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Solus

Written by: Jonathan Brooks, Andrew McGee |   Directed by: Jonathan Brooks |  Genre: Sci-Fi

 Solus is a great idea to create a film and brilliantly executed. Great idea, you ask? Yes, a really great one. Writers Jonathan Brooks and Andrew McGee decided to try something unique and create a film using public NASA footage only and entirely. I’m not talking about the “talking heads” interviews on a documentary using stock footage… I’m talking about an actual short film. A scripted science fiction film. The results are pretty darn amazing if you ask me.

 Essentially, Solus follows along with a single astronaut aboard the International Space Station who has lost contact with Earth. As he goes about his days wondering what the heck happened, keeping himself occupied while at the same time running the station and trying to figure things out, strange things begin to happen. An unusual sound oddly resembling music and little happenings here and there. It’s when he decides to attempt to return home and goes to work on the rockets that Solus hits its peak… and I don’t want to spoil it for you. However, with a length of just over ten minutes, there’s no reason you can’t watch for yourself when you get the chance.

 This film is made entirely of public NASA footage, and to create an actual story out of pre-existing footage is an awesome idea. No doubt pretty tough to source and piece together as well. With that said, the film itself looks amazing… and why wouldn’t it? The footage was amazing to start with. But putting it all together to create a fictional story must have been hard. But it all worked out very well in the end. Solus is not action-packed but rather thoughtful, and for me? It did continue to increase my heart rate as I expected something to happen. All in all, for what it is… it’s pretty great.

 This is science fiction at its best, but more to the point, this is creativity at its best. Maybe the story isn’t all that fresh, but it’s the presentation that counts. In this case, it was all about making NASA stock footage feel like it was created specifically for this film. Solus succeeds, and I highly recommend it. 4.5/5 stars.

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