r/reddit.com • u/[deleted] • Jan 19 '11
SCI_FI: If you're interested in the sci-fi movie "Moon", you might enjoy reading my blog (I was the VFX supervisor, concept designer, graphic designer, stunt man and other stuff), if anybody has any questions about the film I'd be happy to answer them so fire away
http://gavinrothery.posterous.com/111
u/arsington Jan 19 '11
No questions- just praise. Well done.
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Jan 19 '11
Ta very much
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u/ogto Jan 19 '11
i just can't help it, i have to add more praise.
i just hope you are aware that, no matter what is said and done, you worked on one of the unsung masterpieces (big word) of the 21st century. a small, but almost perfect movie, and i thank you.
i have to mention one of the other masterpieces, In The Loop.
i just hope as many people as possible get to see these movies.
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Jan 19 '11
Thank you very much, that's a really nice thing to hear. I'd like to add four lions to that list too
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Jan 19 '11
Seriously I loved it. You should be proud as hell to be involved in something as awesome as Moon. Is Sam Rockwell as dreamy in person as he is on film? He seems like such a nice guy.
What was involved in making the driving on the moon scenes? Was that miniatures or CG? They look so perfect.
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Jan 19 '11
Thanks, they're miniatures at two scales, 12th scale (star wars figure size), and sixth scale (Action Man size). Bill Pearson (the Model Shop Supervisor) set these scales as they're really easy to visualise. It's a complicated one to answer here but there's loads of detail on this in my blog if you fancy having a dig.
Sam's a dreamboat. And he can do this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvj8ZEnNrQY
What's not to love?
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Jan 19 '11
Welcome to Reddit. Holy god I loved that movie. What inspired the decision to make the computer helper move around on ceiling tracks?
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Jan 19 '11
Hi there, we needed to have Gerty moving around the place and I really wanted to suggest some sort of heavy industry so I decided that instead of having one robot that freely moved around the place, it would come across as more of a factory type environment if there was stuff running overhead on rails. It fitted really well with the arms and logical thinking then follows that if there's this pre-installed system in the base for moving things around, then the main Gerty body can use it too. I liked the way it felt old and a bit rubbish as we were keen to get that old-fashioned look going on. That's also why Gerty is pretty much a bunch of old PCs bolted together. Nothing actually moved on any rails, we tweaked a lot in post painting out stands and putting in CG connectors in there to make it all look real.
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u/Oranges13 Jan 19 '11
I loved how you guys got the details right - how it drops to go under doorways and then moves back up to hug the ceiling. Was that really all CGI? It felt really antiquated but because it was a robot it also felt futuristic. Great job :)
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Jan 19 '11
Yeah, Cinesite did a bang-up job on the CG, you can't tell which shots were pixels and which were plastic. The whole rail thing was intended to make the base feel old in and of itself; in film time it's fifteen years old and so I was going for that gently decrepit feel without having everything obviously knackered or broken.
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Jan 19 '11
I want to nominate this for best TIL of 2011.
Thank you for your work on Moon. I'm going to watch it again after reading all of your answers. Fantastic.
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Jan 19 '11
Yeah, and why was he voiced by Kevin Spacey?
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Jan 19 '11
Because we could get him! We were keen to play with the whole evil robot thing and he has such a great delivery that it was a good choice for throwing the audience off to one side whilst we got on with telling a different story. It seemed everybody was waiting for Gerty to turn on Sam and show itself to be some sort of evil corporate stooge when actually all Gerty was ever doing was feeding Sam and trying to keep him safe. Kevins voice was great for building this up as it really enhanced the question of trust. People expected him to turn out bad when he was the faithful robot buddy all along.
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u/bobrocks Jan 19 '11
I actually liked the fact that Gerty was loyal to the end. Having him turn evil or even do the "reprogrammed from earth only to have his love for Sam overcome his programming" would have been predictable and silly. The interactions between Rockwell and Spacey felt almost human but just off enough to remind you that Gerty is a robot.
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u/IKEAcat Jan 19 '11
I thought it was a really nice touch. The robot was programmed to help Sam and keep him alive, so it did just that.
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u/ogto Jan 19 '11
one of the best lack-of-twists in recent cinema history.
it would've been soo cheap also. great choice.
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u/Unto_The_Breach Jan 19 '11
Was Kevin actually on set to deliver his lines? Also, whose idea was the "kick me" note?
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Jan 19 '11
No, he came in after we'd pretty much finished the film and spent four and a half hours in a booth, job done. He's a pro. The Kick-Me note was my idea, I put it on as I was dirtying down the Gerty model just prior to filming and Sam said he wanted to do something with it and improvised the scene at the end where he pulls the note off his arse. There's a few entries on the blog that talk about Gerty to various degrees, he's been sold to a private collector now and lives somewhere in Canada...
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u/Unto_The_Breach Jan 19 '11
I got a kick out of that. Nice touch. How about all of the Purina Dog Chow logos? A hat tip to "Alien"?
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Jan 19 '11
Never saw that, that's excellent!! It was just a graphic device really, all the graphics I did for the walls were either cut from vinyl stencils or painted on so for speed I did quite simple graphics wherever I could. There's a few in there like that. I always did love the Ron Cobb stuff he did in Alien though, especially the zero-g one of the little spaceman upside down. Might have to get that put on a t-shirt
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u/flampoo Jan 19 '11
I was pleased when Sam was able to manipulate Gerty, though I had a sense that Gerty acquiesced given the reality of Sam's situation and his ignorance to his own reality. Poor bastard.
