2001: A Space Odyssey - "Discovery" cutlery
- Thread starter Demetrios2177
- Start date
carbonitekid
Well-Known Member
As an aside.....
How are you all choosing to display these pieces?
Until macropod80 makes things easier for us with his trays. ;-)
How are you all choosing to display these pieces?
Until macropod80 makes things easier for us with his trays. ;-)
DigiGal
Active Member
Here's a size comparison between (top - bottom) the dinner fork, latte spoon and the child's spoon suggested in this thread. I believe the longer latte spoon is a closer match than the child's spoon. You have to consider that the fork is closer to the lens in the film shot than the spoon is. The child's spoon just doesn't look right proportionally in any of the photo's, the actual food containers in the film capture look different than the lady arnold/ arnoldware containers. As such size reference's to arnoldware snack trays can't be trusted, it's better to reference the film capture.
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Lt Washburn
Sr Member
Cool info here, but wanted to point out something. Sometimes with designer products that have been in production for decades, the modern product is a revision to the original, sort of a v3.0 to the v1.0 in other words. I'm not saying that's the case here, but worth considering if hyper accuracy is your goal.
Also, this cutlery was also used on Enterprise in the Captain's dining room scenes from multiple episodes. At the entirely other end of the cutlery spectrum, I recently found the source for plastic utensils used in some episodes.
Also, this cutlery was also used on Enterprise in the Captain's dining room scenes from multiple episodes. At the entirely other end of the cutlery spectrum, I recently found the source for plastic utensils used in some episodes.
macropod80
Active Member
Now I remember why I kept giving up on this project over the years!
Digigal - I understand exactly what you're saying. As I said earlier, I originally went with the latte spoon myself. But once I started drawing up the tray (scaling off screengrabs) I found that no matter how I massaged the numbers and fiddled with things in Photoshop, I couldn't get it to work. The big teaspoon looked too short but measured the right length, while the latte spoon looked right, but just didn't fit unless the tray was about 2 foot long! I recall for a while I was convinced they must have used the latte spoon but cut a bit off the end. And it's not helped that Kubrick was using funny lenses that distorted everything and the spoons themselves look short and fat, or long and slender from different angles.
Now that I've actually got a plastic tray in front of me, I'm having second thoughts again...
So, compare these with the screengrabs above:
Teaspoon; latte spoon. All depends on the tray, doesn't it..?
The tray dimensions from top to bottom are 1inch; 3 inches; 6 inches; 1 inch. Have to be. Nice round numbers developed from scaling the width of the fork, which is conveniently held square-on to the camera with the tines resting right in the plane of the tray. Unless the mould itself was made with neat numbers so there's fractional variation due to material thickness. But close enough. Makes the cup hole 2.5 inches. Which is small, but look at Bowman's hand as he takes it from the machine. (Does he have big hands or girly little hands? And what if that's not actually the dinner fork they're using, but the near-identical, slightly smaller dessert fork? Throws everything out the window!) I can't find the original Photoshopped image I used to get the lengths. Basically, we know that ellipse for the cup is meant to be a circle, so stretch the image until the tray's edges are parallel and the cup hole becomes perfectly round. Now it gets murky. Are those traylets 3 1/2 inches wide? 3 3/4"? 4 inches? I only had a DVD image back when I started this, but I've got the Bluray since and better software (I hope) for getting a blowup image with sharper detail to work on.
I'm going to go and try 3D printing a Mangalore grenade for a few days while my brain works on this in the background for me. Will get the Bluray out on the weekend. Any suggestions welcome.
A.T.
Digigal - I understand exactly what you're saying. As I said earlier, I originally went with the latte spoon myself. But once I started drawing up the tray (scaling off screengrabs) I found that no matter how I massaged the numbers and fiddled with things in Photoshop, I couldn't get it to work. The big teaspoon looked too short but measured the right length, while the latte spoon looked right, but just didn't fit unless the tray was about 2 foot long! I recall for a while I was convinced they must have used the latte spoon but cut a bit off the end. And it's not helped that Kubrick was using funny lenses that distorted everything and the spoons themselves look short and fat, or long and slender from different angles.
Now that I've actually got a plastic tray in front of me, I'm having second thoughts again...
So, compare these with the screengrabs above:
Teaspoon; latte spoon. All depends on the tray, doesn't it..?The tray dimensions from top to bottom are 1inch; 3 inches; 6 inches; 1 inch. Have to be. Nice round numbers developed from scaling the width of the fork, which is conveniently held square-on to the camera with the tines resting right in the plane of the tray. Unless the mould itself was made with neat numbers so there's fractional variation due to material thickness. But close enough. Makes the cup hole 2.5 inches. Which is small, but look at Bowman's hand as he takes it from the machine. (Does he have big hands or girly little hands? And what if that's not actually the dinner fork they're using, but the near-identical, slightly smaller dessert fork? Throws everything out the window!) I can't find the original Photoshopped image I used to get the lengths. Basically, we know that ellipse for the cup is meant to be a circle, so stretch the image until the tray's edges are parallel and the cup hole becomes perfectly round. Now it gets murky. Are those traylets 3 1/2 inches wide? 3 3/4"? 4 inches? I only had a DVD image back when I started this, but I've got the Bluray since and better software (I hope) for getting a blowup image with sharper detail to work on.
