PROJECT HAIL MARY PRODUCTION
IT’S BEEN DESIGNED WITH REALITY & real physics IN MIND”
JONATHAN OLLEY © AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN A big task was figuring out how light would look in space
Rocky was built and designed by artist Neal Scanlan and performed by actor and puppeteer James Ortiz. “Rocky is an amalgamation of about five or six different techniques used to bring a puppet to life,” says Fraser. “He consists of animatronics powered by servos and motors, as well as some more old-school rod puppeteering.” For close-ups, a model was fitted with servo motors to give his fingers more natural movement. That mix of practical techniques gave a strong foundation for any CG additions. “It also helped us, as filmmakers, understand how to light him effectively,” says Fraser. One of the biggest challenges was how to make Rocky loveable. “Rocky is emotionless in the sense that he doesn’t have a face like we know,” Fraser says. “Creating warmth in a character that isn’t human or of this world isn’t easy. In the past, filmmakers have solved this in numerous ways. In ET , for example, while the character is a bit slimy and sticky, he’s goofy looking and the audience grow to love him. Then you have characters such as Grogu from The Mandalorian who is also loved by audiences.” When it came to creating the look for Rocky, Fraser explains how they took a different approach. “There was never any talk of making him cuter or giving him something resembling eyes or a facial expression,” he says. “We didn’t want to cheat by creating a face. So I had to light him in a way that didn’t feel menacing, except for when we first meet him. The audience need to grow to love Rocky.
I didn’t want to flat light him and then remove all texture. It was a challenge from a lighting perspective.” LIGHTING THE VOID Fraser explains he’s a stickler for getting the look right while he’s shooting to make it easier in post. “I don’t do many tweaks with my DIT on-set, but I always try to get the LUT looking super correct. We found the look of the film throughout the shoot. David at FotoKem LA did the final grade.” Fraser relied on practical lighting for interiors. Exteriors, however, proved more tricky to light, especially when Grace enters the centrifuge. “One challenge we faced was simulating moving sunlight inside a spinning spacecraft,” says Fraser. “Traditionally, it’s quite simple. You would use a crane light that is moving up and down past a window, but our set had multiple windows at different angles, so a single moving light wouldn’t work. There is no way to get a light on a crane to go over all three windows and be in sync.” To solve this, a lighting rig was constructed using Creamsource Vortex fixtures that essentially formed three concentric semicircles. “We wanted the effect to feel natural and be something the audience will not consciously notice.” Fraser focused on creating a realistic ‘circadian rhythm’ lighting system inside the ship as well. “Unlike many space films that use cold, mechanical white lighting (such as on the ISS), we wanted lighting that supported the crew’s mental and physical wellbeing,” he says. “If you keep people in white light 24/7 they go insane.’
The film starts with blinds opening to herald in the morning, and the lighting changes throughout the day. “We begin with cooler blue tones for the morning, move towards warmer light for the evening and then dimmer tungsten tones at night, with subtle UV lighting during sleep hours,” Fraser describes. “We had to come up with that language, which was quite hard in a spaceship with no day or night. This created a natural sense of time passing. The intention was for the audience to feel these changes subconsciously rather than actively notice them.” GROUNDED IN REALITY The majority of the film was shot at the new stages at Shepperton Studio, with additional location shoots at Southsea, Durdle Door and second-unit shoots on an aircraft carrier in Los Angeles. Fraser selected an ARRI ALEXA 65 to shoot the film. “For the space sequences, we collaborated with ARRI to build custom 2.2 anamorphic lenses, which were vertically de-squeezed,” he adds. “After de-squeezing, we cropped the image for IMAX. For all Earth-based sequences, we used Atlas Mercury lenses.” Fraser wanted to keep the camera handheld where possible to keep it lively, so it feels more human. “We worked hard at grounding the camera and putting it in places it really could be,” he says. “For
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