Upcoming Film Based On Arthur C. Clarke Story

SoyChemist writes "The Wired Science blog has production stills and a story about a side project that several Industrial Light and Magic employees have been working on. They are producing the short story Maelstrom II as an independent film. The entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen, so all of the sets and props will be CGI. The lone actor, Chuck Marra, plays a guy that hitches a ride on an electromagnetically launched freight capsule from the moon to earth. When the nuclear reactor that powers the catapult fails, he is thrown into space, but not far enough to escape lunar gravity — leading to an Apollo 13 style rescue mission. The original story was written by Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Great Quote for His Interview

[eldavojohn]

He hopes to visit the great author at his home in Sri Lanka, unveil the completed film, and interview him about the future of humanity in space.

I am reminded of a great quote I once heard about from him that would be quite applicable to the above interview:

There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. - Arthur C. Clarke

I don't know why but my favorite Arthur C. Clarke novel would have to be Childhood's End [wikipedia.org]. In my opinion, there's something more poetic about the style he used for that than there is for any of his other work. Of course, I find myself sliding into more and more bizarre novels these days ... possibly the reason why I haven't seen this adapted into a movie is it's not fit for public consumption (or something that can doom a film in the states, Christian acceptance [wikipedia.org]).

I love independent films and I've got high hopes for this--if anyone could do up an amazing indie film, it'd be ILM. More importantly, I hope this opens up the door a little more for indie films to debut in regular theatres but unfortunately, I'd have to travel pretty far to find a theatre playing something like this and I live in D.C.!

That said, he is a great author though from what I've read about him as a man, he is rumoured to be a bit pompous--but you know, he is credited with being the first to conceive a geostationary communications satellite [wikipedia.org] so maybe he deserves to have a movie made for him and his ego stroked a little? :-)

Isn't this a lose-lose

[jeffmeden]

Does anyone else see this as a lose-lose for these budding filmmakers? If the project is a success, ILM will own any distribution rights to it, since it was made with company resources. Meanwhile, these guys spent undoubtedly countless nights and weekends working on it, without pay. What will they have to show for it but a spot in the credits?

Re:Isn't this a lose-lose

[Rob T Firefly]

Sounds more like a win-win to me. If it's not a commercial success, these guys will still have a completed project to add to their demo reels and resumes, which didn't cost anything financially. If it is a commercial success, they'll have made a ton of money for ILM. ILM is known for being among the coolest places to work in the FX industry, and it will probably get them some nice bonuses and brownie points, as well as the elusive prize of a successful film for their resumes and demo reels.

Doesnt fill one with confidence

[AaronLawrence]

The words entire thing was shot in front of a bluescreen don't exactly fill me with confidence these days. In fact I'd say that the record for such movies is poor, only Sin City really having managed to avoid being bland and dull. Dear filmmakers: yes CGI can save you money, and show you new interesting visions, but you STILL HAVE TO WORK ON THE BASICS like making convincing characters and interactions between them ... and actors find it hard to produce that if you make them work in front of a bluescreen.

Re:But you get to go home at night

[The One and Only]

It's interesting--animation and special effects used to be completely different techniques, but now the only difference is that one is supposed to look like animation and one is supposed to look realistic. Wouldn't it be possible to shoot Gwyneth's performance against greenscreen and then do the CGI specifically to fit her performance? Or would it perhaps be too time-consuming and expensive to go to that level of detail?