Filming: Nolan filmed Interstellar with anamorphic 35mm and IMAX film photography. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema was hired for Interstellar, as Wally Pfister, Nolan's cinematographer on all of his past films, was working on his directorial debut, Transcendence. IMAX cameras were used for Interstellar more than for any of Nolan's previous films. To minimize the use of computer-generated imagery, the director had practical locations built, such as the interior of a space shuttle. Van Hoytema retooled an IMAX camera to be handheld for shooting interior scenes. Some of the film's sequences were shot with an IMAX camera installed in the nosecone of a Learjet
IMAX
Camera: The IMAX cinema process increases the image resolution by using a large-frame film; in relative terms, of producing a sharp movie image, a frame of 35mm film produces approximately six thousand lines (6K) of horizontal resolution, but an IMAX-format film frame produces approximately 18 thousand lines (18K) of horizontal resolution.
To achieve such increased image resolution, 65mm film stock passes horizontally through the IMAX movie camera, 15 perforations at a time, which at 24 frames per second means the film moves through the camera at 102.7 metres per minute (just over 6 km/h). In a conventional 65mm camera, the film passes vertically through the camera, five perforations at a time, or 34 metres per minute. In comparison, in a conventional 35mm camera, 35mm film passes vertically through the camera, at four (smaller) perforations at a time, which translates to 27.4 metres per minute.
In the Todd-AO 70mm-format of widescreen cinema, the image area of a 65mm film-frame is 48.5 mm × 22.1 mm (1.91 in × 0.87 in); in the IMAX-format of widescreen cinema, the movie image is taller than it is wide, given the film-frame dimensions of 69.6 mm × 48.5 mm (2.74 in × 1.91 in). To match the standard image resolution of the moving image produced with the film-speed of 24 frames per second, an IMAX film requires three times the length of (negative) film stock required for a 65mm film of comparable scope and cinematic technique.
IMAX HD: Variations on IMAX included the 48 frames per second IMAX HD process, which sought to produce smoother, more lifelike motion, while also reducing the blurring of moving objects, by doubling the normal film rate. The IMAX HD system was tested in 1992 at the Canada Pavilion of the Seville Expo '92 with the film Momentum.[18] Higher production costs, and the high "wear-and-tear" on the prints and projectors, doomed the IMAX HD system, but, not before many theatres had been retrofitted to project at 48 frames, especially in Canada, in order to play Momentum.[19] In the 1990s theme parks in Thailand, Germany, and Las Vegas used IMAX HD for their Motion Simulator rides.[20] The Disney parks attraction Soarin' Over California features a modification of both IMAX HD and IMAX Dome, projecting in 48 frames per second. Although The Hobbit trilogy has been shown in IMAX DMR at high frame rate, it is unknown if the IMAX HD system has been used.
Visual Effects: The visual effects company Double Negative, which developed effects for Nolan's 2010 film Inception, worked on Interstellar. Visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin said the number of effects in the film was not much greater than in Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises or Inception, but that for Interstellar, they created the effects first, so that digital projectors could be used to display them behind the actors, rather than having the actors perform in front of green screens. Ultimately the film contained 850 visual effect shots at a resolution of 5600 x 4000 lines: 150 shots that were created in camera using digital projectors, and another 700 were created in post production. Of those, 620 were presented in IMAX, while the rest were anamorphic.
The Ranger, Endurance, and Lander spacecraft were created using miniature effects by production designer Nathan Crowley in collaboration with effects company New Deal Studios, as opposed to using computer generated imagery, as Nolan felt they offered the best way to give the ships a tangible presence in space. Created through a combination of 3D printing and hand sculpting, the scale models earned the nickname "maxatures" by the crew due to their immense size; the 1/15th scale miniature of the Endurance module spanned over 7.6 m (25 feet), while a pyrotechnic model of a portion of the craft was built at 1/5th scale. The Ranger and Lander miniatures spanned 14 m (46 feet) and over 15 m (50 feet), respectively. The miniatures were large enough for Hoyte van Hoytema to mount IMAX cameras directly onto the spacecraft, thus mimicking the look of NASA IMAX documentaries. The models were then attached to a six-axis gimbal on a motion control system that allowed an operator to manipulate their movements, which were filmed against background plates of space using VistaVision cameras on a smaller motion control rig.[49] New Deal Studio's miniatures were used in 150 special effects shots.
