an long time. It was the temporal difference between 24 as essentially film, versus 30 frames, and 60 field interlaced. It always made tape to film conversions look awful. That was at least one of the factors. We are finally seeing the movement toward 24 frame electronic cinematography I don't call it video anymore, I don't think it is a video format, really.
How have electronics replaced the actions you once took in film. What were the trials of your transitions?
A very painful transition .. because almost all of the old equipment that we once used for major films, such as "Close Encounters," and "Blade Runner," and "2001," etc., have become obsolete, or nearly so. We had a big auction. It was tragic to see some beautiful 65 mm optical printers, cameras, and motion control equipment sold at auction for a fraction of their previous value.
The other side of the coin is that we are now able to do digitally bigger and better visual effects than we could the old optical way. So I'm not complaining/ It's been a very wrenching transition; a very costly transition, and a transition from being able to buy 65 mm cameras built in the 50's, which had been used for ToddAO, or Hello Dolly, or wherever else, at a reasonable price, and have them continue to work year after year with no amortization problem. When you get into the world of digital computers, they are obsolete every year or 18 months. So there is a tremendous amortization. But, it can be done.
But it is getting cheaper per megaflop ...is that giving you encouragement?
Absolutely. It is the one driving factor. It is the only aspect of film production that is getting cheaper, better, and faster every day. Moore's Law still holds true. So it's the one area where we can expect to increase production value, and decrease cost by ingeniously using digital technologies.
Let's talk about production values. Can I replicate what I could do with a traditional set?
Yes, I'm convinced it's doable. It's being done quite often, There are a number of virtual sets, and virtual matte painting...digital elements, that are in films now. Certainly, a very high number of them in "The Phantom Menace." I thought it looked great. I thought it was just stunning in production value for the amount of money the film cost. George is anticipating continuing improvements in production value, and reductions in cost.
More than once it has been said that digital production is so spectacular yet we all know that it is just the rendering of a stylist. Does that it takes away some of the grandeur you might have seen in a CB DeMille picture, where you knew that the cast of thousands was a cast of thousands and not digital clones?.
Not at all. In fact, the opposite is true. It's very difficult these days to do a movie with a cast of thousands. It's just too expense. "Titanic" is a good example of a movie that has shots in it with a cast of thousands, and the 900 foot ship, and the whole thing...cut seamlessly with moving digital shots, Most people can't tell the difference.
So you are saying as long as the illusion is high...
Yes, and so if you go back to "Citizen Kane," or any of the old films, that, in spite of the fact that they used casts of thousands, or huge sets, also made a tremendous use of matte painting. and all kinds of other techniques to give bigger production values. I'm convinced that we can do that digitally at a fraction of the cost, but actually increase the vastness; increase the production values.
Would movie-of-the-week people would be the first to respond and add production values at lower costs?
The first that we're seeing respond is children's television. It's the bottom of the economic barrel, in a sense, but it's the most motivated group of people that are embracing virtual sets and digital technology. That is because of their limited budget. So, I'm seeing a great deal of ingenuity, advanced thinking going on in children's television, which I think is going to percolate up through the movies-of-the-week, and other television features.
We're coming into an era of high-definition television. Old sets have never looked very good on HDTV. They have a shabby look. Can you either repair the shabbiness, or develop virtual sets that are indistinguishable from what we would have had with real space?
Yes, I think you can. You can do virtual sets that are far better than physical sets, and not have any of the finger marks, or the appearance that it was quickly erected, or needed painting, or not maintained. You can do it digitally, and do it a lot better. It also allows the studio to change the set on a stage instantaneously from one to another, and not have too many standing sets for new shows, or talk shows, or whatever, which is a very expensive investment.
People are saying "let's consolidate our news service so we do our local news from one location, but send it to several different cities at once. We'd like to have each city with a unique look though with the same news people." Can we do that simultaneously?
Oh sure. I think that would be no problem at all. You've been following these sports broadcasts with the logos inserted? Different markets. They're doing that already.
You did "Blade Runner," which was a tremendous mood establishing movie. If you were to do it all over again, how would you approach it?
