In The Shadow Of The Moon

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON [2007 / 2009] [Blu-ray] [UK Release]
When the Moon Was a Matter of Pride!

Between 1968 and 1972, the world watched in awe each time an American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon. Only 12 men walked upon its surface and they remain the only human beings to have stood on another world.

‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON’ brings together for the first, and very possibly the last time, surviving crew members from every single Apollo mission which flew to the Moon, and allows them to tell their story in their own words. Beautifully shot, this riveting first-hand testimony is interwoven with visually stunning archive material which has been re-mastered from the original NASA film footage – much of it never used before.

FILM FACT: Awards and Nominations: 2007 Boulder International Film Festival: Win: Grand Prize for David Sington. 2007 British Independent Film Awards: Nominated: Best British Documentary. 2007 Florida Film Festival: Win: Audience Award for International Competition. 2007 Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards: Win: Best Documentary. 2007 National Board of Review, USA: Win: Top Five Documentaries. 2007 St. Louis Film Critics Association, USA: Nominated: Best Documentary Film. 2007 Sundance Film Festival: Win: Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary for David Sington. Nominated: Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Documentary for David Sington. 2008 AARP Movies for Grownups Awards: Win: Best Documentary. 2008 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards: Nominated: Best Documentary. 2008 Central Ohio Film Critics Association: Nominated: Best Documentary. 2008 Cinema Eye Honors Awards, USA: Nominated: Cinema Eye Audience Choice Prize for David Sington. 2008 Houston Film Critics Society Awards: Nominated: Best Documentary Feature. 2008 International Film Music Critics Award: Nominated: Best Original Score for a Documentary Film for Philip Sheppard.  

Cast: Buzz Aldrin, Neil A. Armstrong (archive footage), Stephen Armstrong (archive footage), Viola Armstrong (archive footage), Alan Bean, Eugene Cernan, Michael Collins, Charles Duke, John F. Kennedy (archive footage), Jim Lovell, Edgar D. Mitchell, Garry Moore (archive footage), Harrison Schmitt, Dave Scott, John Young, Walter Cronkite (archive footage) (uncredited), Lyndon Johnson (archive footage) (uncredited), Harry Kramer (CBS Announcer) (archive sound) (uncredited), Queen Elizabeth II (archive footage) (uncredited) and Sam Rayburn (archive footage) (uncredited)                    

Director: David Sington and Christopher Riley

Producers: Andrea Meditch, Christopher Riley, David McNab, Duncan Copp, Gareth Cadwallader, Hamish Mykura, Jane Root, Jeff Hasler, John Battsek, Jonathan Scherer, Julie Goldman, Louisa Bolch, Nancy Neville, Pamela Neville-Sington, Richard Dale, Richard Life, Ron Howard, Sarah Kinsella, Simon Andreae and W. Clark Bunting

Composer: Philip Sheppard

Cinematography: Clive North (Director of Photography)

Image Resolution: 1080p and 480i

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 and 1.37:1

Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio

Subtitles: English

Running Time: 99 minutes

Region: Region B/2

Number of discs: 1

Studio: FILM4 / DOX Productions / Passion Pictures / Discovery Films

Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON’ [2007] is the retelling of the Apollo space programme that aims rather high in compressing the whole epic moon-launch mission into feature length film, covering everything from how the space programme fit into the political climate of the time to the disasters of the 1967 launch-pad fire and the near-disasters of the Apollo 13 mission. This is a stirring documentary about the experiences of the ten astronauts from every single Apollo missions that flew to the Moon.

Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft journeyed to the moon, and 12 men walked upon its surface. The men on board were the only humans to have visited another world. In their own words, this is the story of the men who went to the Moon. Their comments are accompanied by archival material re-mastered from the original NASA film footage over an orchestral score by composer Philip Sheppard.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the Soviet Union and the United States were racing to put a man into space. On 12th April, 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. Less than a month later, Alan Shepard became the first American to go into space and his flight lasted just 15 minutes. 20 days later, on 25th May, 1961 newly elected President John F. Kennedy spoke to congress.

Two sides of the space programme emerged here. One is the awe of achievement for all humankind that seemed to transcend the turbulent times. The other shows the fine line between the "Right Stuff" idea and that of "an unshakable belief in your own infallibility" and the overconfidence that led to a devastating 1967 fire on the launch pad that killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee in a sealed cockpit inferno.

