I honestly believe that the next big leap in immersive technology will be very much like Brainstorm.
IBM was the original contractor for much of the computer interface design on the film.
I wouldn't apply high frame rates to a love story or a thriller or a film noir or a mystery.
Movies used to be called the 'flicks' because they flickered badly: because 16 or 18 frames a second - which was those hand cranked movies on a single-bladed shutter - was really badly flickering.
But as far as the concept of HAL, who HAL was, his character - I had no role in creating him.
My first job on 2001 was to make all of the HAL readouts: the 16 screens that surround HAL's eyes.
There were IBM logos designed for the film, and there were IBM design consultants working with Kubrick on the layout of the controls and computer screens.
My personal feeling is that ultra-high frame rates and ultra-vivid giant screen movies can be like a window onto reality. And if you recognize it as such, you can write your screenplay, direct your movie, edit it, and present it as a live experience - not like a movie.
'2001' used a lot of what's called 'front projection.' You project an image onto this giant reflective screen, and the image bounces back and comes back to the lens and seems to be in the background behind the actors. The whole 'dawn of man' sequence in '2001' was projected eight-by-ten photographs of the African savannah.
My particular aesthetic of light and color and design wouldn't change as a result of working with computer graphics rather than with slit scan or miniatures.
Working on '2001' was my film school. Stanley Kubrick was my mentor.
I have the deepest respect for Terrence Malick and greatly enjoyed helping him on 'Tree of Life.' I consider him to be a good personal friend and professional contemporary.
When I was a young man in school, I used to read science fiction and really liked it. And as I became a young artist, I was filling up my portfolio with alien planets and spacecraft and things like that.
