In the Shadow of the Moon
Winter 2008 Documentary series
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 7:00pm
Acadia Cinema's Al Whittle Theatre
450 Main Street, Wolfville, NS
Directed by David Sington
Starring Harrison Schmitt, Charlie Duke, Edgar Mitchell, Alan Bean, Buzz Aldrin, Mike Collins, Gene Cernan, John Young, Dave Scott, Neil Armstrong, John F. Kennedy, and Jim Lovell
Rated NR ·
1h 40m
United Kingdom / United States
English
Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon, and 12 men walked upon its surface. They remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. In the Shadow of the Moon brings together for the first, and possibly the last, time surviving crew members from every single Apollo mission that flew to the Moon, and allows them to tell their story in their own words.
This riveting first-hand testimony is interwoven with visually stunning archival material which has been re-mastered from the original NASA film footage — much of it never used before. The result is an intimate epic that vividly communicates the daring, the danger, the pride, and the promise of this extraordinary era in history when the whole world literally looked up at America.
The participating astronauts include Jim Lovell (Apollo 8 and 13), Dave Scott (Apollo 9 and 15), John Young (Apollo 10 and 16), Gene Cernan (Apollo 10 and 17), Mike Collins (Apollo 11), Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Alan Bean (Apollo 12), Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), Charlie Duke (Apollo 16) and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17). Beautifully shot by Clive North in High Definition video, the astronauts talk directly to camera. They emerge as surprisingly eloquent, witty, emotional and very human.
The producers Duncan Copp and Chris Riley spent many weeks in the NASA film library examining cans of film some of which had not been opened for over 30 years. This search uncovered many gems, astonishing space shots which have been remastered from the original film rolls to reveal the Apollo program with a visual clarity and impact it has never had before. The mute 16mm rolls shot in Mission Control have been laboriously lip-synced with the 16-track audio recordings of the mission controllers’ voice loop to reunite the pictures and sound of many historic moments for the first time, lending a striking immediacy to many dramatic scenes.
Editor David Fairhead and director David Sington have woven this material together with a beautiful orchestral score from composer Philip Sheppard to create a moving, nostalgic and inspiring cinematic experience.