Latest update: 2012/03/03.Moonscape is a free and freely downloadable high-definition documentary about the first manned Moon landing.
Funded and produced by space enthusiasts from all over the world, it will show the full, unedited Apollo 11 landing and moonwalk, using only the original TV and film footage and the original photographs, rescanned and restored from the best available sources.
Its new expected release date is July 20, 2012, with early previews around Christmas 2011.
2012/03/03: English subtitling of the entire EVA and post-EVA broadcast has been completed.
2011/12/22: The first 17 minutes of Moonscape, covering Neil Armstrong's descent and first step, are available now as a rough cut preview. Scroll down to watch.
2011/07/20: The original release date of July 2011 has been pushed back, mainly because NASA still hasn't yet released an official, complete and broadcast-quality version of the restored Apollo 11 TV footage which it announced and partially released in 2009. This is holding up Moonscape considerably, but we're trying to work around the problem.
Here's the latest trailer for Moonscape:
And here's a preview of a rough cut of the first 17 minutes of Moonscape: Neil Armstrong's first steps on the surface of the Moon, seen from two angles: the 16mm color film and the restored TV broadcast. The main titles and the voice-over commentary are still missing, but this should give you an idea of where Moonscape is going. The documentary will be accompanied by a book which explains in detail what the astronauts are doing.
A separate 16-minute featurette, called Contact Light, covers the actual descent to the Moon and is almost complete. You can preview it below: more details are available at Contact Light - The Movie.
Moonscape and Contact Light will allow you to experience the landing and the moonwalk through the eyes of the astronauts. Photographs that were taken in sequence will be assembled into panoramic views; the TV and color film footage will be shown in sync with the radio communications and with the photos, allowing you to see rare and unusual details of the historic event from multiple viewpoints and with unprecedented clarity. Most documentaries during the past forty years have used footage whose quality was degraded by multiple analog transfers: Moonscape instead gets as close as possible to the sharpness and richness of the original images.
With the help of donations from space enthusiasts all over the world, we're purchasing the amazing restored and retransferred 16mm footage of the moonwalk from Footagevault.com, the same source used by documentaries such as In The Shadow of the Moon. The photographs have been sourced from NASA's GAPE (Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, eol.jsc.nasa.gov) with a resolution of 4400 x 4600 pixels. The complete restored TV broadcast will also be included. All the astronauts' communications will also be subtitled for clarity.
Differently from many other documentaries, Moonscape and Contact Light will not “cheat” by using footage taken out of context or from other space missions for dramatic purposes. Every picture and every sound will be original and true to the actual sequence of events, as documented by NASA's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. The only special effects allowed will be image stabilization, where needed, color correction and digital processing to generate high-definition panoramic views from the photographs.
When Moonscape and Contact Light are completed, they will be freely available for download at no cost, with no copyright restrictions except those provided by their Creative Commons license: basically, you'll be free to copy them to any medium, as long as you give credit to the authors. Yes, this kind of distribution is legal.
Moonscape and Contact Light are free documentaries, but making them doesn't come cheap. We're all devoting our time to this project for free, but buying the HD digital transfers is a big expense (several thousand euros/dollars) but it allows us to have the rights to distribute these documentaries for free. And then there's the video editing software and hardware. So if you feel like donating some money, no matter how little, to these projects, you're most welcome: click on the Paypal link below and specify what name, nickname or company name you want to have in the end credits of Moonscape and Contact Light.
You're also welcome to contribute with work: we need graphics, subtitling, proofreading, fact-checking, translations, music and professional voice-overs (in multiple languages for international distribution). If you have any of these skills and are willing to contribute to the project, contact me, Paolo Attivissimo, in English or Italian at paolo.attivissimo@gmail.com.
Moonscape FAQ
When will it be available? That depends a lot on when all the footage becomes available. The correct transfer of the 16mm color footage of Apollo 11's moonwalk only arrived in July 2010. NASA hasn't yet released officially the final and full restoration of the TV broadcast. Also, editing and subtitling are time-consuming, and we're all working on the project in our spare time. So please be patient.
Will it be available in my language? Yes, if we can find volunteers to translate its subtitles and an offscreen narrator for your language. The first version will be in English, followed by Italian (for which we already have translators) and then by other languages. If you can help, contact us at paolo.attivissimo@gmail.com.
What format(s) will it use? The high-definition version will be downloadable at no cost as a video file. A standard-definition, non-HD version will be available for download as an ISO image of a DVD, ready to be burned to disc and played on any DVD player. (as a standard DVD playable on any player and as a DVD-ROM). A further version will be available in streaming via Youtube, Vimeo and similar sites.
Will it be copy protected? Absolutely not. Our aim is to disseminate the completed documentaries as widely as possible.
Will it be watermarked? Will that huge “moonscape.info” logo clutter the screen? No. The watermark is only in the rough cuts to distinguish them from the final version.
I can't download a huge file, will it be distributed by mail? No, sorry. We have no time to manage mail distribution right now. But you can copy Moonscape legally from anyone who has downloaded it.
Will it be possible to see Moonscape and Contact Light grow? Yes. Low-resolution rough cuts will be published periodically to allow anyone to check and review the work and offer suggestions and criticism.
