[SOT] Movies

"James Nicoll" wrote in message
...
I noticed while cleaning that I had a copy of _The Right Stuff_
which I had never seen.

Pocket Review: should have picked a focus, guys. It wasn't
_bad_, as such, but it wandered.

I followed it up with _Apollo 13_, which I have seen loads of times.

Now, because I am obsessive, I want to see more films based on
the various space programs. Any that people here would recommend?

[No, I haven't seen the obvious one. I think it conflicted
with SWMBO's shows]

Are there any good films about the Soviet program?


For All Mankind is an excellent film. You also might find some others he

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/astrofilm.html

Andy C

At 10 Jan 2005 09:01:00 -0500 "James Nicoll" asked:
Are there any good films about the Soviet program?

Look (e.g. on amazon.com) for "The Red Stuff" on DVD.
IMO it's worth the money.

cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
--
"Abusus non tollit usum" - Latin: Abuse is no argument against proper use.

mailto: http://zili.de

In article ,
Kevin Willoughby wrote:
It really is a sin and a shame that IMAX didn't exist quite early enough
to film a Saturn V launch...

Ayuh...
Except that IMAX was founded in 1967. The IMAX prototype was on public
display at Expo '67 in Montreal. Tiger Child premiered in Japan in 1970.
So IMAX was available during the all too brief time when we could walk
on the moon.

Except that any IMAX Saturn V footage taken then would have been like the
shuttle footage in "Hail Columbia": not bad, but not that impressive
either. That is, it would have been shot from the standard press-camera
sites, as "Hail Columbia" was. Not until people started dragging NASA
brass to see "Hail Columbia" did NASA wake up and really roll out the red
carpet for IMAX, notably allowing them to set up cameras much closer to
the pad, to get scenes like looking *up* at the shuttle stack at maybe a
45deg angle as the engines light. Even if IMAX had identified Apollo
launches as an early priority, I don't think there was time to gain NASA's
cooperation to that level.

I'm also not sure that IMAX had a self-contained remote camera early
enough. My impression is that the early cameras took a lot of babying
and really needed human operators on hand.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Henry Spencer wrote:
It really is a sin and a shame that IMAX didn't exist quite early
enough
to film a Saturn V launch...

Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that the IMAX film "To Fly"
did have a Saturn 5 launch. It was shot from a pretty good distance,
several miles. As the scene progressed the IMAX footage was
supplimented with a lot of the familiar 16mm film taken from Saturn 5
rockets of the interstages falling off. (Of course, the 16mm stuff was
way too grainy to blow up to a full frame. It was incorporated with
'Grand Prix' style split screen effects.)

-Mark Martin

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

Except that any IMAX Saturn V footage taken then would have been like the
shuttle footage in "Hail Columbia": not bad, but not that impressive
either. That is, it would have been shot from the standard press-camera
sites, as "Hail Columbia" was. Not until people started dragging NASA
brass to see "Hail Columbia" did NASA wake up and really roll out the red
carpet for IMAX, notably allowing them to set up cameras much closer to
the pad, to get scenes like looking *up* at the shuttle stack at maybe a
45deg angle as the engines light. Even if IMAX had identified Apollo
launches as an early priority, I don't think there was time to gain NASA's
cooperation to that level.

I'm also not sure that IMAX had a self-contained remote camera early
enough. My impression is that the early cameras took a lot of babying
and really needed human operators on hand.


Hmm, I don't think *I'd* be volunteering for those Saturn shots then. :-)


--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In article ,
says...
Ka-Ching!!!!

Give the good man from the northeast a t-shirt.

Does this really count as a t-shirt correction? I'm a little vague on
the rules...
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
In message , James Nicoll
writes
In article ,
Andre Lieven wrote:

James Nicoll ) writes:
I noticed while cleaning that I had a copy of _The Right Stuff_
which I had never seen.

Pocket Review: should have picked a focus, guys. It wasn't
_bad_, as such, but it wandered.

I followed it up with _Apollo 13_, which I have seen loads of
times.

Now, because I am obsessive, I want to see more films based on
the various space programs. Any that people here would recommend?

[No, I haven't seen the obvious one. I think it conflicted
with SWMBO's shows]

Are there any good films about the Soviet program?

There's one obvious movie they haven't made (or if they did,
I missed it): the Challenger investigation.

There's a TVM called "Challenger", which ends with the first few
seconds of the launch.
There's something called "Apollo 11" which is regularly shown on the
Sci-Fi Channel here, but I've never seen it.

I envy you for never having seen it. That's the one where for no reason at
all they changed some of the classic lines spoken during the mission: for
instance, when Armstrong reports that "The Eagle has landed!" Charlie Duke
replies: "We're all going blue in the face here - we've started breathing
again!"

--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

"Slipped the surly bonds of Earth...to touch the face of God"

In article , says...
In article ,
Kevin Willoughby wrote:
It really is a sin and a shame that IMAX didn't exist quite early enough
to film a Saturn V launch...

Ayuh...
Except that IMAX was founded in 1967. [...]

Except that any IMAX Saturn V footage taken then would have been like the
shuttle footage in "Hail Columbia": not bad, but not that impressive
either.

I mostly agree.

Stipulated: IMAX technology has evolved a lot between the Apollo era and
the 3-D IMAX used to film the launch of the Soyuz in Space Station.

Stipulated: IMAX and NASA now have a much better understanding of the
mutual benefits of giving IMAX special access to dramatic events.

On the other hand, it is an open secret that the IMAX cameras have a
Hasselblad lens mount, so even from the traditional 3-mile limit for any
big launch, it was possible to film a Saturn V launch in IMAX with
impressive results. Although not as extraordinary as the Soyuz launch,
the result would have been impressive enough for us to regret the lost
opportunity.


I'm somewhat surprised by your comment:
I'm also not sure that IMAX had a self-contained remote camera early
enough. My impression is that the early cameras took a lot of babying
and really needed human operators on hand.
It is certainly true that the prototype IMAX cameras had various
development issues. This isn't surprising given that it has to move 3
times as much film per second as any other movie camera ever made, an
order of magnitude more film than the traditional 35mm film camera. But
I haven't heard stories about the early production cameras being
finicky. (There were film-hungry, and needed frequent reloading -- there
is a reason that you never see long uninterrupted scenes in IMAX. But
for something as predictable as a rocket launch, this isn't an issue.)

Part of the reason for not having self-contiained remote cameras was
lack of need. Given a chance to film a S-V from up close, I'm convinced
the guys who developed IMAX could have developed some kind of remote
control.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

The loss of the American system of checks and balances
is more of a security danger than any terrorist risk.
-- Bruce Schneier

On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 13:23:29 -0500, Kevin Willoughby
wrote:

Part of the reason for not having self-contiained remote cameras was
lack of need. Given a chance to film a S-V from up close, I'm convinced
the guys who developed IMAX could have developed some kind of remote
control.

[Insert shot of 3-mile long bulb cable with plunger]

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:40:54 -0800, Julian Bordas
wrote:

I was thinking of a shorter cable with the loony, er victme er operator
in a pit 10ft down or so.

....And you know what's loonier than that? If any one of us were asked
to volunteer, you know damn well we'd be fighting over which one was
first in line.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr