The Martian’s Incredible Visual Effects: Before and After Photos

Sir Ridley Scott’s ‘The Martian’ is storming box offices around the world and rightly so. Aside from the witty script and incredible performances from everyone involved – particularly Matt Damon’s as genius botanist Mark Watney - the film’s visual effects are simply jaw dropping.

MPC has kindly provided some incredible before and after shots from the film which you can check out below.

UK visual effects house Moving Picture Company worked closely with Ridley Scott to bring the red planet to life like never before. Using one of the largest green screen stages in the world in Budapest and location shooting in Jordan’s Wadi Rum, Scott worked with MPC’s Richard Stammers to complete 425 VFX shots for the finished film.

We spoke to MPC VFX Supervisor Tim Ledbury on some of the technical and creative challenges their team faced.

“The main challenge MPC was tasked with was to create the look of the Martian surface for the film, this involved weeks of investigating NASA photography to determine geographic features such as craters, mountain ranges, rocks and dust devils that would need to be built in the computer.

“These where then used to create entire landscapes that would be inserted in to the green screen of the indoor shoot in Budapest, and used to add and adapt to the location photography from Jordan. In addition to the landscape another major feature of the planets surface that had to be realised was the distinct copper colour skies with fast-moving clouds of gas and dust, these involved hundreds of hours of computer simulations to achieve the desired look.

“The Mars sandstorm sequence that forces the crew to evacuate the Mars surface required weeks of testing to be able to add the right amount of dust and particles to the shots to accomplish the violent and dangerous feeling Ridley Scott wanted.

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“This also required a fully computer generated launch through the storm of the MAV rocket (Mars Ascent Vehicle), this needed the use of complex processing of fluid simulations to create the fiery rocket blast within the storm.

“To create the low gravity effect on Mars, the onset team shot most of the footage at high frame rate in 3D having Matt Damon walk across the planet surface at an increased pace. The footage was then manipulated to create a slow motion effect.

“MPC also worked on CG visor replacements for the astronaut’s helmets. Wearing visors caused issues filming as reflections of the green screen stage and camera operators could be seen, so it was decided to remove the visors.

“MPC then had the complex task of adding CG versions back in to the footage, this required everything that reflects in the glass to be created, including digital astronauts animated to match the actors onset movements and the Mars environment that surrounds them.”

‘The Martian’ is in cinemas now. Watch a trailer below.

Image credits: © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved