How Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey – Part 2: The Floyd Section

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the making of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Part 2, we dive into the production of the Floyd section of the film. Every bit of information in this video was available for free on the Internet and from the Bluray of the film. I explored what was available on the Internet and found tons of great information from a wide variety of sources concerning the special effects, music, costumes, set, and several of the actors.

Transcript:

We get our first glimpses of Earth in the year 2001 in what we’ll call The Floyd Section of the film. Our first image is that of an orbiting satellite carrying a nuclear warhead capable of striking presumably any point on the Earth’s surface. It is introduced through, perhaps the most famous graphic match cut of all time, which poetically compares the humble beginnings of mankind’s weaponry to that of modern times. As Arthur C. Clarke mentioned, there is no indication in the film itself that we are in fact, looking at weaponized satellite. The only reason we know this is that the script originally had a narration to accompany the opening of the Floyd Section. The narration for these images is as follows:

“By the year 2001, overpopulation has replaced the problem of starvation but this was ominously offset by the absolute and utter perfection of the weapon. Hundreds of giant bombs had been placed in perpetual orbit above the Earth. They were capable of incinerating the entire Earth’s surface from an altitude of 100 miles. Matters were further complicated by the presence of twenty-seven nations in the nuclear club. There had been no deliberate or accidental use of nuclear weapons since World War II and some people felt secure in this knowledge. But to others, the situation seemed comparable to an airline with a perfect safety record; in showed admirable care and skill but no one expected it to last forever.” (Screenplay)

The first weaponized satellite that appears in the script actually belongs to Russia. Keep in mind that this was filmed around the height of the cold war and tensions were high between Russia and the United States, but more on this a little later. That said, it looks as though this was changed as this American military aircraft insignia appears on the side of the first satellite. What follows is a German weaponized satellite and, according to the script, a French and a Chinese weaponized satellite.

The satellite models were about two feet long. What we are seeing are actually still photographs of the models, which were “shot on a large horizontal camera” (Making 88).

You’ll notice that they don’t appear to turn three-dimensionally.

In an interview, Special Effects Supervisor Douglas Trumbull talks about constructing the models.

He said: “Basic construction of models was of wood, fiberglass, plexiglass, steel, brass, [and] aluminum. Fine detailing was made up of special heat-forming, plastic-cladding, flexible metal foils of different textures and thicknesses, and of wire, tubing, and thousands of tiny parts carefully selected from hundreds of plastic [models], ranging from boxcars and battleships to aircraft and Gemini spacecraft. Cameras could get very close to [the] models with no loss of detail or believability” (Making 88).

The concepts behind these designs were meant to be as realistic as possible.

Narrator: “Two of these men, space scientists Fred Ordway and Harry Lange, formerly of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and both active in space vehicle construction, are Stanley Kubrick’s principle astronautic advisors.”

Fred Ordway: “We’ve been brought in here by Stanley Kubrick to, more or less, ensure the scientific integrity of the film. To make sure that it’s very very close in reality to what we are doing today in the space flight program. Naturally we’re looking forward 35 years, but still, we want to make certain that it has a base of reality.”

These and many other satellite models that didn’t make the final cut were designed by Harry Lange (Making 87). They were each roughly two to three feet long and most often cylindrical with “solar panels and various antennae for different missions” (Making 87).

“Throughout the shooting, meticulous care was taken to keep track of the minute details concerning camera movement, speed, shutter speed, and exposure. Thousands of rolls of Polaroid film were used to check [the] basic exposures and lighting setups: they were filed for reference. In addition, every single separate element was wedge-tested for exposure, running the gamut from several stops overexposed to no exposure at all, in increments of one-quarter of a stop. At the end of each take, each element would be rewedged. Every take of every element that went before the cameras was meticulously wedged and checked against previous and subsequent wedges to ascertain that lighting conditions, color, temperatures, etc., remained absolutely constant throughout” (Making 71).

If you would like to know more about wedge-testing, click this button to open a new window.

The light used to create the sun in these shots “had to be 11 stops overexposed” (Making 16).

Douglas Trumbull: “One of our problems on the movie was the Earth. And one of the illustrators on the movie was really really struggling to paint the Earth. This is actually a flat painting. He found this technique of painting on glass. He would paint white paint on glass and then scrape it away with a razor blade and get these kind of naturalistic looking cloudy effects, which were very successful.”

