The new trailer for Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is less like a traditional trailer and more like a single clip from the film. Scratch that, it’s actually just a single shot from the film.
Warner Bros.’ new teaser is a single scene that unfolds in one take with George Clooney and Sandra Bullock working in space. At the beginning of the two-minute shot, everything is going fine, but then things go wrong as debris comes hurling at them.
Suddenly, Bullock is spinning out of control and then the structure that links her to the spaceship breaks. We hear Clooney frantically trying to help her, telling her to unclip her belt from the structure. Bullock is able to do that, but the shot ends with her spinning in space.
This is the scene that was screened during the Warner Bros. panel at Comic-Con. According to Entertainment Weekly, the crowd was easily impressed by Cuaron’s ability to show this happening in one shot, even with all the digital objects in the scene. There are no cuts.
Bullock and Cuaron were in attendance and discussed the making of the shot. The filmmakers had Bullock suspended in a box for hours, using a robot invented just for the film to shoot the scene.
Gravity, which is Cuaron’s first film since 2006’s acclaimed Children of Men, hits theaters on Oct. 4. Cuaron also helmed one of the most acclaimed Harry Potter films, The Prisoner of Azkaban.
image: YouTube