Gravity’s VFX Breakdown Features The Film’s Impressive Production
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Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is a hit! The 3D film has already made $474.5 million worldwide, and is one of the best-reviewed movies of 2013. It’s now considered the most profitable movie released in the month of October and will most likely give its director the freedom to make another great film in the future. With Academy Award buzz surrounding the cast and crew, there’s no doubt that Cuarón’s space epic will be a heavy favorite to win cinematography and visual effects awards.
The result of five years of filmmaking, Gravity is one of the most convincing space films ever. Visual effects production house Prime Focus World created a majority of the special effects in Gravity, and the video above features Prime Focus World’s Creative Director Richard Baker and SVP’s Matthew Bristowe as they go step-by-step, describing how one of the film’s key scenes was created.
Considering that a majority of the movie is CGI, it must have taken years to bring Gravity to the big screen. A few months ago, Cuarón explained why it took so long for the film to be fully realized, with an extensive shooting schedule that took place over two separate, consecutive summers. The entire production process was so grueling for the Mexican director that he said he never wants to make another movie like Gravity again. As you could tell from the five-minute video above, even creating just a floating 3D astronaut helmet was a giant undertaking.
Prime Focus World is a visual effects studio that specializes in stereo 3D conversion. Before Lucasfilm scrapped the 3D release of the latter two Star Wars prequels, Prime Focus World worked on the 3D up-conversion of The Phantom Menace. The studio also worked on the 3D for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Tron: Legacy, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, as well as James Cameron’s Avatar in 2009. Along with Gravity, the visual effects house definitely has a few groundbreaking films under their belt.
There is no info on Gravity‘s Blu-ray/DVD release yet, but the space epic is expected to hit home video sometime in January 2014. Hopefully, Gravity’s Blu-ray will feature numerous documentaries illustrating every facet of the 3D film’s production and process. One of the reasons why Gravity is considered the best movie 2013 has to offer is because it’s a huge technological leap into the future of cinema and filmmaking. Fans of the film would be very interested to see how Alfonso Cuarón created Gravity, from the page to the big screen.
While Gravity is considered an Oscar favorite, its companion film, Aningaaq, is also receiving Academy Award buzz for Best Live-Action Short film. Gravity‘s co-screenwriter, Jonás Cuarón, directed the short film that follows the titular Inuit fisherman who makes contact with Dr. Stone as she’s orbiting the Earth. While Aningaaq didn’t screen with Gravity itself, it will likely show up as a bonus feature on the space film’s home video release.
