The Movie "For All Mankind"

[Kiwi]

...the same footage is in "For all Mankind", and he says the bit about "making sure not to lock it on my way out", which was Aldrin.

But then perhaps the audio and video were not matched up? I know FAM is pretty shoddy with the historical record.

That's an unfair comment about "For All Mankind." It is not at all shoddy with the historical record because it is not a documentary.  It is a work of art using all the best images Al Reinert could find and with suitable sound clips added without regard for historical accuracy. For a start, it is one imaginary trip to the moon, using mixed images from most of the Apollo missions, from Gemini missions, and from one or more unmanned missions.

Viewed in that context, it is a brilliant movie which was made for our enjoyment, and quite clearly should not be taken as 100% accurate. Most of us here don't take "Apollo 13" as 100% accurate because it isn't, and nor should we take "For All Mankind" or "From the Earth to the Moon" to be 100% accurate.

A simple example is that of Neil Armstrong taking his first step onto the moon. When he makes his "one small step" statement, the TV image used is that of him jumping down to the footpad seconds before that important step, probably because it has more action than that of the actual event when we just see Amstrong's hips move. The worst part is that TV news agencies have pinched that clip from "For All Mankind", erroneously presumed it is copyright free, and now it is often used on TV to wrongly portray that first step. And I presume it will continue to be wrongly used for many years to come.

If you haven't seen "For All Mankind" on a big screen in a theatre, I recommend getting the DVD or Blu Ray (if it exists) and watching it on the biggest screen that's suitable for its quality. And watch it over and over with the volume turned up in the appropriate places, and the commentary track playing too.

I have compiled a 37-page Open Text document of all the scenes in "For All Mankind," plus the dialogue with name of speaker and mission and GET where known, the DVD commentary, plus an interview with Reinert.  PM me with email address if you'd like a copy.

No doubt I should add that I am in no way connected with the making of the movie or the DVD, or with the persons concerned.  I'm just a happy Apollo-nut fan of the movie who also watches real documentaries.

[Kiwi]

Part of an interview with Al Reinert:--

5.  Boy, here's a great story

How did you first get interested in this and what gave you the idea, what made you want to make this film?

I'm still figuring that out, I guess.  I had a magazine assignment — in my real life I'm a writer, I think that's what I am much more than a filmmaker — and I had a magazine assignment to go down to NASA in the late 1970s and see what they were up to, if anything.  This was three or four years after Apollo and three or four years before the Space Shuttle.

I went down there and two things happened to me.  One is, I saw this film for the first time for me, or the first time I ever really paid attention to it.  And I was astonished.  I thought, "Why has this film never been on the big screen?"

And that's the question that years later I still don't have the answer to.  I'm still astonished nobody made this movie 20 years ago.

And the other thing that happened to me is, I met some of these astronauts and found out, much to my surprise, they're interesting to talk to.  They had interesting things to say, and I thought, "Boy, there's a great story."  And I said, "There's great pictures, and there's a great story — we can make a movie!"


6.  Honest to the dream

You did something unique in the movie, which was mix sound from one mission and video from another mission.  I want your comments on that and what are your thoughts on how you came to do that, and I think it worked extremely well.  And also the reaction — I know you've shown the film to lots of different groups of astronauts and cosmonauts and what their feeling is of hearing someone talk about, say, Tranquillity Base here, but obviously a different shot of the lunar module.

We scrambled together all nine flights, both pictures and sound, in a way that is only confusing to people who were there on a day-to-day basis and remember it that way.  I don't blame them for being a little bit confused.  Because by now I've showed this movie to every astronaut who went to the moon.  They've all seen it.  Some of them have seen it 10 or 15 times by now.  I mean, I can't believe they are still willing to look at it, truth of the matter.

They've sat through it, they see themselves 20 years ago when they were young and handsome and daring and they all still had hair and they weighed 40 pounds less.  I'd like to go out and look at films of myself like that!

The astronauts swallowed that easier than I ever thought, because they hear a person's voice and see another person's picture, and that creates some confusion in their minds because they know whose voice it is and they know whose picture it is, but most of them are rolling with it by about ten or fifteen minutes into the movie.

I was very nervous about that when we first started making this movie.  I was terribly nervous about showing the movie to astronauts, because you see Buzz Aldrin's picture and you're hearing Charlie Duke's voice.  I was nervous how either one of them would respond to that.  I liked to discover that neither one of them cared as long as we made a movie that was honest on a deeper level.  And I think that that tells you something about them and the experience.  Their egos are not as involved as you would think.  Most of them, almost all of them.  They all saw themselves as basically representatives of something bigger than just them, and it's okay with them if you confuse their identities, as long as you're honest to the dream.


