Ad Astra Filmmakers Break Down the Lunar Scenes

Hi my name is James Gray.

I'm the co-writer and director

of the movie Ad Astra.

Hi I'm Kevin Thompson.

I'm the production designer.

And.

This is Notes on a Scene.

[Man] Alpha we have what looks like

unidentified rovers approaching our position.

Possible pirate activity.

[muffled commotion]

I think working with you

is great for a designer

because you have a vision

you articulate I don't have any vision.

What do you mean?

No I say what you do

and then you do something.

Yes but you really You have the vision

But you really care I don't have the vision.

about what it looks like. That's true.

[Kevin] In the case of Ad Astra,

like what's the science behind that look?

And are we being accurate?

And then let's twist it

and make it appeal to us visually.

Yeah that's true Also we have a similar eye.

I think we find a lot of the same things

appealing and attractive.

When I heard that James

was doing a science fiction movie

that was in outer space I thought

I have to see what he's gonna do.

Well you'd be the one.

[Kevin] I found it remarkable.

And it's always been interesting

for me to do

kind of near future.

Like not too sci fi futuristic looking.

And that meshed in really well

with your idea of the vision of the future.

This is the best future ever

or this is the worst future ever.

We didn't want either of those.

We wanted like wait

this is sort of the future.

[Man] People having trouble

with pirates since September.

Some country's been giving them safe haven.

They'll take hostages or go for our rovers.

I'd like to say that Ad Astra

is the first movie

ever shot in part

on location on the Moon and on Mars.

So in this frame

you can see this part of the frame.

That's all real.

That's lunar photography

taken I think by Apollo 8.

So this part of the frame is real.

Of course this

our friend CG, computer generated.

And what's very funny to me

always when people look at this

sometimes say to me

uh that part of the shot

does not look real.

And then you're like

well that's the only part of the shot

that is real.

So it tells you that real

is not always real. It's relative.

[James] Obviously you'll see

all these like brand names.

Virgin Atlantic.

Applebees.

Yoshinoya beef bowl.

[Kevin] Emirates Air.

This was our idea

which was that

part of the moon would be taken over

by a lot of chains

and a lot of processed food chains frankly

because that's what you're gonna be able

to ship to the Moon

with any kind of safety.

And you're not gonna be able

to grow much food on 1/6 gravity on the Moon.

[Kevin] I think there was something nice also

about how we wanted to throw in little bits

of familiarity and nostalgia. Absolutely.

That there's things

that are still gonna be around Absolutely.

that are the same.

[James] Product placement absolutely

because when you come up

with a fake company

like Burgerstud or whatever

people automatically know

that it's fake. Right

But when you see like Applebees

it always get a laugh.

People know what that is Right.

They know what it means.

But this part of the frame up here

this is mostly real

from lunar photography again.

I'd like to mention that

the form of the colony

being like a big huge disk.

[James] Right inside the crater.

[Kevin] The form was taken somewhat

from the centrifical science

of how to deal with gravity shifts

on the moon.

[James] This was supposed to be

like kind of banal.

[mumbles]

[Kevin] Yeah like a familiar jet way.

Right like. Commercial travel.

You just had a pretty awful flight.

The coffee wasn't very good.

The blanket was expensive. The blanket was too costly.

The familiarity of it

was actually we thought was quite helpful.

So you see that kind of ridiculous jet way.

It kinda looks a little familiar

even though the rest of it is very weird.

And of course you have these things.

They'd have to be fully automated

'cause walking around out there

there's not environment.

[Kevin] The shape of this pod

was informed by the design of the interior

that we wanted for the commercial travel

Right. for our ship.

But also the shape of this

this whole thing

is based on what's called the Orion capsule

which they are currently building now

as part of the Artemis program

which will send us back to the Moon in 2024.

So there is actual science.

Yup so now we're arriving on the Moon.

One of my favorite things

you did in the picture.

[laughs]

So when you land at LAX,

the Los Angeles airport,

it says Welcome to Los Angeles.

And I said

Kevin, that's what I want when you get to the Moon

[laughs]

and you went

Oh okay yeah yeah I got it. I got it.

[laughs]

You took a picture. Uh huh.

And you copied it exactly

except instead of Los Angeles,

The Moon.

All of this.

This little ridiculous slogan

including may I say

the perfect use or misuse maybe

of the colon The colon.

is entirely from Welcome to Los Angeles

and it says

Los Angeles: where the world comes together.

And all we did was change it to Earth's Moon

including this ridiculous seal

which of course is the seal for Los Angeles.

So it's basically Welcome to Los Angeles

except the Moon. Right.

Some jokes are just for us.

And we talked in great detail

about the casting

and also the military person

that was welcoming you

like the woman next door.

Very beige.

Beige.

[Kevin] If she's watching this

she's hopefully amused.

Now there is something we should talk about

and not such a joke.

You have a wonderful eye obviously.

Thank you. He does.

What about this color?

[Kevin] Why this gray color? Why concrete?

Well it's the color of the Moon.

Right. It's the color

of what you would imagine

the underground of the particles

that make up the Moon's surface.

Right. And also where we are

which is about to be seen

the Lunar Station where they arrive.

