Apollo 11 - Q&A With Stephen Slater and Helen O'Hara - EMF 2026

Hello everybody. My name is Helen O'Hara. Um, delighted to be back at EMF Camp. And uh, please welcome back to the stage Steven Slater. >> Good evening. [applause] >> And thank you. Thank you all for sticking around. Wasn't that an incredible film? So inspiring. I just love it. Um, I'm going to start with the basics. Tell me about, you know, being an archive producer. How did you get into this? Give me the quick Clif's notes. If anybody else wants to do what you do, how do they start that? >> Oh, there's a that's a there's a a wall of questions there. I mean, I think I think it's quite a misunderstood sort of term. I I I I've um I've worked in film production of of some kind for I don't know getting on 20 years or more now. And I think it really just stemmed from an from an interest in, you know, primarily being a documentary producer or wanting to tell documentary stories. I I had a interest in space, uh, which somehow was kind of led to this weird sort of niche. Um, I I produced and directed the BBC 4 documentary about an unmanned space probe. And because it it involved so much archive and sadly I wasn't I was not alive when these events happened um or nor for that film. And so that involved like really immersing myself in the the historical material which which we all need, you know, as documentary filmmakers. It's it's like such an important it's even more important than ever now with AI taking trying to take over everything. But, you know, we need the the authenticity of that material and finding the real material is really important. So I think it just it just focused an interest I'd had in in in you know trying to get all the best material of that particular historical event you know with the Apollo being a real you know focus obviously which I suppose that's kind of like the pinnacle of it but um there's many rabbit holes that I've been down over the years that I think is probably not suitable for this well maybe it is for some of the audience but uh yeah >> amazing and what was it that sparked your interest in the Apollo missions? I think it was um watching the uh another film which is going to be here on 35 mil I understand at the weekend Apollo 13 at the cinema. Uh so I saw that when I was 8 years old in 1995 and it's it's a it's a wonderful film. I mean it's such it's such an inspiring story you know the fact that um it's like my god we actually did this. We as we as a as a species or as a as humanity did this. And I I think um you can never really say for certain what one thing leads you in a certain direction, but I you know I think you're at an impressionable impressionable age when you're you know seven or eight. So I think I go back to that a lot. Yeah. >> It's it's it's an interesting one because it's kind of the power of art to inspire reality to inspire these documentary films. >> And it is accur and it is a very good film. It's a very accurate film. It's it's a movie, not a documentary, but a lot of the same, you know, things are going on there. I think there some people say that, you know, a lot of a lot of stuff in in Apollo 11 is quite cinematic or or feels a bit like a movie. I think especially the the which I'm sure we're going to talk about but the 70 mil that archive particularly is is yeah >> I do want to ask about that but uh but just first I wanted to ask about something you almost touched on there which is you know given that you know this much about the Apollo missions can you watch you know an Apollo 13 uh the dish uh anything else about them that's sort of fictional without getting irritated you know do you get do you sit there nitpicking and going, "Oh, that isn't what happened. How dare you?" >> I mean, I I have to I find uh documentaries about the space program and Apollo quite traditionally I'm I'm I find it there's quite a high bar when it comes to to watching that. And that's not that's not meant to be a criticis criticism of them. I think it's just the fact that, you know, when you immerse yourself so much in a subject, you you know, you can see the obvious, you know, mistakes. I mean, I I say I'm more forgiving of of of of movies because I mean, the dish is an example where um it's about the Australian efforts to to to I'm sure some people here would have seen it to receive the um television of the moon landings which was received in Australia. And although I mean it's a lot less accurate than Apollo 13. Um but the sentiment, you know, it's a movie at the end of the day and the sentiment so many more people know about that story because of that film that movie and and I think, you know, I'm I'm really for things like that. Um as long as people understand that it's a movie and it's a documentary, but I mean that's that's probably like a film school kind of discussion. But absolutely no. A lot of documentaries do irritate me about about the moon landings, but um I'm [snorts] not going to be naming names. >> No, absolutely not. I would not ask you to. It would be wrong. Um but you mentioned the 70 mm footage. So that is a really key part of why this film looks as gorgeous as it does. Um can you tell me about the sort of the process of of getting that and and finding out what was there? Well, as I think I I sort of said in the in the intro, it was it was quite a serendipitous is that that's a I think that's a phrase um