Being an astronaut is very possibly the coolest job on the planet. To convey this we wanted to move away from their sometimes nerdy image and characterise them with an almost mythical quality, using playful rock n roll iconography. Musically accompanied by the space rock majesty of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine” from launchpad lift-off, we slowly pull out to reveal the rocket is being ridden like a Harley by a giant astronaut. The size of a god. As he breaks through the sound barrier, our astronaut nonchalantly sits back astride the rocket and prepares for the infinite possibilities of outer space.

The production company assembled a 20 strong CG and Nuke team to create the space effects in the Channel 4 Space Season promo. We started with previs to work out how the giant astronaut could be best posed on the rocket and to map out his stellar journey. A highly detailed suit and helmet was created using NASA spacesuits for reference, and we built his rocket using Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft for inspiration. Extra features were added to the rocket to give the spaceman hand holds, and to reinforce his giant scale. We created fire and smoke effects for the boosters in Houdini, as well as the sonic boom that envelops our spaceman as he breaks the sound barrier. Of course our astronaut needed a space environment to blast into, and we created this too, complete with a CG Earth and Sun. The project was taken from look development to delivery in just four weeks. “We spent a lot of time making sure everything looked good...but the real challenge was making the shots work together creatively – working out how to sell the pace of the edit, using both stock footage and fully CG shots, and how to get the colour palette to feel right throughout so it felt like it was all from the same sequence.”