But as far as the concept of HAL, who HAL was, his character - I had no role in creating him.
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.
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.
Working on '2001' was my film school. Stanley Kubrick was my mentor.
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.
'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.