I would use a tremendous number of virtual sets. I would be using the system that we're developing here at EDW, which is called GetSet, which is a virtual set system for television and feature productions. We would have total camera freedom during a composite shot, which has always been the bane of the visual effects industry. Blade Runner is a good example of one lock-off shot after another, because there are no moves during most of the composite shots where there is a foreground and a background.
You have a full 3-dimensional reality to work with. You can move the camera in and out, and around a virtual set?
Yes.
Will that tend to give us a whole different feeling for a motion picture--a look of the 2000s like the camera moves done today make a distinctive signature of that time. Are we going to have more stylized looks, or does this actually de-stylize by permitting everything?
I think there are two elements. One is the content of the movie--whatever it is to look like. You can do that with virtual sets, or matte paintings, or whatever else. We can do it better with virtual sets in my opinion. Stylistically, in terms of the film-maker's camera dynamics, we're obviously in an age where almost all film makers have gone into constant camera movement, and a tremendous use of Panaglide or Steadycam, boom arms, and remote cameras, and multiple cameras, and even a lot of hand-held work. The kind of un-steadycam seems to be seen as more stimulating than a smooth move. That's the style of the day. Maybe that's a temporary thing, but it seems to be there for the time being. So one has to figure out how to do composite shots with that kind of camera freedom.
You were a principal in Showscan and now IMAX. Do you think that we're poised to switch from distribution of features in film to them in digital, as is being done by the Toy Story 2 and George Lucas' experimenting with electronic cinema, and others? Are we moving with any great speed in that direction, or is this still another demonstration?
It's been talked about for a long, long time. I've been to screenings over the last 25 years of various kinds of laser projectors, or video projectors, or whatever else, to try to get a film look. It's never been achieved until now. I think that the question currently is the price point of the projectors themselves, and the reliability issues. Then there is the additional issues of the actual form of the distribution, whether it's satellite, cable, or cassette, or .
We are not that far away--perhaps a few years, maybe three years before there will be a sudden avalanche of switching to digital. The distributors hate prints. They hate bicycling prints. They hate print maintenance. They hate the cost of prints. Print life is relatively low these days. So if they can save all those costs, and make their film available much more easily, and save millions of dollars in their print costs, I think they'll embrace it.
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The other side of that coin is that we are now able to do digitally bigger and better visual effects than we could the old optical way
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The exhibitors will also embrace it, because they of the distaste of hiring projectionists, or the maintenance management of prints coming and going at their theaters,. There are many factors wanting it to happen. It' will happen suddenly--almost unexpectedly--because the exhibitors and the distributors will not want to carry two systems simultaneously in a slow switch-over. If you read back in the history of the change-over from silents to talkies, it was an avalanche of change, that took place in virtually months. They couldn't do it fast enough.
One of the big questions I have about it remains unresolved. A lot of films with a great deal of digital tech script (and let's use "Phantom Menace" as an example) often render it rarely more than 2k horizontally. That's about the same as 1980, which is going to be digital high-def at 24 frames. When we see a real penetration of high-def in the home, with larger flat screens...and, if you've watched as much high-def as I have, you know that it's extremely compelling, and almost narcotic...it's going to bring up the question of "does the audience perceive a difference between home display versus theatrical display?" Historically there has always been a great difference. There is a huge difference in quality between television and movies, so there's a real reason to go out and see a first run movie even if you know it's available on a cassette two months later.
When that difference vanishes...I don't know what's going to happen. I really couldn't tell you.
I suggested in an article in Widescreen Review several years ago that the actual peak audio experience would be in the home, not in the theater. I can go further and say the peak technical presentation of a motion picture, at least for the 35mm category, could easily be the home. Does that change things.
I think we're in a time when there is a kind of de-socialization that has occurred because of the Internet. I don't know how compelling the group experience is to people when it compares to the convenience of being able to see something whenever you want to see it in the comfort of your own home with your friends. It will remain to be seen.
With Moore's law in mind where is that going to leave you in ten years?
