ACHIEVING LIGHT SPEED

GUIDED BY THE EXPERTISE OF SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR DR. MAGGIE ADERIN-POCOCK, AN ALCUBIERRE DRIVE WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THE HEMLOCK… Being able to achieve light speed is a staple of science fiction, and a particular scientific theory allowed for a unique spin on the subject matter. “By the time we got onboard, the Hemlock had already been designed,” explains Deguara. “The technology part of it was quite interesting. We added the Alcubierre drive, which is how the Hemlock jumps to light speed. I had a two-hour meeting with Dr. Maggie Aderin-pocock. The Alcubierre drive is like a giant bubble that encompasses the whole ship. However, sticking a bubble around the Hemlock was not going to look that impressive. We came up with the idea, ‘What if this bubble was a massive undulating ocean?’ She was like, ‘That works.’” In order to sell the scale of the spaceship, the camera moves had to look realistic. “When you’re trying to do something like interstellar travel, the temptation is to move the camera quickly and you lose all sense of magnitude,” notes Roche. A visual point of reference was the classic dolly zoom shot in Jaws. “There is a specific shot where the bubble is used to fight and protect the Hemlock from two Jupiter Cruisers,” says Deguara. “The bubble is creating this negative space in the universe and pushing one spaceship on top of the other.”