This Sci-fi drama is set on the surface of the MOON, where a lone ‘human’ works out his 3-year contract monitoring a robotic mining plant. The ‘main-frame’ computer named ‘GERTY’ is his only companion until he discovers an injured man who looks suspiciously like himself.

Many scenes in the film showed Sam Bell, the hero character, interacting with a clone of himself whilst the camera moves throughout the shot. Sam Rockwell played each character and in some of the scenes it was important to show a physical interaction between the two characters in order to achieve a believable scenario. These included carrying, pushing, shaking hands, hugging and maintaining the correct eye-lines as each clone moved around the room, as well as complete conversation pieces between the two.

As the ‘Moon-Base’ set was quite small with only a limited working area, ‘SPROG’, our highly portable and lightweight mini motion control system, was the perfect choice for these shots.

‘SPROG’ moves can be programmed in advance via key frames but it also allows for complete manual operation of all axis of movement. This gives the director and the DOP the freedom to follow and record the action as it happens, knowing that when the take is completed, they can precisely repeat that pass again in order to shoot other elements as required.

Stand-ins were used whenever possible, to give the correct eye-lines and reactions to dialogue, but the ability to trigger ’SPROG’ from the original video playback, really helped as each take could then be instantly judged and assessed as to whether the interaction was believable.