Movies have been an expression of art for years. Actors, actresses, makeup artists, costume designers, production crew, among others. There are so many components that go into making a movie and it is difficult enough as is. By taking out the gravity factor on Earth, it becomes even more difficult. Subsequently, a crew in Russia decided to take this risk and create a movie in space. How? Well for that we need to understand how a movie is made and how astronauts train to go into space.
There are five stages of film production – development, pre-production, production, post production, and distribution. Development is when the idea of the movie is created, thought out, and the screenplay is written. Pre-production is when the arrangements are made for the shoot. Here, they hire cast and film crew, find locations for shoots, and construct the sets. Production is the raw footage and other parts from filming including the principle photography, which is a bulk of shooting from pre and post production. In post production, the visual, sound, and image effects are added and edited to create a final product. Finally, in distribution, the product is given to distributors such as movie theaters or OTT platforms.
Astronauts go through intensive training to ensure that they are ready to go into space. They also have 5 stages. Basic training, advanced training, mission-specific training, onboard training, and proficiency maintenance training. Astronauts need to learn about medicine, language, robotics and piloting, aerospace engineering and much more. Not to mention they need to overcome their motion sickness, cold sweating, anorexia, and vomiting. This is only in basic training, so how is a movie crew going to film in space?
Well, this project was announced last year by Roscosmos after NASA announced a project with Tom Cruise might be happening. The movie, titled “The Challenge,” or “The Doctor’s House Call,” based on where it will be released, follows the story of a doctor who has to be launched into space to save a cosmonaut, or a Russian astronaut in the International Space Station. Yulia Peresild, the protagonist of the movie, is set to go into space with her back up, the director, Klim Shipkeno, and his back up. This means that there will be no crew – hair and makeup, costumes, or production and filming. The actress has been training on airplanes and stimulators. Still the real space will be different. “For the first two seconds, it will be scary,” she said during a press interview. “After that, it’s beautiful.” She and the director plan on going up in a capsule and filming for 10 days in the Russian area of the Space Station. Russian officials were not very happy about the hasty decision to film as they needed to change their mission schedules to make space for the film’s schedule. Peresild was cast earlier this spring, and rushed through basic training as much as possible as she has no prior knowledge of space or space travel. She will be in charge of her makeup and costumes and will be working with no lighting or large crew which usually help create a visual mood and style the movie. Although there have been many obstacles, the docudrama is set to release next year, in 2022, and will pioneer as the first movie to be filmed in space.