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Stéphane Rituit, chief executive of Felix & Paul Studios Inc., a pioneer of immersive filmmaking, reckons his production house is one of the few that kept shooting throughout the pandemic. That’s because Rituit’s “crew” was safely distanced from the virus 400 kilometres from Earth aboard the International Space Station.
As terrestrial movie sets closed, astronauts carried on filming each other with Felix & Paul’s custom equipment, taking direction from the studio’s base in Montreal. The ISS Experience, the result of a two-year collaboration with Time Inc., is scheduled to premiere on Oct. 22.
“Certain folks from the entertainment industry and cultural institutions started coming to us and saying, ‘Hey, it looks like we could learn from you guys, because you are specialists of virtual production because of your production in space,’” said Félix Lajeunesse, who shares the title of creative director with Paul Rapha?l. “It’s creating opportunities for us down on Earth, which is pretty surprising, but interesting and cool.”