45. 2OO1: A Space Odyssey with Mike Kaplan

Mike Kaplan is a film producer, documentary director, actor, award-winning poster designer, marketing strategist, and songwriter. He has been a close associate to many visionary filmmakers including Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Lindsay Anderson, Mike Hodges, Alan Rudolph, and Paul Thomas Anderson.

He directed the documentaries: Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country, which showed Altman's filmmaking technique for the first time, and Never Apologize, Malcolm McDowell's tour de force performance documentary about Lindsay Anderson, an official Cannes Film Festival selection.

As an independent distributor in the UK, he released Barbet Schroeder's The Valley (Obscured by Clouds), which had over 400 playdates in England, a record at that time for a subtitled film, and Jack Hazan's A Bigger Splash, featuring David Hockney, which played for a year in London setting house records and establishing a day and date release pattern for an art film. Wearing his strategist hat, he rescued Mike Hodges' Croupier from video oblivion as it became the most successful and acclaimed independent film in the United States.

Mike is perhaps best known for conceiving 'The Ultimate Trip'/Star Child campaign for 2OO1: A Space Odyssey and his subsequent work on A Clockwork Orange working directly for Stanley Kubrick.

Mike tells us about how he got started in A.P.E., the Advertising, Publicity and Exploitation department at MGM in the mid-sixties; His first epiphany experience seeing 2001 just before its initial release; His first encounter with Stanley Kubrick in the projection booth on opening night in New York; Rumours that The Beatles wanted to write a song for 2001; Kubrick asking Mike himself to write the promo song, which he did [and you’ll hear that later as only the second time ever to be officially broadcast, the only other time being at midnight of the new millennium]….. and other tales of Hollywood during it’s second Golden Age.

Stephen Rigg and Mark Lentz conducted the interview.

Recorded 4th March 2021

Hosted by Jason Furlong / Written by Stephen Rigg and Jason Furlong / Theme and original music written and performed by Jason Furlong / Produced and edited by Stephen Rigg

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