The new astronauts were closely involved in building the Apollo spacecraft they would eventually fly in. By January 1967, NASA was conducting a series of simulated countdowns to prepare the first Apollo spacecraft for launch. In December 1968, the giant Saturn V moon rocket was ready to carry a crew for the first time. The Apollo 8 crew would be the first to leave Earth for deep space. Their mission was to orbit the Moon, but not to land on the Moon. After two further test flights, NASA felt ready to attempt the first landing on the Moon. On the 15th July, 1969 they launched from Cape Canaveral and it took them three days to journey from Earth to the Moon.

After Apollo 11, there would be six more attempts to land on the Moon. But one failed to make it, which of course was Apollo 13 and of course in Mission Control, the other astronauts had to work out how to manoeuvre the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft. But another five Apollo spacecraft missions did land on the Moon successfully.

‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON’ proudly boasts no digital trickery in its stock footage, and what you see is what they uncovered after cracking open the archive film stock. To this end, the film is a mixture of high-definition current day interview video and carefully transferred film of all stocks and varieties and a concoction of rare reels of sometimes never-before-seen footage from NASA and other sources.

The breath-taking images that the astronauts took of our vulnerable little Earth are popularly supposed to have kicked off the ecological movement. There's an argument that our non-colonisation of the moon is a good thing: like the Arctic and Antarctic landmasses, it is a stunning wilderness, and we should leave well alone.

Around the story of Apollo 11 the documentary spins a sketchy history of the NASA space program, beginning with its cold war origins. It includes President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1961 speech to Congress declaring his goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade and bringing him safely back to earth. It recalls how the Apollo programme nearly ended in January 1967 when a flash fire erupted on Apollo 1 while it was on the launch pad during a simulated countdown, killing three astronauts.

When a manned mission finally left Earth’s orbit in December 1968 and circled the moon, President John F. Kennedy’s goal suddenly seemed attainable. Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 took men close to the moon’s surface, and on July 20, 1969, the dream was finally realized. As a sort of creepy footnote, we get to view an excerpt from a sad television speech prepared for disgraced President Richard Nixon to deliver should the Apollo 11 Lunar Module failed to lift off from the Moon.

Threaded through the film are fragments of taped interviews with eight other Apollo astronauts: Alan Bean, Gene Cernan, Charlie Duke, Jim Lovell, Edgar Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt, Dave Scott and John Young. These snippets appear almost randomly, in no particular order, and it is impossible to keep track of who’s who. Cumulatively, however, they create a group portrait of explorers with “the right stuff”: men with a much higher resistance to fear than average.

Executive produced by Ron Howard and directed by British filmmaker David Sington, the production was no doubt aided by Ron Howard’s close relationship with the US government, forged during the production of his film ‘Apollo 13,’ which canonised that fateful mission and reminded the movie-going public and at least those who don’t believe it was all faked in a Nevada desert aircraft hangar, and of the necessity of NASA and the inspirational value of looking towards space for our future. Despite the absence of the central figure Neil A.  Armstrong (and now a practical recluse at the time), this is a gripping, and beautifully made film on America’s modern history.

The Wright Brothers ushered America into the Age of Aviation in 1903, and only 66 years later, Neil A. Armstrong walked on the moon! We have thrilled to aspects of this drama in the films like ‘The Right Stuff’ and in ‘Apollo 13,’ but this British FILM4 production spins out many more of the most salient developments — from President John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech in which he challenged the nation to reach the Moon before the end of the decade, to the astronauts accounts of what it was like to train, be inside a capsule, and experience the wonder and high drama of outer space travel. The ten explorers who appear in this documentary are: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins, Charlie Duke, Jim Lovell, Edgar Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt, Dave Scott, and John Young. This is a gripping; beautifully made film is dedicated to America’s modern history in space. The astronauts that we view in this documentary film, talking about their Apollo Moon missions, remain the only living people to have seen Earth from an alien world.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON MUSIC TRACK LIST

MR. SPACEMAN (Written by James McGuinn) [Performed by The Byrds]

DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER (Written by Judith Edelman) [Performed by Anne McCue, Kirk Yoquelet and Neilson Hubbard]