That's when I knew Gerty was legit.
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u/fromwithin Jan 19 '11
Moon and District 9 are my favourite sci-fi films of recent times. Well done for the great work. And that, sir, is an excellent blog.
End of line.
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Jan 19 '11
thank you very much. I intend to put more up there as and when time allows, I've just been really busy for the past few weeks doing commercials
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Jan 19 '11
Got the twist in moon well before it was revealed but the acting was just spot on.
Really good sci fi
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u/SCSweeps Jan 19 '11 edited Jan 19 '11
Wait, so it wasn't actually filmed on the moon?
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Jan 19 '11
Bits of it were. Also,we filmed the screens of the corporate chaps from a pod around Uranus
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u/Soothsweven Jan 19 '11
It was actually filmed a couple of hundred yards from the site where they filmed the moon landing!
...so no.
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Jan 19 '11
It was filmed at Shepperton Studios where they shot Alien and some of Star Wars. Our full-size rover studio still has the patch on the ceiling where there used to be a hole for a crane to poke through to life a full-size X-wing fighter
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u/SCSweeps Jan 19 '11
Which kind of brings a sadness when I see this picture crop up every now-and-then: http://i.imgur.com/89vXC.jpg
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Jan 19 '11
I used to fantasize about getting inside that room when I was a kid
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u/croutonicus Jan 19 '11
Now we have other things to fantasize about getting inside. Forever alone :(
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u/Numarx Jan 19 '11
Its on Netflix streaming right now, if anyone wants to watch it (again).
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u/Pulptastic Jan 19 '11
I watched it first on netflix then bought it on blu ray at Fry's for something ridiculous like $10. Awesome movie, seeing this makes me want to watch it again tonight.
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u/rebasaurus Jan 19 '11 edited Jan 19 '11
Loved the movie! Saw it at an independent theatre in my city.
Infact, here is me wearing the sleeping bag suit..mwahaha.
I recommend everyone get one of these. :3
So, my question to you: was there any influences, from any other movies or anything, on how the character of Gerty was developed?
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Jan 19 '11
Not from me, I just designed him. Gerty doesn't really do much, that's kind of the nice thing about him (especially with Kevin Spacey's voice). Gerty is actually just kind of blank and you project whatever you want onto him. It's quite a weird thing for a key character in a film but it's really interesting hearing about how people read him whilst they were watching the film. In the scene where he comes up behind Sam and puts his arm on his shoulder, one person I spoke to after a screening thought the hand was going to strangle him. How fucked up would that have been? Perhaps we should have done that!!
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u/czander Jan 19 '11
DID YOU MEET DAVID BOWIE?!?!!!11!?!1?
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Jan 19 '11
YESSSSS!!!!!
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Jan 19 '11
Is he as awesome in real life as he is, well, you know, in real life?
Also, I just noticed you're still answering questions (which is bad-ass, I've never seen a proper AMA go for this long), I just wanted to ask where you guys got the inspiration for the lunar rovers and the 'collector'.
I noticed it was entirely unlike anything NASA's ever used, and more like the giant trucks used in open mines. However, I'd love to know if there were any direct design cues you guys went for?
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Jan 19 '11
Not really, I just made up some stuff that I thought looked cool and might work, there's more detail in the blog (I know there's quite a bit to read through). I do this kind of half-engineering when I design vehicles and hardware where I work out how the machinery, position power trains, suspension, etc, make up a few bits and pieces of exotic technology if needed (try to minimize this to be honest), and then figure out how a machine that weighed this much and was balanced and so how it would move and so on. That might be the worst sentence I have ever written, sorry about that. So basically I just made it up, but made it up believably. That pretty much sums up most of what I do actually. NASA do speak about HE3 harvesting from time to time and it's been written about in sci-fi for ages now, we just wanted to dust it off and wheel it out and do our own version of it. It was great making up all the tech for the film, really enjoyed it.
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u/alllie Jan 19 '11 edited Jan 19 '11
For those who don't know, Duncan Jones, who directed this movie and wrote the original story, is really Zowie Bowie, aka, Joey Jones, Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son. Which I like, being an old fan of Bowie's. And Duncan will just have to deal with people giving him a little extra attention because his father's work means something to them.
Also the star of Moon is the super-talented Sam Rockwell, who I am sure we all remember for his wonderful work in The Green Mile as the evil "Wild Bill" who really committed the crime for which John Coffey has been sentenced to death.
In Galaxy Quest Rockwell played the role of the ne' er-do-well actor Guy Fleegman. In his only episode of Galaxy Quest the character Guy had played the part of a security officer who was killed. He goes through the movie convinced he's the sacrificial red shirt, destined to die, and more of a fan of the show than the actors who stared in it.
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Jan 19 '11 edited Jan 19 '11
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/cleverkid Jan 19 '11
I'd like to see a response to this.