discovery because we were um we' done the short a short film which I'm I'm sure not many people would have seen called The Last Steps which was um it was actually premiered at the Hampton uh film festival in 20 pretty obscure 2016 uh and it was just about the last mankind's last landing on the moon which and it was but it was done in this same and that was actually how I met Todd the director and it was it's one of these things where as you say you know I had become accustomed to working on quite a lot of it wasn't the first time I worked on a film about the moon landings but you know um and you you don't your expectations aren't necessarily high but when when the final version of that film came through it was I was absolutely like blown away with the the music, the the the the care taken to the edit, um the structure and everything. And and and I I I then suggested after the um uh after the the the screening, I I'd done a lot of work um particularly with the mission control footage, restoring the sound or syncing the sound to that footage, which is worthy of probably 10 10 hours of conversation, very boring, no social life, that kind of thing. Um, and I said because the anniversary was coming up, we should do something in the similar style. But it wasn't it was not like founded around that that footage existing because we didn't know about it. But but the the whole if you've seen the last steps, it it it's a the structure is very similar or the the idea with no narration, just have the audio and the footage from the mission and no interviews, nothing retrospective. And it it just cuz I thought that worked so well. I was like, well, I'm sure we can make that work for, you know, for the for the 50th anniversary which was coming up. And then it was 6 months into the research phase that we got this email that showed up from the National Archives saying alerting us to the existence of all of this 70 mil footage. And it was like I had to sort of do a double take cuz I was like, well, did they really just say that, you know? And then my god, how do we how do we look at this? How do we get this into the film or how do we how do we scan it, view it, you know, which is a whole, you know, making of story, but you know that it wasn't the basic structure was there before we found that footage and then when we found it, it like opened up. It's like this couldn't just be a a a big screen production. It could be an IMAX film because of the quality of the film. And you know, we we were um uh sat in a um uh in the scanning room when the when that footage came in and it was the footage of the craw that you know the crawler taking the rocket and it was bwown which meant the footage was upside down and it was like not only not only have we got the 70 mil footage but we've got aerial footage of the Yeah. Yes. So, they were shooting this stuff on from a from like an aerial and and it became clear like this is something very very I mean I I'm still surprised when I when I see the you know see it and yeah hats off to those cinematographers for for filming that you know. >> I have a question which >> I'm just trying to find in here which is sorry it's gone. >> Yeah. Thank you. Ah thanks. I have a question in here I'm just trying to find but it's um do you have a favorite shot? Is it that one then? Is it the crawler? That's your favorite shot in the movie? >> It's hard. No, I think um what's my favorite shot? My favorite sequence of shots are the people uh the people on the beach, Cape, you know, at Cape Can Cape Kennedy as it was then. Uh just an ordinary people watching, you know, getting ready, sat down with their station wagons, mobile homes. um that you see those those hairstyles and it it's not like um people have described, you know, when you see kind of footage like that, it's sort of like a time capsule, but I think it's like time travel. It's actually time travel. It's like that's how that's how beautiful the the cinematography is of that footage. Um I the launch I think probably the launch of the Saturn 5 is awesome. I think that might be my favorite shot in, you know, cinema history. It's like this panning shot of of it, you know, of it lifting off. Um, some people really knew what they were doing when it came to how do we preserve this and shoot this and we didn't know about it for 50 years, you know, nearly. So, >> sorry. Uh, that is incredible. That question came from Patty. Thank you, Patty, for that one. Um, I also have a question here which I think relates to some of what you were saying about processing this footage and kind of getting this all together like uh from Clive. Hello Clive. Was it all down film to film or was there a digital stage used? So can you tell us just about because you had a lot of sources. So we may need the cliff notes version because there is another film at 9:30. But um what you know how did you put all this stuff together? I had quickly I had a very large collection of all the 16 mil film. So that's everything that was shot on the on the flight. Um almost everything that was shot in mission control which um had no sound. So I spent years trying to add to sync the sound to this footage. And then the 70 mil footage all had to be digitized from scratch because we didn't know about it. And then we had to I say we I'm not taking credit for this personally. Um, we had a team called Final Frame in New York who