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Production Throughout the spring of 1965, Clarke continued to flesh out the novel, while Kubrick began setting up arrangements for production. After taking a vacation in Ceylon, Clarke flew to England, where Kubrick had already begun pre-production in August 1965 at Borehamwood Studios. With some plot details still not completely worked out, Kubrick began shooting on December 29, 1965. Clarke finished his first draft of the novel in April 1966, and immediately approached Kubrick about publication, since they had agreed that the novel should come out before the film. Kubrick offered several modifications to the novel that kept Clarke busy for several more weeks, then refused to sign the contract that had been worked out with Delacorte Publishing, claiming that the manuscript still needed work. This upset Clarke greatly, especially since the book had already been set in type and Delacorte had taken out a two-page advertisement in Publisher’s Weekly. He began to lose faith in the project, making the following entry in his diary in the summer of 1966: July 19. Almost all memory of the weeks of work at the Hotel Chelsea seems to have been obliterated, and there are versions of the book that I can hardly remember. I’ve lost count (fortunately) of the revisions and blind alleys. It’s all rather depressing – I only hope the final result is worth it.[11] It would not be until July 1968, three months after the release of the film, that Clarke’s novel would see publication, though the version finally approved by Kubrick differed very little from that he had written two years earlier. Although the two always had nothing but kind words to say for each other after the project was completed, at least one reviewer has speculated, “from the known characteristics of both men, their partnership was artistically rather less unified than the colored publicity brochures allow.”[12] On the recommendation of Clarke, Kubrick hired space consultants Frederick Ordway and Harry Lange, who had assisted some of the major contractors in the aerospace industry and NASA with developing advanced space vehicle concepts, as technical advisors on the film. Ordway was able to convince dozens of corporations such as IBM, Honeywell, Boeing, General Dynamics, Grumman, Bell Telephone, and General Electric that participating in the production of 2001 would be generate good publicity for them. Many companies provided copious amounts of documentation and hardware prototypes in return for “product placements” in the completed film. They believed that the film would serve as a big-screen advertisement for space technology. When IBM learned that the plot involved a murderous computer, however, they ordered that their trademark be removed from many of the sets. Every detail of the production design, down to the most insignificant elements, was designed with technological and scientific accuracy in mind. Senior NASA Apollo administrator George Mueller and astronaut Deke Slayton are said to have dubbed 2001’s production facilities “NASA East” after seeing all of the hardware and documentation lying around the studio.[13] It is no small credit to the research of Kubrick’s production crew that most audiences and critics still find 2001’s props and spaceships more convincing than many later science fiction movies. During the production and post-production of 2001, which lasted into the spring of 1968, the world outside of Borehamwood Studios was changing rapidly. The “golly-gee” enthusiasm of the Space Race soon gave way to the “confirmed kills” and body bags of Vietnam. On college campuses around the country, students began to question the authority of their schools and government, and began to organize in support of such causes as civil rights and ending the war. For the most part however, the outside world did not intrude upon the relatively isolated production of 2001. Next: Critical Reactions |
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