2001: Absurdity Calls

[purpleivan]

 

Behind the scenes of 2001: A Space Absurdity

A photo documentary of the making of Stanley Kerman’s seminal movie.

 

The Pit

The setting for the reveal of the mysterious monolith found buried on the Mun.

To get a truly authentic look, the director originally had real Munar regolith transported to the set, but was unimpressed with how it looked.

“It’s just grey dirt… Kraken’s teeth, we spent twenty million funds for this” Stanley Kerman (Director)

Ultimately the director chose to film the pit scenes sans the regolith and to add better looking dirt using computer graphics in post.

 

This was the largest set constructed for the movie and to make life even more difficult for the set builders, it was placed on wheels to allow it to be moved at the whim of the film’s director.

 

The crew queuing to get a bite to eat from craft services before filming begins. Stanley Kerman (without helmet) can be seen on the left of the group.

 

Entering the set at dusk for the first day of filming.

 

Stanley Kerman discusses his plans for the scene with his actors.

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An oversight in The Pit set’s construction was that there was no access to it from ground level, requiring cast, crew and equipment to be transported into it each day by rocket. Here the delivery of a new camera, is seen being made to the set. This was necessitated by the destruction of the old one when a delivery of a chew-able sections of scenery went wrong earlier that day.

 

On the last day of filming the set suddenly started to behave erratically, bouncing around, with cast and crew falling through gaps in the floor. Resulting in a mass evacuation of it, that had all kerbals running for cover in the buildings of the KSC.

To this day some of those there say that it was cursed by the spirit of the Kraken and should have been melted down and buried at the bottom of the deepest ocean.

 

The Big Wheel

Designed so that the entire set could rotate to create the impression that it was a huge centrifuge, creating an artificial gravity experience for its crew. However the team could never get it to work, so the script was amended to include the Double D (Down is Down) single direction artificial gravity, that created its own challenges in filming, but none as large as getting the original design to work.

“I kept telling Stanley it was a crazy idea, but he just wouldn’t hear of it... he just had to have that spinning set.” Tolmey Kerman (Set Director).

 

 

 

Crew inspecting the set before it was hauled up into the required orientation for filming.

 

The set ready for filming to begin.

 

Assistant Set Director Janice Kerman inspecting the malfunctioning rotation mechanism.

 

Janice Kerman again, this time on top of the set fixing a hole that was allowing it to be flooded whenever it rained.

 

The actor Redshire Kerman, played the kerbonaut “Bob”, was originally to be shown running around the inside of the circular set the crew nicknamed “The Big Wheel”, in a complex choreography of actor, set and camera, but this was abandoned due to the inability of the set to rotate.

Star of such films as “Target”, “Last day on Kerbin”, “Marked Man” and “Oh No, Not Again” the actor sought assurance from the director that this wouldn’t be another movie in which his character met an untimely demise.

 “I give no such assurances” Stanley Kerman (Director)

 

 

The Pod Interior

 

The location of the tense scene in which ARL listens into Jeb and Bob’s plans to shut him down, this set, like many demanded by Stanley Kerman, was place on wheels to allow it to be moved around the KSC compound.

 

 

Ready for filming to begin.

 

Due to its small size and more than adequate propulsion, the set was often taken out for joy rides around the KSC by both cast and crew, something that annoyed the director intensely.

“Every morning we’d have to go looking for it before filming could begin and haul it back from whatever distant part of the compound it had been dumped in the night before. One time we even had to drag it out of the pool.” Stanley Kerman (Director).

 

 

The inevitable results.

 

ARL Control Room

The location of the comedic scene in which Jeb and ARL (an artificial intelligence) reminisce about the time they ran away one summer to be clowns in a circus, this was the most difficult set to film in.

The difficulty arose when Stanley Kerman, unhappy with the results of hanging an actor on wires to simulate zero gravity, decided that the only solution was to put the whole set in space and start filming from scratch.

 

The set in Kerbin orbit.

 

The actor Jebediah Kerman, who played the character of kerbonaut Jebediah Kerman (no relation) waiting for instructions from the director at the KSC.

Jebediah Kerman was not pleased when told that filming of the ARL room scene would be moved from a sound stage in the KSC compound to a 1500km orbit of the planet, as he suffered from extreme vertigo and motion sickness.

 

"I'd finish every day with an empty stomach and a full helmet" Jebediah Kerman.

 

Taking a break in filming while waiting for more red light bulbs to be sent up from the KSC.

 

 

Entering the ARL room

 

It's a Wrap

2001: A Space Absurdity was initially released to scathing reviews, with critics bemoaning its lack of a coherent plot, frequent use of knock, knock jokes and poor visual effects that many said looked like nothing more than cardboard cutouts of space ships dangled on wires in front of a black blanket splattered with paint spots.

After a re-release involving a hasty re-write, all the physical effects being replaced by computer graphics and all knock, knock jokes by excruciating puns, the critics heralded this new version a masterpiece and demanded that all copies of the original should be shot into the sun, along with its writing staff.

Edited June 11, 2017 by purpleivan