I'm going to go and try 3D printing a Mangalore grenade for a few days while my brain works on this in the background for me. Will get the Bluray out on the weekend. Any suggestions welcome.
A.T.
DigiGal
Active Member
Here's a shot of the vintage lady arnold hostess trays.
Here's a zoom of the screen capture which shows the trays and the spoon.
They are definitely different and most likely not the same dimensions. As they're close and coordinate with our kitchen I grabbed the NOS green set above and will actually use them with some of the flatware. Had originally thought of painting the trays white but since they are not exact decided using them will be a fun novelty. My old 70's edition paperback of 2001:A Space Odyssey had the original film capture in B&W and I've been fascinated with the design ever since.
Here's a zoom of the screen capture which shows the trays and the spoon.
They are definitely different and most likely not the same dimensions. As they're close and coordinate with our kitchen I grabbed the NOS green set above and will actually use them with some of the flatware. Had originally thought of painting the trays white but since they are not exact decided using them will be a fun novelty. My old 70's edition paperback of 2001:A Space Odyssey had the original film capture in B&W and I've been fascinated with the design ever since.
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macropod80
Active Member
Quick note:
This is a scan of a grainy printout dated 2006 (which shows how depressingly long I've been procrastinating over this) of the tray with the foreshortening roughly removed:
Not the shot I was looking for, but it gives an idea of how short and wide the little traylets start to look once the cup holder is actually round.
A.T.
This is a scan of a grainy printout dated 2006 (which shows how depressingly long I've been procrastinating over this) of the tray with the foreshortening roughly removed:
Not the shot I was looking for, but it gives an idea of how short and wide the little traylets start to look once the cup holder is actually round.
A.T.
DigiGal
Active Member
^ Ouch, talking about Stanley's use of odd lenses. Nothing looks right in this photo, the fork and the tumbler look like stretched taffy :eek
A bit of fun in relevent icon-agraphy here http://findicons.com/icon/45400/space_food
~ Just a thought, we never actually see either of them using the spoon in the film or publicity shots. My guess is that it is implied or intended to be used for stirring the beverage rather than for eating. For stirring the beverage it should be but not necessarily need to be long to reach the bottom of the tumbler. ~
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zyote
Active Member
Ha! I drew those icons!
I also own a few of these pieces too..
I'd love to get a replica of the TV dinner tray and cup to go with the silverware!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Kukulcan
Well-Known Member
Just found this thread and think the info, which pieces are in my "allegedly production used" set would fit here.
There is of course no proof these were the screen used sizes, I assume Kubrick either bought sets of those 3 and decided against using the knife or these are actually the ones from the sets bought that didn't get used.
There is of course no proof these were the screen used sizes, I assume Kubrick either bought sets of those 3 and decided against using the knife or these are actually the ones from the sets bought that didn't get used.
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joberg
Legendary Member
Love your tray macropod80 Really nice idea to take those trays from the '60s as measurement! Here's mine (not a vacu-formed tray, btw). The cup has been transformed and the food is just blocks of painted blue foam
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macropod80
Active Member
And I like your tray too, Joberg! All the more so because you've actually finished yours since 2016. Is that good old-fashioned cut&glued styrene sheet, or 3D printing? And you found a cup that fits! Mine's too wide and short.
I actually stumbled across my tray buried in a box at work during the Xmas cleanup last week. Put it aside back when the vac-former went u/s, and now they have 3D printers instead.
Still can't make up my mind about that damn spoon!
I'll get back to this one day, among all the other half-done projects. The pod-door release is getting close...
I actually stumbled across my tray buried in a box at work during the Xmas cleanup last week. Put it aside back when the vac-former went u/s, and now they have 3D printers instead.
Still can't make up my mind about that damn spoon!
I'll get back to this one day, among all the other half-done projects. The pod-door release is getting close...
joberg
Legendary Member
Glad to hear from you and thanks for the praises
I did like kukulcan; the spoon has to match the length of the longest fork in the setAnd yes, it's just a white ceiling panel (from Loews) that I've cut and a few styrene sheets for the food trays. The found cup was too tall, so I had to cut it to fit into those holes, at the top. Since that project, I haven't found the same cup in stores anymore
joberg
Legendary Member
To come back to that "Tray Obsession"
The measurements for the cup holder on my tray are: round holder: 2 and 1/5 inches. The square part of that cup holder is 4"X 4". Looking at the my small trays, I believe mine are too small in length (5 and 3/4 inches). I think they should be 6" long.The fork cannot fit inside these exactly! The cutlery slot, at the back of the tray is the exact length of 2 small trays (their widths). So if one small tray is 4" wide, the slot is therefore 8" wide.