The glass painting of earth was then lit from behind and photographed on an animation stand (Making 88).

Jan Harlan: “The hardest guess was: how would our globe, our Earth look like from space because nobody had ever seen it until only a few years later. And he was so glad that he didn’t get that wrong. It was a little bit light. It should have been a bit darker maybe, but he was very very pleased that the guess was okay.”

Because Kubrick did not want any of the production materials from 2001 winding up being reused for other films, he ordered all of the props, models, and costumes destroyed after filming concluded. Sadly, this beautiful model of the space station ended up in a local dump where it was allegedly smashed by kids (Space Station Model).

Douglas Trumbull: “So, the space station ended up in a dump. This was about ten years ago and it was found. And the poor photographer didn’t have the presence of mind to grab the damn thing and put it in his trunk.”

This sequence is cut to the music so beautifully and gracefully that the orbiting and turning of the technology and Earth comes across as a sort of ballet.

Ray Lovejoy: “Music played a big part in the editing process because, of course, the visual effects sequences—no dialogue. How do you judge the pacing of the scene? How do you judge how long the visual effects should necessarily be? Where Stanley would be sitting at a moviola here, I would be here doing the bench-work, as it were—feeding him the film, he would be looking at it, selecting, marking, being run through a moviola, pencil marks, back to me to cut, paste with a joiner or join with a joiner, build it up through the spools very much the way that you see this equipment now. And there was a tremendous romance attached to it as well, which can never be supplied by a computer.”

(However,) The opening to the Floyd section almost sounded like this:

A soundtrack was composed by Alex North who did the score for one of Kubrick’s previous films—Spartacus (score wiki).

As the legend goes, Kubrick would edit the film using “guide pieces” and had North compose a score to sound similar to the Blue Danube and other classical pieces he was editing to. In the end, Kubrick didn’t like the score that was written and, with the premiere fast approaching, he went with the guide pieces for the final film. This was unorthodox in that it was pretty much the opposite of what the score for science fiction films normally sounded like at the time and these famous classical pieces were already well known. North was not notified and found out that his score wasn’t used when he attended the premiere. Needless to say, he was upset (score wiki).

The story of how Kubrick came to choose the Blue Danube in the first place is quite interesting as well.

Andrew Birkin: “Every day we’d watch the rushes of the five different special effects units that had been filming 24 hours, 7 days a week. And there was a production chap called Colin Brewer, I remember, and he would fall asleep in the rushes, which was fine, except that he snored rather loudly. These were usually around for about an hour at lunchtime. And Stanley had a thing called a ‘Rock and Roll’ gizmo, which allowed him to go backwards and forwards on the special effect shots and these were all mute. So, it was understandable that Colin would kind of nod off. But it was a little bit embarrassing. On the way out, the projectionist pulled me over and he said, ‘listen, I’ve got, in the box, I’ve got some old sort of Music for Pleasure records, you know, how bout, maybe I should put some of these on it might help keep everyone awake. So, I asked Stanley and he said it was fine by him and couple of days later, we were seeing the space station shot and just happened to be The Blue Danube. And when the lights came up at the end, I remember Stanley turning us and said, ‘do you think that, would it be a stroke of genius to use that?’”

Close to the time of 2001’s release, Kubrick explained: “Don’t underestimate the charm of ‘The Blue Danube,’ played by Herbert von Karajan. Most people under 35 can think of it in an objective way, as a beautiful composition. Older people somehow associate it with a Palm Court orchestra or have another unfortunate association, and generally, therefore, criticize its use in the film. It’s hard to find anything much better than ‘The Blue Danube’ for depicting the grace and beauty in turning. It also gets as far away as you can get from the cliché of space music” (Making 87).

Jan Harlan: “But the Blue Danube happened actually quite by by, it was an accident. He originally had other music in mind and then he felt that it was just too conventional and he also loved the idea of showing everything turning— the space ship is turning, the aeroplane is turning, the globe is turning, everything is turning, now it invites the waltz. And um, yeah, he loved it and everybody at the moment said, ‘oh, I mean, this is crazy, you know, how can you be an old Viennese waltz for space?’ Well, I think by now, I think he was proven right.”

