The method Duke used to shoot Gravity was very special, and this also determined that its post-production would be quite different from previous films. As early as during the pre-production stage, he, as the director, had already realized this point.
Setting aside the issues of technology and funding, the first challenge they faced was time.
The film aimed to hold preview screenings before the New Year in order to qualify for Oscar consideration. That left only three months for post-production. For a film like this, the difficulty could easily be imagined. Even John Schwartzman and Tim Webber had advised Duke to give up on this year's Oscars and wait until next year instead.
But they didn't know what Duke was thinking. The reason he was rushing to finish the film was precisely to make it in time for this year's Oscars. Unless Black Swan was also postponed to next year for its North American release, he wouldn't change his plan.
That was clearly impossible Black Swan had already held its global premiere at the Venice Film Festival and was also set to officially land in North America in October.
After filming ended, Duke once again visited Industrial Light & Magic and George Lucas' home. Gravity's production budget was also increased to $230 million, with nearly two-thirds of the funding allocated to special effects production.
This is a commercial society if you're willing to pay, you can get enough manpower.
Industrial Light & Magic mobilized nearly all the available personnel to participate in Gravity's post-production. Not only in North America, but its branches in London, India, and Singapore also joined in. They gathered a large number of staff and digital artists to handle the most time-consuming and labor-intensive part: shot rendering.
But Duke was well aware that in order for the film to be outstanding, special effects were just one part the storytelling also mattered. Gravity was grounded in realism, yet it didn't strictly adhere to it.
For example, during post-production, the orbital altitudes of many space stations and satellites were appropriately compressed.
Because the film would use a large number of long takes shots longer than five minutes were everywhere the editing work was not as tedious as in the past. Duke handed over the rough cut work entirely to Mike Dawson, while he stayed at Warner Bros. Studios' VFX headquarters to oversee the coordination of special effects production spanning North America, South Asia, Europe, and Southeast Asia.
The special effects work had already begun even before shooting started, and it continued during filming. Otherwise, it would've been impossible to complete rendering that alone would take several months. Moreover, Duke had spent heavily to gather a massive team, allowing many shots to be processed simultaneously.
Of course, the downside was the sky-high production cost.
But he could afford it now. As long as the production cost didn't exceed $300 million, the Warner Bros. review board likely wouldn't hesitate too much.
Among all the crucial work during post-production, shot rendering was undoubtedly the most painstaking task.
According to Duke's requirements, all the filmed and CG shots needed to add multiple visual effects such as diffusion, flare, and chromatic aberration.
Due to the tight schedule, Industrial Light & Magic's VFX team decided from the outset to use a newly developed special effects software named "Arnold" renderer. This software was powerful, but had never been used in any previous films.
Because it was the first time using it and faced with an enormous workload many people, including Duke, were still somewhat concerned. Fortunately, the Arnold renderer had an extremely strong memory management function, which allowed it to handle many complex scenes.
This was what Arnold renderer excelled at using lots of complex geometry to complete rendering while also performing extensive ray tracing. Given the long rendering time and the enormous pressure from Duke, ILM's visual effects team had to constantly confirm they were doing things right. If what they produced didn't help the film's visual quality, it would undoubtedly ruin ILM's reputation.
Additionally, Duke had them use a lot of instancing techniques to increase the complexity of the visuals.
"Part of the reason is that doing this enhances the audience's sensory experience."
Duke also explained this to ILM's on-set visual effects supervisor Tim Webber, so they could understand the necessity of doing so: "Because when you're filming in space, you can't use the best cameras, nor can you change lenses there are lots of things you simply can't do. So using those visual effects shots is meant to recreate the feel of space cinematography."
According to Duke's understanding, filming in space does involve some light leakage. Due to the remoteness of the sun and the utter darkness of space, if the reflected light from Earth isn't shown in the shadows, the contrast becomes extremely stark more than anything you'd see on Earth.
So the film needed a lot of high-contrast visuals.
Making audiences believe what happens in space is real was quite a headache. Duke couldn't use most of the conventional space movie tropes whether done with simulations or effects. For example, the electromagnetic pulse caused by atmospheric discharge (i.e., lightning) rendering distant lightning muffled and weak didn't align with moviegoers' expectations.
