how do they make those zero gravity scenes in movies?

Question

like when there is a space flight or something and you see the actors all floating around? I know that one way to do this is to get into really high altitude and then let the plane free fall for a while but that wouldnt get you much time to film. are there any other ways?

Answer 1

When the first film making made movies with people and objects flying, the used thin cables to suspend the object and move it across the scene.
The next phase of making people and objects appear to be flying, the used what the call a green screen behind the person or object, and after shooting the film the area where the green screen was does not show up, at this point they add in the scenes to where the people and objects are flying past buildings clouds and anything else they wanted to put in it.
Some on the movies like Apollo 13, the Sean's where the Astronauts were floating around in the space craft was shot on what they call the vomit comet, the vomit comet is a large jet plain that is open through the center, no stats only padding on the walls.
The plain fly in a path almost like the Rowling waves on the ocean, as the plain drops the people inside appear to float, because the plain is failing and every one inside is falling at the same speed, that is how the shots of the Astronauts in Apollo 13 was filmed.
If you ever get the chance to go up in a Small plain, have the pilot show you what a negative G dive is, and while you are in the negative dive, take a pencil and hold it in front of you, and turn it loose, it will stay floating in front of you, until the pilot stops the negative G dive, I just hope your stomach can take it, that is why the call the plain NASA uses the vomit comet.

Answer 2

They did use the NASA zero G airplane to make the weightless scenes in Apollo 13. They just edited together many 30 second sequences to make the weightless scenes.

All other movies use thin wires to suspend people in the scene.

Answer 3

They might do it with wires, but probably most of it is done by computer. They make the actors do in land as if they were floating and then by post production with the computers they make them do what they want.

Answer 4

Wires and greenscreen are used most commonly. For "Apollo 13" they used an actual plane that NASA uses to simulate a zero g environment.

Answer 5

For "Apollo 13", they actually did use the NASA "vomit comet" airplane that flies on a parabolic trajectory. There's no other way to achieve weightlessness for more than a second or two (think rolloercoasters) without going into orbit.

Answer 6

hey, how about green screens... green screens have the ability to project any image onto them (as long as the actor isnt wearing green. they could project images of the sky and it could look like they are falling through the air.

Answer 7

They use wires and harnesses which are then edited out in post production.

Answer 8

they manage it with some sort of transparent ropes i believe
but still they can do it with some computer programs