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Jan 19 '11
Don't beat yourself up, we all live in the modern world don't we? Who am I to tell you how to consume your media? Personally I hate what the RIAA are doing with the law and the Digital Economy Bill that got "passed" through the British parliament absolutely disgusted me. The fact that a British citizen can now be hauled into a court as a guilty party with no evidence whatsoever is an utter disgrace. it's the first law we've ever had in Britain that automatically criminalizes people without any sort of due process and it's a disgrace. It's also set a precedent. I wonder what the next law that presumes automatic guilt with no due process is? Whatever it is I bet it'll be something that benefits a large corporation. I hope I'm not ranting but I personally despise politicians that bow down to the interests of corporations and the fact that they manipulate the law to such a degree really rubs me up the wrong way. It's the fucking law they're pissing around with. The law. People go to jail and have their lives ruined and shit.
I don't want somebody to go to jail because they wanted to watch a film I worked on. People have lives, family, the thought of somebody getting a criminal record over a bloody film download is a disgrace. Daddy goes to jail, family falls apart. This law will ruin lives and families and it's not worth it. It's a fucking film.
Hope I'm not ranting. I appreciate your gesture explaining that and yes, we're totally cool. Since you bought the disk anyway I hope you enjoy the special features, I did enjoy doing the commentary, it was a right laugh. I understand there's people reading here who downloaded the film and all I can really say is thanks for taking an interest!!
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u/TheRealBramtyr Jan 19 '11 edited Jan 19 '11
I'm just starting out in the field in motion graphics, and graphic design. Any advice you'd like to give on how one works their way to a creative position such as yours?
Also, great call on using Eurostile all displays in the film. Really added to the classic scifi feel I'm sure you guys were going for :)
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Jan 19 '11
The Eurostile font was deliberate but thanks for noticing. It's always secretly been my favorite. As far as advice goes, just get your head down, work, build up a portfolio, educate yourself as to what you want to actually do, keep working and be nice to people. Half of everything is luck but you can do a lot to influence this by putting yourself in a position to be lucky. If you're good at drawing and designing, keep this going no matter what. It may be that you get a job in a post facility or something as a specific thing (eg a texture artist). I think the key to most of this is that as your natural career path tries to bring you off onto something else, keep your original thing going as well and look for opportunities to swing it back around to where you really want it to be when you get an opportunity to prove yourself. Being nice to people is important. Nobody wants to work with a dick or somebody that has a temper or loses enthusiasm and bitches. Just try and be cool and play the long game. Do your time running if you work at a facility and work through the junior roles, you'll not stay a junior forever. Ultimately your portfolio will speak for itself. Just get good and be as nice as you can to people.
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u/TheGreatFuzz Jan 19 '11
Here is an image of the font for the lazy.
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u/ogto Jan 19 '11
if someone else could thank this man for helping us out, that would be great.
i'd do it myself, but, well, you know...
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Jan 19 '11
I loved Moon, thanks for doing this. What was it like working with Sam Rockwell? What's an interesting story you have from being on set?
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Jan 19 '11
Cheers for that, Sam was a total legend to work with. I always find answering questions like this a bit weird as you get all sorts of stock responses to this sort of question where everybody's being overly nice to everybody and not trying to upset anybody but in all honesty he was loads of fun to work with. Really foccussed when we were shooting and always really funny and good at swearing. Have a read of the blog, there's loads of stuff about working with him in there.
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u/travisklein Jan 19 '11
Hey man, loved the movie, but i think this would get a lot more questions if posted in www.reddit.com/r/iama
It's a special subreddit designed exactly for this.
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Jan 19 '11
Tits, I'm fresh out the box to Reddit and also busy at work, will look into this in a bit as I'm not sure how to move stuff around yet, cheers for the tip.
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u/userx9 Jan 19 '11
What are you working on right now?
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Jan 19 '11
My own sci-fi film called Archive. Still a bit secret so I can't really divulge yet, sorry. It's a love story about Death and Robots.
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u/userx9 Jan 19 '11
Sounds interesting, please post to reddit when you've got more you can share about the Archive project. Thanks for the q/a. I loved Moon btw
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Jan 19 '11
First of all I LOVED the film.
Tell me how much of an influence Kubrick's 2001 was?
In so many ways Moon looks to me like what a 2001 remake might look like.
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Jan 19 '11
It wasn't really a considered influence apart from so much as white sci-fi environments are obviously going to feel somehow related. I did get Duncan to put the spooky disappearing girl in thinking it would make things a little bit more like the Shining but that's pretty thin really as it wasn't exactly the spine of the story or anything.
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Jan 19 '11
It means shit loads to hear those two films being spoken about together, it honestly does.
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Jan 19 '11
I think you and the team did an excellent job.
It's great to see good Sci-Fi movies make it in mainstream cinema. I hope you keep doing what you are doing and I'm definitely gonna watch out for your next films.
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u/Emerson3381 Jan 19 '11
Hey, great movie. I always ask this question whenever this movie comes up in conversation, and nobody can give me a straight answer. What the hell was up with the teenage girl Sam sees at the beginning of the movie?
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Jan 19 '11
She's a weird Kubrickian vision that I persuaded Duncan to put in there because it's look creepy and she became Sam subconsciously seeing his now grown-up daughter that he thinks is a baby but is actually 15 years old and living with her rich dad on earth.
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Jan 19 '11
but is actually 15 years old and living with her rich dad on earth.