had to make a actually made a customuilt scanner to scan all of that footage. So, there was they scanned all 200 reels of of film. Uh, you know, it's like one over a pabyte of D. I think that mean probably means something to people here. A over a pabyte of data. Um, because it was all scanned in like 8K resolution. That that's the main bottleneck was getting all that being able to scan that and use that. The other the other material was I mean there was some bits and pieces that we that we we transferred but you know by and large I already had all that material. So the new element was the um 16 mil 70 mil and that was yeah film to digital scan to digital and um yeah by some some kind of geniuses who know about that kind of stuff. >> Yeah they really do. Oh I'm back. Hi. Um and also because you mentioned the music before we had a question from Andy. Um, how much of the soundtrack is original and exactly aligned with the footage? >> What about the footage? The footage. >> Well, aligned with the footage. So, I guess that's about you. >> Yeah, it's it's all um it's composed by a brilliant composer called Matt Morton, who who um who also did this the score for The Last Steps. And and his philosophy was he had a Moog synthesizer. um uh his philosophy was to only use music that made by instrumentation that existed in 1969. So um I say it's it's a Moog synthesizer. All everything you hear could have been made at the time, >> you know, which I it's very cool, but it's also I it's a you know I just I just love the soundtrack. I I could you know um I I have that on my listen to that in my car a lot. you know the um I think particularly the um saying back there cuz I just came just came back I have seen the film many times so I didn't actually sit all the way through I came back in just around when they were having the there's a there's a shot with um filmed by Michael Collins as the the lunar module sort of makes its way up from the from the moon and uh it's all done in one shot and there's a Matt's music it it's like bit like moonlight sonata um and and my it's my favorite scene in the film and I think it's all because of the music. So, look, a I love the music. I'm a huge fan basically. Yeah, >> it's it's gorgeous. Michael Collins always seems like a fascinating figure to me just because he's there on his own orbiting the moon for two days and if a tiny thing goes wrong, like that's just it. That's he's just stuck there. It's a It's an incredible story for him. I think >> he he's um I think the most eloquent of the astronauts. Um there's a book called Carrying the Fire that he wrote which I think is the best astronaut memoir if anyone's into you know memoirs. Um that's worth cuz he's he's he's incredibly self-deprecating very you know realistic about it. And also I think you know there is a kind of there's a lot of false myth mythology that's been put into he's like well people say he was the loneliest person ever. Well well no he was on the he could communicate with mission control. um it it wouldn't have felt like that. But of course, you know, he was by definition the most remote, you know, person. Um there's a picture there's a picture that he took um of the Earth and the lunar module, you know, coming into dark, which is would have been taken around when that footage would start and he actually comments in the book that you know the everyone in everyone all of humanity is in that picture. the two people in the in the spacecraft and the six six billion or I think it's or might be four but it's a lot less than it is now. Um >> is all in one picture except the photographer which is is him. So yeah. >> So he is the loneliest man. Come on. >> But it's not it's not people want to put like a mythology on it that doesn't you know doesn't that wasn't true. I mean, Al, what Ron Evans and Al Ward, you know, Al Ward and Ken Mattingley, they were alone for, I don't know, 46 orbits on, you know, the last three. They were they were alone for a lot longer than him. Um, >> but mainly they were doing science and they were doing that kind of they weren't contemplating their existence. >> That's it. That's exactly. >> It's like people think that astronauts all they ever do is look out the window and, you know, but actually it's kind of there's a lot of stuff to do. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. there is quite a lot. Um I think that existential question though does bring in in some of the stuff that people have asked about um which is you know the importance of this kind of documentary especially in an age of AI especially in an age where people like I would imagine everyone in this room's parents has at some point sent them an AI video not knowing it's AI. Um but you know there are people who just don't know the difference anymore. So, does it make films like this feel more important and more kind of urgent to to preserve this stuff, to restore it, to put it in a form that people can see? >> It's it it's so important. It really is. And and and I mean, AI wasn't really I suppose it was on the horizon, maybe just like just about on the horizon when we when we finished this, but like now I mean it's everywhere and it's it's invading documentaries that I've um either been peripherilally involved in or or worked on directly. I mean, there was one film um which actually animated a still of an astronaut and made it made it moving