THE SCIENCE
- Abigail Lamb
- May 15, 2017
- 5 min read
I know I've mentioned several times that the science to this film was very important. I did do a lot of scientific research while making this film and I realised recently I maybe didn't do a good job of laying it all out or giving it the attention it deserved on my blog. So here's one big post about how I took science into account during the process of this film.
Right back at the beginning of the year, during doors open day I took a trip up to the observatory to get a scientific perspective on my film and learn some things that might help me out with the plot or the setting.
I actually took these pictures for a different film I'm working on but I thought I'd include them as a little proof that I did really go to observatory. While I was there I took a look at all the 3D prints of actual asteroids that the team there had been observing in the sky above Edinburgh. For a while we talked about having the files sent over to me so that I could print versions of real space rocks to put in my film. Unfortunately after leaving the observatory and emailing to enquire about it following the visit - something they told me I could do - no one got back in touch with me.
Aside from that however I looked back at some of my own previously visited destinations/previous pieces of history.
I believe it was 2011 but it may have been 2009 I visited the Kennedy space centre while on holiday in Florida. It was really interesting and I am desperate to go back. The day we decided to visit also happened to be the day of an actual space launch. We just thought the T Minus count down blaring through the radios was fantastic theming. Haha. I took a lot of photographs from that visit that later became insanely helpful in designing the interior of the spaceship. I'm not the best at setting design so I found designing the inside of this space especially difficult. Once I remembered I had taken all these pictures from the real deals I went to find them.
I put a few images in the slideshow above that provided me with a lot of insight into what spaceships looked like on the inside. They're pretty round. There's really no need for floors and walls because there's no gravity to hold you down on them. That means that the interiors have a lot more soft angles because you have potential to come into contact with any part of the room at any point. I used this information together with the information provided for by Colonel Chris Hadfield during a talk he gave not long after new year this year.
I am not even going to attempt to hide from you the extreme excitement I felt when I got the tickets for this. Then the resurgence of that excitement as I sat in my chair in the usher hall and waited for this man to make an appearance. He is an astonishing man. I am completely besotted by him. He's intelligent, humble, inspiring and deeply interested in all that happens around him. He's also essentially the real life inspiration for Lute. Especially when we remind ourselves that to start off Lute was meant to brandish a guitar while stuck in space.
While at his unique Lives talk Chris taught me a great deal about a great many subjects but most interestingly he taught me about what it feels like to be inside a spacesuit. He taught me that in space, because there are no particles to catch heat and distribute it, one side of a spacesuit is exposed to all the heat of the sun. While the other is exposed to none of it. So for the whole time an astronaut is on a spacewalk the side of him exposed to the sun is under a tremendous amount of heat and the other half of their body is exposed to a bitter cold. There wasn't many opportunities to show that when making this film. There were no instances where Lute needed or had to show either of these qualities but I think knowing the fact alone made me think more realistically about Lute's abilities in space.
In addition, Chris told us all that miniature rocks, dust particles and other things floating through space's vacuum can pick up a lot of speed and because there is a great number of them, any astronaut on a moon walk is perpetually being "sandblasted" by these elements. To combat this the spacesuit is fitted with a very rigid and solid internal skeleton. It keeps the astronauts protected but it also requires a lot of strength and force to move around. That is why you always see astronauts in real life moving very slowly and carefully. It's not only to ensure their making the right moves, it's also because they are physically incapable of moving any faster. During one of Chris' trips to the space station there was an issue with the fuel tanks and the ISS was leaking fuel out into space. 2 of Chris' colleagues were told to prepare for a spacewalk scheduled to fix it as quickly as 3 days away. It took them something like 6 hours of solid work to fix the problem and when they came back inside they were bruised, beaten and bloody. That's the reality of being inside a spacesuit for any length of time.
Obviously Lute has been up on that planet for a while. We can feel that from his clear lack of drive. I daren't hazard a guess how lute would look when he took his spacesuit off after all that time but I did make sure that his movements were stinted and slow because of the spacesuit. Originally I had wanted to speed sequences up, remove in-betweens and have him move with more enthusiasm and direction. But of course I had to remind myself that even if that's what Lute wanted it wasn't possible.
The other way I referenced the things Chris told me was to include those little dust particles that he mentioned in the film. Everytime we are in a close up shot I have added dust moving through it. It holds some elements of movement to each scene even if Lute is sitting still and it makes the whole thing travel forward. I had the dust move mostly left to right across the scene and that way the audience can see that regardless of Lute's defeat this story is moving in the right direction
