On October 4 2013, movie Gravity was released in the U.S. It is directed ,written ,edited and produced by Alfonso Cuarón, who also directed the fourth movie of the Harry Potter film series "the Prisoner of Azkaban". And the most unbelievable fact is they pulled off this incredible movie with only three actors and a few crew. The movie's box office easily reached $700 million. It is being considered the most realistic space movie of all time. The astonishing visual effects amazed everyone who watched it.
The crew of the Space Shuttle Explorer was repairing the Hubble telescope. Suddenly Houston control center discovered a Russian satellite just explode and the debris were flying towards the shuttle at extremely high speed. Before any one can do anything about it, the debris destroyed the Shuttle, killed everyone except mission commander Kowalski and doctor Stone drifting in space. Kowalski Used the rest of the fuel flew Dr. Stone to the International Space Station and sacrificed his own life. Dr. Stone survived the second debris strike at ISS, found the return vehicle but the fuel tank was empty. She made to the Chinese station by using the landing rocket. At the Chinese station, Dr. Stone found the “Shenzhou” space craft in the last minute and finally landed on Earth in one piece.
Every time I watch a movie, I not only watch the story, I really focus on how the camera moves, how do they do a transition
and when to cut a shot. But after I watch Gravity, I was speechless, it just blow away my mind. I asked my self for the
first time “how did they do it?!”. The first shot was a 17 minuets non-cut shot, every except for actors’ face was animated.
In a Hollywood film, you don’t often see a shot more than 30 second, because it takes too much time and money to shoot a
long shot, you need special lighting, special mics, special cameras, in most of cases, is just not possible. I heard that
the crew spent a entire 6 months to shoot the first shot.
Secondly, the movie is just so realistic. Every single detail is like real, everything happened in the movie is possible,
but don’t forget this is actually a sci-fi film. There wasn’t any technology to make this movie, the crew had create new
technology, they use a “screen room” (basicly a small room with screens all around) to simulate the reflection of the the
Earth and objects to the glass helmet. A real astronaut who repaired Hubble said, “I remember the screw driver we used in
space was one-of-a-kind, and I’m sure I saw it in the movie. The way those actors move in ISS is exactly how we do, I can’t
believe someone never been to space can pull off those shots.” This movie so unique, is paved a brand new way of how to
make a movie, and I think Gravity is beyond a movie.