I watched the Andromeda Strain today, directed by Robert Wise with visual affects by one of my favourite people in movie making history, Douglas Trumbull. It was an incredible film, and one I've not heard much about. The opening sequences focus on a tiny remote town in which (almost) all the inhabitants have died pretty much instantaneously. It's eerily beautiful; shots of the windswept dusty town of Piedmont dotted with fallen figures, a mechanic slumped over the hood of a car, children face down in the dirt beside one another, washing still flapping in the wind under blue skies.
Much of the film takes place in a secret Laboratory designed to deal with biological warfare. The sets are wonderful. I love nothing more than sci fi done well. I wish Douglas Trumball still worked in films, CGI has made everything possible, but at the same time made it all a bit shit. Blade Runner is a beautiful film, a whole city constructed on a miniature scale, lit by millions of fiber optics, combined with incredible matte painting, the world created has substance and an atmosphere all its own. It's dirty and real, but if it were made today I feel that all that incredible imagination and skill that came out of those limitations would all be usurped by some 3D geeks who'll turn it into something slick and flashy, just because they can. Why do
I work for a visual effects company again...?
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