Shooting in space

This most recent commercial, with Plank Productions had an interesting challenge, we had to shoot a scene with our leading man in a space station (Something like the Mir Space Station). Unfortunately we didn't have the money to got the route of some big budget movies (such as "Apollo 13" 1995) where some of the zero gravity sequences where shot in a plane designed for this kind of thing - if you have the money and inclination it can be done (follow this link http://www.incredible-adventures.com/zerog.html).

There are more problems with this plane then just the cost; zero gravity can only be achieved for 25 seconds at a time and we were going to need to shoot sound so there was going to be a noise problem. Not to mention trying to build a set in one of these planes, training the actors and crew to work in these conditions and not to mention that the planes are nicknamed vomit-comets.

So Peter Pohorsky, our director cam up with a far more practical solution. Build the set on its side, have the camera point down (off a crane) and hang the actors on wires. And here is the result...

Above is an image of the set with the camera on a crane, and the other shows the image we where getting on the video takeoff. There will need to be a minor amount of VFX cleanup in post production to get rid of the cables that where suspending the actors, but all in all the effect was very believable.