7.  Into space with movie cameras

I want to know how much total footage did you have to wade through in order to extract out the film for this movie.

There's about 2,000 hours of film in the NASA film archive and we sort of weeded it down to about 90 minutes.  Fortunately, you can look at it in high speed, so we didn't really sit there for 2,000 hours, although we did spend lots and lots of hours doing film research, and trying to find what we thought was the best stuff, the prettiest stuff.  I think it's extraordinary film.  We've sent men into outer space with movie cameras.

I would have loved to have more motion picture footage on the moon that was shot at a true sound speed, at 24 frames per second.  What happened with a lot of the footage that they carried with them is they shot at reduced frame rates, they would shoot at six frames a second which is pretty close to what old Keystone Cops films were shot at, where you get that same type of jerkiness, and we attempted oftentimes to try to smooth that out as best we could in a laboratory or in a printing process, which was never completely successful and sometimes a real waste of time.  There are hours and hours of film that were shot on the moon and in space of fabulous images that are just useless in a motion picture because they didn't shoot it at what we think of as a normal frame rate.

But at the time they were going to the moon they were trying to conserve film, they only had room for a few magazines, and they were trying to save weight, and they thought it was a smart thing to shoot six frames a second, and they were wrong.  But they brought back extraordinary footage and it was worth it, I think, it was worth it for them to do and it was worth it for us to go through it all, and it really does look extraordinary.

[Kiwi]

Some of the dialogue in the movie:--

0:47:28   Chapter 12:  "That's one small step..."
0:47:28   M.C.:  Eagle you are Stay for T1.  <A11 102:47:09 Duke>
0:47:36   Alan L. Bean:  This thing came to a stop on the moon, it was a kind of a letdown saying, "You know, we're going to have to get it going fast again to get back home."  0:47:45
0:47:52   M.C.:  Neil, this is Houston.  What's your status on hatch opening?  <A11 109:06:15 McCandless>
0:47:57   Astronaut:  Okay.  Houston, I'm on the porch.  <A11 109:19:16 Armstrong>
0:48:00   M.C.:  Neil, this is Houston.  Loud and clear...  Radio check, and verify TV circuit breaker in.  <A11 109:21:42 McCandless>
0:48:06   Astronaut:  Roger, TV circuit breaker's in.  <A11 109:21:54 Aldrin>
0:48:08   M.C.:  Houston.  Roger.  We copy, and we're standing by for your TV.  <A11 109:21:22 McCandless>
0:48:14   Astronaut:  I'm going to pull it now.  <A11 109:21:09 Armstrong>
0:48:18   Astronaut:  Houston the MESA [Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly] came down all right.  <A11 109:21:18 Armstrong>
0:48:20   M.C.:  And we're getting a picture on the TV!  <A11 109:22:06 McCandless>
0:48:22   Astronaut:  You got a good picture, huh?  <A11 109:22:09 Aldrin>
0:48:24   M.C.:  Okay, Neil, we can see you (on the TV) coming down the ladder now.  <A11 109:22:48 McCandless>
0:48:30   Astronaut:  The surface appears to be very, very fine-grained as you get close to it.  <A11 109:23:38 Armstrong>
0:48:39   Astronaut:  I'm at the foot of the ladder.  <A11 109:23:38 Armstrong>
0:48:45   Astronaut:  I'm going to step off the LM [Lunar Module] now.  <A11 109:24:13 Armstrong>
0:48:50   Astronaut:  That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.  <A11 109:24:48 Armstrong>  Note:  Here, Armstrong is shown jumping down to the footpad, not stepping onto the moon as implied.

