Project: Making stars

 This is my third production post, and I'll be showing my thinking process and process on how I recreated stars. 

Way at the beginning of my planning, I wanted some shots to be of space. But I didn't want to use any stock photos or anything since those didn't really fit the vibe I was aiming for. 

So I did some research into the production of 2001: A Space odyssey, specifically the Star Gate scene where the astronaut David goes what through what appears to be a wormhole. In those scenes there are brief shots of galaxies and stars and nebulas. I researched how Kubrick made this effects before I found out that it was just simply just playing with liquids, like ink and oil. 

I further researched into how liquids could be made into stunning effects. It was then I took a page from Christopher Nolan's book. 

In Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, there are these scenes of blue particles in darkness, mimicking subatomic particles in the imagination of Oppenheimer.

Although this effect looks cool, it is actually just glitter and water spun around. 

It is honestly unbelievable how much  beautiful effects can be done just by using water and liquids.

This is my set up. It is just a large 50 gallon fish tank with black paper wrapped around it. There's a small stack of boxes on the left so I can shine my lamp into the water. There is also a white box behind the fish tank, acting as a makeshift tripod for extra lighting. 

The black paper is taped around the box since my camera catches the detail of the background and some of the items nearby reflect off the glass.

And the effects came out way better than I thought.

This shot right here was actually a mistake. 

I was filling the tank with water but I forgot that the tank was just sitting around and building dust, so when I poured the water, it caused all the dust particles to begin flying everywhere. 

And honestly I did not expect to get a shot like this, but I'm glad I did. 

For colored scenes like these, the colored lights I had were too weak to make the glitter inside visible. So I used a little glass make-up container to amplify the light like a magnifying glass. 

Timelapses (I mentioned before that some of the bts footage I had were too dark to see, so I only had a few to show here.)

Special effects

Space ship (Breaking off)