gravity - "How to light a Space Movie"

Against a black screen, these words appear first.

“At 600 km above planet Earth, the temperature fluctuates between +258 and -148 degrees Fahrenheit. There is nothing to carry sound. No air pressure. No oxygen. Life in space is impossible.” 

The screen disappears.

The planet—this planet, in three dimensions—appears.

Gravity...I have yet to see this film but am looking forward to it for many reasons; I like Space movies, I think Sandra Bullock is an underated actress and I am intrigued at the visual effects and new techniques used by director Alfonso Cuarón to create such stunning visuals.

Ever since I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was hooked on the visuals, the sense of reality and how powerful it felt to watch; on one hand the serene and silence of space, to the suddenness of the astronaut catapulted into emptiness and....'Space'.

It is no surprise or shock that everything is CGI and obviously to watch it we know it is not really taking place in Space, but it is the type of CGI that would have me question whether it is real or not.Even the actors looked like they were actually in Space, outside of the force field of the Earth, and just based on the trailer at this point, Sandra Bullock's performance seems as powerful as the visuals surrounding her. In an article on space.com, writer Dave Brody comments:

"Watching the film, it's quite clear that astronauts — who have been there and done that — advised the filmmakers. The behavior of masses handled by intelligent gloved hands on an EVA is hard to fake. When that mass is a space-suited astronaut, "torqued" around by the movement of a much more massive spacecraft, only someone who has experienced it can describe the feeling.

What happens when a tethered astronaut is accelerated — or two spacewalkers, tethered together, jerk one another around — has emotional consequences that can only be felt by an audience if the filmmakers get the physics absolutely right."

During the film's previs process, art director Emmanuel Lubezki knew there would be technical issues as "In space, light comes from the sun and bounces off everything else, most prominently the dayside of Earth".
They began preparing for a shoot  “And then very soon we find out that the film was not going to be achievable with the existing technology,” Cuarón said.


In a further article by Dan P. Lee for Vulture.com, discussing the technical dilemmas for recreating the weightlessness, convincingly, he explains that they used a specially fitted airplane, infamously known as 'vomit comet', that flies in 'steep parabolic arcs to include brief spans of weightlessness inside the open fuselage', and this worked well and had great effects in Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995). Lee explains that Cuarón found this method impractical and said “You’ve got a window of twenty seconds if you’re lucky, and you’re limited by the space of a 727.”

The filmakers considered using motion capture and creating a "CG Sandra", but  Cuarón was concerned with creating the 'uncanny valley' effect and after consulting with directors James Cameron (Avatar) and David Fincher, they both gave the same advice: "Wait for the technology".

Lubezki's answer was to invent something new under the sun: A "Light Box," made of 196 panels, each containing 4096 LEDs. Actors and set pieces could be placed inside. Panels could move to accommodate cameras and props. Visual effects technicians piloting software could instantaneous change any individual LED.
The whole rig was more than 20 feet (6 meters) tall and over 10 feet (3 m) wide.

The rig that would rarely tip past 45 degrees – here seen during line up with a stand-in.

 

The light box LED panels, here showing the interior of the space station providing the correct lighting around the actor.

The visual effects and techniques used for this movie are incredibly complex and cannot imagine where an Editor and post production team would start to render and edit these scenes. I have only just started in the field of editing really and on low budget movies, and when I read these articles it is really awe inspiring and seems on a complete different plane. I would obviously love to be able to work on movies like this but at the moment it is just a dream. Reading another article by Mike Seymour for fxguide.com, it becomes apparent how complex the post production process actually was:

"Bullock was also shot on occasion in a bicycle seat rig, named because she was essentially sitting on a bicycle seat. Here, though, one of her legs was heavily strapped in for safety so Framestore would be required to replace her leg in CG (with full body replacements and some full body and full-CG face shots forming part of the movie).
One issue with the light box approach is that there is no way to use green screen and so the actors had to be roto’d out of each light box shot. Speaking of Bullock, Webber says “she’s basically rotoscoped out of the environment and we had to do certain things with whatever was behind her to make it work cleanly, but essentially she was rotoscoped out. There was no way we could use greenscreen because you would get the green backing. Because of the camera moves and everything moving around her and everywhere, you would get green spill all over her, and you just wouldn’t get the lighting you need at all.”

Reading the articles has made me realise how big a journey I am on and how far technology can actually go to create these stunning movies.

Although I still have my concerns for overuse of CGI in certain movies and where it is unnecessary, this film just goes to show where it is used well and where it IS necessary.  I am glad the filmakers didn't go along with creating CG models of the actors as this would have completely taken the emotion from the film and left us with an empty shell of a character displaying no human emotion at all.

It is great to see and inspiring to know that even with all of the new technologies out there already, and just when we think they cannot create anything new, someone comes up with an idea that sparks the creation of a pioneering technique.

Now I need to see this film!

I will review again and add a post once I have experienced 'Gravity'.



space.com - Dave Brody, Space, Science and Culture Writer
http://www.space.com/23073-gravity-movie-weightlessness-alfonso-cuaron.html
vulture.com - Stan P. Lee
http://www.vulture.com/2013/09/director-alfonso-cuaron-on-making-gravity.html
fxguide.com - Mike Seymour
https://www.fxguide.com/featured/gravity/