Asked in 1978 to describe his job, the visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull said: “I’m in the area of creating experiences that are beyond the realm of physical reality.” Trumbull, who has died aged 79 from cancer, was instrumental in bringing to the screen three of the greatest science-fiction films ever made: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982).
He was 23 when he began working with Kubrick. During a production schedule that lasted for more than two years, he went from designing graphics for the film’s computer screens to masterminding the kaleidoscopic “star gate” sequence, in which the astronaut Dave Bowman, played by Keir Dullea, passes through an intergalactic corridor of streaking, coloured light.