Which was the

an underground station of the MTA

in Los Angeles

under Union Square.

That's right.

Union Station. Union Station.

He's just a New Yorker.

MTA, Union Square,

all the wrong terminology.

It's Union Station.

[Kevin] I think one of your early references

was Penn Station.

Which is mundane.

It feels like it's falling apart a little bit.

It has a lot of commercialization again

with the Subway sign and the DHL reference.

And right here we actually did lunar photographs

that were from the same series

that was at the science museum here in New York.

It's a very subtle detail there.

Almost like they're having

a little art show of photography.

I just wanna give a little shout out

'cause I'm very excited about this.

My children have their cameo.

They are in.

They are the kids who scream

Moons Got Talent.

That's my kids.

I'm very excited about that. [laughs]

One of the things

you'll notice the extras.

We wanted a total mix

of everybody from around the world.

Mmm-hmm.

Because we wanted to say

this would be some kinda weird

totally globalized, multi-polar world

with tons of different types of people

from all over the planet

coming to the Moon

for one reason or another.

And then you'll see of course

the attack dog ready to keep order.

The idea of the mix of people coming to the Moon

and the mix of nations visiting

was to make it feel as though

it was a colony that had commercialization,

contractors, but also had the same problems

that we have here on Earth Absolutely.

with security, which will lead into the problems

that they have in the lunar chase.

[Man] It's like the wild west out there.

It's your first time in a war zone?

Three years over the Arctic Circle.

All right.

And a heck of a lot of Army Navy games.

Albert Wolsky, the great legendary costume designer

that did the movie,

who did a brilliant job for us,

he said I'd like to put Brad

in Moon camouflage.

[laughs]

Digitally printed. I said perfect.

Digitally printed Moon camouflage.

So that's what Brad Pitt is wearing Moon camouflage.

Brad is very cool about that.

I mean he just

whatever you design

he's like uh I defer to you

in a great way.

Yup.

But then he'll have suggestions you know

about props, things on his

you know his wrist watch or something.

That he thinks about yeah.

Yeah that he thinks about for character.

But he has a keen eye.

And I was very flattered always

when he'd come to set

and he'd go, he'd look around and he'd go,

I like it, I like it.

[Woman] Lunar Rover set for departure

to the far side launch complex.

[mumbles]

[Man] The big blue marble.

[James] Vegas Vick Vegas Vick

[James] Hudson News The cowboy

Hudson News and Nathan's.

It's not on screen long

but we tried to get that in.

And then just the scale of them going off.

Solar shields, gate numbers to an airport again.

[James] We tried to base all of this

on as much as we kinda can gather

because in 2024 we're gonna start

to build this sort of thing.

Solar panels of course

'cause of the unfiltered sunlight

will probably be the source of power.

If you notice

for the images themselves,

we really tried to make the contrast

as bright was we could

in these bright spots right here and up here

[Kevin] you see? Yup.

[James] And then actually in the movie

it actually looks a little darker.

In the darker areas it's quite dark

because that's the Moon.

You know in the bright areas

it's hundreds of degrees.

In the dark areas

it's hundreds of degrees below zero.

That's the contrast really.

All this is actual

[Kevin] lunar regolith Location.

I'm gonna give my man Kevin

a shout out here.

I love what you did with the rovers.

I think they look great.

Thank you I'm very happy.

[James] There are certain things

that we look at.

We kind of have a media informed memory,

if you want to call it that.

One of which is this color.

This copper color

and how it contrasts with the gray

and the jet black of the sky.

This color palette

and this bright overexposed white of the suits

this does tell us Moon.

It really does.

[Kevin] Along with the little dabs

of gold foil.

The parts of the rover

that were covered in gold foil,

the material was purchased from NASA

and it's actual material

that they used on space missions.

[James] And there's a little bit

of a cheat here.

Which is the Earth

it's a bit too big.

The scale is not quite right.

If the scale were right

the Earth would probably be like that size.

But we had to enlarge it

beucause you really couldn't see it

Couldn't see the marblelization?

Well you couldn't

it didn't look beautiful.

So I wanted to be able to see

that the earth was kinda magnificent in the sky.

This is a great frame

to talk about how

when you are on the bright side of the Moon,

the sky does not have stars in it.

It's pitch pitch black.

[wondering classical music]

[James] We shot this in the Mojave Desert

and basically what we did was

we used a two-camera rig.

I don't wanna get so technical here but

a two-camera rig

with an infrared digital camera

and a film camera

basically shooting the same image.

The film camera would get the color and the grain.

The infrared would render the blue sky black

and it would allow for the horizon line,

this thing you see here,

to be very crisp and clean.

Now why do you want that?

You want that

for the visual effects people

to actually be able

to do what's called rotoscoping much easier.

It makes their job much easier.

This surface, you say well that's the desert.

You just took the color out.

No.

Because the desert has

a lot more vegetation and life

than you think.

The shubery and all kinds of life

and it doesn't look like the Moon.

So we had to replace digitally

all of this surface.

All this area.

This whole area.

This is all from lunar photographs

that were taken over the last 20-50 years.

We decided a lot of subjectivity

in this sequence.

