I caught this old Robert Wise classic on Sundance this morning. Besides being surprised at how well it stood up to time, I spotted "special effects by Douglas Trumbull" in the credits. I was curious, anybody know which special effects he worked on? There wasn't any space stuff, I'm guessing it's all the lab-equiptment "waldo's", only because of the similiarity to the Drones arms in Silent Running, but again that's only a guess......

apparently the DVD has the "making of Andromeda Strain".

The docu is a thorough tour through the making of the film, guided by Robert Wise and Nelson Gidding. Wise hasn't much to say except the old 'it's not Science Fiction but Science Fact' nonsense none of us needs to hear. But his memory of the details is good. Gidding applauds Crichton, and Crichton is on hand to volunteer stories of his first movie deal. Douglas Trumbull sketches the details of his and Jamie Shourt's brilliantly achieved effects. They used custom-created hi-resolution television screens in ways that predict concepts later developed to record computer images onto film. The film was Trumbull's entry into effects as they were done in the real industry (not the dream-factory, sky-is-the-limit situation of 2001), and he acknowledges his admiration for the experts who preceded him. He named one of his daughters Andromeda after this movie, by the way.

source (http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s780strain.html)

The bit about "choking the monkey" is interesting.

Anybody else old enough to remember when they originally released The Andromeda Strain soundtrack in a special green six-sided hexagonal vinyl LP? After causing the destruction of numerous turntable needles (remember those?) it was recalled and issued in a familiar round version!

Great link! I always assumed they really gassed a mokey, it's a harrowing scene! And I agree the PETA folks would never stand for it today.

I was a huge Crichton fan as a youth, he told a story in a later book(I think it was Congo) that perfectly illustrated the hypocrisy of the animal rights folks.

The gist was in the early seventies a pharmaceutical company (I think it was LaRouche, the quaalude guys) set up an experimental manufacturing line in Mexico. They used trained pigeons to sort pills on an assembly line by color. It actually worked, untill the animal rights activist got wind of it. They immediately started picketing because it was "cruel" to pigeons. So the pharmaceutical company replaced the pigeons with Mexicans, and the animal rights folks were happy again.

It's cruel for a pigeon, but it's ok for an unskilled laborer!

maybe they weren't giving the pigeons thier 2 , 15 minute breaks every 4 hours .
hb

im betting he did the shots of the andromeda "cells" multiplying

How about the lasers in the tube?

It has been years since I read this, but Trumbull said someplace that he and Shourt cobbled together a 2000 line rez TV system for between 20 and 30 grand! I bet this is where Coppola got the idea of HD TV needing to be 2K.

There was a Brittanica SCIENCE & THE FUTURE or YEARBOOK from around 1973 that had a huge feature on Trumbull, both SILENT RUNNING and ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Well illustrated too; pics of that 3d looking graphic of the Wildfire complex.

guess I'll have to put this DVD on my want list now, if for nothing else to get the commentary (and to see how the NOTION of lighting/costuming that worked so badly in TMP -- withe the same director/DP -- could work well when you actually have a little snap to the look of things.)

It has been years since I read this, but Trumbull said someplace that he and Shourt cobbled together a 2000 line rez TV system for between 20 and 30 grand! I bet this is where Coppola got the idea of HD TV needing to be 2K.

Trumbull discusses the aforementioned "Magic Box", as well as his work on "Silent Running" in the summer `72 issue of Cinefantastique magazine (Vol. 2 #2 -- the "Planet of the Apes" issue). American Cinematographer also covered "The Andromeda Strain" -- I'll see if I can find my old issue.

Lear Siegler, a large aerospace company that built, among other items, television equipment, built the Magic Box. Essentially a video processor/ synthesizer, it had a sync generator which made it programmable to all manner of scan rates and interlaces. It was used in the film to create Andromeda's crystalline growth patterns.

Sync generator, huh? Wonder if it was the precursor to the Burbank Studios system for allowing tons of video monitors to be synched to a film camera for playback, a la the bridge in KHAN.

Sync generator, huh? Wonder if it was the precursor to the Burbank Studios system for allowing tons of video monitors to be synched to a film camera for playback, a la the bridge in KHAN.
Don't know how they did it in in the ST movies, but a film/video sync system was used at least 15 years earlier — in "Fantastic Voyage." The scenes of Edmond O'Brien talking to his medical team via 2-way video were done using pre-taped footage of the actors and real video monitors on the set. L.B. Abbott's invaluable SFX reference book Special Effects: Wire, Tape and Rubber Band Style mentions that four British Marconi TV cameras were used, for whatever that's worth.

Dang, that's right. I used to have the Abbott book, I shouda remembered.

Trumbull didn't even bother synching the monitors on SILENT RUNNING. I think he said he liked the flicker look, gave some life to the set.

I also remember that in ROBOCOP, they had a wall of monitors in the executive boardroom, but they couldn't afford the interlock system, so they adjusted the camera shutter so that the flicker and bar wouldn't show up.