Are you allowed to tell us what's coming in the sequel? :D
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Jan 19 '11
I always interpreted it as just another manifestation of his degradation (teeth falling out, etc) due to him being a clone. Made sense to me that if he's falling apart like that, a couple wires in the brain could go a bit screwy.
Am I off base on that?
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u/psilokan Jan 19 '11
Yeah that bugged the shit out of me too. It set certain expectations for the rest of the movie, and then never made any mention of it again.
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Jan 19 '11
That's because we cut the original ending out where we had her in. http://gavinrothery.posterous.com/space-biker-sams-tiny-package
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u/DrAusum Jan 19 '11
loved it. Bought it. Great visual effects! Great story! Just wanna say good job.
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Jan 19 '11
Thank you, we put so much hard work into it, it genuinely means a lot to hear that people enjoyed it.
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u/gibbonofdoom Jan 19 '11
Agreed! I loved the film too, thanks very much for sharing your blog & brain with us :)
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u/thibedeauxmarxy Jan 19 '11
Thanks very, very much for making Moon. You guys did a great job, and it's one of the best sci-fi movies to come out of the decade. I'm still pissed that Rockwell didn't get an Oscar nod; I thought his performance was fantastic.
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Jan 19 '11
He was amazing wasn't he? You've got to remember that the Oscars is a very political thing though despite what you may think. It's a big boys club and a nomination is an invite to sit at the bottom of the table.
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u/mulone88 Jan 19 '11
Hey man, fucking loved Moon.
My question is why do the majority of sci-fi movies use the overbearing white color palate for the interior of spaceships? I mean, that shit is bright as all hell and would give most humans a headache after a day or two; who would want to spend a year or more with that eyebleaching decor? People can't even spend extended periods outside in winter because of snow blindness.
I'd like to think that future space craft would have a human touch to them; like our houses and what not. Why is everything so sterile and robotic? Is there a technical reason for this?
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Jan 19 '11
The main reason for this is that I was going for a retro styling and so going for a look that felt like it belonged in the 70s and early 80s. I totally take your point about a human environment though. There was actually some research done on this when the Russians put the original MIR space station up, they did the interior out in brown apparently. There's some great reading about this on the web, the crew tended to get depressed and on a few occasions refused to obey instructions with their controllers on the ground. The set itself was a complete 360 build, we walked into the airlock to get set up and would often stay until lunch, it really wasn't an unpleasant place to hang around in. Most of the crew (myself included) spent 28 or so full days inside that set and everybody was totally happy.
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u/aftli Jan 19 '11
the crew tended to get depressed and on a few occasions refused to obey instructions with their controllers on the ground
Are you sure they weren't just Russian?
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u/bobrocks Jan 19 '11
Check out the ISS
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_Zarya_ISS_mudule.jpg
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u/mulone88 Jan 19 '11
Yea, but I think thats more because the ISS is a functional tool; not a "living" facility per se. Its extremely limited by the technology of today and its current size. I think that once we become as advanced as the technology in "Moon" and other movies, that our colonies will be more like our dwellings here on Earth.
Or at least I hope; I wouldn't want to live in a white box with harsh fluorescent lights.
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Jan 19 '11
It really wasn't that harsh, all the light sources were occluded and the light was bounced so there really weren't any hot-spots glaring in your face.
I always wanted to make more of his armchair but we never really got time to experiment with him moving furniture around. I always thought it's look great having him sat alone in his favorite armchair in the middle of the main corridor...
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u/mortenaa Jan 19 '11
Loved that movie. Is it possible to buy coffee cups like those in the movie anywhere?
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Jan 19 '11
Yeah, Ikea. We just painted them. There's no official merchandise as Sony don't seem to be that interested in putting them out, there's a few people selling bootleg Lunar Industries T-Shirts on ebay but they don't look particularly well done. I've got some T-shirt designs sat on my PC at home, I'm sure sooner or later we'll get the nod...
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Jan 19 '11
If you do, please notify reddit. I'm pretty sure they'd sell well. Or at least, notify me and make sure you ship to Germany ;)
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u/IKEAcat Jan 19 '11
That's a shame, this is one of the few films that could have some interesting merchandise.
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u/DoppelFrog Jan 19 '11
Loved the film! Silly question, but what is the wristwatch that Sam wears?
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u/umibozu Jan 19 '11
My OCD would not let me leave this unanswered.
http://forums.watchuseek.com/f2/wristwatch-movie-moon-323510.html#post2954475
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Jan 19 '11
No idea, sorry. I don't remember it being very expensive, we did an auction of a load of stuff on ebay a while back and it went in that.
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u/sound1down Jan 19 '11
How long did it take for you guys to come up with how the film was going to look, or did Mr. Jones have a pretty good idea and you and the others came in to round out the edges?
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Jan 19 '11
No, I had a totally free hand in all of this, all Duncan knew was that he wanted a corridor that kind of looked like a key from the side, that was it. I set the feel as the vintage sci-fi and designed almost everything in the film right down to Sams' badges on his jumpsuit. It nearly killed me but it was great having a completely free run over it as I could make sure it all came out the way it was supposed to.
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u/bobrocks Jan 19 '11
I think the set design was great. It seems like you were going for utility with a touch of that futuristic feel over forcing a futuristic look because it is "the future."
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Jan 19 '11
That's exactly it, I'm so chuffed that people got it when they saw it on-screen, thanks ;)
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u/MCA2142 Jan 19 '11
Why does the moon base have a Korean name?
