Gravity – The inside Story on the Movie
Do you want to be an astronaut? Then you must have watched Gravity. Richard Graham, visual special effects project mangager for Gravity, says,”You’ll only want to go to space for the first 12 minutes of the movie. Then, things get pretty hairy. Being in space is dangerous. You’ll only survive 30 seconds without an enormous amount of science and engineering.”
How were the special effects in Gravity done?
Aside from the faces of the astronauts, mostly everything else was computer generated (CG). It was photoreal, realistic CG. This was a first.
Long shots were another unique aspect of the film. While a film usually has 2,000 cuts, Gravity had 200.
How can you get in this field?
Art and science are equally important. You could do fine arts if you are good at drawing and painting. Or you could go for computer science and study systems and network architecture.
It’s important to know the principles of physics, like motion, mass, thermodynamics. Otherwise, how will you create a realistic experience of being in space?
Can you guess who was funny on the sets of Gravity?
Richard reveals that “George Clooney’s quite good at making funny faces. While he was waiting in a cage for the cameraman to change lights, he would pull faces.”
How scientific is Gravity?
Richard says, “it’s pretty scientific. Most of the changes made were to move the story forward. Since the movie happens in real time, we showed an activity that happens in 45 minutes in 45 seconds. It takes 3 astronauts to take a spacesuit off, but Sandra Bullock takes her own spacesuit off.”
How do Astronauts feel when they return to Earth?
Richard says, “NASA sends astronauts to an ashram in India where they can meditate. Most astronauts have an idea of the individual’s insignificance in the cosmos when they come back, so they find it difficult to get back to normal life.”
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