In an interview with recursor.tv, Sowerby detailed how the film came about: "One thing that inspired me initially was 'The Overview Effect,' which is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often whiile viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface. From space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this 'pale blue dot' becomes both obvious and imperative."
It's his feeling that this concept is so poetic, beautiful and life-changing, that he wanted to find a means of exploring it. "I started with a simple idea of an astronaut sending messages back to Earth, where it seems at first the messages are to a person, but it's revealed they are to all of humanity," he says. "As I worked on the script with two writers, Uriel Emil and Rachael Halliwell, we moved away from this initial idea and added more of a narrative, building in conflict and tension. We ended up, I hope, with a film that carries a lot of drama, but maintains some lyrical notions of space exploration."
What's interesting about the making of the film is that although it would seem to be filled with visual effects, all of the space footage actually came from NASA. The only shot that is via visual effects is of a jump to hyperspace, which was an homage to the effect in Star Wars. Stated Sowerby, "I created it in After Effects using a video clip taken in the International Space Station. I was lucky with how much great NASA footage there is available, so I didn't have to get any extra VFX done."
Check out The Jump and let us know what you thnk of it.
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