Zero Days (Film)
Directing the camera inside Stuxnet.
Custom software and fabricated camera hardware let us block and revise three-dimensional moves through the film’s representations of Stuxnet.
Watch the trailer ↗- Period
- 2016
- Status
- Complete / Archived
- Form
- Feature documentary / visual-effects system
The project
Zero Days is Alex Gibney’s feature documentary about Stuxnet, the first known cyberweapon built to cause physical destruction, and the clandestine US-Israeli operation that sent it into Iran’s nuclear program.
Alex Gibney and I sat side by side in a marathon session, building three-dimensional camera movements inside custom software. We blocked a move, watched it against the interview, then revised it inside the tool.
We brought the system onto the set and used it alongside the filmed interviews. After the film, I proposed an immersive adaptation, and Alex gave us the rights to make Zero Days VR.
What others saw
Process study
Blocking the Invisible
For Zero Days, cyberwarfare had no ordinary camera position. Custom software and fabricated hardware turned code, depth data, and three-dimensional graphics into material Alex Gibney and I could frame together.
featurette frame
Alexander Porter designed and operated the custom system and developed its three-dimensional camera moves with director Alex Gibney. The film’s broader visual-effects language was collaborative, including Framestore and technical consultation documented in the production record.
- 01 / Starting point
We had to give an invisible cyberweapon a camera position.
- 02 / How it worked
I sat beside Alex Gibney during a marathon virtual-cinematography session. We built and revised the 3D camera moves directly in custom software. I later brought the system onto the interview set and guided its use there. The resulting visual language joined that footage to Framestore's work and research into the real Stuxnet code.
- 03 / What it opened
The camera could now move through code as documentary material. The anonymous source occupied a spatial image, and this production supplied the visual foundation later extended in Zero Days VR.
My role
I designed and operated custom software and camera hardware, developed the three-dimensional moves with Alex Gibney, and guided the production’s use of the system on set. The work was recognized with Marc Smith and Nick Gibney in Cinema Eye Honors’ 2017 nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation.
Selected credits
- Alex Gibney
- Director
- Alexander Porter
- Visual Effects Artist (in collaboration with Framestore)
- Marc Smith
- Graphic Design / Animation
- Nick Gibney
- Graphic Design / Animation