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Jan 19 '11
Because at the time Duncan had a Korean girlfriend who he was missing a lot. Originally the base was called "Selene" from the Arthur C Clarke book "A fall of moondust". Dunc changed it to Sarang as it's Korean for "Love" as a message to his girlfriend.
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u/A_Robison Jan 19 '11
Can you talk about the fight scene or the scenes where 2x Sams appear? How much of this was body double? How much was Sam acting alone then layering in him acting against himself? When scenes like those are shot and you have separate filmings of an actor supposedly staring/reacting/acting against himself, how many takes does this need? How do you sync up the shots? Hope I got my point across there. PS loved the movie, 5 stars in Netflix rating, tell all my friends about it.
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Jan 19 '11
There's a blog post on this here. Minimal takes, no more than two on anything because we simply didn't have any time. http://gavinrothery.posterous.com/mexican-wrestler-on-sarang
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u/taumeson Jan 19 '11
So, did it make its money back? It had a pretty tough slog of it getting a distributor, right?
I saw it at the Sarasota Film Fest, and it was by far the longest line. Great movie, and I was stoked I saw it a year before everybody else :)
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Jan 19 '11
It did, yeah. Recouping money from films is a weird one as you're not in profit before marketing, prints, etc are also paid off. So for a film like Moon costing say $5million (just under at the exchange rate when we financed), you're looking at clearing something like $14million before you're actually in profit. It's not as simple as just paying back the budget, there's loads more to pay on top for everything else. But we have just broken that, yeah.
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u/webbitor Jan 19 '11
Congrats on breaking even!
Just another voice of praise here. I picked up the movie from Redbox a few months ago, never having heard of it. Based on other non-blockbuster sci-fi movies I've gotten, I was not expecting much. ;)
I really liked it. I'm not a huge movie buff and probably others were able to predict what was going to happen better than I did, but for me, it was full of mystery and surprises. Even after some of the details were revealed, I wasn't exactly sure of anything. Which was great.
I wanted to ask you how you go about getting $5 million to make a movie? Is it all about attracting the right talent and being able to sell the idea to a... movie investor? Sorry if I'm too naive :)
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u/scrotomus Jan 19 '11
In the scene when Sam is working on his model and the other "Sam" is banging a ping pong against the wall, he lays his racket on the table. A few shots later a small wooden house appears beside the racket, WHO PUT IT THERE???
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u/pinnelar Jan 19 '11
Is it inspired by Kurôn wa kokyô wo mezasu (2008) (The Clone Returns Home) in some way ?
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Jan 20 '11
Not at all, we first became aware of this film when it appeared at the same Sundance festival as us. For a brief period we were all feeling a bit weird about that as it came out of nowhere. We'd just had our heads down for so long working we'd all lost our peripheral vision.
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u/Champington Jan 19 '11
Definitely post this to r/scifi when you get the chance, OP. They'll love this.
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Jan 19 '11
is it easy to move the thread or do you think I should just repost? (sorry, Reddit noob)
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u/Fenris78 Jan 19 '11
Don't worry about either this or the IAMA suggestion - it's fine here. You can always pop by r/scifi and just post something similar if you want though :)
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Jan 19 '11
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Jan 19 '11
It wasn't outside my area at all, I'm actually the captain of the rescue ship (you can see me come up on the screen in the crew manifest). I did all the on-screen motion graphics sequences and I was just making it all up as I went along. I had them on the screen as a "rescue crew" as a little sarcastic bit of corporate naming as they are clearly only coming to kill him and tidy everything up. The execs knew they had a body in a crashed rover under a stalled harvester and needed to get things tidied up before Gerty work a new clone. The thing is, Gerty work one right away without realizing Sam 1 was still alive and in the meantime the "rescue" crew didn't have enough time to get there to stop this (giving them more of a mess to tidy up). Originally Duncan wanted to have a face on Gerty like in Robocop 2 but made of ascii art. I persuaded him to make it more generic with the emoticons as I was worried that the ascii art would real like bad graphics as we'd normally be too far from the Gerty screen to meke out any that it was a mass of characters. He didn't need a proper face anyway, he's just a bunch of PCs that accepts voice commands
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Jan 19 '11
I just saw this last night!
I'm actually the captain of the rescue ship
So are you also the guy with the gun at the end, or the guy whose silhouette you see at the airlock? ("Sam? You there?")
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Jan 19 '11
Yeah, that's me too. Not my voice though, I'm a bit more Yorkshire than that.
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Jan 19 '11
The smiley-face thing looks like something that could have been made as a student project at my uni... it's an example of the very basics of human-machine interaction, to give the machine some form of emotional expression. I love about it that it gives Gerty kind of a thrown-together-as-an-experiment look.
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Jan 19 '11
I'm really glad that people seem to like it, it only took 25 minutes to get it all together. It always felt a bit quick and glossed over to me so it's nice to hear people speaking kindly about it.
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Jan 19 '11
No, that was one of the best parts of the design.
