Moon
Cinesite created all of the visual effects for the British independent production Moon, Directed by Duncan Jones, which has been critically lauded and was selected for screening at Sundance.
The tense, claustrophobic sci-fi thriller tells the story of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a miner working as a lone occupant of a lunar mining base. Buoyed by sporadic transmissions from his wife and young daughter, he combats monotony and isolation by tending to plants, continuing his predecessor’s woodcraft project, and interacting with the station’s robotic computer, Gerty. But Sam is beginning to unravel mentally. After a hallucination causes him to crash his lunar rover, he wakes up in the sick bay and soon realizes that his life at the base is not what it seems.
Over 270 visual effects shots were supervised by Cinesite Visual Effects Supervisor Simon Stanley-Clamp. Simon was on set throughout the 8 week shoot at Shepperton Studios.
Robot Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), is Sam’s only company on the base. A physical model was built by the production and this was used for many shots. However, often Gerty is needed to interact with Sam or for more complex movements and in these instances he was created digitally; sometimes entirely digitally, at other times CG robotic arms were tracked onto the physical model.
Lunarscapes and digital environments were often created as digital matte paintings, which were composited with the production’s models. Often, multiple layers of atmospherics and moon dust were added to these shots, as well as extensive regrading.
Cinesite also created multiple complex split screen composites, many with moving cameras which were shot using Motion Control. In one particularly tricky shot, Sam plays ping pong with a clone of himself. Sam Rockwell was “like a human motion control unit,” recalls Simon. “He studied his performance on a video ipod and always got his eye lines spot on and knew when and where to move, avoiding colliding with himself. I ran ‘Shake’ onset for quick comps, it really helped to check performance – particularly in one scene where Sam plays table tennis against himself”
Director Duncan Jones says, “The Cinesite team we were so fortunate to work with were generous with their experience, time and efforts, delivering far beyond what we hoped we could achieve on our indeed budget. I can’t thank them enough, and look forward to working with them again when I hope to set them an even grander challenge!”
