This is one of the great moments of science fiction: how was the opening scene of Blade Runner created?

A living visual effects legend, genius inventor Douglas Trumbull notably created the visual effects for sci-fi masterpieces such as Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Star Trek and Blade Runner.

Three films that earned him an Oscar nomination each time. Not forgetting, of course, his immense and fabulous work behind the visual effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The work entered the pantheon of the 7th art, especially thanks to its visual effects, revolutionary and never seen before.

In November 2016, we had the privilege of speaking at length with the master, who sadly left us in February 2022, specifically about the creation of the film’s famous opening scene. Blade Runner; What the interested person also called The landscape of Hades; Hades is obviously, for those who don’t know, a reference to the god of the underworld.

The opening of the hypnotic film that Philip K. Even Dick was stunned. After viewing a short 20-minute montage, the latter stated in an interview in January 1982 that “That opening is one of the most stunning things I’ve ever seen on film.”

Below, the controversial opening…

“Ridley Scott My partner and I approached me Richard JuricicTo create special effects for Blade Runner. At that time I was going to work on my next film. Brainstorming, with my new process called “Showscan”; The film will be produced by David Begelman, who was the CEO of Columbia Pictures and behind the production 3rd kind of meeting.

He was allowed to achieve great success with this film. In fact, the film even saved Columbia, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. David Begelman was still fired from Columbia and moved to head MGM. In the end, it was he who suggested me to return to directing.

That’s when Ridley came to me to do visual effects on his film. Richard and I said to him, “We can start shooting them if we start as soon as possible. But we have to go halfway through the production to shoot our movie. So we need a third nobody to help us with this task.

David Dryer Then he will join us; He was a brilliant visual effects artist and supervisor. So we were able to go with him during the production of the film; He was the one who completed most of the visual effects that we worked on.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner: Same fight

“One of the interesting things about making Blade Runner is that we already had the equipment because it was used to shoot Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind. All the cameras we used, the smoke machines, the lens. The lights, etc. .

Everything was already tested, so it was also a significant financial gain. You have to know that Blade Runner was a very low budget film and we had few visual effects shots; Something like 85 shots where we did over 350 for a close encounter of the 3rd kind.

If you look closely at this level of visual effects, you will see a lot of similarities between the two films. The magnificent appearance in the opening of the film recalls the mother ship from the Spielberg film. It’s the exact same lighting, the same technique used, the same camera lens… It’s the same for the Spinners, including Harrison Ford’s, on which we used the same Lens Flare and animation effects.

Also crucial was the early development of what we call the smoke room, which crosses the entire set of light rays; It was exactly what Ridley Scott was looking for. A very foggy atmosphere, due to pollution, where light passes with difficulty, shadows, rain. He worked hard on this aspect with his director of photography, Jordan CronenwethAs well as its production designer, Lawrence G. Paul.”