Apollo 13

I recently watched the movie Apollo 13.  I seem to find myself watching that film a lot.  It is a fantastic movie and it is expertly crafted.  It is exciting from beginning to end.  The acting is fantastic and the music is incredible.  The film is, in a word, impressive.  The most impressive thing about this film, apart from the story upon which it’s based, is the way it was shot.  A good majority of the film takes place in space.  In space there is no gravity, so the film needed to portray this.  Director Ron Howard had originally planned to use wires to achieve the illusion of weightlessness.  To prepare for their roles the actors rode in a plane that would dip up and down and create about 30 seconds of weightlessness.  Ron Howard then had the idea to build the interior of the spacecraft inside the plane.  The result being that the actors are performing their parts in an actual zero gravity environment.  This meant that the actors had a little over thirty seconds per take.  In order to achieve continuity it was edited to switch between camera angles.  It is not noticeable that the scenes are shot in thirty second snippets, and that is what makes this film so impressive.