NOLAN: I think we're at a point in visual effects...
...where computer graphics have been around so long that there's nothing new...
...or fresh about it as a technology.
So now it sits there as one of any number of different techniques.
What that means is you can use it for the things that it's good for...
...but there are all kinds of other tricks you have to have up your sleeve...
...in terms of how you're going to convince an audience of the reality of something.
What we wanted to try to do with Interstellar...
...was to use techniques that would be timeless...
...where we would create visual-effects shots that will stand up to scrutiny in the future.
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
FRANKLIN: That initial docking sequence...
...is an interesting combination of techniques.
A computer-generated space rocket takes off, and we see that launch.
But then when we get up into space, and we see the range of maneuvering...
...we are looking at the full-size version of the Ranger that we built, which is 50 feet long.
And it was mounted on a motion-controlled movement base...
...that Chris could actually operate in real time with a little steering wheel called a waldo.
And that gave us a real sense of physical reality to the spacecraft in the foreground.
Then when you see the Endurance come into view, that's our fifteenth-scale miniature model.
I think if Christopher Nolan had his choice...
...he'd be shooting in space with real spaceships and doing this for real...
...on location. But the next best thing is to use miniatures.
The use of miniatures is something-- It goes back quite a ways in film...
...but it's still a viable technique that we're using today.
There was a time when all spaceship shots in films were always done with miniatures.
But it's not that common these days.
By using the model, we feel we're gonna get a result...
...which better matches the tone of the rest of the movie, which has a very gritty, realistic...
...very grounded feel to it.
It's all part of our effort to keep the story as real as possible.
New Deal were able to build some extraordinary versions of the ships at a huge scale.
Almost seems wrong to term them miniatures when they're so big.
FRANKLIN: Endurance is a very, very large spacecraft in the story.
It's about 120 feet across.
This model we have behind us is one-fifteenth scale...
...so it's one-fifteenth the size of the full size of the Endurance's real scale.
And it's 15, 16 feet across.
Very, very detailed. We can get our camera very, very close to it.
It will hold up beautifully under the scrutiny of the cameras.
We're shooting it in a high-resolution film format which is called VistaVision.
It's not quite the same size as the IMAX, but it makes a good match for it.
We're using what's called motion-control photography to shoot the models.
FRANKLIN: Motion control is this process where the camera is mounted...
...on a big, computer-controlled crane, so you can very precisely control its movements.
NOLAN: In conjunction with Hoyte, our DP...
...they eventually settled on a very realistic lighting set-up. Took very long exposure time...
...but it really was just one source, very distant, to represent the distant sun...
...or the glow of the distant black hole...
...so the lighting conditions on those miniatures would be extremely real.
FRANKLIN: And also, because we're working with, really, quite low light levels...
...we need to keep the shutter open on the camera for longer than you would do normally.
So instead of 24 frames a second, we're shooting maybe three or four frames a second.
Sometimes even, a single exposure might take five or six seconds.
The motion-control camera allows you to move the camera smoothly...
...whilst it's turning over very, very slowly.
And of course, our camera moves are quite lengthy, so the shots are quite long.
So it takes a very long time to expose some of the passes.
It can take an hour or more to expose a pass of the miniature.
We were getting four shots a day if we were lucky...
...out of the model stage, which is working pretty fast.
We built a fifth-scale version of the model as well, but only a section of it.
And that was much larger, about 40 feet across.
And that's our pyrotechnic model, for when the spacecraft gets damaged.
It's good to have as much scale as you can possibly get...
...because you need the model to break up into convincing chunks...
...and get all the physics right. The smaller the models get, the harder that becomes.
We're here at New Deal Studios, and I just loaded this ship with some explosives...
...to break it in half.
There's some cables that are gonna get cut as well, pyrotechnically.
And then I get to yank the part as well.
And this is where we actually go faster than 24 frames a second.
We're gonna be shooting at 72 frames a second.
That way we can capture all the action that's taking place.
The explosions, the debris, fire, everything else.
Then when that's projected at normal frame rates, we get to see all that detail.
NOLAN: The wonderful thing about shooting miniatures is there's a random quality...
...to how things photograph in real situations that you couldn't really construct...
...as a piece of animation.
FRANKLIN: We do have computer-generated spacecraft...
...particularly for distant views...
...and sometimes where we couldn't get the miniature to do the things it needed to.
But for the most part, you're looking at either substantial models of the spacecraft...
...or full-size spacecraft.
By mixing techniques a lot, as we have...
...you stand on the shoulders of giants, as I say...
...and you look at the techniques of the past and try and use them in a different way...
...and add to that language...
...and, in that way, achieve a trick that people haven't seen before.