I remember stepping onto the set and feeling the air change — electric, worked, not made in a computer. You expect green screens, but instead the Hail Mary sat there, full-scale and stubbornly real. For a few beats my brain stopped correcting for artifice and I forgot I was still on Earth.
I’m telling you this because directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller made a deliberate choice: give actors and cameras real things to touch and react to. You’ll read headlines that say “no green screen,” but the truth lives in the details — set carpentry, puppeteers, on-set lighting and the invisible cleanup that VFX teams perform later.
On set, the Hail Mary ship was built as a complete interior — not a handful of plates for the camera.
That single decision sets the tone. When Greig Fraser’s lighting team lit the set with real practical lamps, the camera could roam freely and find moments that feel spontaneous. Practical light gave actors reactive highlights and shadows that CG often has to fake later.
Did Project Hail Mary use green screen?
Short answer: not in the way you expect. Miller was precise: “There is no green screen in the movie whatsoever.” He later clarified on X (Twitter) that no green screen doesn’t mean no VFX. The production used thousands of VFX shots, but many were cleanup tasks — wire removals, ceiling patches, or digital exteriors — rather than replacing full sets with painted backdrops.
Some clarification here: “no green screen” doesn’t mean “no VFX”.
There were, in fact, thousands of VFX shots in the film (2018!)
Green screen is sometimes used in lieu of building sets or figuring out locations/lighting in advance, which can be noticeable if not done carefully,… pic.twitter.com/m5LWzuhTT7— Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) March 4, 2026
The wide exterior space shots were crafted by ILM, while the alien Rocky emerged from a mix of puppetry and digital work at Framestore. That blend kept the tactile feel on set while delivering the sweep and scale that pure practical methods can’t provide.
On the hull and under the lights, the production favored tactile choices over flat backdrops.
When Ryan Gosling’s character is outside on the ship’s hull, the crew shot him against a black background and shifting hues to simulate planetary aurora — not green. That method gave cinematographers truer interactive light on his face than a green screen would have allowed.
How was Rocky created?
The creation of Rocky began in design long before a script was final. Lord described a process where a physical model was printed, painted and operated to capture expressive motion. Then animators and CG artists refined and extended that performance. The result was neither puppet-only nor purely digital: Rocky was a living marionette and a digital character stitched together with care.
On set, the VFX teams were the finishing shop, not the starting point.
Miller and Lord treated VFX as collaborators who polish and amplify what was shot, not as a crutch to avoid building things. Framestore’s character work and ILM’s space exteriors pushed films to feel vast while preserving the immediate, tactile work that actors could respond to.
Correct! there were thousands of visual effects shots both practical AND cg. Rocky for example is a mixture of both puppetry and amazing work by @arslanelver and team at @framestore and every exterior space shot was made masterfully at @ILMVFX !!!
— Phil Lord (@philiplord) March 4, 2026
On stage, small teams and careful choices created emotional authenticity on camera.
Practical sets give actors physical reference points — surfaces to hold, puppets to react to, real shadows to move through. That makes performances feel earned. The film’s VFX supervisors then choreographed invisible edits: removing wires, extending ceilings, compositing ILM’s majestic exteriors.
How many VFX shots are in Project Hail Mary?
Miller confirmed there are thousands of VFX shots — a number that sounds big because it is. But think of those shots as detailed restorations: many are surgical fixes, some are full environment builds by ILM, and a key portion is character work from Framestore that blended puppetry and animation for Rocky.
ComicBook.com ran the original interview; both directors used X (Twitter) to clarify that their refusal to rely on green screen was a creative choice, not a denial of the critical role modern VFX houses play. You can see how this approach elevated performances and kept the film tactile while still achieving cosmic scale.
Project Hail Mary sails into theaters March 20 — and it’s worth watching to see how practical craft and digital mastery meet on screen. Will audiences prefer the honesty of a physical set over a perfectly painted background, or does the mix matter more than either method alone?