I have a very strong feeling that the whole digitization of media is inevitable and extremely powerful and compelling, and will continue for many years to come. I have been shooting a lot of digital stills, exploring a lot of digital cameras--very high-end cameras, low-end cameras, and medium cameras. I've stopped using film, personally. My company has committed itself to moving into digital electronic cinematography as rapidly as we possibly can because it's such an enabler for the whole virtual set part of what we're trying to do.
I think what we're going to see is a new breed of production methodologies. Not for all films, but for certain kinds of films that are effects oriented, where you can be on a virtual set with a very small crew, and a very small stage, and a very intimate, almost European style comfort, and produce incredible illusions of bigness, and high production values, and you will have a digital cast of thousands . . . it's already been proven. You will be able to produce anything, anywhere, at relatively low costs. It's not easy to do; it's kind of alarming to be on a virtual stage, when there's nothing there to relate to except what's on the monitor, but those who can embrace it, I think are going to be very successful.
Is that like embracing sound, just another transition?
Yes, there's always a resistance to something that's new and different. It's a part of human nature, and that's OK, but once people get comfortable with it, it goes through the roof, just like Avid editing. It wasn't that many years ago, when all the editors were just completely aghast that editing could be done digitally. It was an appalling concept.
Do you forecast a "clip-art-set" for stock shot companies?
Yes, I think there will be an emergence of specialty companies that make it their business of capturing locations. There will be a new kind of stock, which is going to be digitally captured places or skies, or components or objects, or sets, or props, which are going to have full geometric componentry to them--full three dimensional models--not flat, two dimensional imagery. There will be another layer, which is the extraction of three dimensional imagery from older, two dimensional imagery. There is tremendous digital geometry processing that you can do with systems, that have been developed at Sarnoff laboratories.
You could take some scenes from Gone "With The Wind," in 2D and move that to a 3D environment?
There's a difference between 3D and stereoscopic. When we talk about 3D today, it usually means volumetric--geometry-based modeling, or rendering. Stereoscopic means something like with glasses. Both of them are going to co-exist, but when you're talking about 3D capture and extraction of 3 dimensional information, it means that you could look at an old episode of a television series, or you could analyze all the shots from a television series, and extract all of the people out of it, and just isolate and distill out all of the sets and props, and then be able to go back in with a virtual set, replace the cast and shoot again, in that exact same environment.
Will we see a day for virtual actors?
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The distributors hate prints. They hate bicycling prints. They hate print maintenance. They hate the cost of prints. Print life is relatively low these days.
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Yes, it's partly here already. We're seeing stunt men being replaced by the faces of major stars in stunt situations, in a completely seamless way. I think that we're not that far away from actors agreeing to be digitized (digitized is not quite the right word) to systematize or choreograph their characteristics--a characteristic walk or look might be copyrightable, or reusable. I think it's inevitable. I've seen some amazing demonstrations of facial animation now that are almost indistinguishable from reality. So, it's an inevitability too.
Also simple things...like if you want to shoot an actress with some heavy filter to make sure that the lines around her eyes aren't too glaring--that can be done digitally too. You can shoot a person digitally, and then have samples of what they looked like 10 or 15 years previously--give that to the computer--and say make it look like "that." That could be an automated process.
While you have many tools today, what tools are on your wish-list?
My wish list still calls for a really robust digital camera and storage system, which doesn't yet exist. The Lucas camera (HDCAM 24 fps) is a step in the right direction, but I think we need cameras with higher band-width, higher bit-depth, higher resolution.
Are we apt to get them considering the relatively small volume of motion picture cameras in use? If you were to give me a business plan to replicate all of the Panasonic cameras at the same price, I'd probably turn it down.
I think that's one of the big problems. There really isn't a huge volume in Panavision or Aeroflex cameras .So that's a big question, but when you get back to this other issue of "is it film, or is it television?"...if there is a standard that crosses between both of those mediums... There are many more television cameras than there are film cameras. If you have a camera that can serve both those mediums--just switch between the two--or have switchable band-widths, or switchable aspect ratios, or switchable resolutions, or switchable bit-depths...then you have a tool that has enough volume behind it to warrant massive production.
