Director Duncan Jones on the set of Moon.
Photo: Mark Tille Copyright © Lunar Industries/Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics
What kinds of models did you use in the film?
As it happened, I had shot a commercial with robots in it a year or two earlier. During that shoot, my concept artist, VFX guru and long time friend, Gavin Rothery and I, refined a technique of live action/CG hybrids that looked really good. We decided that some of the skills we had learned then could be incredibly effective for shooting our exterior scenes in Moon. With such a small budget, and so little time, we decided that the best use of resources would be to build as much as we could to shoot in-camera. We were incredibly lucky to acquire the talents of two key crew members -- Bill Pearson, a man who had worked on sci-fi as far back as the original Alien itself, and Peter Talbot, a world-renowned model miniatures Director of Photography with a resume as long as your arm, (including bouts on James Bond films.)
With Bill's team's help, we would build a small piece of lunar landscape, a model miniature of our moon base, and numerous vehicles, at different scales to allow us to shoot as much in-camera as we possibly could. These would then be augmented with post-production techniques by the vastly skilled people at Cinesite, under the supervision of Simon Stanley-Clamp. Simon is a bit of a legend, for numerous reasons. In my mind though, he is most famous for bringing Oliver Reed back to life in the Ridley Scott film, Gladiator.
The use of models and the process of augmenting was complicated and hard work, but the results were effective, and less costly than other routes available to us.
By hiring the same effects specialists who worked on Outland and Alien to help design the lunar rover used in the film, did you feel like you were paying homage in some respects to your favorite sci-fi films?
Sure! In fact, one of the model builders who worked on our shoot worked on R2-D2! But the expertise Bill brought was only part of the equation. Concept artist Gavin Rothery and I worked hard to give Bill's team as much instruction as we could about what we were hoping to achieve. We wanted to create a film that looked like it could have been a lost classic from a by-gone era; a missed gem from the late '70s. We delved deep into Gav's personal library or Ron Cobb books, Syd Mead portfolios and anything we could lay our hands on from Douglas Trumbull. We broke down the set design of Outland and Alien's habitat section. It was thorough and it was done with huge dollops of affection and respect.
How did you use your experience as a commercial director in your work on Moon?
I had gained a lot of experience doing fairly special effects heavy work in commercials which meant that the technical side of the shoot was fairly under control. My huge learning experience was how to work with an actor of the caliber of Sam Rockwell, in such an unusual, unnatural shooting situation, and make him feel comfortable and confident. It was a massive, though hugely rewarding, challenge.
What was it like having your film Moon screened at the NASA Space Center in Houston? What was the reaction and feedback from real astronauts?
That was pretty incredible! I had been asked by Dr. Longmier at the NASA Space Center in Houston if I would like to show my film as part of an ongoing lecture series he ran at the facility. He had heard my film covered certain issues to do with Helium-3 mining on the moon, and thought his regular crowd might enjoy it. I didn't really know what to expect, but was happy to do it. Had I known that his audience was almost entirely comprised of people who worked at NASA, and that among the audience was veteran astronaut Tom Jones, I may have chickened out!
The screening went incredibly well and the Q&A session was utterly amazing! It started with a few questions sent my way, then a hearty discussion amongst the audience itself about the viability of building the base as I had designed it. One member of the audience asked why the base looked so permanent and bunker-like when the NASA plan for a moon base revolves around bringing light-weight base makings with the astronauts. I suggested that in the future they would want to use the Lunar Regolith itself along with polar ice cap water to create a concrete substitute that would be sturdier and better able to survive radiation and micro-meteorite impacts. A woman raised her hand in the audience and said she was actually working at NASA on a substance called "moon-crete," to be made exactly that way! It was an amazing day, including the opportunity to shake the hand of the first of two astronauts I have now met; the second was Buzz Aldrin a few weeks ago in New York!
What is your next project? Do you still plan on making Moon part of a trilogy of films?
I'm very much hoping it will be another sci-fi film I want to do called Mute -- a very different feel and pace to Moon, but a story that takes place within the same universe. It's a thriller that takes place in a future Berlin, and is very much a love letter to what I loved about the believable "world building" of Blade Runner.
Any chance on making a full-length film out of the robot beer commercial you made awhile back? I have to say I would love to see you do a film about robots running their own pub.
(laughs) Or a TV show? We could do a future version of Cheers! There are actually some amazing robot-centered comic books from a magazine here in the UK called 2000 AD I used to read growing up, but I think I need to get a few films under my belt before I am ready for something like that!
Learn more about Duncan Jones and his work on the official Moon movie site.
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