The Midnight Sky – 2020/21
I had to do a little research and reading to figure out why this movie was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Visual Effects category. Honestly, it wasn’t very apparent after I finished watching the film. Initially, I thought that there was nothing new about the visual effects. I’m really sorry to say that even after doing my bit of research, I hold to that opinion.
There was no visual effect technique in the film that I hadn’t seen in other films. Yes, they did them all flawlessly, but where was the innovation? And they seemed to be no better than what I’ve seen in those other films. There was the space ship, the meteor shower, the weightless actors, the weightless blood, the CGI space suit helmets, the blinding snowstorm, the CGI wolves, and the devastated globe of the Earth. And as good as these effects were, I can think of several movies where the exact same effects were featured. Just watch the movie Gravity, and you’ll see most of these effects, and done better.
And I have to point out that half of the effects like the space ship and the image of the destroyed planet fall under the domain of the production design team. Yes, the visual effects team brought the visuals to life, but that’s just the end result. The production design staff did the ground work of planning it all out before it ever got to the digital artists, though I have to say, those things looked great on the screen.
One of the more impressive effects was the digital space suit helmets. You see, if the actors were wearing actual helmets, they would have been reflecting everything from the filming cameras to the crew running them. So the actors performed the scenes with no helmets, and the CGI glass was added in post. This included the appropriate reflections of what would have been behind the cameras.
I also liked the snowstorm effect. Yes, the effect has been seen plenty of times before, but this one looked incredibly real and fiercely intense. However, the article I read felt it necessary to say how difficult and impressive the CGI wolves were to create, but to be honest, you could barely see them passing in the background of a few brief shots. I’m sorry, but they didn’t seem all that impressive to me.
And finally, I liked the design of the space ship. At least both its interior and its exterior were pretty unique. The giant spider-web design of the debris shield was pretty cool, and the laser-printed components of the ship’s interior gave the aesthetics a more organic look than most movie space ships. I also liked how some of the walls were not made of simple metal, but a more fabric-like material. When a meteor hit the ship, the walls rippled and bounced back into shape instead of getting crushed and damaged. But again, that has more to do with a great and interesting design than the Visual effects artists.