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could pick flaws in the most carefully constructed space yarn. In fact, everybody got into the -act and
many flaws were corrected not because I spotted them but through the alertness and helpfulness of
others of the hundred-odd persons it takes to shoot a scene. Realism is compounded of minor details,
most of them easy to handle if noticed. For example, we used a very simple dodge to simulate a Geiger
counter we used a real one.
A mass of background work went into the flight of the spaceship Luna which appears only indirectly
on the screen. Save for the atomic-powered jet, a point which had to be assumed, the rest of the ship
and its flight were planned as if the trip actually were to have been made. The mass ratio was correct for
the assumed thrust and for what the ship was expected to do. The jet speed was consistent with the mass
ratio. The trajectory times and distances were all carefully-plotted, so that it waspossi -ble to refer to
charts and tell just what angle the Earth or the Moon would subtend to the camera at any given instant in
the story. This was based on a precise orbit calculated, not by me, but by your old friend, Dr. Robert
S. Richardson of Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain. -
None of these calculations appears on the screen but the results do. The Luna took off from Lucerne
Valley in California on June 20th at ten minutes to four, zone eighttime , with a half Moon overhead and
the Sun just below the eastern horizon. It blasted for three minutes and fiftysecOnds and cut off at an
altitude of eight hundred seven miles, at escape speed in a forty-six-hour
-orbit.Few of these data are given the audience but what the audience sees out the ports is consistent
with
theabove. Thetime at which they pass the speed of sound, the time at which they burst up into sunlight,
theBonestell backdrops of LosAngçles County and of the western part of the United States, all these
things match up. Later, - in the approach to the Moon, the same care was used.
Since despite all wishful thinking we are still back on LasPahmas Avenue, much of the effect of taking off
from Earth, hurtling through space and landing on the Moon had to be done in miniature. George Pal was
known for his  Puppetoons before he started producing feature pictures; his staff is unquestionably the
most skilled in the world in producing three-dimensional animation. John Abbott, director of animation,
ate, slept, and dreamed the Moon for months to accomplish the few bits of animation necessary to 1111
the gaps in the live action. Abbott s work is successfuldnly when it isn t noticed. I ll warrant that you
won t notice it, save by logical deduction, i.e., since no One has been to the Moon as yet, the shots
showing the approach for landing on the Moon must be animation and they are. Again, in the early
part- of the picture you will see the Luna in Lucerne Valley of the Mojave Desert. You know that the
ship is full size for you see men-climbing around it, working on it, getting in the elevator of the Gantry
crane and entering it and it is full size; we trucked it in pieces to the desert and set it up there. Then you
will see the Gantry crane pull away and the Luna blasts off for space.
That can t be full -size; no one has ever done it.
Try to find the transition point. Even money says you pick a point either too late or too soon.
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The Luna herself is one hundred fifty feet tall; the table top model of her and the miniature Gantry
crane are watchmaker s dreams. The miniature floodlights mounted on the crane are the size of my little
fingeftip  and they work. - Such animation is done by infinite patience and skill. Twenty-four separate
planned and
scaledsetups are required for each second of animation on the screen. Five minutes of animation took
longer to photograph than the eighty minutes of live action. -
At one point it seemed that all this planning and effort would come to nothing; the powers-that-be
decided that the story was too cold and called in a musical comedy writer to liven it up with sssh
! sex. For a time we had a version of the script which included dude ranches, cowboys, guitars and
hillbilly songs on the Moon, a trio of femalehepsters singing into a mike, interiors of cocktail lounges, and
more of the like, combined with pseudoscientific gimmicks which would- have puzzled
-evenFlash Gordon.
It was never shot. That was the wildest detour on the road to the Moon; the fact that the Luna got
back into orbit can be attributed to the calm insistence of Irving;Piçhel . But it gives one a chilling notion
of what wemayexpect from time to time. -
Somehow, the day came when the last scene had ~ shot and, despite Hollywood detours, we had
madeamotion picture of the first trip to the Moon. IrvingPichel ~ said,  Print it! for the last time, and we
adjourned to~ celebrate at a bar the- producer had set up in one end of the stage. I tried to assess my
personal account sheet i1~.had cost me eighteen months work, my peace of mind,4i and almost all of
my remaining hair.
Nevertheless, when I saw the  rough cut ofth ~
picture, it seemed to have been worth it.. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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