I have just bought that Apollo 15 DVD from Spacecraft Films:

- great documentation, but altogether too raw: no explanations, so extra-audio track with NASA personnel comments, no CGI explaning hardware or missions....(OK there's on CGI showing Hadley geography and EVA sites, but it's very poor) I'm actually thinking of returning the product to Amazon.

Questions: as they land, there's a 16mm take showing an astronaut throwing an object about in the module. It's supposed to be moon gravity, but it seems more like zero-G. Or was it in the command module?

More questions may follow as I remember them!

(PS: I'm no hoax-believer!)

The rawness is the best things about the Spacecraft Films DVDs. I wish more documentary producers would include raw sets of the relevant video materials. (I'd really like to see a music documentary producer that could resist the urge to edit or talk over a live performance of a song.)

For a good explanation of what is going on in the missions, get David Harland's book, Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions. He covers each mission in detail explaining what they were looking for at each station.

I agree, especially the Apollo 11 DVD set. You see...

...for the longest time (years...decades, actually) the only record of the first Moon walk that I possessed was an off-the-air audio recording from the CBS broadcast. Now don't get me wrong, I think that Walter Cronkite was a great newscaster, but during the Apollo 11 Moon walk he just couldn't help himself and just talked and talked and talked...sometimes right over what the astronauts were saying. It wasn't so much a problem during the later missions...by then, no one cared. But during Apollo 11, it really got to be aggravating. On these DVD's, you hear the Astronauts and Mission Control only...which is the way it should be.

At the A11 35th anniversary celebrations in Canberra recently, I picked up a DVD that synchronized the TV broadcast with the astronaut/MOCR transmissions through the right speaker & the Net 2 (internal MSFN communications) through the left. No commentary other than the professionals involved. It is absolutely mesmerizing. 8)

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

I think that Walter Cronkite was a great newscaster, but during the Apollo 11 Moon walk he just couldn't help himself and just talked and talked and talked...sometimes right over what the astronauts were saying.

I don't remember much about Cronkite's contribution. It was my first full day home from Vietnam, and I was just thrilled to see Armstrong step on the moon. But I often wonder -- television is supposed to be a visual medium -- "a picture is worth a thousand words" and all that -- so why do TV people feel compelled to talk all the time? Bob Costas during the Olympics ceremonies drives me nuts with his incessant chatter, not to mention that he rudely insists on pointing out the political and social failings of each nation as its athletes march past. There's a time and place for that, but not at the Olympics. I wish he'd just shut up let us watch.

Now, indeed rawness wasn't what I was criticizing, but the lack of aditional OPTIONAL material like second audio channel or extra imagery explaining the stuff.

I watch them plant experiments, move around, find rocks, it woundnt be much to have a second audio channel with experts or Scott explaining the importance of the findings. The video and audio are not all a document needs - testimony is vital.

I watch the Spacecraft Films material with my laptop beside me so I can read the ALSJ commentary at the same time.

Yeah, I've tried to gather info from my laptop too. Because merelt watching the DVDs is not enough to learn all there is about the mission.

I bought the full A15 set myself recently. I also have the A8, A11, Gemini, and Saturn V sets from Spacecraft. As great as they are, I have to agree that the "raw" footage can get a little boring at times, especially when there's no video to go along with the audio. Still, that's "as it happened." For someone like me (13 in 1972), who remembers watchng this footage live it's fascinating. I insisted on watching the launches and EVA's long after the rest of my family had decided they were not of interest.

In any case A15 was my favorite among the missions (even if it had an all Air Force crew. I work for the Navy so A12 should be, and is, also up there.) IMHO A15 had both the coolest logo and one of the most interesting landing zones (Hadley Rille) of all of the missions. I'm waiting anxiously for Spacecraft to come out with the rest of the Apollo missions.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

I was minus 5 in 1972, so that's pretty much something my parents and grandparents tell me about, the day they watched it (Apollo 11 only!)... But I always taped documentaries from TV and read websites, so I already knew a lot.

Amen. It seems like they think we can't watch the show and draw our own conclusions so they make one up for us. Like you, I watched the opening ceremonies and felt the urge to yell at Bob to put a sock in it already and let me enjoy it! And you're also right about the political comments he made, especially the ones during the Iraqi and Afghan team entrances. Not the best time or venue but it seemed he couldn't resist getting a jab in. Thanks, Bob...'preciate it.

