Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey
Visual effects supervisor Dan Glass brings Terrence
Malick’s epic documentary to life.
by Trevor Hogg
In films as wide ranging as Days of Heaven, The New World, and To the Wonder, director
Terrence Malick has always treated nature as a
character. However, with Voyage of Time: Life’s
Journey, Malick’s fascination with nature finally
takes center stage, as he explores the origins of
life — from the Big Bang to the urban sprawl of
the present day. The imagery for the documentary stems from a series of practical and digital
experiments conducted for a segment of 2011’s
The Tree of Life. Voyage of Time will be released in
both a 45-minute IMAX version narrated by Brad
Pitt and a 90-minute presentation voiced by Cate
Blanchett.
“My first working relationship with Terrence
Malick goes that far back,” says visual effects supervisor Dan Glass (Batman Begins, Cloud Atlas)
who has worked on the visuals for Voyage of Time,
without the aid of a script, over the past 10 years.
“Fortunately, the timeline of our universe gave
us a base structure to align with and guide the
content. Selecting which moments to focus on,
since not all could obviously be covered, was def-
initely a challenge. It was something that we let
evolve naturally, experimenting first with stock
and temporary placeholder imagery.”
The project’s research and development
team, dubbed “Skunkworks,” was able to take ad-
vantage of the scientific advances made over the
past decade. Glass comments, “The ability to ma-
nipulate highly complex digital work toward cre-
ative ends continues to become more and more
accessible as computing power increases and
overall experience with the medium develops.
What was particularly beneficial to the project
were the advances that the scientific researchers
have been making lately with their simulations,
moving from more schematic representations to
