By

Joey Patterson / Zircillius

Published on/by

YouTube

Accompanying text

This video juxtaposes shots from Damien Chazelle’s film First Man (2018) with footage recorded by NASA during the X-15 test flights (1959-1968), the Project Gemini missions (1961-1966), and the Apollo missions (1966-1972). The visual effects in First Man are unique in the way they recreate the compositions and imitate the aesthetic of the iconic images recorded by NASA. Most of the VFX shots were created by photographing physical models with the camera hard-mounted to the model itself. By photographing miniatures in an unusual way (inspired by Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar), shooting entire action scenes with cameras onboard or mounted to the side of the spacecraft, First Man’s VFX created an exceptionally convincing illusion that the film had actually been shot in space.