Blu-ray Image Quality – FILM4 presents us with a beautiful 1080p image, but with the older newsreel footage, we get the image presented in the down grade 480i image. On top of all that, you of course get two aspect ratios, the more modern images are in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio and the older newsreels are presented in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio. It faithfully reproduces all of the footage, warts and all, with no unnecessary digital upgrading to give you feel of the period at the time, but to some critics they felt that the 480i images should have been upgraded, but again they opted to leave it as it is, and I think that was a wise choice. The quality of the archival material varies greatly, like with crisp 35mm images, handheld footage shot by the astronauts on 16mm film, and the usual primitive video from 1960s TV broadcasts, but it all has been faithfully sourced, and to the point that some of it looks absolutely fantastic, particularly the shots of the rockets lifting off and the boosters separating. The interview footage is very sharp, because you can make out every aspect on Buzz Aldrin's characteristically craggy face, and the skin tones are very natural looking. I don't think anyone would have any real complaints about the picture quality here, the vintage footage looks exactly like how it is supposed to be, and the modern material is again crisp, clean and spot on. So very well done FILM4. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.

Blu-ray Audio Quality – FILM4 brings us one good solid 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio experience. The vintage recordings are presented very cleanly as possible and offer up expectedly clear with the narration from the interviews with the participating astronauts. Some attempt have been made to move certain sounds towards the rear speakers, especially the rapid deployment of parachutes, a P-51 Mustang zipping between channels, hovering helicopters and most of all these audio effects are complimentary and unobtrusive. The most dynamic and expressive element of the audio track, is Philip Sheppard's excellent film score that really enhances this brilliant film documentary.

Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:

Special Feature: Behind the Shadow – More unseen footage and Astronaut Stories from Apollo [2007] [1080p/480i] [1.78:1/1.37:1] [57:31] Here we are presented with a documentary of again with extra unseen footage and also more fascinating stories from the Astronauts and their Apollo missions to the Moon and what we also get to view is that the documentary is broken up into different subject headings, which are as follows: Lieutenant Aldrin; Cold War; Sputnik; Project Gemini; The Dark Side; How Do I Feel?; Apollo 9 and Apollo 10; The First Fifteen Seconds; Earth Orbit;, The Transposition and Docking; Dr. Rendezvous; Original Apollo 13 sequences; Waking Up On The Moon; A Lot of Rocks; Moon Bunnie; A Heck Of A Scare; Daddy is Walking on the Moon and You’re Finished. As usual, you can either watch each separately subject headings or Play All. But as to what you view with this extra film documentary, we hear that the Apollo astronauts trained as aircraft pilots, especially for the Korean War. The Apollo astronauts talk about their feelings when especially the Russians launched Sputnik One and how at the time the Russians beat America into space, and how the astronauts were desperate to beat the Russians at their own game in the space race. The astronauts talk about their experiences with the Project Gemini and experiencing zero gravity for the first time, and it was of course a training programme for the eventual flights to the Moon and you also get clips of the first spacewalk. They also had to some docking manoeuvres, but on the first attempt the two vehicles started to spin violently, so they had to immediately undock and Neil A. Armstrong saved the day. One sad factor of these trials towards space travel, is that they had eight astronauts die, and they called this part of the documentary “The Dark Side,” and as the astronauts comment that it is always sad to lose a fellow astronaut, but the ones left praise the astronauts wives for putting up with a crazy dangerous profession, especially when the astronauts are 100% focused on their job. With the section on the “Apollo 9 and Apollo 10,” the astronauts talk about their experiencing of practicing for docking and undocking, which of course was to perfect the practice for the Apollo 11 trip to the Moon, so it will feel like second nature to the astronauts. But with of course Apollo 10, they did eventually go to the Moon, but were only allowed to orbit the Moon and then back to Earth, which they felt very frustrated, as they wanted to land on the Moon, but they did not have enough fuel to be allowed to land and take off from the Moon. With the subject heading “The First Fifteen Seconds,” they talk about what it is like when the Saturn rocket launches and how it takes 15 seconds to clear the launch tower, and if you lose one of the four rocket engines, they would have crashed to the ground. The astronauts talk about their feelings with their first orbit around the Earth and when they finally and when they finally blast off from the launch pad to the Moon and the emotional feeling they get from seeing planet Earth from space and say how beautiful Earth looks, despite orbiting at 18,000 mph, and they inform us that they travel around Earth every 90 minutes and they also get to view multiple of sunsets and sunrises, and how they observe the different layers of blue that encircles the Earth. When we get to the subject heading entitled “Original Apollo 13 Sequence,” we get to view more views of what the astronauts got up to in Apollo 13 on route to the Moon, and of course just as they were about to broadcast to the command centre, that is when they had the massive explosion and where they were losing oxygen at a massive rate, and of course they were in a very perilous situation and not knowing at the time whether they would be able to return to Earth. With the subject heading “Waking Up On The Moon,” when two of the astronauts drove their lunar over an horizon on the Moon, they found another lunar rover with two astronauts sitting in it and when one of the astronauts walked towards it and pulled up one of their visors, they found the astronauts were dummies of themselves, but we then find out that one of the astronauts had a dream while inside their Moon lander vehicle. But when they do finally walk on the Moon, they are totally amazed how many rocks are strewn about on the surface of the Moon. When I saw the subject heading “Moon Bunnies,” and I thought what the hell is this all bout, well it turns out it refers to the astronauts check list booklet that is attached to their spacesuits, informing what tasks they have to perform, but when one of the astronauts turned over a page, there was this naked picture of a Playboy Bunny and they had no idea what joker put it there, but one task they had to perform, was to observe the mounds on the surface of the Moon, so someone sure had a sense of humour back on Earth. When you get to the final subject heading “You’re Finished,” where you get to see how the Apollo astronauts were in massive demand all over the world, especially the Apollo 11 crew and how they were totally overwhelmed with how many autographs they had to do and at one point it got to be a total madness of people clamouring for autographs, which you see in the documentary film and at one point one of the astronauts hates the whole ridiculous and totally madness of the whole situation and was glad when it was all over and to get back to having a civilised life. So when the Apollo programme had finished and things got very quiet in not having to go on endless tours, the astronauts found themselves out of a job and in limbo and looking for another career, and wondered what to do next. One astronaut decided to do a special type on paintings depicting his adventure on the Moon and you get to see some amazing paintings, and a nice way to end this fascinating film documentary.  

