#showscan

MTV The Big Picture - 1991 Showscan & Imax

Industrial Light & Magic's Space Race (1991 HD 60FPS 70mm Film Showscan Ride Video)

RIP Douglas Trumbull, creator of the Showscan process and one of the most influential VFX artists of all time.

This is the Showscan film "Space Race" (HDP-2177) produced in collaboration with George Lucas's Industrial, Light & Magic team and stored on a Sony high-definition 12" HDVS videodisc produced in very limited numbers.

It's the future and you're on the outskirts of Earth headed to NASA's space station. Your pilot accidently gets too close to a black hole generator which warps you into the middle of a high-speed life-or-death race against alien starships! What will you and your pilot do? Watch to find out! Produced almost completely with practical effects, this is one of Showscan's collaborations with Industrial Light & Magic....and the Star Wars influences show!

Showscan Film Corporation was a company and a film process. The Showscan process modified camera & film projectors and ran them at 60fps instead of the usual 24fps, making viewers feel more engaged with the viewing experience. While the earliest films made by Showscan were purely meant for viewing, later "attractions" were small rides with powered seats and chairs which would move the viewer in coordination with the events on screen. Needless to say, the 60fps process made the high-definition HDVS disc format a prime candidate for the easy transportation and set-up of Showscan attractions. No longer would a huge, very expensive, modified 70mm camera with large reels need to be moved from location to location.

While Showscan won many awards for many of their releases, they were mostly known for their first hit, "Street Luge," and their later collaborations with George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic (like this one).

Happy Birthday to VFX Pioneer Douglas Trumbull (‘2001’, ‘Close Encounters’, ‘STAR TREK’) Born Today in 1942

The man who created the Star Gate, the Mothership, the movie USS Enterprise, flying cars in Blade Runner, and the origin of life in The Tree of Life turns 78 today.

Doug Trumbull, VFX innovator

Trumbull’s work on a short 360-degree Cinerama film, “To the Moon and Beyond” created for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, brought him to Stanley Kubrick’s attention for 2001: A Space Odyssey.…

90s CGI ride films