Independent filmmaker Thomas Vanz uses his latest short film to showcase what happens in the final moments of a dying star. Incredibly, the film was shot using entirely practical effects. Vanz says that he decided to represent the giant with the small, eschewing any computer generated imagery as a tribute to filmmakers Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan.

Even the score was created using sounds found in nature to provide an inkling of what the explosions would sound like if noise could be heard in space.

Aspiring to be as scientifically accurate as possible, Vanz knew that the grandiose spectacle of infinite space could only be realised by taking the filming process to the microscopic level. After experimenting with many DIY setups he eventually settled on shooting inside an aquarium filled with water and inks.

Novae required two months of research, storyboarding, and experimentation with fluids. “I was able to replicate the way in which different gases would behave in a supernova” he tells JazJaz. “I was able to catch a 3D explosion, full of colours that would become the raw material I would use to compose every shot of the movie. ”

The animations for exploding stars, chain reactions, and resulting black hole were individually shot over a period of two months and then stitched together using After Effects. Vanz sees Novae as a cosmic poem about the death of a star and the infinite beauty of nebulae.

2016-11-16 03:00