‘Taking Earth’: A Sci-fi film with stunning visual effects delivered on a limited budget

“Taking Earth” is a sci-fi movie that tells the tale of an alien invasion and was one of the movies shown at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. In an exclusive interview with International Business Times, Australia - Director Grant Humphreys from South Africa talked about the visual effects and other aspects of his movie.

The main plot of the movie revolves around three alien ships hiding in the clouds and searching for just one person among the 7 billion people on Earth. The aliens take control of a portion of the population to search for that one person. People don’t understand what is happening, as they don’t see the ships, and assume there is some kind of an outbreak.

“It’s an adventure covered in sweet glorious sci-fi syrup, with characters who grab you and don’t let go. Oh and an awesome soundtrack too!” the director teased.

While the movie may not match the level of sophistication of other big Hollywood movies, it is still a visual treat. Considering that the producers were working with a limited budget, they have managed to deliver some stunning scenes.

Small independent movies generally have very few visual effects shots. But, “Taking Earth” initial estimates for visual effects shots were between 500 and 1000. The limited budget meant that all these shots were to be made in house, using the expertise of Humphreys, Executive Producer Grant Knight and Producer Michael Harrison.

“The end result is more than we could have hoped for and the response from the industry has been wonderful, with specific praise given to the visual effects,” Humphreys said.

The limited budget restricted the director on the number of days he could hire a drone. There were also limitations on the number of crew members who could be on the set and how far they could travel.

“With ‘Taking Earth,’ I wanted the camera to live and breathe! There are times for locked off shots and times for movement, movement being harder when it comes to post production and finishing the effects in the film. We took the harder more complex route and the results were amazing, the shots are so exciting and vibrant. We also travelled to beautiful locations in South Africa and shot incredible footage with our actors, using drones to get that big money-shot,” the director said.

Apart from the focus on the Sci-fi visual effects, the movie also has some beautiful landscapes. “From the start, we had the mission to show off our country,” Humphreys said. “We wanted large and epic landscape shots, we wanted our cities to look as impressive as they are, we wanted our film to be colourful and vibrant. To achieve this, we filmed in Johannesburg CBD and decided to not grade it dirty as many films do. We had some amazing driving shots and even got some aerial shots from a chopper that we decided to rent for a day.”

The director said that the response for the “Taking Earth” has been “fantastic.” “The film has been selling very well and we are very excited about the progress it has made so far.” The director could not get to the Western coast of South Africa and to Cape Town, but is considering travelling there for future projects.