When one walks out of Gravity, the latest space thriller from director Alfonso Cuarón, there’s a strong sense that you’ll feel like you’ve been in space for the last 90 minutes. If he had an unlimited budget, I’m certain the ambitious director would have found a way to actually shoot on location, but with just $100 million, he had to invent his own technology on Earth. Much has been discussed regarding the need for the helmer to figure out a way to convincingly tell this story, led by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, and today we have the visual proof.
Working with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, we’ve shared how they crafted a massive LED screen that would fit inside a nine-foot cube for the actors, thus allowing lights to be adjusted on a whim (depending on what the shot called for). They even went a step further in order to configure their camera crew, using robots designed for car manufacturing to create a rig that operates heavy loads, allowing the movement of an actor to stretch great lengths and for them to capture a precise frame, angle, zoom, light position, etc. We’ve now got an inside look at what exactly that entailed, thanks to new stills from EW (via Dread Central), which can be seen above and below. One can also read our review from TIFF here.
Gravity opens on October 4th.