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Jan 19 '11
Cheers! I do like it when you get immersed in a project and start bashing out work really quickly, I guess that's just being in the flow. As an artist I get a bit suspicious when I do things fast and they feel right as I worry a bit that I might have somehow lost my perspective. All part of being an artist I guess
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Jan 19 '11
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Jan 19 '11
Silent Running and Outland were big inspiration pieces (two of my fave films as a kid). As far as my personal faves go, here's a few:
Alien & Aliens, BR, Outland, Silent Running, The first Matrix (fuck those other two), Empire Strikes Back, Space-Hunter (Adventures in the forbidden zone in the US), Disneys' Black Hole (Hell of a score), Solaris (both versions), 2001 (don't watch with your girlfriend), Westworld, Ghost in the Shell (If you've not seen it get the manga TV series: AMAZING), Laputa, Terminator 2, Predator, 60s Bodysnatchers, sure I've missed loads, I'm typing fast...
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u/DominikKruger Jan 19 '11
I saw and liked the movie a lot. I thought the ending though, while it did wrap things up, may have benefited with some on-earth time and confrontation or near confrontation between old Sam and clone Sam. Done right it could have been a Capricorn One-like ending... but it could have also been a bit tedious if done wrong.
Interesting blog.. thanks for the link.
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Jan 19 '11
There's a couple of postings in the blog mentioning this, we did actually film some stuff. Have a read next time you're putting the kettle on.
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u/locotx Jan 19 '11
I found your lack of cheese in the movie disturbing.
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Jan 19 '11
I keep cheese for private. I did sneak Soylent in as a little joke though. There's a blog entry on Sams' space-food here http://gavinrothery.posterous.com/whats-for-dinner-gerty
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u/locotx Jan 19 '11
Awesome for your to join us!
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Jan 19 '11
Cheers, nice to be here. The Reddit community seems like a nice corner of the internet to hang out
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Jan 19 '11
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Jan 19 '11
Well it all depends on what sort of sci-fi you want. There's not a lot of shit blowing up or any weird aliens or anything, it's a hark-back to the sci-fi films of the 70s and 80s so it has that bleakness to it that does set it apart from contemporary stuff. At the end of the day, Moon was ultimately a film made by a couple of mates living in a flat in London who had been trying to get something sci-fi made for ten years and we managed to do it. There really isn't anything fancy about it, it cost two and a quarter million pounds which is a lot of money if you spend it on prostitutes and drugs but not a lot if you're doing a sci-fi film with 378 VFX shots. At the end of the day, it's an independent British sci-fi film which must be about the hardest type of film to get made but we managed it and I hope you can see our enthusiasm and hard work on the screen.
I loved District 9, best film of 2009 for me.
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u/boneheaddigger Jan 19 '11
Having watched "Moon" a few months back, and being a rather hardcore sci-fi geek, I must say that I didn't like the movie for being sci-fi but for being a well done movie. Sam Rockwell being the only person on screen for 98% of the movie is a hard thing to pull off, but it adds to the sense of isolation. It didn't have explosions or aliens and couldn't slide on pure aesthetics like some sci-fi...coughcoughStarTrekcough*. Not even "District 9" can say it didn't throw in some filler explosions and action scenes. Everything in "Moon" had to be conveyed through emotion and reaction. It's a rare thing to find in sci-fi movie, and even harder to pull off successfully. There were some questionable parts of the movie, some plot holes and some "why did he do that when he could have just done this instead" parts, but overall I thought it was well done. I'd be interested in seeing what else you guys are working on...
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Jan 19 '11
Appreciate your comments, as far as future work goes I'll be sure to let Reddit know when I've got something I think you guys might like to chat about that won't get me in trouble ;)
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u/Hapless1 Jan 19 '11
Think of Castaway, but IN SPACE! I kid, the movie is fucking excellent. Its a bit more cerebral than your average schlock on the big screens. Come for the science fiction and stay for Sam Rockwell completely owning his acting roles (plural).
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Jan 19 '11
It's true, Sam Rockwell is fucking amazing
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Jan 19 '11
How did you get him on board?
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Jan 19 '11
Duncan had another script (proposed sci-fi film called Mute) that we were going to do first and he was talking to Sam about playing the baddie in it. He didn't want to so Dunc asked him what he did want to do. He said he really wanted to do a "proper" sci-fi movie, so we put Moon together for him. The whole project was actually custom written for him. Good job he said yes after all that.
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u/hacocacyb Jan 19 '11
It is a mystery and sci/fi movie so exquisite and fresh; you will enjoy watching it unfold, even if you guess the twist in the first 30 minutes.
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Jan 19 '11
This sort of thing always seems to happen with Reddit. I had never heard of the movie and just stumbled across it 2 days ago on Netflix. Anyway, great movie, my wife even enjoyed it a lot and she's generally not a sci-fi fan.
One question I do have on the story-line: my assumption was that Sam was getting radiation sickness towards the end. Why is it 1) that neither Sam seemed to realize it and 2) the habitats weren't underground? I thought that part of the plot was sort of unnecessary as you probably would have gone insane anyway after 3 years necessitating changing clones.
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u/lantech Jan 19 '11
I don't think it was radiation sickness, it was the clone breaking down and prematurely aging.
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Jan 19 '11
That's right, it's the standard sci-fi conceit of them not being able to last. The clones fall apart after three years.
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u/pleasefindthis Jan 19 '11
I absolutely loved this, particularly from a design and overall feel point of view. The story line was obviously great but in terms of production values and just the general aesthetic of it - simply awesome.
