RECAPTURING THE APOLLO 11 MISSION TO TELL A LOVE STORY ON EARTH IN FLY ME TO THE MOON

By OLIVER WEBB

Images courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Fly Me to the Moon explores the relationship between marketing executive Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) and NASA official Cole Davis (Channing Tatum) as he makes preparations for NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing during the tumultuous 1960s Space Race between the United States and Soviet Union. As the public loses interest in the race, Jones must reignite public excitement around NASA and the space program.

“Framestore led the asset team on [the Saturn V rocket], and the detail that they put into that model is something I’ll geek out on forever. I also just want to give credit to our in-house team because they were paramount in determining the creative look of a lot of stuff and finding the right research and stock footage to make sure it worked. Then cutting in the stock footage and using that as previs to then basically do a CG version of it later.”

—Sean Devereaux, Visual Effects Supervisor

Sean Devereaux served as Visual Effects Supervisor on the Apple Studios/Sony film, joining the project as post-production commenced in March 2023, with production wrapping a year later. “Harry Jierjian, the Editor, was editing throughout production and had a really good assembly, so we were ready to work immediately,” Devereaux states. “Director Greg Berlanti likes to see stuff pretty far along before some of the cuts, so we brought on three in-house compositors who absolutely saved our butts and were a huge creative part of the show, not just to get temps out, but to really help us develop the look of things.”

When it came to creative references, the team looked at the available Space Race documentaries as well as recent films such as First Man. “We watched all the films,” Devereaux notes. “We didn’t avoid watching them, but we certainly didn’t want to mimic them. It would be impossible for us to not look at films that were so well researched. We looked at the Apollo 11 documentary and licensed some of the footage that came from that documentary. We had a full-time archivist, and we looked through every frame of film that was available to us, which was a lot.” A self-proclaimed Space Race geek himself, Devereaux enjoyed watching everything he could get his hands on, which included hundreds of hours of material. “Some things I had never seen before,” he admits. “We did change some shot designs if they were too similar to, say, First Man and make it our own, even if it wasn’t intentionally duplicated.”

“Director Greg Berlanti likes to see stuff pretty far along before some of the cuts, so we brought on three in-house compositors who absolutely saved our butts and were a huge creative part of the show, not just to get temps out, but to really help us develop the look of things.”

—Sean Devereaux, Visual Effects Supervisor

Devereaux and his team worked closely with NASA, who were constantly involved with the project. “We used a lot of stock footage from NASA, but we also had CG shots that had to feel like they were stock footage. At that point in time, it was the most photographed event in history, so we have dozens of hours of footage. Greg really wanted it to feel authentic. It’s not really about space, it’s about the love story. So, he wanted the story to be about the people on the ground, not about what’s happening in space. In order to do that we really had to nail the realism, so at no point are you taken away from the story. Even if you have a really stunning visual effect shot, it was visual effects no matter how real it looks. So, we really tried hard to place our cameras where they could only be placed. For example, the Apollo 11 moon landing only had a single camera position, but with Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, they had a lot more camera placements, so we did use stock footage and match-mimicked stock footage with CG just to give the audience more of a sense of the story. Technically, a lot of the cameras weren’t there until the later missions, but we took some creative liberty there.”

Berlanti was adamant that he didn’t want the effects to be showy in any shape or form as he felt concerned this would take away from the central premise of the film. “I storyboarded a launch sequence that followed the rules and only put cameras where NASA put cameras, but once Greg saw it, he said it looked too prepared for what we were doing,” Devereaux explains. “Greg felt that was too much and was taking away from the people on the ground by showing how majestic this launch could be. We still want to obviously show the scale of what happened, which is massive. The Saturn V rocket is still the most powerful machine ever built by man, so we wanted to show that power. We got to do it in some longer shots that we let sit, rather than doing cutaways to rockets going off. That was the biggest visual language, and Greg needed to make sure that our stuff was not at all discernible from the stock footage. This includes crowd shots, rocket launches, moon landings and all the period corrections.”

‘[T]he Apollo 11 moon landing only had a single camera position, but with Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, they had a lot more camera placements, so we did use stock footage and match-mimicked stock footage with CG just to give the audience more of a sense of the story. Technically, a lot of the cameras weren’t there until the later missions, but we took some creative liberty there.”

—Sean Devereaux, Visual Effects Supervisor

Although Devereaux knew he’d be facing a daunting challenge, he was excited to get started on the project and already had a few ideas in mind in terms of what he wanted to achieve. “Greg knew the movie, and he won that battle quickly, but initially, my scope was to go bigger with this. Very few people on this planet will be able to tell what is stock footage and what are our CG shots. The approach to this project is different because it’s so real, so I’m not going to change what is there, but that’s my job to give the director options and understand their vision as quickly as I can. The creative in this wasn’t like other movies where you have a completely blank slate to work with, we had very clear elements and pieces we had to work with. It was a more technical than creative approach because we really did go down and figure out and mimic all the things that NASA had previously done, so when you are watching the film you can’t tell that it was visual effects.”

There were just over 1,000 visual effects shots required for the film. The work was split up between five vendors – Framestore, RISE, Zero VFX, Nexodus and Ingenuity Studios – who were all brought on to provide their unique skillsets required for the film. “There was a variety of work that included the moon, rocket launches, stars in the sky and a lot of period fixes and crowd work. There’s also a lot of CG cars in this because there were only so many cars we could get from 1969 that looked brand new. There are thousands of CG cars in this movie – that was a really fun challenge. Most of my work is invisible, and as I said before, it’s hard to see what we did. This movie fits squarely into that category, which I honestly love. I want the story to be highlighted and not show off effects.”

“There was a variety of work that included the moon, rocket launches, stars in the sky and a lot of period fixes and crowd work. There’s also a lot of CG cars in this because there were only so many cars we could get from 1969 that looked brand new. There are thousands of CG cars in this movie – that was a really fun challenge. Most of my work is invisible, and as I said before, it’s hard to see what we did. This movie fits squarely into that category, which I honestly love. I want the story to be highlighted and not show off effects.”

—Sean Devereaux, Visual Effects Supervisor

One of the most challenging aspects of the project for Devereaux and his team involved the Apollo 10 launch. “It’s actually a side scene and not really a focus of the story of the film,” he explains. “It’s not a huge story point and it’s barely mentioned in the movie, but it’s the first time Scarlett Johansson’s character really understands the weight and power of what she is involved with. She’s never seen a launch before, and it’s a nighttime launch. We had no stock footage of it, so we did do a lot of CG there. We had a balance between Dariusz Wolski’s cinematography that was lit dark, but also being able to backlight Scarlett from rockets that she’s looking at. The entire control room set was built on a gimbal, so they shook the set, and we had to just tie our visual effects into that and make it feel as real as that.”

Concludes Devereaux: “Getting to create a Saturn V rocket was probably the most enjoyable part of the project. It still blows my mind that we put people on a 33-story building and sent it into space. It does not cease to amaze me the more I learn about it. Framestore led the asset team on it, and the detail that they put into that model is something I’ll geek out on forever. I also just want to give credit to our in-house team because they were paramount in determining the creative look of a lot of stuff and finding the right research and stock footage to make sure it worked. Then cutting in the stock footage and using that as previs to then basically do a CG version of it later. They were a huge asset, and they were there from before I was until the very end. They went from temp work through to final shots.”