Special Feature: Scoring Apollo: A Short Feature with Composer Philip Sheppard [2007] [1080i] [1.37:1/1.78:1] [10:40] With the opening of this this special feature, finds us at the Air Studio in London, to record the composed film score for the film documentary ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON,’ and was filmed in December 2005. Composer Philip Sheppard informs us that he is perfect pitch and his ability to "hallucinate music," and grew up in the classical music genre, and at the time of the recording he was a Professor at The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, and is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, and was founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, where he was also a Cello Professor and also works with left field music and rock musicians, and has no gone more towards composing music. The team behind film documentary ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON,’ came across Composer Philip Sheppard’s music by chance, especially by the film editor David Fairhead and happen to come across a track on a mood music CD that really stood out and found out it was by Philip Sheppard, and through a meeting gave him the job to compose the film score for ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON,’ and in the process of viewing this film documentary we also get to see film footage of Philip Sheppard and the orchestra recording the film score. Philip Sheppard explains his thought process on how he wanted to tackle the composed music to match what we view and we get to see clips relating to the music matching up with certain parts in the film documentary and you notice that the string section of the orchestra do most of the work, which is what Philip Sheppard wanted the strings to stand out, especially to emphasises the pioneering spirit of the astronauts going to the Moon, and then all of a sudden the documentary finishes without warning.

Theatrical Trailer [2007] [1080p] [1.37:1/1.78:1] [2:19] This is the original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON,’ which really highlights such an amazing film documentary and the different images you view, really makes you want to see this amazing film documentary.

Finally, ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON’ film documentary, and Kennedy E. Clark, a professor of psychology, has stated: "No larger-than-life heroes emerged from the space program, even though it captured the American imagination. It was a team effort and such undertakings do not produce heroes." The standout feature of this film documentary ‘IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON’ is that the filmmakers give us a deep appreciation for the dedicated teamwork behind these technological achievements. Another notable element is the wonder that comes across in the astronaut's descriptions of what they saw. Edgar Mitchell talks about his feelings of mystical awe, and Charles M. Duke Jr. describes "That jewel of Earth was just hung, up in the blackness of space." The film documentary presents the usual plethora of NASA film material, which I never get tired of the archival NASA footage, especially when it looks this good on this FILM4 Blu-ray disc. Highly Recommended!

Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado 
Le Cinema Paradiso 
United Kingdom