Now, one can’t possibly hear Strauss’ Blue Danube without thinking about space. Funny, isn’t it? Considering that the Blue Danube was composed almost exactly 100 years before 2001: A Space Odyssey was in production. The Floyd section of the film was shot between December 1965 and January 1966— the Blue Danube was composed in 1866. (commentary, Chela Cannon interview)

Kubrick explains his reasoning further in a separate interview with Michel Ciment: “However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brahms. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music available from the past and from our own time? When you’re editing a film, it’s very helpful to be able to try out different pieces of music to see how they work with the scene. This is not at all an uncommon practice. Well, with a little more care and thought, these temporary music tracks can become the final score” (Michel Ciment interview).

This shot of the Orion was also a still image of the nearly three-foot model (Making 88).

The floating pen effect is one of the most creative and ingenious of the film. It was done by simply sticking the pen to the surface of an “eight-foot-diameter” sheet of glass that was then rotated. For this shot further away, the pen was just hanging from “thin monofilament nylon strands” (Making 90, American Cinematographer). For the closer shots with the pen stuck to the glass, they moved (or “floated”) one end of the set away to make room for the camera (American Cinematographer).

Here is the effect being recreated by the original actress (Heather Downham):
The pen effect.

Heather Downham: “When Stanley Kubrick was auditioning for space hostesses, I think he saw about three four hundred people. I think every agent in London was asked to send the people they thought were the right ones. But at that stage, I almost didn’t go because I had terrible terrible toothache and I was sort of quite high on pain killers, so I thought, ‘oh well, I’ll just go along’ you see, and I think um, I was terrible blasé. When Stanley Kubrick would ask me a question about anything, I couldn’t be bothered to answer. You know, I just sort of said, ‘uh yeah, yeah sure mm’ like that, you see and I think he thought I was really quite an oddity and totally mad. Then he said, ‘do the spacewalk’ and of course, by that stage, what I would have found hard to do was walking straight. But, since I’d had all these painkillers, I did a sort of wobble down the room. Sort of a bit of a lurch and a wobble down the room. Apparently that’s just what he wanted. So I was totally surprised about a week later to be told I had actually got the part.”

“Every morning before we started filming, three space hostesses had to meet in Stanley Kubrick’s caravan and we would sit there solemnly and by this time we were dressed in our white trouser suits and, with a plastic bag over the top because he was terrified of us getting dusty, and the first assistant would say to us, ‘Mr. Kubrick would like your thoughts for the day.’ So, come out with anything like, ‘I now see immortality is the fate of us all.’ And the first assistant would relay that to Stanley Kubrick and he’d sit and think for a little while and then say, ‘Good! We can go with that! Let’s start work!’”

In an interview for American Cinematographer, Douglas Trumbull explains the television in front of Floyd: “Kubrick wanted shots of a futuristic car, and close-ups of a love scene taking place inside. A crew was dispatched to Detroit to shoot a sleek car of the future which was provided by, I believe, the Ford Motor Company. The exteriors were shot in 35mm, but the interiors were shot without seats or passengers, as four-by-five Ektachrome transparencies. Using these as background plates for a normal rear-projection set-up, an actor and actress were seated in dummy seats and Kubrick directed the love scene [in England]. Shot on 35mm, this was cut together with the previous exterior shots, and projected onto the TV screen using a first-surface mirror” (American Cinematographer).

This was projected onto the television screen from in front of the seat in front of Floyd.

This shot was particularly complicated. The Earth was “[s]hot from [a] six-inch color transparency on [an] animation stand, moving [at] .0025 of an inch per frame. [The] [s]tars [were] shot separately to match, then matted to clear all [the] elements in [the] shot. [The] [s]pace station model is six feet long. Orion was photographed from [a] still picture, tail-view, camera tracking away. Its movement was timed and planned to gain slightly on [the] previously filmed space station movement, a matter of trying a few different speeds until one looked right. It was checked in a theater by using two projectors, one projecting [the] original shot of space station, the other the takes of the Orion. With black backgrounds, this was possible to do without flooding out the screen” (Making 91).

For the shots from inside the cockpit of Orion,
“The Center screen is a computer-driven display that simulates in real time the approach to the space-station docking area, much as [late 60s] astronauts visually dock their LM with Apollo Command Module by means of radial grid and vertical-horizontal coordinates. [The] [r]eadout was [an] actual filmed simulation of [a] docking approach; it included guidance corrections. It was made by [an] animation (not by computer graphics)… [The] [o]ther two readouts are supposed to show a routine cascade of status displays for other systems in Orion. They would be displayed, some believe, largely to reassure the pilot that conditions are ‘normal’” (Making 93, 94).

Douglas Trumbull explains: “To produce thousands of feet of continually changing graphic readouts to cover the multitude of screens in ‘2001’ would have been an impossibly long job using ordinary animation techniques. We terminated work with the local animation camera service, set up our own 35mm Mitchell camera with stop-motion motor, and with the help of a very talented and artistically oriented cameraman, we began the job of pasting up and juggling around artwork under the camera as we were shooting. In this way sometimes as much as a thousand feet of active, colorful, diagram animation could be produced in one day. Specific readouts showing docking alignments taking place, testing procedures under way, and other specific story points were not as fast and easy to shoot, however, and the job of producing all of the read-outs for “2001” took nearly a year” (American Cinematographer).

The first lines spoken (at twenty-five minutes and forty-four seconds into the film) were spoken by actress Maggie London. She was considered to play the passport girl, but her American accent was apparently not “authentic” enough and she was instead assigned to deliver the first lines of the film (Maggie London interview).

In an interview, she recounts her experience working on the film. She says, “What should have been a few days work turned into three or four weeks. Stanley had three sets going at the same time. We would be made-up ready to shoot at 8am in the early morning, and our director would have inspiration for something on another set, so we were left waiting for his return for a couple of days or maybe a week. These days turned out to be fun for me because I spent the time getting to know the actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, the astronauts in the lead roles, and William Sylvester (whose scene I was in)” (Maggie London interview).

And as for her impression of Kubrick: “I never saw any signs of tension on the set. He was soft-spoken and very pleasant. I just remember seeing him lost in thought with the perfection of his project obviously on his mind” (Maggie London interview).

The part of the Passport Girl went to Chela Cannon after “three months of auditions” (Chela Cannon interview). In an interview, she said, “Kubrick was also concerned about the ‘sound’ of the actresses, I mean their pronunciation. My accent must have suited him better than the others” (Chela Cannon interview).

If Alan Cumming’s experience with Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut is any indication, Kubrick apparently liked having actors use their natural accent rather than put one on.

Alan Cumming: “And he was very nice and I went, ‘Hey Stanley, you know, it’s nice to meet you finally. I’m Alan.’ And he was all like, ‘You’re not American!’ and I was like, ‘I know. I’m Scottish.’ And he went, ‘You were American on the tape!’ and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s because I’m an actor, Stanley.’”

It is likely that Cannon had an advantage with a natural American accent in a movie produced in England.

For some reason, Chela Cannon and Maggie London (as well as some of the other small roles) did not receive screen credit for the film. It is still unclear as to why this happened, but Cannon believed it was just something that “slipped by” while they were making the credits (Chela Cannon interview).

Hardy Amies, who designed the iconic costumes, was on the set during the filming of this scene (Chela Cannon interview). Amies was actually a fashion designer and not only that, at the time, he was Queen Elizabeth II’s official wardrobe designer. Amies and Kubrick apparently had a similar perfectionist mentality, which caused them to clash to the point of requiring an intermediary (Hardy Amies). Cannon recalls Amies being present and involved “during all the auditioning process” as well, which required the candidates to “walk for [Amies] with the costumes on” (Chela Cannon interview).

In a profile of Stanley Kubrick by physics professor Jeremy Bernstein, Bernstein writes about visiting the set in 1966. He writes: “Tacked to a bulletin board were some costume drawings showing men dressed in odd-looking, almost Edwardian business suits. Kubrick said that the drawings were supposed to be of the business suit of the future and had been submitted by one of the innumerable designers who had been asked to furnish ideas on what men’s clothes would look like in thirty-five years. ‘The problem is to find something that looks different and that might reflect new developments in fabrics but that isn’t so far out as to be distracting,’ Kubrick said. ‘Certainly buttons will be gone. Even now, there are fabrics that stick shut by themselves’” (Making 64).

And look, not a single button.

(Hardy Amies – 7:10 – Inspired by Flash Gordon, Blow-up, etc.)

