Canadian actor Douglas Rain must have one of the best known voices on the movie screen, and despite a relatively limited career in film, much of his renown comes from voicing HAL, the on board computer of the spacecraft USS Discovery, in 1967's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the 1984 follow-up 2010: Odyssey Two. Yet what does he look like? I don't recall ... Read full entry

Wendy Carlos explains Stanley Kubrick's use of the Eltro in the production of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to enhance Douglas Rain's voice during his vocal performance as supercomputer HAL. During the scene in which Dave (Keir Dullea) "lobotomizes" HAL, you'll easily hear how the tempo of Rain's voice becomes slowly expanded and pitch-shifted gradually downwards. Actually, his entire performance as HAL has a mild amount of time stretching ... Read full entry