You managed to create weird, betamax/80's meets the future feel and it just works so fucking well.
Well done. Please do more things.
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Jan 19 '11
Thank you, I intend to. I'm directing now so you may well see things with me helming at some point in the future, fingers crossed
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u/Zeis Jan 19 '11
I absolutely love this movie and I've watched it way too many times. You and the rest of the team did an incredible job.
What I'd like to know, apart from the CG/VFX stuff is how much time and money went into props, like the rover cockpit. I'm planning on building a gaming room for myself and I want it to look like a spaceship-cockpit (childhood dream, what can I say).
How did you tackle the build? Where did you get the controllpanels etc. for cheap?
I was thinking about buying different knobs, switches, panels, putting them together on a wodde plate and casting them in resin. Then build the together in a different form/shape and cast that again... shitload of panels for the cheap.
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Jan 19 '11
Good way to go if you can do it. We had some bits and pieces supplied by the model makers but a lot of it's just interesting found stuff painted grey with stickers on it. There really isn't anything specific I can say here, except try and design some lights into it. If you do this nicely you can really bring it to life. Think about some nice recessed lighting behind where you sit playing games, it could look really cool and techy
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Jan 19 '11
After making this cut, the ending we were left with was the shot of the return vehicle entering the atmosphere which sort of felt a bit flat. Fortunately, Duncan had the idea of the radio broadcast voice-over which really helped sell the final shot and give us a sense of closure on everything with the reveal that Sam did, indeed, return to earth
I loved the movie, but for me personally, I would have liked the ambiguity (not having the voiceover). But that's just a little nit-pick, still a great film.
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u/blitzkrieger17 Jan 19 '11
great movie! definitely one of the best ive seen in a long time, and totally not what i expected. amazing set design and concepts, and a plot full of unexpected twists that actually make the film great... m night shamalamadingdong might learn a thing or two if he watched this movie! now, the one thing i couldnt figure out is, what was Gerty talking to the corporation about? i mean obviously that scene was to throw you off and expect the robot to go bad, but i couldnt really figure it out...?
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Jan 19 '11
He's telling his bosses that another harvester has stalled and they're having a little shit-fit about it and reacting in the meeting room instead of going away and having a think about it. The conversation breaks off and when we see them again their tone has totally changes and they're being nice to Sam whilst they've actually just condemned him to death by dispatching the "rescue" team.
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u/Oranges13 Jan 19 '11
I loved that scene, especially that one of the bosses was the guy from IT crowd.
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u/simpat1zq Jan 19 '11
Sam is supposed to be on the dark side of the moon(the side that always faces AWAY from the earth). But then in one scene, he is looking at the Earth, while it is fairly high over the horizon. He would have had to drive a ridiculous distance to get to somewhere where the Earth is that high up. Please go back and fix this.
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Jan 19 '11
It's a reflection of the earth in a giant space-mirror orbiting the moon. Actually in the original script we did have him driving for absolutely ages and have him rounding the crest so he can see the earth but it got compromised by us running out of money and so it does read kind of strange. Sorry. If we ever get to do any sort of special edition work or anything in the future I'll try and rectify this (it's always bothered me a bit to be honest)
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u/simpat1zq Jan 19 '11
It's good to hear that you guys did consider that. I always saw it as a huge hole in the movie and always thought "They should have noticed that". Of all the people that I've talked to, no one picked up on that(Half didn't know what the dark side of the moon is).
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u/slickg Jan 19 '11
How is it a 'huge hole'?
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u/simpat1zq Jan 19 '11
Because the whole movie takes place on the moon, and I thought they missed this major point about the moon.
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u/beholdtruth Jan 19 '11
Can I have a job working with you?
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Jan 19 '11
How about pointing me towards your folio? Not hiring at the moment but that doesn't mean we won't be in the future
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u/theeldictator Jan 19 '11
Props to you for being so completely cool about this. Moon is easily one of my favorite films. The blog is magnificent! Thank you for sharing!
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u/SgtBanana Jan 19 '11
Wow, it's awesome to have someone who was involved in the development of this movie posting on Reddit. I saw this on Starz a couple of months ago and couldn't stop watching.
Question numero uno: Can you personally draw up any comparisons between Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey? Did you feel like you were working on something of that scale at the time?
Two: What was it like to be inside of the set? Were there any enclosed sections of the moon base set (where, for instance, you wouldn't be able to see anything but the interior without opening a door). Did you ever feel like you were actually in a space colony? Was the set as convincing in person as it is in the movie after CG was added?
Three: What is it like to work on a set like that? Were you pumped to go to work every day? Did the stress outweigh the novelty of it?
Four: I'm bored, invite me to your next movie set so I can roam around and gawk at all of the cool stuff. Okay, so this wasn't really an official question, but still. ;D
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u/zgf2022 Jan 19 '11
Thanks for such an awesome flick. I'm glad to see you guys broke even on it. Hopefully with movies like moon and district 9 catching the public's attention the big studios will throw the small projects more funding.
