10 Amazing Movie Practical Effects And How They Did It

Based on the true story of the near disastrous Apollo 13 moon mission, this film is a thrilling exploration into the ingenuity and courage of NASA astronauts. Being set primarily on a spacecraft heading towards the Moon, director Ron Howard had to devise a method to make his actors appear to be in zero gravity, finding that harnesses typically used produced an unrealistic end product.

So how did he do it? Well it turns out he actually did shoot it in zero gravity.

NASA has training missions for its' astronauts in which a plane flies up and down in a parabolic arc, giving up to 23 seconds of real weightlessness. Keen to have their heroes story be told, NASA actually agreed to let them shoot the zero gravity scenes inside these planes.

So whenever you see Tom Hanks or Kevin Bacon appear to be floating in zero gravity, they actually were.