This sequence would be from Brad Pitt's point of view.

And you'll notice this area right here,

with this weird copper reflection,

it to indicate Brad's point of view.

And you also here his breathing and stuff.

You're inside his helmet. That's why there's sound

in the sequence.

The sound in the sequence is what he would hear

inside the suit.

Some of these guys are digitally placed in there.

We built two rovers,

one pirate and one hero. Right.

And then we multiplied the pirate rovers

'cause one pirate rover wouldn't be too scary.

[Kevin] Let's roll to some of the big crashes.

[Man] Alpha we have what looks like

unidentified rovers approaching our position.

Possible pirate activity.

[James] All right this lunar regolith kicking up

right over here all this stuff.

That was real dirt

that we then had to replace with other dirt

because the real dirt didn't look like lunar dirt.

So it wound up being replaced.

Also the Moon has 1/6th gravity

so the motion has to be very different.

So as a consequence,

Dan Bradley shot all this stuff

in the desert for us.

These wides.

And we told him to shoot it

between 32-36 frames per second.

The standard is 24 frames per second.

So it has a slightly slowed dreamy quality.

That was the thing that we looked at.

We tested a bunch of different frame rates.

The look is most accurate.

That looked the most accurate

from the lunar foot film

that was shot by the Apollo missions.

[rocks crashing]

[Man] Alpha we need backup ASAP.

We're being ambushed.

[Man] That'll be two down.

Roy.

I have a puncture.

[suspensful music]

[James] This was shot on a soundstage

with the brightest light

you can imagine shining down.

And you could see what we were trying to get

was this kind of overexposed look.

Okay so here you see this.

That's the brightest white.

Again no atmosphere on the Moon.

So the brightest areas are totally overexposed.

The darkest areas are totally underexposed.

And the film's response had to mimic that.

So it was quite a challenge.

Very unpleasant for the actors

to be in this space suits.

Being in a space suit in the desert all day long

[James] in the hot sun. Sheer bravery.

Virtually Death Valley.

You're talking 125 degrees

in a space suit.

They had air conditioning units in the suit

but it didn't always work.

[muffled radio transmission]

[Man] Go go go!

[muffled radio transmission] [suspenseful music]

[Man] Clear not clear.

I repeat we are not clear.

We have multiple enemy craft in pursuit.

[suspenseful music]

[deep breathing in a helmet]

[James] Now this again

is a very strange combination

between practical cars driving

these lunar rovers

and digital effects.

And all shot on film.

Very weird combination.

Here you'll see these.

[Kevin] This is a solar panel array A solar farm.

[James] a solar farm.

This is almost a 100%

how you're gonna have to get power on the moon

So this was a solar farm

where we needed a device for the car to hit.

We built one of these.

We had this and we had this car

with this rover.

[Kevin] And we did this We built a ramp.

[James] We built a ramp

and this thing

actually crashed into it.

I love the reflections in the helmets.

[James] You see this reflection of the rover

in this kinda

copper gold reflection of the visor.

This doesn't seem like

it would be a very difficult shot

because it's just the reflection

of something we've shot.

[Kevin] But it's concave.

It was murder. Convex.

Because you can't just put the camera

and then shoot it

or else you would see the lens

and you'd see me going like

and that you don't want.

Believe me.

This all has to be shot

separately replaced over what we actually did shoot.

Warped to look like its in his helmet.

And then given this weird gold color.

Then you realize

you have to do that for every shot

in the sequence

because you can't see the camera

or else the suspension of disbelief would be gone.

Now many people have said to me

Is he firing a gun on the Moon?

That's not real.

Well that's true.

If you took a gun on the Moon

and you just fired it straight ahead.

Right.

The bullet would conceivably go around the Moon

and come back and kill you.

So we had read

and yes DARPA

which is the advanced projects part of the Pentagon

is working on space weapons

and they were working

on something that is called The Stiletto

which is molten metal being fired

as opposed to the traditional bullets.

Now something else we should talk about.

Sometimes the imperfection of the frame

allows you to believe that it's real.

So what do I mean?

This flare photographically

was added obviously to this painting

because this photographic imperfection

tricks the eye into thinking

it's the real thing. Right.

[James] But that analog quality

allows you to accept it.

Also the sequence was

as I say

partly shot with a digital infrared camera

but also on film.

So we have the true film grain

and that lends a kind of earthiness I think

to the image

which helps its believability.

And so what's the movie about?

Yeah.

The movie's about what it means

to be a human being, right? Mmm-hmm.

You go all the way to Neptune

and you think you're gonna find

these amazing things.

You're gonna escape.

But the truth is it's all right here.

Human beings and our connection to the Earth

is really what matters.

No matter what scale you go looking for things

and how far you go

generally the evolution is you come very very close

back to where you started.

[James] Of course.

So we felt that the best way to tell a story

about the relevance of the Earth,

the relevance of our connection to each other,

is by contrast

a person totally alone

as far away as you can conceivably go anyway

in the remotely near future.

And really the movie became

it started from one quote from Arthur C. Clarke

he said Either we're not alone in the universe

or we are.

And both concepts equally terrifying.

[wondering music]