0:48:57   Chapter 13:  A lesson from Galileo
0:49:01   Charles Conrad Jr:  I had a bet with somebody who didn't — ah, really felt that Neil spent a great deal of time before he went figuring out his famous words and they were not extemporaneous, on the spot, historical words.  He actually felt that these words might have even been written for Neil by somebody else.  And I said, "Well, I'll bet you five hundred bucks that when I get to the bottom of the ladder — and nobody ever remembers what the second person to do something does anyhow — I'm going to say it may have been a small step for Neil but it's a big step for a little fellow like me."  0:49:34
0:49:34   Astronaut:  Ready for me to come out?  <A11 109:38:41 Aldrin>
0:49:35   Astronaut:  Okay.  <A11 109:39:57 Armstrong>
0:49:38   Astronaut:  Now I want to back up and partially close the hatch.  Making sure not to lock it on my way out.  <A11 109:41:28 Aldrin>
0:49:48   Charles Conrad Jr:  So this person said, "Ah, no way you're going to do that, they're going to tell you what to say."  I said, "Okay, a bet's a bet."  So I bet this person five hundred dollars, so when I got to the bottom of the ladder I said it.  0:49:58
0:49:59   Astronaut:  That may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.  <A12 115:22:16 Conrad>
0:50:07   M.C.:  [Apollo] 12 Houston we have you in blushing black and white.
0:50:11   Astronaut:  What happened to the colour?
0:50:13   M.C.:  It may be the colour wheel is hung up.  <A12 116:03:26 Gibson>
0:50:15   Astronaut:  I can feel the wheels running because I can feel something in motion inside.  <A12 116:15:17 Bean>
0:50:20   M.C.:  Why don't you go and put your glove in front of the lens?  <A12 116:01:49 Gibson>
0:50:23   Astronaut:  All right.  Will do.  <A12 116:16:43 Bean>
0:50:26   M.C.:  That's coming in there now, Al.  <A12 116:15:48 Gibson>
0:50:27   Astronaut:  Got the old camera running.  <A12 115:22:06 Bean>
0:50:29   M.C.:  Okay, what change did you make?  <A12 116:15:48 Gibson>
0:50:31   Astronaut:  I hit it on the top with my hammer.  I figured we didn't have a thing to lose.  <A12 116:16:02 Bean>
0:50:37   M.C.:  I can't believe it.  <Bill Muehlberger>
0:50:39   Astronaut:  Hello, watch this.
0:50:43   Astronaut:  I don't know if this will work or not, Charlie.  <A16 123:58:46 Young>
0:50:47   Astronaut:  Well, in my left hand I have a feather, in my right hand a hammer.  And I guess one of the reasons we got here today was because of a gentleman named Galileo a long time ago, who made a rather significant discovery about falling objects in gravity fields.  And we thought that where would be a better place to confirm his findings than on the moon?  And so we thought we'd try it here for you.  And the feather happens to be appropriately a falcon feather for our Falcon, and I'll drop the two of them here and hopefully they'll hit the ground at the same time.  How about that?  Which proves that Mr Galileo was correct in his findings.  <A15 167:22:06 - 167:22:46 Scott>
0:51:31   M.C.:  We've got a beautiful picture, you guys, up — down there.  <A17 118:23:09 Parker>
0:51:33   Astronaut:  Let me tell you, Bob, this flag is a beautiful picture.  <A17 118:23:15 Cernan>
0:51:38   Astronaut:  Hey, John, this is perfect, with the LM... you... and the old flag.  <A16 120:25:23 Duke>
0:51:42   Astronaut:  You really should set the flag up on a hill, Charlie, but there just ain't one.  <A16 120:23:35 Young>
0:51:47   Astronaut:  I know, John.  <A16 120:23:40 Duke>
0:51:49   Astronaut:  I'll put it right here, big rock.  <A15 120:23:43 Young>
0:51:53   Charles M. Duke Jr:  I was proud for our country more than I was proud for me.  That it was nothing that I did.  I just happened to have gotten there at the right time.  My background carried me through, but there were a lot of other qualified people that didn't go.  Why my name came out I don't know.  0:52:10
0:52:18   Astronaut:  And we very proudly deploy it on the moon, to stay for as long as it can.  In honour of all those people who have worked so hard to put us here and to make the country and mankind something different than it was.  <A17 118:24:06 Schmitt>
0:52:31   Charles M. Duke Jr:  It was like sitting in the last row of the balcony looking down with that play going on.  While I was in the play, it was more like I was a spectator.  0:52:42
0:52:44   M.C.:  Tranquillity, this is Houston.  <A11 114:09:49 McCandless>
0:52:45   M.C.:  We'd like to say from all of us down here in Houston and, really, from all of us in all the countries in the entire world, we think that you've done a magnificent job up there today.  Over.  <A11 114:22:23 McCandless>
0:52:59   Astronaut:  Thank you very much.  <A11 114:22:46 Armstrong>
0:53:00   Astronaut:  Have you had enough TV for today?  <A11 114:25:29 Aldrin>
0:53:02   M.C.:  Yes, indeed.  It's been a mighty fine presentation there.  <A11 114:25:37 McCandless>
0:53:06   Astronaut:  Thank you.  You couldn't have enjoyed it as much as we did.  <A11 114:00:23 Armstrong>
0:53:09   M.C.:  Get some rest there and have at it tomorrow.  <A11 114:22:51 McCandless>