The light on the moon is brutally bright. NASA had to use very short exposures and a lot of tricks to keep everything from being blown out, this is why the stars are invisible. So you can show the stars and have everything else washed out and bright.

If you want to have the Moon in the shade to cut down on that brutal sunlight you should add a blue tint to the light as the bulk of the light will be reflected Earthlight. If you think a full moon is bright you haven't seen what a full Earth would do.

NASA landed close to the equator so the Earth should appear high overhead and not on the horizon. If this is a modern moon landing you can ignore this.

The lunar dust got onto everything. It looked very much like flour. If you want to fake footprints or have lunar dust on the boots and clothes and such you could easily use flour. If you're shooting for realism though you want to avoid kicking the flour because on the moon the flour would not make a cloud the way it would on Earth. Maybe if they kick the dust off in their pressurized ship or base you'd have clouds but not out on the surface, there you should animate in any dust that is kicked up because it'll make perfect little trajectories like a million tiny rocks rather than make a cloud.

The astronauts walked funny. The lunar hop. This is because the suit was awkward but they discovered they could move rather quickly on the surface in the low gravity if they loped in a particular way. If your astronaut has a non-Apollo era suit this might be different. Remember their weight is 1/6th normal so a 150 pound man would weight 25 pounds but the mass is still the same so although you are lighter it still takes a bit of effort to start moving something.

Anyway, if you have any specific questions ask away. I've read up a lot on space stuff.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

thanks for the info bro.

This wash out effect i know i can do that in post i want it to look more natural how can i achieve it on set?

TIA
loku

One way to do it is to really duplicate the light. Light things as brightly as you possibly can. It'll wash everything out in your camera and force you to change settings as NASA did. If you're filming outside with the stars as your background you'll get to see how the stars fade as you adjust to the bright light. If you are filming inside the bright light will illuminate the walls of your studio which I assume are greenscreen or black velvet, two issues NASA didn't have to contend with.

In either case you might want to do it all in post to maintain control. Just shoot normally with a single light source and a blue bounceboard to simulate the Earth reflected light. Avoid stars in the background or make them very, very faded.

Another thing to remember is there is no atmospheric fading so a rock in the distance will be as clear as a rock next to you. This makes it hard to judge distances. They would still be out of focus in a camera but if you focuses a camera on something a mile away on Earth it would still be fuzzy. On the moon it would be crystal clear. Be careful though, because although this would be more accurate it can make things look "phoney" to the unscientific viewer and might require some narration or explaination.

Other things to remember. The visor on a space helmet is reflective, watch to be sure your camera doesn't appear. This is a nice place to have a reflection of the Earth though. The Lunar Lander was very reflective (almost aluminum foil) because the reflection allowed for light and heat deflection at low weight. This will also reflect your camera and/or Earth.

The flag on the moon will not wave after it is initially planted, it had a bar on top to make sure it stayed stretched out (no wind but gravity would have made it limp) and when planting the flag this bar and the motion of planting made it vibrate for awhile. After that it hung still and probably hangs still to this day.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Cool

What about motion do i need to slow it down? and also what kind of background sound should i use?

TIA
loku

so no wind? what if i choose the chars to land on the dark side of the moon? do i have to light them in the same way.

TIA
loku

No wind. WIthout air there is no wind and there is no sound. The only sound would come from the radios and perhaps transferred up the leg if there was a rumbling in the ground. You'd hear a lot of breathing.

This can be used for a very eerie effect, or suplemented with music where the sound would otherwise go. Most Hollywood movies give up on the lack of sound (only really 2001 tried) because it's less exciting.

The dark side of the moon isn't really dark. It is called the dark side because it is not visible from Earth but that side gets as much sun as the other side, except it won't get that slight blue Earth reflection. At some point every month every chunk of the moon goes into the shadows. That's why we don't have a full moon all month long. If you want your scenes in the dark then you can have it take place anywhere.

In the dark. There are two kinds of dark. If the Earth is up in the sky you have a decent amount of light. Imagine a full moon but a lot more light. You could probable move around and do things by this light. Probably even see the stars, at least in the sky away from the Earth.

If the Earth is not up the dark would be very dark. The stars would blaze bright but wouldn't be enough to light up the terrain so the astronauts would need to provide their own flashlights.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Ok so i was thinking of shooting the whole moon scene in a beach and then changing the color of the sand in post. I was also thinking of shooting the scene on the shadowy part of the moon is it ok if its not so washed out or should i add some bleach there too.

tia
loku

If the characters are in shadows, either shadowed by a lunar crater or just out of the sunlight the bleached effect won't be necessary. You can use it if you want, after all it worked very well on Normandy Beach and all in Private Ryan.

Shooting on a Beach could work but you have to be aware that (a) the audio will have to be stripped to remove wind and waves (b) be careful of your horizon as buildings may very well be visible. If you pick a fairly dark night the ocean might appear very black, as long as you don't get the whitewater it could work nicely. I would still suggest that if you want to show lunar dust you use flower, perhaps in cut-aways and closeups. Then again few would know the difference.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

oh so is it ok if i show the water part of the beach. i planned to just show the sand part for the whole stretch. i always thought moon had no waterbody. do the characters have shadows?

here is my picture:

no background sounds, slow moving environment, since m in the shaded part no special bleaching effect is needed, stars are in good focus, there is no atmosphere, no wind.
i just use the natural lighting.

TIA
loku

The moon has no water. I was saying that if the light is right the ocean might appear simply as blackness which would probably work fine. If the moon is reflecting off the ocean or the waves are visible you don't want to show the ocean.

Characters on the moon would have shadows but the shadows are different. Basically without atomsphere the shadow is very exact, no fading between shadow and non-shadow. It's a hard line. One side is dark, the other is light. This makes things look "fake" and would be hard to do without CGI so you probably should just use normal shadows.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

since i am shooting in the dark i dont have to add the blue tint and the washed out effect. have the stars in focus too.

since m shooting it in minidv is there anything i should remember for slomo effect or can i just shoot it in normal speed slow it down in post? what kind of motion does a particle in moon follow when disturbed?

TIA
loku

You should shoot it regular and slow it in post production.

Particles on the moon move in little arcs. If you kicked the sand you would get a clot flying in a little arc and landing again rather than a dust cloud. When it landed it might cause more sand to fly into little arcs but again no dust cloud because the cloud is created by air and wind interacting with the sand. You really can't fake this without CGI as far as I can tell, either that or an actual vacuum chamber.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

quote:

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Originally posted by tophilis

since i am shooting in the dark i dont have to add the blue tint and the washed out effect. have the stars in focus too.

since m shooting it in minidv is there anything i should remember for slomo effect or can i just shoot it in normal speed slow it down in post? what kind of motion does a particle in moon follow when disturbed?

TIA
loku

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If your camera has the option to shoot in progressive or interlaced mode- try to shoot in interlaced mode for the slo-mo, that way you'll have more frames to play with when it is deinterlaced and slowed.

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There's daggers in men's smiles

thanks for the great help shall post the video soon.