The visual effects team behind ‘Project Hail Mary’ employed a combination of practical and digital techniques to achieve the film’s space-based imagery and character performances. Oscar-winning supervisor Paul Lambert and co-supervisor Mag Sarnowska detailed their approach at the View Conference in Turin, describing how they addressed the primary challenge of creating believable zero-gravity sequences for actor Ryan Gosling.
Production utilized wire rigs and a rotating harness to suspend Gosling during filming, as the elaborate spacecraft sets proved too complex for the vomit comet aircraft used to generate brief weightlessness. Visual effects artists then removed the wires and adjusted the positioning of Gosling’s limbs and torso while adding drifting objects to enhance the floating illusion. Gosling performed his own stunt work throughout the production, including demanding spacewalk sequences. Cinematographer Greig Fraser employed unconventional methods during filming, including an infrared-modified camera, programmable infrared lights, and water positioned in front of the lens. Additional practical materials such as burning fireballs, liquids, lasers, and ferrofluid were filmed to serve as source material for microscopic effects work.
For establishing the film’s astronomical settings, the team drew upon data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission to map stars between Earth and Tau Ceti. Rather than filling the scenes with colorful nebulae, the supervisors based their approach on actual exposure conditions found in space photography, consulting NASA footage and International Space Station imagery. Near the brightly illuminated planet Adrian, background stars were largely absent, while farther from Tau Ceti where light was weaker, stars became visible according to realistic camera exposure principles.
The character Rocky, an alien companion, required seamless integration of practical puppetry and digital performance. Three physical versions were created, including an animatronic and reference puppet, which were scanned and studied extensively by the effects team. Approximately half of Rocky’s scenes used practical puppetry while the other half employed full computer graphics. The team rebuilt Rocky’s transparent barriers digitally to remove reflections and operator visibility while maintaining light interaction with the set. For Rocky’s sonar-based point of view sequences, effects artists experimented with different film formats, ultimately selecting 10mm and 16mm film stocks for selected shots to achieve an organic texture.
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