Big Effects On a Small Budget

Sci-fi is a genre known for its innovative application of technology and special effects to create surreal landscapes of distant planets, armies of robots and aliens, complex spaceships, and much more life-like productions of our great imagination. However, regardless of how much imagination flows out of my mind, I am still a 16-year-old high school student with $5 in a pants pocket somewhere that's missing the technology and budget to create the masterful special effects made in the modern world of sci-fi cinema. So, I have turned to the expertise of the old Jedi masters of sci-fi to see how they created so much, with so little. 

I first took a look at the classic method of utilizing miniatures to create bigger scale scenes. 

Image: ARIES 1B from 2001: A Space Odyssey

A Trip to the Moon, made by who many call the Father Of Sci-fi, George Méliès, used this method in creating his iconic rocket in the moon scene by using special effects makeup on an actor's face and putting a small scale rocket into the eye. Films like George Lucas's Star Wars, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Nolan's Interstellar used smaller scaled models in front of green screens for their shots of intricate ships floating in space. This, along with a technique called forced perspective in which the certain placement of objects filmed at a certain distance and angle to create an optical illusion and specific lighting, allowed for many of the impressive spacecrafts witnessed in many beloved Sci-fi films.

Image: The shot of the ARIES 1B model with effect

The Star Wars films also used the stop motion technique that George Méliès used to animate the movement of small ships, aliens, and robots. Because of their inability to have CGI objects, these filmmakers have turned to more practical means of creating just as effective effects.

Image: Animating with stop motion in Lucas's Star Wars

As I plan for my film opening to be set in a spacecraft, I will be sure to fully utilize these cheaper, but just as successful methods of making optical illusions of one traveling in space and complicated machinery through stop motion and small scaled models. 

Now to design the ship!


Sources:

1. [On the Set for Star Wars, creating a stop motion animation from the behind the scenes film "The Making of Stars Wars" documentary made in 1977]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSuDjjlIPak

2. M. (2015, March 31). [Special effects technician Rodney Fuller (R) attends to the Aries 1B at Borehamwood]. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from http://cinefex.com/blog/aries-1b/
1966

3. ["Aries 1B in full effect for film 2001: A Space Odyssey"]. (2015, August 12). Retrieved from https://www.tested.com/art/movies/536765-2001-space-odysseys-aries-1b-miniature/

4. Maher, M. (2015, October 01). From the Moon to Galaxies Far, Far Away: Miniatures in Space. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/from-the-moon-to-galaxies-far-far-away-miniatures-in-space/

5. Mindling, M. (2018, May 22). 5 Low-Budget Special Effects for Your Sci-Fi Movie. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://tongal.com/blog/tongal-taught-me/5-low-budget-special-effects-for-your-cinespace-short/

6. Nedomansky, V. (2013, October 20). Visual Effects for Low Budget Filmmaking | VashiVisuals Blog. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from http://vashivisuals.com/visual-effects-low-budget-filmmaking/

Maher, M. (2015, October 01). From the Moon to Galaxies Far, Far Away: Miniatures in Space. Retrieved February 23, 2019, from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/from-the-moon-to-galaxies-far-far-away-miniatures-in-space/

Mindling, M. (2018, May 22). 5 Low-Budget Special Effects for Your Sci-Fi Movie. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://tongal.com/blog/tongal-taught-me/5-low-budget-special-effects-for-your-cinespace-short/

Nedomansky, V. (2013, October 20). Visual Effects for Low Budget Filmmaking | VashiVisuals Blog. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from http://vashivisuals.com/visual-effects-low-budget-filmmaking/

Maher, M. (2015, October 01). From the Moon to Galaxies Far, Far Away: Miniatures in Space. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/from-the-moon-to-galaxies-far-far-away-miniatures-in-space/

Mindling, M. (2018, May 22). 5 Low-Budget Special Effects for Your Sci-Fi Movie. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://tongal.com/blog/tongal-taught-me/5-low-budget-special-effects-for-your-cinespace-short/

Nedomansky, V. (2013, October 20). Visual Effects for Low Budget Filmmaking | VashiVisuals Blog. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from http://vashivisuals.com/visual-effects-low-budget-filmmaking/

[On the Set for Star Wars, creating a stop motion animation from the behind the scenes film "The Making of Stars Wars" documentary made in 1977]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSuDjjlIPak

M. (2015, March 31). [Special effects technician Rodney Fuller (R) attends to the Aries 1B at Borehamwood]. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from http://cinefex.com/blog/aries-1b/

1966

["Aries 1B in full effect for film 2001: A Space Odyssey"]. (2015, August 12). Retrieved from https://www.tested.com/art/movies/536765-2001-space-odysseys-aries-1b-miniature/

Maher, M. (2015, October 01). From the Moon to Galaxies Far, Far Away: Miniatures in Space. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/from-the-moon-to-galaxies-far-far-away-miniatures-in-space/

Mindling, M. (2018, May 22). 5 Low-Budget Special Effects for Your Sci-Fi Movie. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://tongal.com/blog/tongal-taught-me/5-low-budget-special-effects-for-your-cinespace-short/

Nedomansky, V. (2013, October 20). Visual Effects for Low Budget Filmmaking | VashiVisuals Blog. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from http://vashivisuals.com/visual-effects-low-budget-filmmaking/