From puppets to pixels—inside the making of “Project Hail Mary”

From puppets to pixels—inside the making of Project Hail Mary

Some of the biggest filmmaking challenges are the ones audiences never notice. Project Hail Mary blends practical filmmaking and cutting-edge visual effects into an emotional, character-driven sci-fi epic. Behind the scenes, the team balanced evolving camera formats, 2,000 visual effects shots, and an ambitious post-production workflow while keeping the story at the center of every creative decision. We chatted with visual effects editor Warren Hickman and first assistant editor Matt Raichel about blending practical and digital filmmaking, managing technically demanding productions, and how Evercast kept things moving along.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Tell me about each of your roles on the project.

Matt Raichel: I was the first assistant editor. My responsibilities shifted, but much of it was making sure the editor, [Joel Negron, ACE], could just focus on the picture editing. As he was going through cuts, the second assistant editors and I worked behind him, cleaning up the sound, turning things over to our music editors, just trying to make everything presentable for the next screening. Obviously the first preview cut is going to be a lot more polished than the first friends-and-family screening, but [the goal] is just not to distract anyone watching it. They know that it's not finished, but the things they should be thinking about are the characters and what's happening, as opposed to “What’s that storyboard doing there?!”

Warren Hickman: As the visual effects editor, my responsibilities were to identify all visual effects in the movie, pass them on to the visual effects department and vendors, and make sure they were tracked back. In addition, I did a lot of temp comps. Matt did too. We kind of all jump on those because it's so much, especially on a movie of this size. Other than that, just making sure that the story beats are being hit and that everyone’s needs are being met—the director, the editor, the visual effects department. I had two assistants help me out, which was great. You don't always have that luxury. But it was an ever-changing show, so we were constantly trying to keep track of all the changes. 

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What would you say were some of the unique challenges, either creative or technical?

Warren Hickman: All the camera formats.

Matt Raichel: Yeah, I feel like the brunt of that fell on FotoKem. There was maybe a week where I was concerned about it right at the beginning [when I found out] we were going to have an IMAX release, which isn't wild, just not something I'd done before. So it was just a matter of understanding how that would work, knowing how Joel likes things organized and how [directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord] wanted to look at things in editorial. We had to keep it simple yet flexible on our end. For example, a lot of stuff was taller than the typical 16x9 frame that most Avid projects are in. If you're working in a flatter scope aspect ratio, it'll all fit in that container, but this wouldn't. So, we made the decision to do a 4x3 project, which was great because everything fit, and we could more-or-less see everything that was recorded for any different camera format.

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It was shot for IMAX, right?

Matt Raichel: Yeah, but we obviously had a traditional theatrical release, too. So on set when they were framing shots, they had to keep in mind that they were going to have that extra height on the IMAX screens, but lose some of it in the traditional theaters. It wasn’t until we started actually considering those releases that we cropped anything. When I was prepping stuff for the screenings, I just kept the same boxy image and I just had to shrink it down so that in Avid, everything was the same width, and it was just the heights that changed. But then when we got to the normal theater screen, I had to shrink the taller stuff down so it would all be pillar box with black bars on the sides, and then whenever we showed the earth aspect ratio stuff, that would have the letter box look. It feels like you can always do so much more, but you have limited time, so you have to understand what's feasible, and typically you step right up to the edge there and just try not to overpromise anything.

Warren Hickman: It was really confusing for a little bit because we had like 16 different framing charts for all the different camera lens setups. They were all slightly different aspect ratios that we had to fit into one container, as Matt was saying. So we usually watched the cut unmasked so we could see the full aperture, and it was just moving around, slightly changing size and shape through the whole movie, until we eventually settled on something—but that wasn’t until the very end. Working that way was interesting because you had a lot to protect for. Normally, you'll shoot larger than your actual aspect ratio, but you can ignore it. So if there's a boom in there or there's a bit of scene off the set or whatever, no big deal. But with this, everything was potentially going to be in the frame. So we had to really keep an eye out for that kind of stuff. That was the biggest technical challenge that I can think of. Managing all of that and the 300+ different lens grids that we had to record and send to the vendors for all the different options.

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Were there a lot of vendors?

Warren Hickman: Not that many. Framestore was our main one. ILM did all the exterior ship stuff, and then we had [Wylie Co. VFX], a smaller vendor that was acting as our in-house team.

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It was shot in the UK, right? And then were you guys in LA the whole time? How about your team? 

Warren Hickman: Yeah, it was shot in the UK. Matt and I got shipped out to London for the shoot. We were there for about five months in production, and Matt had two local assistants that helped us out. Then, we came back to LA and had a different crew for the rest.

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How did you end up using Evercast?

Warren Hickman: [Arslan Elver] was our animation supervisor and he was with us [in LA] for a couple months—they flew him in from London—but then he went back, and we did all of our animation and visual effects reviews remotely with his team. We would use Evercast when the directors and producers weren't able to be in the office, which was frequent because they were busy with other films. Like, for a while at the beginning of post, Joel was busy with another film in Australia. So, we'd have Evercast set up for them at their homes or wherever they happened to be. Quite often they were at Sony, and it was more of a logistical choice, like, if we can't have the directors in person today, so let's boot up Evercast, show them the cut from the Avid and whatnot, and see if we can get some sign offs or feedback, even though they're not here.

Matt Raichel: Our sound team got started earlier than normal, so there were a lot of weekly check-ins with them too. The Rocky voice was something unique that Chris and Phil knew they didn't want to put off. You could very easily be like, "Oh, that goes on at the end,” but they knew it would give you a first pass feel. That led to early sound meetings—playing stuff for Chris and Phil while they were in editorial. Sometimes the sound guys were doing that from across town. A lot of times we’d use Evercast just to save someone that trip across town.

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How would you say Evercast provided the most value to the team?

Matt Raichel: Evercast was a safety net. Once we had the room, it was nice to just have in the back of your head that it’s there, it works, and it's easy to set up. And the Evercast team is very good about troubleshooting. I've never called and not gotten the problem sorted out very quickly.

Warren Hickman: I really love being able to just quickly share the Avid stuff because quite often we’d be showing footage in full quality through cineSync, then Paul [Lambert], the VFX supervisor, would say, "Hey, can we switch to the cut real quick?” [With Evercast], I could just play the cut for them, and they’d see exactly what we're talking about in context. It's really hard to do otherwise, but with Evercast, it doesn't matter where they are, you can just do it. That's super valuable for a workflow because you don't lose time. Even on a year-long post schedule, time is really important. You have these short little windows with people. So, it’s great we can say to the director, “Just grab your laptop or iPad, and we'll Evercast real quick.” To be able to do that and get their feedback immediately is just such a boon for the production.

Matt Raichel: Yeah, anything you can get answered right now, the better, so as not to have to follow up or waste part of your next meeting.

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I know this film was a huge undertaking—a lot of shots, a lot of footage. Do you feel like there were any major lessons learned or takeaways you’ll bring to other projects?

Matt Raichel: If I'm making a decision, I try to [anticipate] the reach of that decision. Because you don't want to say, "Oh, it's not a big deal," and then find out six months later that it was a big deal. Like, that decision we made to blow up our project to a 4x3 just to have dailies that fully accounted for all the different aspect ratios. We had virtual production stuff, animatics, storyboards from earlier cuts that were in the cut for a super long time. The amount of work I did to reformat things or replace things just to get them more in the zone—if I could go back, I would have made decisions on that earlier.

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So many films now are being released in many formats.

Matt Raichel: Yeah, people are invested in it, so it is a good thing to have under your belt—just that way of thinking about it.

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There was a lot of buzz about “no green screens” used in this film. What can you tell me about what was shot or built practically versus visual effects, and how did you manage that combination?

