Wednesday October 14, 2009
Fear in space
Compiled by MUMTAJ BEGUM
The space thriller Pandorum is set to make you jump from your cinema seats.
While men and women of science continue to probe space to solve its vast mysteries, it’s been space fiction that has given us some fantastic journeys regardless whether it’s horror, comedy or drama. If the recent Star Trek movie is anything to go by, space is still a popular destination for moviegoers. But there lies the rub: there are already so many stories set in space that many new films can’t avoid being compared with previous classics.
For Pandorum, according to producer Paul W.S. Anderson, the intent was to go to where horror awaits on the edge of the universe. Add claustrophobia on the ship and the isolation of deep space to the equation.
Pandorum revolves around two crew members stranded on a spacecraft who realise they are not alone. Worse, after waking up from their deep sleep in the hyper-sleep chamber, they cannot remember anything – not their identity or their mission in space. And something on the ship is hunting them.
Prey: Payton (Dennis Quaid) realises there’s something else trapped in the spacecraft with him in Pandorum. Actor Dennis Quaid was the first one to sign up for Pandorum. In the production notes of the film – provided by Golden Screen Cinemas – Quaid was quoted: “It’s a thriller, but it’s also a universal story. That’s when these movies really work – when you’re telling a fantastic story. Yes, we’re doing things people can’t relate to, but we’re having human experiences that everyone can relate to – that’s what makes it great.”
Meanwhile, Quaid’s co-star Ben Foster has never given space much thought because he says he is not very good at both science and math. But, he was hooked when he read Pandorum’s script. Foster said: “In general, it’s hard for me to get through a script, but with this one I was turning pages, like, ‘What’s going to happen next?’ There are so many great twists, it really kept my attention from beginning to end.”
To create the dark setting of the spacecraft, the crew made their way to Germany where they used a couple of sound stages at Babelsberg and at an abandoned power plant in Berlin.
It was crucial to portray a future that could be believeable for the audience and the characters.
Production designer Richard Bridgland wanted a look that was different from everything that the genre has offered before. He said: “The sets themselves have to tell the story, so they gradually get more and more gothic and horrifying.”
Bower (Ben Foster) takes an involuntary free fall onboard the spacecraft in Pandorum. Foster added: “We’re all affected by environment, emotionally and physically. The sets were designed to provoke a certain experience ... and they were very effective in that department. The working pace we had, the sets and the whole atmosphere of the movie certainly supported a feeling of confusion and anxiety.”
Then there is also the thing that haunts the astronauts. For makeup, the filmmakers got Stan Winston Studio, which has worked on films like Terminator, Aliens, Jurassic Park and Iron Man. Said Lindsay McGowan, the SFX chief makeup for the film: “The biggest challenge is to find something that hasn’t been done yet. But that’s the fun of it. You have to work the story and find the type of creature that fits.”
With so much attention paid to every inch of the film, director Christian Alvart is hoping that this film is only the first chapter of a trilogy.
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