and they don't tell the audience that they're doing that. And it's like, well, why was that necessary? You know, it's like we we rely on p the authenticity of this material is is like so important. And maybe you could get AI to generate some of those shots of the people on the beach or but you know, would would would it have any value? And it would have no value because it's like it has no value. But in my view, I mean, um, maybe I'm fighting like a losing battle. I don't know. But I don't think people want to see AI. Like, I'm very, um, I'm quite passionate about this. [cheering] [applause] >> Yeah. >> Leading the charge. [laughter] >> Quite right. We've got a couple of questions here about the um, you know, the amount of footage that you had. You obviously had difficult decisions to make. So, first of all, Lee's asked, "How many hours didn't make it into the documentary?" Um, and Rebecca asked, "What else did you find in in the archives and couldn't include but found other noteworthy?" [laughter] >> I mean, because the decision was made to focus on the nine days of the mission. I mean, people people probably got an idea that all they were ever doing was was filming. There's not that much footage. Like there's not that much like I suppose particularly 16 mm film that they they didn't shoot that much because they're trying to save film. They don't have all that much film stock with me. They've got to be disciplined somewhat disciplined about that. So I mean I think probably almost every frame of of film they shot on the flight is there on the ground. It's it's a different story. You know obviously we used there was a lot in the buildup but again people were even when you're shooting on 70 mil you're not you're not just shooting the floor all the time. very selective people are people are selectively shooting. So it's not like there's a whole wealth of stuff that we didn't didn't use. I mean the by far the biggest reservoir of material is is something called the um it's called the 30 track um mission control voice recordings which um we we had access to for this film which is uh uh basically we had access to all of the mission controllers conversations throughout the flight. So, at any time if they're keying on on a on a loop, um, I say it's and that's 11 it's 11,000 hours of audio. Uh, which and a hu human human lifetime wouldn't be long enough to kind of listen to to all of that. But we found I mean, and the only way to to interrogate it was to listen. And that's but but you know we had um particularly our producer Tom um spent a lot of time going through it and and so he would find things like where you have the the controllers. Oh, did you see the story about Ted Kennedy on the news? You know, and and then it was like, well, obviously that has to be in the film. I'm sure there's so many other little things you could build scenes around possibly. But it's like we don't want to have to use AI. We don't want to have to have reconstructions. I mean one one very good example and it's been it's funny it's been in the news um this week because Buzz Aldrin has just auctioning a pen uh which um there was there was an issue actually when they were planning to lift off from the moon where a circuit breaker or a button got knocked out of the panel um and to fix the problem he literally jammed a pen into the [laughter] the ultimate sort of um do-it-yourself kind of solution and um used that to kind of to and that allowed them to fire the engine for them to to take off from the moon. But then when we look at it from a documentary perspective and Todd would be the best person to tell this story, but that there isn't footage of there's no footage of them deliberating over that. What would you what would you illustrate it with? we don't want to have to show stuff from other missions or something that so actually however and I think the audio wasn't that dramatic anyway but these are the that's why documentaries always I think work best when you have these constraints because we we're constrained by however dramatic it might have been there wasn't a good way of of illustrating it although actually I don't think it was that dramatic in that case anyway but it's like you've got to there's got to be a way that you can if it's all archival we're not we can't just make stuff up, you know, we've got to in my view. Um, so >> and this was always going to be archival. There were never going to be talking heads. There was no decision discussion. >> And I think other films have done that well. >> I think well certainly now, but even by the time we were making the film, the astronauts were in their late 80s. Um, well, one of the astronauts has has since died. Um, but also regardless of that, it's a different style of film, you know. I think um it didn't need it, did it? I don't think it need, you know, it didn't need um and people's memories are very different. It's like we've got we've kind of got the real thing. So, it's like what's better than the real thing? >> Yeah. >> Um, question from Sebastian. How much restoration was needed for the footage? Well, the thing is the National Archives, it's a good question, but the National Archives actually did an amazing job preserving that that 70 mil film, but and so not as much as you might think, but actually the answer is a lot [laughter] to make it look as good as it as it as it is. But it's not this