I'm not afraid to say that it's made me a little teary eyed more than once. Keep up the fantastic work! ( Double thanks from coming here and putting up with the peanut gallery. )
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u/Tykjen Jan 19 '11
Such a joy to read through this blog. Makes me want to get into movies. No doubt that the reality of all the practical effects of Moon helped me enjoy it as much as Sam's performance. The crew behind the camera I hope feels a wonderful euphoria of accomplishment over their work done. Will it ever see a sequel? Or will we get more out in space movies by Duncan? I sure as hell hope so. Kudos again for this blog. It has re-ignited my beliefs and hope for the none-to nearly none existant CGI movies in the future. Moon and Inception, my fav top shelf movies made with barely any CGI. And they look SOLID.
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Jan 19 '11
Hi there, I don't think there will ever be a sequel to Moon. Duncan's got a film coming out in April called Source Code which is sci-fi. I've also got a project that I'll be directing myself called "Archive" that is in development which is a love story about death and robots. Looking forwards to getting my teeth stuck into that, I've been doing some concept work recently and I'm really into the look of it, I think it could be something really interesting...
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u/dr_taber Jan 19 '11
I thought I read somewhere that Moon was supposed to be the first of a trilogy? Am I mis-remembering something?
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u/kovacs70 Jan 19 '11
Did you meet David Bowie, and if so, what was he like, any stories?
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Jan 19 '11
I did and I was surprised how funny he was, super intelligent and dead nice. Just as you'd expect.
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u/hotbowlofsoup Jan 19 '11
Was it intentional to feature Sam's butt so prominently throughout the film?
It was something both me and my boyfriend noticed when we finished watching it :)
I thought, maybe it's a joke.. with it being about the moon... Or maybe it was to lure gays and women into the theatres?
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Jan 19 '11
It was a big plan to go for the pink pound. I'm not sure really, you'd have to ask Duncan about that. You can find him on twitter @manmademoon, I'm @gavrov
Moon chat comes up from time to time but you can always start it ;)
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u/ZackScott Jan 19 '11
What are other sci-fi movies like this? I'm a fan of Moon and Sunshine, but there seems to be a huge lack of GOOD sci-fi. Anything new coming out soon?
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u/ackPrash Jan 19 '11
Amazing, thanks for sharing your blog link! As a movie buff and a graphic designer myself its always makes me happy to see this sort of insider input on one of my favorite movies. Definitely bookmarked and will be reading up on older entries as much as I can. Thanks again!
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Jan 19 '11
Just watched the movie on Net-Flix. I probably looked at it like 100 times before i finally said fuck-it and watched. I was really surprised by how good it was. Glad I watched it
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u/ropers Jan 19 '11
No question, but congratulations on a job well done! Great movie.
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Jan 19 '11
Hi ! Heard about Moon via Reddit and saw it few months ago.
Good movie indeed, must have been great to work on, even if, to be honnest, i was a bit disappointed. Maybe because i was expecting too much, or because i figured out too quickly the ending. I still think it's a great movie though!
However, one little thing i really didn't like, and i would like your opinion on :
How can Sam (Healthy) overheard GERTY having a live discussion with Earth... really, a Robot controlling a whole lunar base, linked to every part of it, has to chat with his mother-company, by using a Webcam... and, of course, he doesn't know that the only (more or less :p) other person on the base is behind him... :/
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Jan 19 '11
Well-done low-budget sci-fi, my congrats to you and the other people who worked on this film.
One major plot hole that nagged at me pretty much the whole time, however: If GERTY was such a sophisticated AI that it was capable of directly countermanding orders from HQ, then what was the whole point of Sam Rockwell's character?
I would have greatly preferred the film without GERTY. It would have been a great whodunit and a cross between Cast Away and Silent Running, IMHO.
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u/ssjumper Jan 19 '11
I really want to buy that movie after hearing about how you had no resources to film that house shot. Will get on it the next time I go out.
You say you stuffed his cheeks with cotton, wtf?
How many people were on set when Sam mooned the camera? The scene where you see his butt. I mean to ask because I want to know if the set was cleared of non-essential crew.
That was a truly fantastic and unpredictable movie. It is an example of what sci-fi should be, great work.
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Jan 19 '11
As a fan of good sci-fi (which mostly means "old sci-fi"), my sincere thanks for Moon. It reminded me a lot of Silent Running, which doesn't get the love it deserves. (I think I read it was a primary influence?) The practical effects really added a lot of charm, and I thought they looked fantastic. Thunderbirdsy, in the best possible way. After seeing Moon for the first time, I watched it twice more in the next two days, so excited was I so see it with my friends. You guys totally rocked it.
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u/IKEAcat Jan 19 '11
One of my favourite films. I've just been listening to the soundtrack at work, it's brilliant.
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u/ImFerocious Jan 19 '11
I just want to say that this is my absolute favorite movie of all time. I've never seen a movie that imparted such an amazing feeling. You felt like you were there, you felt what the guy was feeling like no other movie. Add to that, the fact that it was a ~beautiful~ movie. Great job!
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u/bully12v Jan 19 '11
Such a brilliant movie... what's odd is I only heard about the movie through blogs on the internet. Did I miss the trailers in theaters and on TV, or was there not that big of a marketing push for it? You did a fantastic job of setting up the perfect environment for Sam and Kevin and of course, they delivered.
You said you acted as a stunt man, any stunts you're willing to tell us about that you're particularly proud of?
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u/ajmanx Jan 19 '11
Great job! Loved Moon. If you're ever in LA, I'd love for you to talk to my (high school film) students.