CONSULTANT EXPERTS

In 2015, Violadé traveled to the US to visit the NASA Johnson Space Center, the Ad Astra Rocket Company (both in Houston, Texas) and leading aerospace company SpaceX (in Los Angeles, California). During his time in the States, he was able to interview aerospace, nuclear, mechanical and telecommunication engineers, scientists and astronauts. He was also given the opportunity to see first-hand the inside and outside of rockets, how space shuttles work, what kinds of circuits and technology is used and more. He took a large number of photos that have proved to be extremely useful to the art team and have also helped to make the script highly realistic.

Numerous highly-respected experts in the various fields that feature in the film also collaborated in the scriptwriting process. These fields include psychology (Violadé consulted specialists in the branch of aerospace psychology and studied NASA’s NEEMO and the Russian Academy of Sciences’ MARS 500 missions), astrobiology and physics (for the character of Cristina and her laboratory, but also for aspects such as artificial gravity, the Coriolis force and solar storms), medicine… And, of course, astronauts: special mention should be made of the involvement and generosity of Spanish astronauts Eduardo Lurueña and former Minister for Science, Pedro Duque.

At the same time as he strengthened the story’s accuracy and authenticity, Violadé also improved the script thanks to input from different areas. He was invited to the Sundance Institute (2013) and selected for both the Oaxaca Screenwriters Lab (2014) and Sources 2 Script Check (run by Media in collaboration with Europa Creativa Andalucia, 2015). He was also advised by prestigious scriptwriters such as Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate), Lawrence Konner (The Sopranos) and benefited from script doctoring by Zachary Sklar (Oscar-nominated for JFK).

In addition, important institutional support is obtained that reinforces the solidity of the project and its international dimension. We are talking about companies and institutions as important as the City Council of Seville, Andalucía Emprende, the Secretariat for Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship, the Andalucía Aerospace Cluster, SolarMems or Intergrasys.