Scientific Accuracy: Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant for the film to ensure the depictions of wormholes and relativity were as accurate as possible. "For the depictions of the wormholes and the black hole," he said, "we discussed how to go about it, and then I worked out the equations that would enable tracing of light rays as they traveled through a wormhole or around a black hole—so what you see is based on Einstein's general relativity equations."
In creating the wormhole and a supermassive rotating black hole (which possesses an ergosphere, as opposed to a non-rotating black hole), Thorne collaborated with visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin and a team of 30 computer effects artists at Double Negative. Thorne would provide pages of deeply sourced theoretical equations to the artists, who then wrote new CGI rendering software based on these equations to create accurate computer simulations of the gravitational lensing caused by these phenomena. Some individual frames took up to 100 hours to render, and resulted in 800 terabytes of data. The resulting visual effect provided Thorne with new insight into the effects of gravitational lensing and accretion disks surrounding black holes, and will lead to the creation of two scientific papers, one for the astrophysics community and one for the computer graphics community.
Christopher Nolan was initially concerned that a scientifically accurate depiction of a black hole would not be visually comprehensible to an audience and would require the effects team to unrealistically alter its appearance. However, Nolan found the finished effect to be understandable, provided that he maintained consistent camera perspectives. "What we found was as long as we didn't change the point of view too much, the camera position, we could get something very understandable".
The portrayal of what a wormhole would look like is considered scientifically correct. Rather than a two-dimensional hole in space, it is depicted as a sphere, showing a distorted view of the target galaxy. The accretion disk of the black hole was described by Thorne as "anemic and at low temperature—about the temperature of the surface of the sun," allowing it to emit appreciable light, but not enough gamma radiation and X-rays to threaten nearby astronauts and planets.
Online Marketing: The teaser trailer for Interstellar debuted December 14, 2013 and featured clips related to space exploration, accompanied by a voiceover by Matthew McConaughey's character of Cooper. The theatrical trailer debuted May 5, 2014 at the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater and was made available online later that month. For the week ending May 19 it was the most-viewed movie trailer, with over 19.5 million views on YouTube.
Christopher Nolan and McConaughey made their first appearances at Comic-Con in July 2014 to promote Interstellar. In the same month, Paramount Pictures launched a complex interactive Interstellar website. It reported that online users uncovered a star chart related to the Apollo 11 moon landing.
In October 2014, Paramount partnered with Google to promote Interstellar across multiple platforms. The film's website was relaunched to be a digital hub hosted on a Google domain. The website collected feedback from film audiences, and linked to a mobile app. The app featured a game in which players could build solar system models and use a flight simulator for space travel. The Paramount-Google partnership also included a virtual time capsule compiled with user-generated content to be available in 2015. The initiative Google for Education will also use the film as a basis for promoting lesson plans for math science in schools around the United States.
Paramount is providing a virtual reality walkthrough of the Endurance spacecraft using Oculus Rift technology. It hosted the walkthrough sequentially in four theaters, in New York City, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., from October 6 through November 19, 2014. The publisher Running Press released Interstellar: Beyond Time and Space, a book by Mark Cotta Vaz about the making of the film, on November 11, 2014. On November 7, 2014, W. W. Norton & Company released The Science of Interstellar, a book by Kip Thorne.
On November 18, 2014 Wired released a tie-in online comic titled Absolute Zero, written by Christopher Nolan and drawn by Sean Gordon Murphy. The comic serves as a prequel to the film following Mann.
