Space Odyssey by Michael Benson

Author:Michael Benson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

There were other drawbacks, however. The camera either had to remain fixed or bring the projector and mirror system along with it wherever it went—a cumbersome proposition. And the lighting and color temperature of the foreground set had to be tweaked so as to ensure that the set and its performers merged seamlessly with the projected background image; otherwise the illusion that the actors were playing their roles within the wider frame of the image collapsed. But with Howard and Alcott working the problem, Kubrick was confident these issues could be overcome.

• • •

Among the locations that Kubrick had sent scouts to photograph was South West Africa—today’s Namibia—as well as neighboring Botswana, collectively a vast desert expanse defined to the east by the Kalahari Desert and bordered on the west by the Skeleton Coast, so called because the absence of fresh water for hundreds of miles gave shipwreck survivors the reliable prospect of a long, slow, agonizing death. In 1966 South West Africa was still ruled by South Africa, and thus subject to the strict racial segregation of apartheid.

Of all the locations Kubrick had seen pictures of, the Kalahari and the Namib seemed to provide the most variety and possibility. These ocher deserts also had the advantage of absolute sun-baked legitimacy as a central stage for early man’s struggles. Having abandoned the idea of filming his man-apes on location—a decision that compounded his reluctance to leave the studio’s controlled environment with the impracticalities of shooting supposedly parched desert exteriors in the iffy British weather—Kubrick decided to pull together a small production team and send it to the region to capture realistic backdrop stills. Because of the resolution of the 65-millimeter film frame, the landscapes would have to be photographed as large-format eight-by-ten-inch fine-grained positive transparencies.

Prior to leaving the production, Tony Masters had suggested that his assistant Ernie Archer, who would be elevated to full production designer upon his departure, should be sent to Africa as well. That way he could ensure the backdrop photographs were framed such that the foreground sets he’d be designing and constructing would match. Masters’s idea came during a meeting in which all three were present, and though Kubrick immediately agreed, he suddenly looked concerned. “How will I know what you’re looking at, Ernie?” he asked. “I mean, how will I be able to tell if you’re shooting the right thing?”

This hadn’t occurred to Archer, who replied, “I don’t know, Stanley. You can’t, really. Just leave it to me.”

Never one to accept an easy out, Kubrick was having none of it. “Oh, no, God no,” he said. “I’m not going to know what you’re doing.” Thinking it over, suddenly the director grew enthusiastic. “I’ll tell you what. Here’s what we do: no matter how far out in the wilds you are, there’s always a village with some drums or something, and you can send a message back to the capital, where they have phones. What you do is, you have a piece of glass on the back of

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