Project Hail Mary may not have used any green screens during production, but co-director Chris Miller has clarified that this doesn’t mean there’s no visual effects in the sci-fi movie. Still, he says that the aim was always to prioritize practical sets and effects, and the spaceship where most of the film’s events take place was all real.
“Some clarification here: ‘no green screen’ doesn’t mean ‘no VFX’. There were, in fact, thousands of VFX shots in the film (2018!),” Miller wrote on Twitter.
“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.”
Project Hail Mary, which has debuted to rave first reactions, is based on the novel of the same name by The Martian author Andy Weir. Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, who wakes up aboard an empty spaceship with no memory of how he got there or what he’s supposed to be doing in space. His intergalactic solitude comes to an end, however, when he meets Rocky, an alien who’s also found himself very far from home.
“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,” Miller continued.
“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.”
Miller and his directing partner Phil Lord have also helmed The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street, as well as writing and producing Spider-Man: Across Spider-Verse movies and its upcoming sequel Beyond the Spider-Verse.
Project Hail Mary arrives in theaters on March 20. In the meantime, fill out your watchlist with our picks of the rest of this year’s best upcoming movies.