isn't a case of, you know, colorizing black and white footage or, you know, footage from, you know, I I'd be surprised. I mean, I'm sure you can shoot better now, but like, you know, Christopher Nolan's I'm sure is is better shooting better stuff now, but it's not much better than that, you know? It's uh um it's you mean you're more of a you're more of a cophile than me? I mean, does it how does it compare to you know, I think Lawrence of Arabia, they use the same it's the same kind of stock they were using for that film. So, but the thing is they knew they were forward-looking. They knew someone at NASA knew this is going to be important. >> We're going to document it properly. >> It is important. Also, the Odyssey rocks. Go see the Odyssey and IMAX. Um, but I'm not paid to say that, but I just loved it. Um, but but the but the NASA thing is interesting because you've mentioned a couple of times we got this from NASA. We got access to NASA. How does one get access to NASA's archives? Are they just >> are they out there? Are they, you know, online? Do I have to write a letter? How do I do this? >> Oh god. Um, you have to have no social life at all. >> Done. I'm totally all over it. [laughter] >> It's a really interesting question because a lot of people say to me, well, NASA archive, it's free, isn't it? It's in the public domain. And the answer is that it's free in a sense that it's they have they it's decreed at least now. Who knows what's going to happen, but but at least for now, the US government has, you know, it's in the public domain. It's like a gift to humanity. So all the Arteimus stills you can download, you can you can use them in your documentary, you can you can do whatever, but it doesn't um it doesn't mean that they're going to um facilitate all of your requests, you know. So, so I suppose in a sense I've made it my, you know, my livelihood in a way is is to is to is to understand the processes for accessing that material for building relationships where I need to with people and and and but but the the other thing is that we're lucky in that in the sense that we have an organization like the National Archives where all this material is is preserved and ultimately there is kind of a process for but for for accessing it but whereas whereas more current you know departments let's just say you know the current NASA um like in Houston for example there's a lot of bureaucracy involved. I mean I I worked on the film about um Sally Ride who was the first um female US astronaut and but I think because a lot that material was more recent it's just more you know I think people just think that yeah this is a filmmakers sort of thing but people think that NASA will drop everything to support their latest film and they're like well actually we're building rocket we're going back to the moon we're kind of busy with that kind of thing we need to leave the historian the the history of it to um and it's true that the history of it has been outsourced a lot by, you know, private individuals or, you know, uh, people with a lot of time on their hands. >> And no social life. >> Exactly. [laughter] >> But that's that's really interesting. Like, do is there less footage of like the shuttle era missions? That does exist as well. Okay. >> No, I mean, no. U They've done a fantastic job of of documenting things. there is it might not be well as well known um or as accessible. I mean I say part of I suppose part of my job is to try and make this stuff more accessible through um I'd love to see more more things you know made about it. I mean art yeah art I mean let's move on to art. you can talk about Artemis, but um at at least there's been a more um documented process of how all that stuff's been gathered. So, I think that's going to be easier. And I know people who are involved in um we were talking um if if by if anyone wants to see the 9-day version of this website, um a colleague of mine actually worked on on the film, Ben Feist, um has set up a website called Apollo in real time. Um, and so literally you can you can log in like right now and see and hear exactly what what the astronauts were saying. You can go to any one of those, you know, 50 plus audio channels and it's like that's that's the 9-day cut of our film. The thing is we haven't even had time to listen to all of it. So, so we've even got a forum where people can can find interesting moments and I mean there's stuff where astronauts, you know, wives are called by the controllers and it's a remarkable historical document that all of this stuff is is there and and can be searchable and actually we're going to try and expand this to uh the idea is to do all of the all of the Apollo missions eventually, but um yeah, that's going to be a few years I think. So, >> yeah, might it I mean this took what two and a half years was it to make? Is it about average for this kind of >> Well, sorry. A documentary. Yeah. Two and a half years plus whatever, you know, whatever I'd done in the buildup to I mean [snorts] um it's it's a very tedious thing. But syncing, you know, syncing all the audio to the mission control footage. I mean, that's like that, you know, I've spent so many days in a darkened room trying to kind of because we had the audio, but we didn't have none of the cameramen had. It's kind of what what you'd refer to as B-roll. So that the cameramen would just would would