I have to agree with AGN Fuel. The Apollo 11 DVD from Colin Mackellar is something that is mesmerising. Especially the seat-of-their-pants downlink with TV not moments before Neil Armstrong steps of the LM.

In my case I feel a bit of pride knowing that my country had a major role to play in the landings (despite being a mutt of German/Polish background).

I also cant wait till January when I will be back in said nation, to meet up with those involved with said DVD (and original missions)!!!

Dwight

You're coming back Down Under, Dwight? Escaping the German winter or braving the Australian summer??

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

In general I can appreciate the sentiment. However, doesn't that speak to the nature of a documentary? I mean, is the goal of the documentary to provide distribution for live performances, or is the goal to discuss some aspect of the group and their history? If the latter, then the music is more of demonstrating the point, or background to what's going on. As such, it seems appropriate for dialog to be occurring.

Some people seemed a little all-or-nothing here. I never said that rawness is bad, but an OPTIONAL second audio comment channel with the astronauts and NASA folks remarks would make the DVD set WAY more watchable.

Instead, we are left only with rawness, so 80% of the time I don't know what exactly they were doing. Additional OPTIONAL explanatory subtitles as to what precise experiments they were delivering or what rock they were picking up, the relevance of facts, etc., I deem necessary.

Some imagery (even if still) of each EVA showing where they went etc. could be a simple way of explaining the mission.

Once again: non-rawness would be OPTIONAL so rawness lovers could watch only the raw pristine untouched stuff without ever recurring to explanation, comment, subtitles or CGI.

That's a fair call. Why not send an e-mail to Mark Grey along those lines? It might be the sort of thing he might contemplate in future releases.

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

I mean, is the goal of the documentary to provide distribution for live performances, or is the goal to discuss some aspect of the group and their history?

Musical artists have been documented in both styles. D.A. Pennebaker used both styles during his career. His documentary of Bob Dylan, Don't Look Back, has extensive footage of Dylan in his prime hanging out in English hotel rooms on tour, but only tantalizingly short clips of Dylan in concert. It is interesting to see Dylan behind the scenes, but with the scarcity of live performance footage that exists today, one can't help but wish that Pennebaker would have included the full Royal Albert Hall concert as a bonus on the DVD.

Pennebaker's other film, The Monterey Pop Festival tends to include complete performances of songs, letting the music speak for itself. The additions to the expanded DVD set don't consist of say, Mama Cass hanging around backstage wolfing down ham sandwiches, but consist of even more performances, including Hendrix's complete set.

As for the Spacecraft films DVD's, I wouldn't mind, say, commentary by the astronauts or others as long as it was on an optional track. However, since there are a limited number of bits on a DVD, I'd rather those bits be taken up by even more audio from the original mission than of any new audio where someone is speaking retrospectively about the mission.

Apollo 17 DVD reviewed

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I got this 3 DVD set last week, and was completely gob-smacked. I have watched the Motion Picture Apollo 13 enough times, but to see more than the film and the 30 minute Nasa documentary was an amazing journey.

It was with a great deal of heartbreak that I watched Fred Haise and Jim Lovell training for their EVA, and going on their geology field trip. Even the TV transmissions prior to the explosion were full of optimistic anticipation of "when we are on the moon".

The subsequent MOCR loop during the tank explosion is very chilling as you hear the controllers realise that the problem was a major dilemna. The midnight press conference also looks very grim. The expressions on the three faces says it all. One interesting question was put forward as to whether Haise's compression gag played a factor in the problem.

The ending is superb, watching those chutes open is awesome! Through this DVD set you can really get an idea of how lucky the crew were that everything happened when it did; and just how much brain-power was required to make sure they got back alive.

A great set to see!

Cheerio,
Dwight

I'd got the original (pre-Fox deal) Spacecraft Films 2 DVD-set for Apollo 15, but am now thinking of 'trading up' to the new 6-DVD set for this mission - would that be a worthy investment? There were some sections of the 2-DVD set (pre-launch etc) which were 16mm film with no audio - has an audio track been added in later versions?

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