Will the subtitles be hardcoded? The streaming versions will have hardcoded subtitles for maximum compatibility. Downloadable versions with optional subtitles will be available.
Will it deal with the so-called “moon hoax” theory? Only very briefly. Simply viewing this footage, in its original quality, should be enough to dispel any fakery theories from the mind of any reasonable person. Moonscape is intended to celebrate courage and ingenuity, not to debunk doubters and lunatics.
How long will the fundraising last? Indefinitely, or at least until the series of documentaries covering the Apollo missions is completed. We will also be updating Moonscape and Contact Light as newly restored material becomes available to buy. For example, new higher-resolution scans of the Apollo photographs will become available in 2012, new digital transfers of the 16mm footage may be released to correct for the blurring problems of the current transfers, and new Moon probes will provide fresh images of the Apollo landing sites.
How's the fundraising going? How have you spent the money? Who are the donors, and how many are they? So far, quite well: we've got enough funds to buy nearly all the currently available Apollo 11 footage HD transfers. But we still need funds for any future footage that might become available and for the documentaries that will cover the other Apollo missions. We'd like to get the astronauts themselves to do some commentary, too, and that might entail a fee. The details are available here.
How much money are you making out of this? None so far. Apart from being the proud owners of full, unedited HD transfers of the 16-mm Moon landing footage and lots of reference books, and apart from the pleasure of telling and sharing an amazing true story. Actually, we have spent quite a lot of time and technical resources on these projects. Some of us have invested their own money in technical reference books and other reference material. Any unused donations and any money from TV rights or the like will be reinvestedt for future projects. We're in this because we're enthusiasts, not for the money.
Is this project sponsored by NASA? No. A few people who work(ed) at NASA are giving us a hand informally with the technical reference and fact-checking, but we're not funded in any way by NASA or any other agency.
What copyright license will be used? The Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. In a nutshell, these documentaries will be freely distributable but anyone distributing them will be required to mention the authors and will be legally prohibited from turning them into commercial products or making derivative works without our explicit permission.
I represent a TV station or a DVD/Blu-ray distribution company. Can I broadcast/distribute Moonscape or Contact Light? Yes, provided that you don't demand an exclusive contract, that you broadcast/distribute them in full (including the licensing and free distribution notes), make a reasonable donation (the amount you would pay for similar footage from a commercial source, for example) and don't slap any copyright restrictions on the documentaries, which are, and shall remain, always freely distributable.
Is it legal to distribute this footage for free? Yes, provided that it is part of a new creative work. Footagevault's FAQs and NASA's copyright rules are quite clear: NASA material is rights-free and the version restored by Footagevault, once purchased, is free to use "in all media throughout the known Universe".
You're kidding. What does Footagevault say, exactly? This: "7. Can I reuse the material I have paid for ? You are free to use the material you acquire from us as many times as you like. Once it is downloaded you are free to keep it and re-use it in future projects in all media throughout the known Universe. We only charge for the handling and delivery. If you need to download it again within a week you are free to do this. If you have then deleted the media and need it again for a future project you will need to pay our download fees again."
Can't you post the raw restored footage online? That's doubtful. Footagevault's terms speak of "use... in future projects", and this can be construed as prohibiting any posting of raw footage, which would not be a creative project.
Who's “we”? I'm Paolo Attivissimo, British-Swiss-Italian science journalist and longtime space enthusiast. Gen'xha worked on the movie poster that you can see above, but we're open to additional proposals. Photographer Andrea Tedeschi is in charge of photograph restoration and color-correction. Rodri is managing the accounting. Fozzillo is handling the digitally rendered panoramic shots. Giancarlo dalla Chiara is providing the music. The veterans of Project Apollo are lending their superb technical skills and hands-on experience. I'm deeply grateful to Viviana and Andrea for donating their fantastic bound copy of the Apollo manuals, which are essential for describing the missions.
What music will you use? Apart from the music of the trailers, offered by Giancarlo dalla Chiara, notfinal music selection has been made. We're looking for something that will evoke a sense of the magic, wonder and danger of the voyage and of the Moon. Send us samples of your suggestions (music that you've heard or composed). Please bear in mind that it must be freely distributable music.
Who will be the narrator? That depends partly on the budget and on the final structure of the documentaries. It will certainly be a professional speaker in the final version. If the funds are enough, we'll hire a well-known voice actor.
Why are you using the Futura font? Because it's a beautiful font and it's a double homage: to Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey and to NASA, which used it as its "official" font for all the lettering on the Apollo vehicles.
What's the video format of the Footagevault files? They're compressed with the DVC PRO HD 1080 codec, which some players and editors can't read (Final Cut Express HD can't read them, but Final Cut Pro does). VLC 1.01 reads these files correctly.
Great! How can I help? By donating funds via Paypal (click the donation button shown above) or by working on the project. As mentioned above, we're looking for someone who can lend a hand with graphics, subtitling, proofreading, fact-checking, translations, music and professional voice-overs. We also need people to spread the word, so if you have a blog, website, newspaper, magazine or TV station that deals with space news, tell your readers and viewers about Moonscape and Contact Light.
