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Ink in Water, or a Star Going Supernova?

Filmmaker Thomas Vanz shoots the most epic of cosmic events inside an aquarium.

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Earlier this year NASA revealed that for the first time they had captured, via the Kepler space telescope, the early exploding flash of a star as it goes supernova. In his short film, Novae, French filmmakerThomas Vanz reveals his own interpretation of the death of a star as it explodes, shining as bright as billions of suns, implodes, and eventually turns into a black hole.

Instead of creating it using CGI, though, he's taken a more practical-effects approach: an aquarium filled with water and ink. "While considering water as space and ink as gas, we dropped substances for months to catch the essence of fluid animation in our camera," Vanz says, explaining that it's his "attempt to represent the giant with the small" while using only natural shapes.

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After studying the patterns of exploding stars, including NASA's supernova animation from earlier this year, along with the appearance of nebula and how ink flows in water, Vanz and his team dropped different colored liquids into a lit tank and began filming them.

Once he had his cloudy interactions and movements, he then cut them up and re-edited their formations in post-production. To create the stars, Vanz splattered black ink on a napkin and inverted the colors, while the burning surface of the star itself was created from filming the embers of burning paper.

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"As a tribute to Kubrick or Nolan's filmography, Novae is a cosmic poem that want[s] to introduce the viewer to the nebulae's infinite beauty," Vanz notes.

Check out the film below. You can find out more about how it was made in two making of videos here and here.

You can see more of Thomas Vanz's work on his website here.

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