Jason Piccioni, vfx supervisor for The Astronaut Farmer, faced the challenge of creating a third act in space for a film with a total budget of $10 million. All images © 2007 Warner Bros. 

The Astronaut Farmer (opening Feb. 23 from Warner Bros. Pictures) may be a small-budget film, but its story of an ex-space jockey who builds a rocket in his garage so he can fulfill his dream of going into outer space has some significant vfx requirements.

Directed by Michael Polish from a script he wrote with his twin brother Mark, the film stars Billy Bob Thornton as Charlie Farmer, a one-time space program candidate who bowed out of the program for personal reasons but refuses to give up on space travel. Farmer builds a rocket in the barn of his Texas ranch and is nearly ready to launch it and himself into orbit, when his attempts to buy 10,000 pounds of rocket fuel turns the attention of the federal government and the media on his farm and family. With the ranch on the verge of bankruptcy and the government threatening to stop his flight, Farmer is forced to go ahead with the launch or risk losing his dream.

Though the family film was small, it had one distinct challenge for the visual effects crew, which was supervised by Jason Piccioni. “We took a look at it and immediately realized we had a $10 million movie where the third act takes place in space,” he says.

Originally 100-125 effects shots were planned, but the total rose to nearly 200, as the crew was given permission for more enhancements such as adding a reflection to the shield of Thornton’s helmet.

With a modest budget, good preparation was key. Piccioni says they obtained real space footage from NASA’s Mercury era, which roughly parallels the technology Farmer uses in the film, and edited it into a reel that followed the storyboards as closely as possible. That allowed director Polish to shape the sequence before any effects were done or footage was shot of Thornton in the space capsule.

“The brothers were very, very collaborative in everything that they wanted to do,” Piccioni insists.

Most of the effects work pertains to the two rocket launch sequences and Farmer’s space journey. At first, Farmer launches the rocket before it’s truly ready. It gets off the ground, but quickly tips over and flies out of control over the landscape. The crash leaves Farmer battered and bruised, both physically and emotionally.

Piccioni says the sequence went through a good deal of direction from the Polish brothers, who originally had intended it to be funny, floating ideas such as the ship leaving a rocket-shaped hole in a house like in old cartoons.

“We had to monkey around with it to get some shots that looked visually pleasing,” Piccioni explains. “We wanted to illustrate the danger and bang him around a little bit. We had trouble believing he wasn’t getting killed. That actually took a little bit of effort.”