Moonwalk One: documenting the moon landing

INTERVIEW: We talk to documentary director Theo Kamacke

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14 July 2009 18:37 GMT / By Stuart Miles

"Not many people know this, but the reason the Apollo 11 film footage is so ghostly is because of technical issues in getting the live footage back from the moon".

Theo Kamecke was asked to create a documentary that captured the Apollo 11 moon mission that launched on the 16 July 1969 starting a new era in Space exploration.

"To make sure that the images got back to earth, anything that didn't move, ie the background, was only transmitted every second, Buzz hopping around however was real time. The result meant that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong appeared ghostly, as if you could see through them".

It's one of the many conspiracy theories that people use when suggesting Man never made it to the Earth's only orbiting rock.

"We went, that's a fact", claims Kamecke, who having looked through hours of footage would know, when pitched the question of whether we really did make it that far. "People believe what they want to believe of course, but there are plenty of facts to prove it".

Conspiracy theories aside (we had to ask), the hardest thing about making a movie about a Space launch is that the world would be bored of the same footage we had all seen on our televisions, recollects Kamecke.

Working closely with NASA, Kamecke decided on a simple approach focusing on the human story rather than the technical one, capturing the emotions of those involved or watching, rather than the large technical element of what was about to happen.

"It had to stand the test of time, like a time capsule."

The centrepiece of course was the launch itself with Kamecke turning to NASA for the main footage.

"I was reading one of NASA's launch manuals in preparation and found that NASA had 240 engineering cameras around the launch pad capturing everything in slow motion".

But the footage, almost never made it to the film says Kamecke.

"Once they shot it, it was bundled up and sent down to Huntsville, Alabama for analysing, if they didn't use it, it got thrown in a box and left to rot. Luckily I was able to dig it out and then use it in the film. It was certainly better than the limited three media spots NASA was giving out to the Media".

But the biggest problem wasn't getting the footage on the relatively small budget, or digging out footage from cardboard boxes in a lab in Alabama, but actually working out how all the different film types would go together.

A lack of digital cameras (it was 1969) meant Kamecke had to shoot in film, and with different stock being used in different locations, everything from 8mm to 16mm to 35mm and even some 70mm, Kamecke settled to produce it all on 35mm.

"The editing and filming process is a lot easier today", Kamecke comments on going back into the studio to re-cut the film for its 40-year anniversary release.

Available on DVD for the first time, the movie was almost lost to the annals of time, before being found under Kamecke's office desk.

The new version will sport a 5.1 sound track, a director's commentary and a host of extra features about making the movie.

Asked whether Kamecke believes he will be around to make a documentary about the first Mars landing, he very much hopes so, but says the secret to making this one relevant 40 years later is the human emotion rather than the technical aspects of the film.