What was it like filming the zero gravity sequences in Ender’s Game?
Gigi Pritzker: Hard, really hard. What the kids did was really amazing. They worked super hard, the wires weren’t comfortable, the suits weren’t comfortable, then they went to school and then they were done with all that. But they had a great time doing it. It was super fun because I think they knew that they were getting to create this world that was going to be kind of mind blowingly different.
Robert Orci: They trained in space camp with astronauts, they did zero g simulators, and they trained with Cirque du Soleil who hung them on wires.
Gigi Pritzker: In funky positions.
Roberto Orci: Yeah. They had to really train and it’s a physical challenge. When we were first starting out we were like, “What are we going to do? Are we going to stick them all underwater?”
Gigi Pritzker: We were looking for a tank!
Roberto Orci: Garrett Warren, the stunt coordinator, had developed some of these rigs for other movies that allowed just incredible acting in the mimicry of zero g environments, and then you get the close-ups of them and then the CGI takes over. It’s really seamless; you can’t tell where they start and the special effects begin. But believe me, those kids are out there floating around and really flying and really hanging from 100 feet of space, so it was amazing to watch.
I keep thinking that when filmmakers shoot zero gravity sequences, they will do it like Ron Howard did in Apollo 13, when he took the actors up in that plane…
Roberto Orci: The Vomit Comet!
Gigi Pritzker: Yeah, we talked about that in the beginning too.
Robert Orci: What we were doing was so complicated. This one had to be so precise. We can take the chance of not having the control of a stage. We couldn’t build that set on a Vomit Comet. It’s this massive thing.
Gigi Pritzker: My favorite one was the scene where the Dragon Army builds the Trojan horse to win the game. When they did that the first time, it was a complete disaster because they got pushed down on the thing and no one could figure out the choreography of it or where to stop. Then they all just kind of stopped.
Robert Orci: They worked hard and they trained.
When Sandra Bullock talked about doing the zero g scenes in Gravity, she said she really had to work on her core muscles to really make those scenes work. I imagine that was the same case for this cast as well.
Gigi Pritzker: Yes, and kids don’t have developed cores. It’s funny you say that because that was exactly one of the things Garrett kept saying, “These guys have to train core much harder.”
Roberto Orci: But by the end they all had six pack abs and it was so irritating (Gigi laughs).
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Roberto and Gigi for their time. Be sure to check out Ender’s Game, in theatres this Friday!
