MPC's Work on 'The Martian' Impresses In This VFX Breakdown

Big movies mean big budgets, which usually mean big visual effects. The Moving Picture Company (better known as MPC) recently released another one of those mesmerizing VFX breakdown videos for their most recent feature film, “The Martian.” The breakdown reveals some aspects of the film and of Matt Damon's performance that were both challenging and impressive, like the fact that the helmets worn in the film didn't feature physical windscreens. Those were added later with matching reflections to the scenery.

While some shooting was done on location in Jordan's Wadi Rum, quite a bit of CGI was still necessary to create a believable environment on some of the sets built on one of the largest sound stages in the world in Budapest. Furthermore, NASA's involvement further led to more realism in the most recent Mars-based Hollywood story, even if the storm that led to Damon's character's predicament was grossly exaggerated.

Between the real foreground scenes with layers of mountain ranges dropping into the background to a detailed breakdown of the detail that went into the helmet visor reflections to accurately depict the back side of the action in the frame, there's plenty to enjoy in this short, four-minute feature into the latest VFX.