In an age where there is an over-reliance on CGI and artificial, unconvincing rendering of backgrounds with mismatched lighting and uncanny valley — and, of course, artificial intelligence-generated gimmicks — it's nice to see some filmmakers still doing it the old-school way to maintain a convincingly organic texture.
In an interview with Comicbook.com, Christopher Miller, who co-directed the film with Phil Lord, said they have put in a lot of effort to build, for example, the ship in which Ryan Gosling (who plays the lead) operates. He also added that the alien character Rocky was created by hand and was present on set.
“What’s fun about the movie is that there is no greenscreen in the movie whatsoever. Not a single green- or bluescreen was used. The whole ship was built as a set from the inside. We had a huge section of the exterior of the ship on the outside that we built," he added.
Cinematographer Greig Fraser ("The Batman", "Dune: Part 1") was a key contributor, Miller shared, referring to the way he used practical effects and illuminated the set.
Since this interview was being debated on X (formerly Twitter), Miller took to his official handle to clarify that while a green screen wasn't used, that doesn't mean no digital effects or visual effects were used. Not using greenscreen backgrounds doesn’t, of course, mean there are no digital effects. Here's what he wrote: “Some clarification here: ‘No green screen’ doesn’t mean ‘no VFX. There were, in fact, thousands of VFX shots in the film (2018!). Green screen is sometimes used in lieu of building sets or figuring out locations/lighting in advance, which can be noticeable if not done carefully and is something we didn’t want to do. We built the entire interior of the Hail Mary ship — but within the ship, there were still wire and puppeteer removals and ceiling replacements, etc. When Ryan is outside on the hull of the ship, we shot him in front of a black background for space and a shifting hue background when he was up against the aurora of a planet, which allowed for truer interactive light on him than a green screen would. The wide space exteriors and spaceship shots were entirely digital and beautifully done by ILM. Rocky was a seamless blend of puppetry and animation from Framestore. And other great work from many more. It really does take a village, and we had the best of the best on our side.”
"Project Hail Mary" is based on the Andy Weir novel of the same name, and has been getting enthusiastic pre-release reactions online from film journalists who managed to catch an early screening.
Also starring Sandra Hüller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub, "Project Hail Mary" is expected to hit theatres on March 20. It's not yet clear if Indian theatres will release it on the same day. An official confirmation is awaited.
Miller and Lord are known for their acclaimed work on the "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" movies.