Stanley Kubrick

For Barry Lyndon, Kubrick used a Zeiss Planar 50 mm f/0.7 lens, of a type of which only ten were made, six of them for NASA. Cinema Products president Ed DiGiulio adapted it to Kubrick's Mitchell BNC camera so that candlelit interiors could be filmed without added fill light. DiGiulio wrote in American Cinematographer that Kubrick wanted to preserve the natural patina of old castles at night, and that the whole film was push-developed one stop.

In 1974 Kubrick received a demonstration film made with the prototype Steadicam and replied to Cinema Products by telex. For The Shining he had many sets designed with the Steadicam's possibilities in mind, and operator Garrett Brown, writing in American Cinematographer in August 1980, states that every frame of the hedge maze was shot with it.

Kubrick wrote to Arthur C. Clarke in late March 1964 proposing a collaboration on a science-fiction film, and the two met at New York's Plaza Hotel on 22 April 1964. A 1999 retrospective says Kubrick personally supervised the effects team for 2001, which included Douglas Trumbull, who developed the Slit Scan machine used for the Star Gate sequence. The film opened on 2 April 1968.

2001: A Space Odyssey opened on 2 April 1968. Kubrick observed that early audiences disliked it, and between 5 and 9 April he and editor Ray Lovejoy cut about 19 minutes, sending instructions to theatres already showing the film. He explained that it takes a few showings to settle how long scenes should run, and said he did not think the trims made a critical difference.

The re-cut is consistent with a willingness to revise a finished work after watching audiences respond. His own remark that the trims mattered little to those who liked or disliked the film suggests the change in his view of the work itself was limited. Belief Updating

According to Warner publicist Julian Senior, speaking in London in February 1980, Kubrick learned that the walls and ceiling of a New York cinema due to show A Clockwork Orange were painted in shiny white lacquer that would cause reflections. He sent from London a list of Manhattan firms able to erect scaffolding and repaint, and a few days later asked which black was being used, since a gloss black would cause the same problem. The walls were repainted in matte black.

Senior presents the episode as an example of Kubrick's precision in technical matters. It is consistent with attention to the conditions in which a finished film is seen, not only to the film itself. Detail Orientation

In 1959, a few days into shooting Spartacus, Kirk Douglas asked the Harris-Kubrick company to lend him Kubrick to replace the film's first director, and the company agreed, partly because the arrangement brought it money, according to producer James B. Harris. Kubrick later said his experience showed that his decisions were unlikely to be respected unless a contract stipulated it.

His remark is consistent with a strong preference for holding decision-making authority. It is his own retrospective framing, not an independent account of what he would later have been able to control. Need for Autonomy