Watched my $3.00 DVD of The Phantom Planet tonight–a lovely old cheesy sci-fi movie about a guy who’s marooned on a planet where the atmosphere or gravity or whatever (the script is a little vague :dubious: ) shrinks him to six inches high; anyway, he romances the girl, fights the bad aliens, becomes the heir apparent, and is lectured to by Frances X. Bushman.
So here’s my question: In the opening titles they had an effect I’ve seen a thousand times, and you have, too, in every space opera ever filmed; but I never thought much before about how it was done.
The camera moves forward through a field of stars. Stars pass by above, below and on both sides. (Think “Millennium Falcon just before the hyperjump”) How is that done?
(I’m thinking it must be a fairly simple camera effect, but that’s about where my knowledge ends. )
The simplest way is to film a zoom into an image of stars, lots of times with different images, double exposing them each time.
Another way is to use a multiplane animation stand, laying the images of stars on sheets of glass, set in layers, giving the illusion of dimensionality.
By the way, it should be VFX meaning Visual Effects. These are the effects that are added in post-production, like matte paintings or greenscreen or processing-based.
Special Effects, which are the on-set effects, is usually referred to as SPFX.
SFX actually stands for Sound Effects.
In actuality, the Industry usually refers to them by their full name, and not by abbreviations.
Some day there’ll be a way to replicate that effect right on your computer; you could even have it set up so the “flying through the stars” effect appears whenever you just leave your computer alone for a while. Some day.
“Star Trek” was notorious for using that effect whether it made sense or not – the Enterprise is supposed to be orbiting a planet, and you’d see it passing stars. (I guess they had a number of stock shots they used all the time.)
Oh, what a brave new world 1987 will be!
Thanks, GuanoLad. I figured it had to be something simple, since every cheesy outer-space movie ever made has the effect.
…and I stand corrected: VFX it is. 