Austin Mutti-Mewse: “Hardy Amies’ inspirations for 2001: A Space Odyssey came from watching the old 1930s Flash Gordon serials, um, those very futuristic costumes that were designed for that series and then movies like Blow-up. He was fascinated in the beatnik look of the 1960s and he said leather was the new lace. He had very strong opinions on fashion materials and new things that were going on within the industry. So, the beatnik look was certainly an inspiration—um, baseball. He spoke to Freddy Fox about the space helmets for the stewardesses and baseball helmets were an inspiration for Freddy’s designs. He looked at models like Peggy Moffit and her work with William Claxton and then Twiggy, you know, Twiggy. Her look was also an inspiration. So he was looking at the 60s and what was happening at that period.”

All the garments were made to be subtly futuristic without being too noticeable. Even the less subtle pieces were made to be practical. The famous egg-like hats worn by the stewardesses, were designed by Frederick Fox and were meant to be padded to prevent head injuries from bumping into the ceiling during the zero gravity flights (Making 62).

Heather Downham: “I was never allowed to touch mine, no, moment it was made it was wrapped up in cellophane or plastic or whatever, so no dirty finger marks could be on it… The wardrobe lady was terrified of him because, when we had these white helmets to put on, she’d say, ‘Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it! Because if Stanley sees your fingers on it, he’ll go mad!’ So, it came wrapped up in plastic and then was put on my head and they were the most wonderful shape. Because I think they suited everybody. They were very glamorous.”

There was practical thought behind every piece wardrobe, every prop, and every set. Kubrick even decided what time zone would be used on the space station—“Kubrick chose Eastern Standard, for the convenience of communicating with Washington” (Making 62).

Kubrick makes brilliant use of the set, giving us spatial awareness through this shot, which not only pans to establish the entire set, but gives us a more distant angle on a location we will visit shortly for the conversation with the Russian scientists.
We also get up-close with a functional detail of the space station (the video phone room), which gives legitimacy to what is seen in the backgrounds of later shots and serves as a way to break up the establishing shot and the conversation scene, giving what is essentially one set a variety of spatial imagery.

“The interior of the space station was a giant curved set over three hundred feet long, and sloping up at one end to nearly forty feet. It may be noticeable that in the long shot of two men approaching the camera from the far end, their pace as slightly awkward, and this was due to the very steep slope at that end of the set. Most action took place in the more comfortable area at the bottom. The Earth image seen through the window of the space station was a rear-projected four-by-five transparency in a special rotating mount” (American Cinematographer).

The set was curved as part of the space station’s wheel that would simulate gravity through its rotation.

The little girl playing Floyd’s daughter is in fact, Kubrick’s daughter Vivian who would later go on to document her father’s productions and even wrote the iconic score for Full Metal Jacket.

In this scene, Floyd’s daughter asks for a bushbaby for her birthday. They filmed a scene in a department store set showing the bushbaby being bought that was cut from the film before its release (Making 98).

The artwork of the Earth seen through the window was by John Rose.

“Sections were chosen with [a] variety of glass cloud overlays. Transparencies needed careful exposure to make [the] Earth look like a bright object. [The] Earth on a rotating still-transparency projector is seen on [the] large screen in space station window area” (Making 98).

The picture phone “was designed with help of John R. Pierce, of Bell Laboratories, who designed the Telstar communications satellite” (Making 98).

This is just one of the many companies that contributed to the film.

Narrator: “We’ve heard you’ve been getting assistance throughout America.”

Fred Ordway: “Well, we most certainly have. We’ve been working with many many companies—about 50 really. IBM, General Electric in Philadelphia, RCA in Michigan, Bausch and Lomb in Rochester, New York and so on down the list. Wherever we need help, we’ve gone to industry and they’ve been more than delighted to give it to us.”

Aside from the questions 2001 raises, it was also meant to be a presentation of futurism. The idea was to inform, intrigue, and normalize the idea of technological progress and space travel.

Arthur C. Clarke: “And what we’re doing in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey is showing some of the things that will develop in the world of the future as a result of our present first steps into space… You know the exploration of the universe is more than just a contest between two mid 20th century powers. It’s really the next stage in the evolution of mankind. I’m sure that the men who built the first boats out of reeds and logs never imagined the ocean-going commerce of today or the great nations beyond the sea and similarly, the men who started the conquest of the air only a lifetime ago, couldn’t have conceived of the great jets that are now roaring through the skies. Well, what we are starting now, with the drive into space is the next step in evolution. Out on the moon and planets are the new frontiers, which our age needs so desperately. The next generation will explore the planets, bringing back new knowledge, answering old questions, and of course, asking fresh ones.”

The next scene involves a conversation between Floyd and some Russian scientists. We can see the logo for the Russian airline company Aeroflot on a couple of the scientists’ bags. This scene depicts a more positive representation of the female gender’s place in the space age as opposed to the more stereotypical roles depicted earlier.

It is important to note that this was during the height of the Cold War between Russia and the United States and yet, the meeting is rather friendly for the most part. We do get a sense of the United States being somewhat superior as Floyd, the American, has information that these Russian scientists are not privy to. Nevertheless, it opens up the idea that the humans of the year 2001 will share in the exploration of space together regardless of their national affiliation. Keep in mind that this was filmed during the height of the space race as well. Along the same lines it should also be noted that during this time, the United States had recruited former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun to aid in NASA’s attempt at putting a man on the moon. The film implies that regardless of which country wins the space race of the 1960s, it is mankind itself that is destined to explore the cosmos.

Even though it is a simple conversation, this scene is wonderfully shot in what looks like only four setups. If we take a really close look, we can see a simple concept at work here. Despite a long shot featuring five main subjects, Kubrick knows exactly where you are looking. We can tell because we miss a couple of continuity errors that we would have otherwise noticed had those areas of the screen been the focus of our attention. Notice the way in which Floyd is holding his folder changes and how the sweater winds up behind the chair rather than draped on it. The blocking centers the shot on Floyd with the subjects only moving when the attention should be on them. It is almost bizarre how statuesque they are when they are not interacting with Floyd. That is, except for one part where the male scientist makes movements while one of the female scientists is talking. This seems distracting, but it was a brilliant choice because the man is antsy to ask his question about Clavius during the inconsequential chit chat. And a little later look at how this female scientist starts moving her head slightly to bring the attention over to her just before she is about to speak.

The background of these shots (this one in particular) is fairly light, which causes the subjects to stand out from the background. We can get a better sense of how this works by raising the contrast. You can see how Floyd is framed in the center without any dark spots behind him touching his silhouette. There are also strategically placed red chairs on the right side of the frame giving depth to the space. There is balance to the frame with the subjects on either side of Floyd and the chairs and windows on one side with the offices and monitors on the other. And finally, there are several lines of sight that lead the attention to Floyd.

There is a similar thing happening in the next shot— contrast, balance, line of sight.

And again—contrast, balance, line of sight.

Sources:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 Dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Eyes Wide Shut (Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1999)

Spartacus (Dir. Stanley Kubrick 1960)

The Making of Kubrick’s 2001 – Edited by Jerome Agel (special thanks to La Familia Film)
http://issuu.com/lafamiliafilm/docs/the_making_of_kubricks_2001

A vintage article from American Cinematographer by Douglas Trumbull on creating Special Effects for 2001 A Space Odyssey
http://cinetropolis.net/vintage-article-by-douglas-trumbull-on-creating-special-effects-for-2001-a-space-odyssey/

DOUGLAS TRUMBULL | Master Class | Higher Learning

Stanley Kubrick | 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) | Making of a Myth

2001: A Space Odyssey — A Look Behind the Future

Space Station Model in dump
http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=41376

Michel Ciment – Kubrick interview quote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(score)

Maggie London interview
http://www.2001italia.it/2013/06/two-days-turned-into-four-weeks.html

Chela Cannon interview
http://cinetropolis.net/interview-chela-cannon-2001-a-space-odysseys-receptionist-to-the-stars/

Stanley Kubrick & Hardy Amies: 2001: A Space Odyssey, When Fashion and the Future Collide
http://hardyamies.com/heritage/heritage-the-film/

American Cinematographer – Douglas Trumbull
http://cinetropolis.net/vintage-article-by-douglas-trumbull-on-creating-special-effects-for-2001-a-space-odyssey/

Alex North – Space Station Docking Sequence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAIZRVeGJd4

The Dawn of Man BFI Live British Film Institute (2010)

2001 A Space Odyssey BFI Event Live Orchestra (2010)

Herbert von Karajan conducts The Blue Danube Waltz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTqlLKBKFhg

Alan Cumming on the First Time He Met Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes – (Full Metal Jacket production footage)

The Making of The Shining

This video essay was written, edited, and narrated by Tyler Knudsen.