Idea 1 

• 2 shot comparison of a CGI cinematic meteor strike and a composited realistic meteor strike. 
• Find plates online to use for the background or go to the top of Ditchling beacon or Devils Dyke and shoot footage myself. 
• Tone down the idea!  
• One shot focus and incorporate both cinematic and realism into the shot, but still show the differences. 
• A shot from outer space using CG, not shot footage! 
• ¼ Earth in frame and a meteor strikes. The clouds part ways. Cloud and destruction simulation. 

Idea 2 

• Still one prime shot. 
• Perspective from the moon surface rather than a satellite perspective.  
• Have audio over the top to add cinematic effect, intercoms of NASA astronauts and sound of the meteor impact. 
• Still keep cloud and destruction simulation, but in addition I will have another dust effect of the moons surface being hit by the shock wave. Camera shake to be added to the shot as well as camera dirt. 
• Shots: Moon shot – ISS shot – Moon shot. 

The Meteor: 

• It has a mass of 14,000,000 tons 
• The composition of materials are Iron nickel, Sulphide and Carbide. 
• It has a diameter of 225km at its two furthest points.  
• I have used reference of the meteorite called 624 Hektor. 

Scientific facts: 

Diameter of Earth – 12,742 km 
Distance of ISS from Earth – 408 km 
Earths distance from the Moon – 384,400 km 
Earths distance from the Sun – 148.23 million km 
Speed of light – 300,000 km/s 
Time for light to travel from Earth to the Moon – 1.3 seconds
The speed of sound is 12,234 km/h. 
Mach 5 is 6,100 km/h. 

The meteorite that destroyed all dinosaur and 75% of all life on Earth was moving at 20 km a second which is 750 miles per minute. This means it was travelling at 45,000 mph. 

The injection of energy the meteor will have on impact is 1, 121, 728, 888, 907, 948 megajoules. That is equivalent to 1.4 giganewtons of force. The concussion wave will be hypersonic, this means that that it is 5 x the speed of sound!!!  

The speed of sound is 12,234 km/h. 

Mach 5 is 6,100 km/h. 

The distance the meteor will start from the surface of the Earth is 833 km. 

With the speed it is travelling it will take 8 seconds from the start of the shot from the ISS to impact. 

The reality is that a concussion wave for the energy on impact would take 30 – 40 minutes to cover every inch of the Earth. For something that is appropriate for a cinematic experience, the velocity of the meteorite will be 375,000 km/h / 104 km/s. 

833/104 = 8 seconds 

10 times the speed of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs!! 

Then angle of impact is 60 degrees. This is the most devastating angle of a meteor hit. 

The scene is no longer than 35 seconds. It is two shorts with two cutaways.  

For my final shots I will use a 50mm lens for the astronaut POV and a 24mm lens for the ISS as this is what they use. 

Assets: 

The ISS

It’s the only asset I don’t have yet as I’m still scouting a reasonably priced one with good textures. This is one I’m looking into.

Earth texture in Houdini

Moon texture in Houdini

Astronaut character rig 

I think that all the assets are working well and are suitable for the task. 

Backdrop

This is a Matte painting that I have drawn myself using ProCreate. 

It will be the main backdrop for the primary shot and I am going to have some of the stars twinkle in the background later down the line. 

I intend to do this using Nuke.