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‘Close Encounters’ VFX creator Douglas Trumbull dies

By Natalie Dreier, Cox Media Group National Content Desk
By Natalie Dreier, Cox Media Group National Content Desk

You may not know Douglas Trumbull’s name, but you know his work.

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Trumbull was the visual effects creator for movies such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Blade Runner,” Variety reported.

He died Monday at the age of 79. He had been diagnosed with cancer and a brain tumor, and had had a stroke, his daughter wrote on Facebook, announcing her father’s death.

My dad, Doug Trumbull died last night after a major two year battle with cancer, a brain tumor and a stroke. He was an...

Posted by Amy Trumbull on Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Trumbull was nominated for an Oscar for best visual effects for “Close Encounters,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “Blade Runner.”

For “Star Trek,” he was the lead for the docking sequence on the Enterprise, as well as Spock’s spacewalk, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

His work, though, wasn’t just limited to the big screen. He also worked with Universal Studios on “Back to the Future: The Ride” and helped Imax become a movie theater mainstay, Variety reported.

He was an illustrator and airbrush artist by trade, working on a documentary for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, called “To the Moon and Beyond” for Graphic Films in Los Angeles. The fair is where Stanley Kubrick first saw his talent. Kubrick hired Graphic Films director Con Pederson. Trumbull got Kubrick’s number and called him. Kubrick hired him to do animated displays for computer screens in “2001,″ but Trumbull’s work grew as production continued. When the film wrapped, Trumbull was one of four visual effects supervisors on “2001” and he created the film’s Star Gate.

Trumbull was honored by The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences with a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1993 for the creation of the Showscan Camera System and with the Gordon E. Sawyer award in 2012 for his career contributions, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Trumbull came from an artistic and entertainment family. His father, Don Trumbull, worked on such legendary films as “The Wizard of Oz” and “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.” They also worked together on some films, Variety reported. The younger Trumbull declined the offer to work on “Star Wars,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Instead, he worked on “Close Encounters” with Steven Spielberg.



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