Jump to content

Apollo 11- Documentary Film 2019


Recommended Posts

Anyone see this film? I have tickets to go to the IMAX on Monday to check this out. I'm a big space fan and have followed NASA for years. I have heard there were 70mm films that were made at the time, but no one ever saw any of it. Looks like they dug them out and put them to good use. Apparently NASA was planning on releasing a film of Apollo 11 at the time, but it never went anywhere and the project was shelved. They used the same 65mm cameras that were used on Lawrence of Arabia and Cleopatra from what I read. So today they took scans off the 65mm negatives and also used newly sourced audio from 8 days worth of tapes for this film. I wish I could see this in 70mm, but IMAX digital will have to do. I expect it to look great, but not sure how much of the film will be shown after the launch. I don't imagine they took 65mm cameras on the mission, due to size and weight. Any comments?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, some 65mm. BTS was commissioned by NASA

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/12/apollo-11-50th-year-anniversary

not to be confused with "Moonwalk One", which was released, in 1971, in 35mm.

Only 16mm. cine was shot on the flight. There is also a lot of material shot at high speed on the launchpad for engineering purposes- I believe some of this is in large format.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My son and I saw it yesterday in IMAX digital. As much as I hate how IMAX has diluted their brand, I must say, it looked very good.

 

The recently rediscovered 65MM footage looks amazing. It seems to be mostly used in the prep, launch and recovery footage. Truly beautiful. The score and sound design and editing really elevate this above your average documentary using archive footage. I highly recommend seeing it n the cinema.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched this movie yesterday and am going again tomorrow. Its a very well done movie. Suspenseful considering we all know the outcomes. Synth music was excellent. Yes I'd say they used the 65mm material for about 30% of the film. The rest was either tv footage or 16mm. The 65mm photography was very good, but I did notice the indoor 65mm material was rather dark and the faces were quite red in color, or even darker then that. I'm surprised they didn't fix this in post. You can tell the coloring has faded somewhat, as the indoor color temp was a little off. The outdoor material was fine. I wish I could see this in 4K, as even in IMAX I could see the pixels on the screen. Screen door effect. Jagged edges. Its a shame they wont release this film in UHD Blu Ray. They only have it slated for standard blu ray release in May. Im still getting it though. I wonder what material we'll see in the news come July this year?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Great film. The trips between the moon and earth was thriller, even though I knew the outcome. I watched it in digital projection during its opening weekend. I just checked and found out that it is screening at an Air and Space museum near me. I'm excited to see it projected on 70mm film!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
7 hours ago, Robin Phillips said:

does anyone know what restoration tools were used on the 16mm portions? it looked way too sharp to not have been majorly cleaned up

I don't know about tools, but 16mm. can look extraordinary in a scan from the camera original. The point about these new documentaries is getting access to the originals, which were probably only ever used to make printing intermediates and then archived. We've only ever seen dupes made from the intermediates, and probably several generations away from the originals to boot. Short of projecting the camera original, which I'm sure was never done, no-one  ever saw 16mm. at the quality which can now be achieved from scans. As a fan of film, I hate to say it, but for archive, scanning is just better than printing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Brian Drysdale said:

A friend edits Dr Who and he said that the quality on the 16mm inserts, after being scanned today, are impressive compared to the telecine on the original versions broadcast back in the day.

I'm a bit surprised the BBC still has them, considering they don't have a lot of the early 2"- there were a bunch of "Goodies" sketches complete with sepmag on ebay a few years ago. Perhaps someone gave a hoot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

These could be post 2" Quad VTR days. I suspect the film was stored separately to the tape, since the BBC film unit was in a separate location to VT, which was part of engineering  department.  The latter would be responsible for the recycling of video tape.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Robin Phillips said:

does anyone know what restoration tools were used on the 16mm portions? it looked way too sharp to not have been majorly cleaned up

The photography really does stand up. However, I did find the film overall look a bit dated from a production design POV, also its very unbalanced in its gender representation, they should have cast the net a bit wider, I'd have made the "Buzz" character female. 

But the biggest problem is how ridiculous the whole thing is. As, if an entire country can come together in that way behind a scientific ideal. Governments can't even fix things like homelessness, hunger or healthcare - so a space programme, not credible, even if its a fun idea

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...