GRAVITY “From Script to Screen” Featurette

(L-r) SANDRA BULLOCK, GEORGE CLOONEY and director ALFONSO CUARÓN on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ dramatic thriller “GRAVITY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (C) 2013 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. Photo Credit: MURDO MACLEOD

On this Christmas Eve, orbiting hundreds of miles above the Earth, U.S. astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins are working outside the International Space Station to repair the cooling system. This is only the second Christmas Eve spacewalk in NASA history.

One can’t help but think of the film GRAVITY. For the two space station astronauts it’s become like a real-life GRAVITY, just without actors Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and the whole having to survive in space after an accident.

In the film Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney) in command. But on a seemingly routine mission, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone—tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue.

“I have always had a fascination with space and space exploration,” states Alfonso Cuarón, the director, producer and co-writer of the dramatic thriller “Gravity.” He continues, “On the one hand, there is something mythical and romantic about the idea of separating yourself from Mother Earth. But in many ways, it doesn’t make sense to be out there when life is down here.”

Right now there are people working in a place where there is very little separation between life and death. The inherent dangers of spaceflight have grown in the decades since we first began venturing beyond our own atmosphere…and those increasing dangers are manmade. The refuse from past missions and defunct satellites has formed a debris field that can cause disaster in an instant. NASA has even given the scenario a name: the Kessler Syndrome.

Watch this new behind-the-scenes look at the film.

The filmmakers knew that they would need to push the boundaries of moviemaking to tell a story that transpires wholly in zero gravity. “I have to say that I was a bit naïve; I thought making the film would be a lot simpler,” Cuarón admits. “Yes, I knew it would require a certain amount of tricks, but it was not until we started trying conventional techniques that I realized in order to do the film the way I wanted to do it, we were going to have to create something entirely new.”

To accomplish that, Cuarón called upon cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, and visual effects supervisor Tim Webber of Framestore. “From the get-go, Chivo, Tim and I decided we wanted everything to look like we took our camera into space. That would have been my dream, but, of course, that’s not feasible,” Cuarón smiles.

Simply put—though there was nothing simple about it—the filmmakers did not want anything akin to a sci-fi fantasy world, but rather to depict the stark realities of being marooned in the harshest environment known to mankind.

That objective turned out to be a game changer.

The filmmakers invented entire systems to generate the illusion of being in space in ways that were both totally convincing and utterly visceral.

Cuarón also utilized music to, as he says, “take the role of sound or give a tonal suggestion of sound.”

Freemantle collaborated closely with composer Steven Price to layer the two components. Price says, “It was great working with Glenn and his team. They were using vibrations and low frequencies to subtly underpin the action, so you feel the impacts without hearing them in the traditional sense. I wanted to do that in a different way with the music.”

Cuarón offers, “I wanted the music to be textural, to blur the line between music and sound, so I told Steve I didn’t want any percussion. It was a challenge for him because he had to score all the action and suspense without some of the fundamental instruments he would normally use in a conventional action score. He began blending more electronics with acoustic instruments to cause pulsations in place of percussion. Once he landed the concept, he just started flying with it.”

“It was a case of building intensity in the music without the usual orchestra,” Price adds. “It freed me to try anything, and do my own version of what an action cue or an emotional cue would be. The great thing about Alfonso is he’s looking to push things as far as they can go, so you’re inspired to try things you would never have thought of.”

Apart from the actor’s performances, almost all of GRAVITY was accomplished with a seamless fusion of CGI and computer animation, requiring the total orchestration of man and machine.

“‘Gravity’ may be the most challenging project in which I’ve ever been involved,” producer David Heyman states. “There were so many facets and everyone contributed so much to achieve something unique. It is beautiful, elegant filmmaking whose complexity and difficulty tested everybody to the umpteenth degree. But none of that is visible.”

Alfonso Cuarón concludes, “It was a total collaboration, combining all the different elements of the images and sounds and extraordinary performances. We want audiences to come along on this journey…to share in the experience of floating weightless in the stunning but terrifying realm of space.”