![]() ![]() “Should I disable the feedback?” Case asks Cooper during their descent on Miller’s planet. The right-hand frame shows the same maneuver (during the second docking scene), only now we’re over Mann’s Planet instead of Earth, and there’s a hole in the sun. In the left-hand frame of figure 1.3, the Ranger is nosing down to align its hatch with the Endurance (during the first docking scene). In the left-hand frame of figure 1.2, the astronauts are descending onto the water planet. This poetic repetition conveys the recursive nature of the scientific method while grounding every flight scene on a familiar, physical stage. For instance, the left-hand angle from figure 1.1 is used for three shots in the opening crash scene. The right-hand frame is from the finale, when Cooper’s ship falls beneath the event horizon.Įach exterior mount is reused throughout one or more scenes. The left-hand frame of figure 1.1 is from Cooper’s dream of the crash, moments before his Ranger sinks into the clouds. When the Ranger drifts through space, the spectator’s feeling of suspension is genuine we really are suspended above the ground, strapped to a platform that tilts on an axis like a flight simulator. “That gave us a real sense of physical reality to the spacecraft in the foreground,” explains VFX supervisor Paul Franklin (“Miniatures”). A full-size model of the Ranger was mounted on a motion-controlled movement base, which the director controlled in real-time, tilting its nose or baying its wings to simulate the maneuvers performed by the astronauts. ![]() The backgrounds are CG, but the vehicles that fill the foreground were captured on 65mm film. While other modern films (such as Gravity, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens) render spaceships with CGI, Interstellar relies on practical effects. The flight scenes feel less like action scenes from a sci-fi blockbuster and more like footage recorded by an exploratory vessel.įigure 1.0: a set photo of Nolan controlling the Ranger (built by New Deal Studios) with a steering wheel from the DVD featurette “The Ranger and the Lander” ![]() You’re really there in ways that you maybe recognize from real life when you look at footage from the ISS or in the shuttle. So you have, all the time, this very close feeling that your camera’s there, witnessing something, rather than there’s a camera floating somewhere in space like an all-seeing eye, seeing the situation. We put a lot of effort into trying to get that same kind of feeling that you would have when you mount a GoPro. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema explains: To invoke a unique sense of authenticity and immediacy, the filmmakers pulled from non-fictional forms. Our restricted perspective makes it feel like the film had actually been shot in space, where resources are limited. Nolan subverts these conventions by immobilizing the camera, filling the frame with a close-up of the spacecraft. Hollywood’s conventional approach to flight footage showcases the vehicles with wide-shots and navigates the environment with fluid camerawork. For over half the exterior angles, an IMAX camera is hard-mounted to the side of the ship. In classics like The Planet of the Apes (1968), Blade Runner (1982), and The Terminator (1984), technology is portrayed as a threat to the human race-but here, technology is the only thing that can save mankind from extinction.ĭuring flight scenes, the vehicles become the heart of the shot. Unlike most sci-fi movies, Christopher Nolan’s film celebrates the idea of discovery. When you’re doing a film, you don’t photograph the reality – you photograph the photograph of reality.Ĭontinuing the journey of its predecessor 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Interstellar (2014) takes a quantum leap forward into the frontier of realistic science fiction. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |