Digital Cinema Media’s highly anticipated DCM Tuesdays took its audience on a spectacular space journey with an exclusive screening of the recently released blockbuster, Gravity 3D, yesterday evening. Prior to the movie, guests were presented with an unique Q&A session hosted by DCM’s resident film specialist, Tom Linay, with Gravity’s very own Creative Director Mike McGee and VFX Producer Charles Howell.
The team discussed the challenges they encountered when embarking on the momentous film project, explaining Director Alfonso Cuaron's misson, that since they were unable to film in space itself, they should make sure people believed they were really there.
To begin with, the special effects team had to find out exactly what space looked like, and how it would appear from up there. They explained how they first referred to NASA produced images as a benchmark, before bringing an actual astronaut on site for three days to consult with and explain the procedures that took place on a real space mission.
In addition to balancing science with film-making capabilities, the team encountered further challenges when embarking on the project, including the difficulty in creating a film that takes place in zero-gravity, adapting to and choreographing round Cuaron’s style of long-fluid shots and the arduous task in making their CG effects look ‘photo-real’. Unlike most other films that employ CGI, the special effects team started with a fully computerised scene and then added in tiny bits of live action content. Incredibly, this meant that in most scenes the characters’ faces are the only parts of visual that have not been computer generated. It is almost impossible to tell where reality ends and CGI begins, due to the intricate work that has been done to ensure every facial movement correlates with a realistic but computerised bodily reaction.
It would seem that, after the accomplishments of Gravity, there is very little that film makers and special effects teams cannot achieve. When asked about their next challenge, McGee explained that: “You can achieve anything with the right crew and the right people thinking about and solving problems.” The challenge remains to master the digital human being due to the incredible complexity of the human body and face and once they have mastered this technique, they believe the film-making possibilities would be “endless." Once you can digitally capture someone, you could keep them looking young forever and even bring old stars back to life, as Framestore achieved with Audrey Hepburn in a recent Galaxy ad.
Recent Box Office figures revealed that a huge 89.5% of Gravity’s figures were generated from 3D presentations. When asked why they thought the film utilised 3D so well, Howell explained that its use of “set-back” 3D technology, long shots and use of a wider lens contributed to a far more immersive 3D experience allowing the viewer to explore the whole frame. As the 3D aspect had always been taken into account from the start, the team was continually considering the format during filming, rather than making changes as an afterthought.
Although the film features two Hollywood actors and a Mexican director, the entire film was shot and post-produced in London. Described as a “Great British success story” by McGee, the film looks to bring a real resurgence in interest to the UK film industry.