Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/225858
Visual effects artists put actors in zero gravity for two films: Gravity and Ender's Game By Barbara Robertson ■ IN GRAVITY, previs often drove the GRAVITY ameras, cameras, lights, and sometimes even the actors' motion on set. ©2013 WARNER BROS. light emanating from Earth presented a problem. "The Earth provided much of the light, and it would be colossal in frame, " Solomon says. In early 2010, long before production started, Paul Debevec's group at ICT/USC had demonstrated a light stage system in which light from LEDs surrounding an actor provided changing lighting conditions, while high-speed cameras captured the actor's face. Later, Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki saw images created with LEDs on screens behind performers at a rock concert. The ideas coalesced and evolved into a lightbox that Webber designed, a cube within a cube covered with LEDs that Framestore eventually programmed with images. The outside cube was 20 feet high to provide room for a tilt rig beneath and a camera to move below. The actor performed within a smaller cube inside that was typically 10x10x10 feet; however, it could change shape and size, and walls on sliders could move in and out. Actors inside the box could see images created with the LEDs. Light, which could change in color and brightness, appeared to move around the actor inside. Importance of Previs In 2010, when Solomon began working on the previs, two artists worked with him, but that team soon grew to 30 animators, and The Third Floor contributed previs. "Initially, we thought the previs would be a guide, but as we developed it, we realized previs would drive the lightbox and cameras on robots. It would need to be technical and precisely planned. Alfonso realized that this is where he would make his film. " To understand how people move without gravity, the animators spent time studying reference material from NASA, running simulations, and talking to astronauts. They mapped out the shot structure, working from storyboards. " Alfonso is one of the rare directors who imagines something and takes it all the way through, Solomon says. "The " ideas were all there in the original storyboards. " For one shot during the opening sequence, however, the previs artists had to deviate from the camera motion planned in the storyboard. In the shot, the space station has been hit, C G W N ove mb e r / D e c e mb e r 2 013 ■ 17