DIY IMAX: 5,600 Satellite Photographs x After Effects = Fly By Footage of Saturn

The footage you're about to watch may look CG, and while it is indeed animated, the 5,600 frames used to composite this fly by glimpse of Saturn aren't fabricated—they are real hi-res photographs taken by the Cassini orbiter. Outside In—an "IMAX in a basement"—is a DIY not-for-profit IMAX project-in-progress by filmmaker Stephen Van Vuuren.

The film is being animated from hundreds of thousands of images manipulated with After Effects to create full motion. Below, the first test: "several thousand layers of many Cassini photographs animated to make the fly-through work without any 3D CGI" (the full-frame, full-color video begins at 1:00 in).

*Interestingly, Van Vuuren, a filmmaker, musician, photographer, grew up in the Cooneyite religion, a Protestant sect that strictly forbids all pop culture—including television, music and film.

VIA Kottke