Warren Hickman: I think a lot of people could take that the wrong way. While we didn’t use green screens or blue screens traditionally, we used a lot of neutral-graded screens. If we had a scene that was beige-ish, we would have a beige screen in the background and roto around everybody. For outdoor scenes, we used a sky-blue screen in a couple of scenes so that it would blend more naturally with the lighting. That was a decision the DP and the VFX supervisor made together, because the DP does not like the spill from those screens. 

There were also a lot of set extensions. There is really no such thing as a full set in most movies these days—whether you are putting in a ceiling or extending something beyond a window, you are going to be fixing sets. A lot of the sets were practical. Even when Grace is outside on the spaceship during the spacewalk, they built that set. Most of it was replaced with CG, but the set was there. The lighting got replaced, and a lot of the exterior work was replaced as well. 

There are around 2,000 visual-effects shots in the film. I think people ran with the “no green screens” thing and assumed everything was practical, which is not true. The Astrophage floating around, for example, was augmented with visual effects. There was a lot of cleanup because you could see wires and the cage built around it. Everything is visual effects these days, really— which is why I have a job!

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Aside from the “no green screens” fun fact that got a lot of attention, what is something people would be surprised to know about the making of the film?

Matt Raichel: I would bet there’s more of the Rocky puppet in the movie than people might expect. I’ve been watching cuts of featurettes for the special features, and there are moments where you really cannot tell whether you are looking at a full-CG character, a practical body with augmented arms, or puppeteers who have simply been painted out.

Warren Hickman: Yeah, that’s a good one! It got to the point where sometimes even Chris and Phil were confused: “Wait, is this puppet, or is this CG?”

Matt Raichel: They really met in the middle. Even when it’s technically the puppet, if Rocky is in his habitat, there may be work happening on the prism in front of him that changes the way he looks. The practical puppet gets a little VFX love, and the full-CG work was matched closely to the practical reference. They knew what he looked like on set, and if the CG looked like that, it was correct.

Warren Hickman: I think people may also be surprised by how much of Grace’s spacesuit was CG. In a lot of scenes, the suit was stripped away because it was uncomfortable for [Ryan Gosling] to wear. It was difficult to move in, and the sets were hot, so we just added it back in CG. In almost all the shots where you see the helmet, at minimum the face mask—the glass visor—is CG. There were some early tunnel scenes where the practical visor was used, but it was hot, uncomfortable, and not ideal for sound. The vendors did a really good job making it seamless and difficult to spot.

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What do you feel is the most misunderstood part of visual effects editing, and how would you correct the record?

Warren Hickman: I think a lot of people assume it is a very technical position—and it can be, but there are a lot of conversations, feedback, creative input, note passing, and translation between departments. It’s also finding the right plates when the editor does not have time to look for them, which is often. We create things that help the filmmakers realize what they want. That is probably what people underestimate about the position. It’s typically under-resourced. It’s usually a struggle to get assistants. But I think that’s changing. A lot of shows rely heavily on VFX editorial now, and it is more valued than it used to be. It’s increasingly treated as a key position, which it can be on productions with 2,000 VFX shots. We have a lot of responsibility.

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When you watched the finished film as an audience member, were you able to turn off all the deliverables, version numbers, and other production details? Was there a particular moment where that happened?

Warren Hickman: I do not watch the full movie very frequently because I’m usually concentrating on individual scenes. I watched it on the dub stage in early January, and that was the moment when I thought, “Oh yeah, this is really coming together. This feels like a movie.” But it was really after we finished the film. A few weeks later, we had a cast-and-crew screening at IMAX, and I thought, “Oh, wow. This has really come together. This is a meaningful film.” I was really proud of it in that moment. You get so close to a film that you can’t see the movie anymore. You’re only seeing the problems you had, the things you wish were better, or the things you wish had more time for. Something may have turned out great, but you remember that it was a struggle. You have a hard time detaching from those things. But after a little time away, you watch it with an audience seeing it for the first time, and it changes your perspective. Before then, there is not much time to feel that way. It’s just push, push, push.

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