Then there were explosions if there was an explosion in space, very few people actually knew what that would look like.
Therefore, in post-production, they wouldn't fully follow data provided by astronauts. Sometimes, exceptions had to be made. For instance, it usually takes astronauts 50 minutes to exit a space station. Obviously, they couldn't replicate that literally imagine how the audience would feel if the film threw such a scene at them during an exciting moment.
Of course, when it came to physical movements, Duke would still replicate them realistically at first though occasionally bending the rules but he'd always make sure those actions felt meaningful.
There was also another task that would directly determine the film's success or failure: 3D.
Thanks to the craze sparked by Avatar, many Hollywood studios were now planning to re-release their classic films in 3D to cash in big.
Without a doubt, Duke was ahead of the entire Hollywood curve. As early as the beginning of the year, the 3D versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy had ridden Avatar's momentum and grossed more than $300 million worldwide.
And for Gravity, Duke decided to make it a 3D film mainly to serve its story. Most of the scenes took place floating in outer space—3D would undoubtedly yield stunning effects.
Long before, Duke had confirmed that Gravity would be a mix of CG and live-action. However, before shooting began, he hadn't yet decided whether to shoot directly in 3D or convert it in post.
Duke and John Schwartzman had tested 3D shooting, but in actual operation, they found that placing bulky 3D shooting equipment in the narrow light box was extremely troublesome.
So, at the time, Duke went to Industrial Light & Magic and brought back the results of the 3D conversion. The crew found that in the specific environment of space, combined with their unique shooting method, the converted live-action footage was no different from footage shot directly in 3D, and it was far more efficient to shoot.
As a result, Duke decisively abandoned the plan to shoot in native 3D.
But Gravity is definitely not a fake 3D film. Its shooting and production methods are extremely special and completely different from traditional 3D conversion.
Traditional 3D conversion involves converting the film to 3D during post-production, but Gravity is different.
As early as the pre-production stage, Industrial Light & Magic had already begun the 3D conversion work. Duke's 3D director, Chris Parks, had been working with the relevant team at Industrial Light & Magic the entire time. He explained Duke's vision to them in detail it was all carefully considered.
For example, the stark contrast between the vast emptiness of space and the claustrophobic confines of the space capsule, which could almost induce claustrophobia.
From the beginning, this team faced enormous challenges. They had to ensure that the converted 3D footage would seamlessly match the CGI-created 3D footage.
The live-action footage had to be converted to 3D, and the CGI was already 3D both were 3D, but one was converted, and the other was digitally created.
Another point is that, during this process, they still couldn't be sure that what they were working on would be what Duke ultimately wanted in the final film. The team had to maintain flexibility and creativity throughout the conversion process.
Moreover, during their work, Gravity was not yet a completed film. They worked alongside the crew, keeping up with the shooting progress. This team did not start converting in post-production they kept pace with Duke's production the whole time.
The entire post-production process was tightly connected it was a standard team effort, with Duke as the general commander. Many shots had their plans developed in Los Angeles and San Francisco, then transmitted to India and Singapore for the most tedious rotoscoping work, and finally sent to London for processing, before being sent back to Los Angeles for Duke and visual effects supervisor Tim Webber to review.
Duke had to ensure that all the images were consistent with the environment and, whenever possible, enhance the beauty of the setting. Of course, this required the unified efforts of the entire post-production team.
In the final editing phase, the technical standard was to achieve seamless transitions, making it impossible for the audience to see where the cut was. More often, Duke considered the editing from a 3D perspective where the cut should go. The entire editing team was working toward the same goal for 3D: to find that subtle edit point that would make the footage look as if it had never been cut.
Undoubtedly, Gravity is the most complex and detail-rich project that Industrial Light & Magic has completed to date.
The length of the shots and the high demands for detail during conversion were pushed to the limits of current technology by Duke. Many who had already seen the finished segments believed that 3D would one day change cinema.
Time quickly passed to Thanksgiving. Before Thanksgiving arrived, Duke temporarily put down his work to attend the premiere of the final chapter of the Harry Potter series.
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