Shooting the stars: Brisbane creative lands Hollywood credit
A Brisbane-based creative has seen his award-winning work featured in a new Hollywood film starring Ryan Gosling.
It all started in late August 2025 when a Los Angeles-based production company reached out to astrophotographer Rod Prazeres over Instagram with an unexpected opportunity.
The company asked Prazeres if he was interested in licensing some of his work for a sequence in a sci-fi film they were working on.
“That message instantly had me excited and sceptical at the same time. A production company in Los Angeles, working on a science fiction film, asking to licence my astrophotography. It felt unreal,” Prazeres said.
Prazeres first began exploring astrophotography in July 2023, when a small telescope used in his backyard kickstarted a fascination with distant nebulae, galaxies and supernova remnants.
“Since then, it has become a real passion that blends technical precision with artistic expression.”
Using a motorised mount that moves in sync with Earth’s rotation, Prazeres tracks the sky through hundreds of long exposures captured across multiple nights.
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Special camera filters allow Prazeres to isolate specific wavelengths of light emitted by the gas in the nebulae to reveal structures that are otherwise too faint to record cleanly.
Now, Prazeres’ astrophotography has been licensed for Project Hail Mary, and a selection of his images will appear in the end credits.
Project Hail Mary is a new film starring Ryan Gosling, based on the novel by Andy Weir, which follows a former biologist turned school teacher who wakes up aboard a spacecraft and suffering amnesia.
After being put in touch with Amazon MGM studios in December, Prazeres kept the project a secret for months as the creative direction of his contribution to the film shifted and evolved.
In the end, Prazeres was given the opportunity to work directly with the studio production team on imagery for the end credits.
“I never expected my images to be considered for a feature film, and I definitely didn’t realise at first what scale of production this was,” Prazeres added.
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While Prazeres didn’t work directly with the producers themselves, their team was responsible for reviewing his work.
“At one point they even asked how I capture these images, which was one of those moments that made it feel very real, very fast.”
Prazeres added how impressed he was that the team was looking to source real astrophotography rather than a digital reproduction for the film.
“In a world where CGI and AI are everywhere, it meant a lot to know they were genuinely excited to use real astronomical data and real structures from the night sky, rather than generating something from scratch.”
Prazeres took his whole family along to a screening of the film to celebrate seeing his work on the big screen for the first time.
“I was honestly blown away by how well the detail held up. It made all the late nights, missed sleep, and effort behind the hobby feel very real in that moment,” he said.
“When the images first appeared, my wife got very excited, there were hugs all around, and one of my kids was hiding in embarrassment at how loudly supportive we were being. It was a really lovely family moment.”
Prazeres’ Carina Nebula image has been shortlisted in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year and been exhibited at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London.
He has also sent his astrophotography rig to a remote observatory in Victoria where skies darker than Brisbane allow him to capture cleaner and more high-quality images.
“I’m grateful that a big production still values real artistry from an independent astrophotographer on the other side of the world. I’m grateful to know my kids will get to see it and remember it as one of those “Dad did something crazy” proud moments.”
Project Hail Mary is scheduled to release in Australian cinemas on Thursday March 19.
Find more of Rod Prazeres’ work on his website and Instagram.
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