Space Odyssey 2001
...s used more space at the EMI studios, on occasions when all of the stages at MGM were full they travelled over to Shepperton some 15 miles away in suburban West London which housed the giant Moonbase set. 2001 broke new ground in cinematography by using what we call today, Steadicam shots. The camera was removed from its mountings and carried by crew members to create the kind of shots a hand held camera would create, this was not an easy thing to do as the Panavison cameras of that day were very heavy machines. The resulting shots add viewer involvement creating a documentary style of shooting. Kubrick was one of the first directors to extensively use the Steadicam when it became available for filming ie. The Shining. Many companies gave technical guidance during the designing and making of the sets and in return got their logos or brand names appearing on various things throughout the film, such as shuttles by Pan-Am, accommodation by Hilton, flight computer systems by IBM and videophones by Bell. This was before product placement became common practice. The basic plot is that moon explorers encounter a monolith that points them to a destination near Jupiter. In flashback, you see another side of the monolith playing a key role in human evolut...