Hollywood has always been a little bit slow on the uptake of technology. They've been the last to invest in it themselves.
Well, it's a terrible thing, The major studios divested themselves of all of their infrastructure and technology as a secondary result of a consent decree. They decided they didn't need to own their own back-lot;. They didn't have to have their own costume
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We're seeing stunt men being replaced by the faces of major stars in stunt situations, in a completely seamless way.
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department, or cast department, or title department, etc.. It all became independent entrepreneurs, including the core cameras. They're certainly not owned by the majors. It's up to the individual entrepreneurs to find the money, to make a living at it, and to bring these things into the market place. It's a real struggle.
And yet, looking at it from an over-all picture, you might easily say that the cost benefits in terms of the production that hits the screen are in the billions of dollars. So it's penny-wise, pound foolish?
Yes, that's my belief. The studios historically have been pretty myopic for quite a few years. It's a good move that they recently have entertained the notion of owning visual effects departments, or getting involved in some of these issues, and having some new high-management people who are very technically adept. So there is a move in the "right" direction. But they still are very resistant to investing in new technologies.
Getting back to the camera that you would have on your wish list...you say added bit-depth, and higher band-width, in general. What parameters do you think are the minimum?
Well, I'd say about 3k by 4k resolution, and a 12 bit depth, and 24 frames. If you calculate that out, you've got some humongous gigabytes coming out of that camera. You need to store it. It's not easy.
If you were talking to Larry Thorpe (Sony), what do you think he say to you?
Larry would just stick with where they are. He would give a rationale that probably is quite true, which is, if you stay with in the confines of a product that Sony can manufacture, that will be compatible with film and compatible with HDTV, then you have a product market that makes sense. So the 1080 by 1920, 24 frame, and they'd come up with this hybrid storage medium, so that the cameras are switchable between mediums. It might really be great. I'm really looking forward to seeing it, and I hope it's successful, and we're hoping to use that camera soon.
With ShowScan you've measured the resolution at the screen between 35 and 65 mm. The difference is quite startling. Is that the direction that motion pictures have to go to stay competitive just as they did when moving to wide screen to stay competitive with television?
For the theatrical exhibition systems to be competitive it's going to have to upgrade it's output product. What you're seeing today is a movement back to larger screens with stadium seats, and kind of a quasi IMax setup. People are realizing that it's great not to have to look into the back of somebody's head. It's great to have a big 65 foot screen, with a very wide field of view, a slight curve, etc., but once you've set up that situation, you notice that some film that's been shot in super 35, or something doesn't withstand that amount of blowup. So, one of the nice things about digital technology is that you can work in a kind of resolution-independent way, so that you could, in fact, up-res for theatrical distribution, and then go out with your hi-def, or video thing at another resolution.
Anything else we could talk about?
I've been committed all my life to what I call "immersive experience," which is why I spent so much time with ShowScan, and a few years with IMax,. The "Back to the Future" ride kept me going although it was never viewed as cinema, to me it was cinema. It was immersive cinema--you entered the proscenium arch and became part of the movie.
There is a whole lot in that which requires humongous band-width to deliver an immersive image that's like IMax, or IMax 3D. I still work closely with IMax,. I'm a shareholder in IMax,. I am doing what I can to adapt this virtual set technology to IMax production, because we have found out, that, particularly in IMax 3D, if you're in the 3K to 4K zone, you have a very compelling giant screen image. 2k probably won't do it for you, but 3 to 4 K is indistinguishable, particularly when it is in 3D, because your brain does a lot of interpolating and processing. We're going to see some virtual sets--theatrical quality IMax movies in the next few years. It would be very interesting, because I think that's a spectacular medium, and when I walk into the Sony Loew's theater in New York, and see that giant 100 foot screen, I just say, "this is motion picture nirvana, here". This is bigger, and better, and higher quality than Cinerama was when we made 2001. It's an incredible medium, and I'm really looking forward to being a part of getting films made for it.
Thank you Doug.