just go into the room and shoot start shooting, but they they didn't clap aboard it. They didn't there's no sign of when they exactly when they started and stop filming. So I' I'd literally go through it and look for when someone was talking and then I'd try and find it on the 11,000 hours of of audio. Um so as you say, yeah, it's always going to come back to no, you know, social life. >> No social life. Yeah. Good God, that is it's an incredible undertaking. I'm I'm fascinating. There's a question here from um from Lawrence. Did this footage teach us anything we didn't know about Apollo 11? But, you know, is it those kind of details in the in what people were talking about? >> I think yeah, the the um those that 30 track audio, I call it the 30 track audio, the the flight loop control audio, that's the most valuable historical resource. Well, I say to come out of the film, but in a in a sense, we've we've we've brought it to more public attention. But, you know, people are going to be looking through the those sites for years and and finding because no I mean, who's got the time to go I mean, I say human lifetime is not not long enough to listen to to 11,000 hours um of audio. That that's the most important primary source. But I think the the it's like the again I'm coming back to the stuff of the foot people on the beach. I I didn't know that kind of footage exist existed, you know? It's like it it opens a window culturally for me. But I don't know. It's like I'm not sure. Maybe I could I think I could ask you what do you do you think those like as a cinemat to cinema? Like what's the value to cinema of that of that stuff? You know, >> I don't know if anybody else thought this, but looking at the faces of the people on the beach watching for the Rockets, I felt like that was a formative memory for like Steven Spielberg, like that generation of filmmakers who would have watched that as children. And if you think about people talk about something called Spielberg face, which is the the moment in his certainly sci-fi films where somebody's looking up at the mothership or in awe or whatever and >> yeah, >> that's what that felt like. And it felt like that came from a core memory of his childhood, you know? It it I feel like that when I saw those those shots in this film, I hadn't seen this film before, but it it felt like that was what I was looking at. It felt like I was watching Close Encounters of the of the Third Kind or I was seeing the end of ET or something, you know? It just felt like that came from the same source. >> I Yeah, I I I I hadn't actually thought about that. Yeah. Particularly the end of ET. It's it's it's similar, isn't it? It's um >> just looking up and think [snorts] the the universe just got bigger. Like our world has just changed forever. >> It has. Yeah, it has changed. It's >> Yeah, they're great. They're great shots. Yeah. >> What's it been like for you as an Apollo geek, if you don't mind me saying so to uh to watch Artemis and to see humanity go back to the moon? >> Well, f first of all, I mean I've >> near the moon so [laughter] far. Um I I mean I'm I'm Ben who designed the Apollo in real time sites, you know, is a very good friend of mine is a member of the science team and so so I've I've sort of through him I've I've been able to to um experience what they're what they're doing and you know how they're documenting it and I think you know it's inspired what we did well what we did with Apollo 11 but but but ultimately it's his him and his you know those sites you know but I suppose that story I'm talking about I'm talking about how they're preserving the memories of the mission Um, that's one aspect of it. For me, watching it, you know, it's amazing. It's it it was very emotional. Um, I got a lot more interested in it than I thought I was going to be cuz you you amazingly enough, you can get kind of desensitized to to some of this stuff. But it's like um we were saying just before before um Troy came on stage, it's kind of um the whole the space program generally just showcases the best of of humanity. It's the best of it's like what we can do when we're at our best. And you know, it was so, wasn't it? It was such an inspiring thing. Um, seeing that uh and and think people got really wrapped up in it. I mean, I'm sure you did. >> Oh, obsessed. Yeah. I also saw Apollo 13 at a formative age and was >> Yeah. >> And it just I I can barely watch a rocket take off without crying. I just find it so inspirational. People who remember Challenger as well, >> you know, it shaped all of us, I think. But Apollo, you know, Apollo 13 again, it's what could we do? How can we solve problems when we're at our we're at our best, you know, it's the best of there's kind of nothing um I don't there's anything cynical. There's nothing cynical about it really. It's and I don't think there's anything >> um what you could argue what's about the kind of what the scientific value of of of of it was. I mean for me it's all about the you know the inspiration that it gives to people. um for that you know as as as well you know even however many years 57 years you know afterwards >> absolutely listen we have to finish up so thank apologies to Stuart vibes Jeremy and Marcus I didn't get to your questions or we covered them in other issues um but most of all thank you all for saying and thank you to Stephen thank you >> thank