(which is not the case on my tray; it's 9", counting the slopes, on both sides, of the vacu-formed plastic).It also seems that the small trays used by the prop master is some kind of found item...why? Because of that additional top piece of plastic they affixed at the bottom of those trays to make a longer handle (my opinion, of course).
While the Arnold trays are a great idea, I don't think that those particular ones were used...why? When you look at the Arnold ones, and seeing how the bottom corner are slopped, you see that it's not the same as the bottom of the screen-used one. Not much of a slope in there, just slight rounded corners at best. As for the spoon: my cup is 5 and 3/4 inches high; the spoon I have is 8" in length...that means that only 2" is protruding from the cup when the spoon touches the bottom. There! I'm sure others will chime in with more ideas/infos
macropod80
Active Member
It's maddening, isn't it joberg!To come back to that "Tray Obsession"
The fork cannot fit inside these exactly! The cutlery slot, at the back of the tray is the exact length of 2 small trays (their widths). So if one small tray is 4" wide, the slot is therefore 8" wide.
It also seems that the small trays used by the prop master is some kind of found item...why? Because of that additional top piece of plastic they affixed at the bottom of those trays to make a longer handle (my opinion, of course).
While the Arnold trays are a great idea, I don't think that those particular ones were used...why? When you look at the Arnold ones, and seeing how the bottom corner are slopped, you see that it's not the same as the bottom of the screen-used one. Not much of a slope in there, just slight rounded corners at best. As for the spoon: my cup is 5 and 3/4 inches high; the spoon I have is 8" in length...that means that only 2" is protruding from the cup when the spoon touches the bottom. There! I'm sure others will chime in with more ideas/infos
Afraid I won't have access to mine till after Xmas so I can't quote measurements but first up: the 'square' part of the cup-holder isn't square:
Note the gaps either side of the round hole are at least double the size of the top and bottom gaps. At 2 1/2" diameter, that makes the rectangle about 3" tall x small-tray-width.I'd also just like to stress that I never said (nor was it my implication) back in 2016 that I thought the Arnold trays were actually used in the film. They're clearly different, with heavily-rounded corners and simpler handles, but look close enough to have inspired the film design. And I found their dimensions, while not identical, confirmed that those I had calculated from scaling screen-grabs were in the right ball-park. Very close, in fact.
Now for that funny handle: back in April 9 2016 I said 'insulated' and 'double-skinned'. Since the cup is 'Thermoware' (insulated) and we see Bowman flinching as he takes the hot foods from the dispenser, I figured the trays would also be double-skinned to keep their contents warm. I think that stepped handle at the front edge of the little trays is a sign of them being vac-formed from two layers. The inner one has the shorter flange at the front while the outer layer has the longer 'handle' extending forward below the upper.
Remember this scene:
- good profile of the cup to calculate height from width, and note also it's not nearly as tapered as the ones you usually find on evilbay
- note length of cutlery wrapped in serviette, a very tight fit in receptacle of tray
- note shadow under front handle of little tray of green goop and then note end-on view of little trays inside machine (above and below Bowman's hand removing another). The little trays seem to be quite deep.
Food for thought and now I'm busting to get back onto this project again but the world's come to a standstill over Xmas/New Year.
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macropod80
Active Member
Good high-resolution screengrabs of Poole and Bowman eating from the trays on this site:
Portable Devices UI – 2001 A Space Odyssey – INTERFACE LOVE. (ilikeinterfaces.com)
These give an insight into the construction of the little trays and their 'handle' - there's a thin rectangle/strip stuck on the top, presumably to sharpen this edge where the vac-form would curve over.
(Incidentally, this site is well worth exploring!)
Portable Devices UI – 2001 A Space Odyssey – INTERFACE LOVE. (ilikeinterfaces.com)
These give an insight into the construction of the little trays and their 'handle' - there's a thin rectangle/strip stuck on the top, presumably to sharpen this edge where the vac-form would curve over.
(Incidentally, this site is well worth exploring!)
joberg
Legendary Member
Well, yes it's sometimes maddening but that's what I like about the research mate
!! Maybe it's a double tray to keep the food warm (as you said) and yes, it's quite high (when place in the main tray) to make sure you can grab that handle . I finally found another plastic cup and will take a pic of the transformed one and the original one, side by side!
joberg
Legendary Member
Yes, the cutlery is in the paper serviette and might be not well placed vis-à-vis the other piece of cutlery; that's why it seems "snug". I don't see if it's the spoon or the fork on that pic, but we know that the 2 utensils are a good fit inside that "pocket".
