ApolloHoax.net
Apollo Discussions => The Hoax Theory => Topic started by: Trebor on February 17, 2015, 08:31:56 PM
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I have some hoax proponent complaining about the size of the earth in AS11-44-6550 and AS17-134-20384, does anyone know what the focal length of the lenses were used on those magazines?
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I have some hoax proponent complaining about the size of the earth in AS11-44-6550 and AS17-134-20384, does anyone know what the focal length of the lenses were used on those magazines?
AS11-44-6550, look through https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.photidx.pdf
According to the Table on Page 90 - 250 mm.
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AS17-134-20384, would appear to be 60 mm. I've cross referenced two sources.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/apollo/frame/?AS17-134-20384
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19750006600.pdf
Hopefully others can confirm to keep me honest. If I'm wrong, I'll eat my hat :o
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Cheers Luke,
That document is great :)
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Cheers Luke,
That document is great :)
That's OK, but I'd double check with others. As ka9q always says: Apollo is the most documented event in history, and as Jay says, there's more material about Apollo than one person can read in a lifetime. Which makes me think there are 100 ka9q's and 100 Jay's because they know far too much.
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That's OK, but I'd double check with others. As ka9q always says: Apollo is the most documented event in history, and as Jay says, there's more material about Apollo than one person can read in a lifetime. Which makes me think there are 100 ka9q's and 100 Jay's because they know far too much.
Hmm, you might be onto something there.
They know far too much to be just one person....
Clearly the Illuminati have been cloning them for some nefarious purpose.
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Corresponding A17 photo index confirms 60mm lens on AS17-134-20384
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.photidx.pdf (https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.photidx.pdf)
And the images look correct for 60 vs 250 mm
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The usual complaint is that the Earth is HUGE, so in the photos it should be HUGE but it's TINY. I'm guessing here that the complaint is that in one of them the Earth is TINY, but in the other it is HUGE - OMG!!!
My stock response is for them to go out and take a photo of the moon and report back on how big it looks in the image. In this case they would obviously need to take two different photos, and as they never manage to take one they would never manage to take another one on a different 'zoom'. They must wonder what kind of devil worship is occurring when they see people change lenses.
Why oh why didn't Father Ted cover this one as well as 'Small, far away"...?
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Exactly. I took this with a 300 mm lens, yet when I use an 18-55 mm lens and frame the moon its smaller. For some reason, it's all a mystery. Lenses eh, they do funny things to light that seem peculiar to the CTs.
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The usual complaint is that the Earth is HUGE, so in the photos it should be HUGE but it's TINY. I'm guessing here that the complaint is that in one of them the Earth is TINY, but in the other it is HUGE - OMG!!!
My stock response is for them to go out and take a photo of the moon and report back on how big it looks in the image. In this case they would obviously need to take two different photos, and as they never manage to take one they would never manage to take another one on a different 'zoom'. They must wonder what kind of devil worship is occurring when they see people change lenses.
Why oh why didn't Father Ted cover this one as well as 'Small, far away"...?
HaHa, I have used that clip so often. But really, be honest, would you choose to explain focal lengths to Fr. Dougal?
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Exactly. I took this with a 300 mm lens, yet when I use an 18-55 mm lens and frame the moon its smaller. For some reason, it's all a mystery. Lenses eh, they do funny things to light that seem peculiar to the CTs.
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8539/8676475065_eba1880314.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/edHcKF)Moon 18th April (https://flic.kr/p/edHcKF)
And one that I took at 800mm.
Sheesh...someone must be moving the Moon back and forth..... ::)
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That a wonderful picture. I viewed it using the Flickr link you posted, the detail is stunning. Very impressive. I've been playing with the other end of the spectrum and trying my hand at macrophotography. I've had some neat results so far, but it's been a bit hit and miss. All my macro is in a natural setting rather than killing bugs and stacking images.
Here's the moon I took with a 1 mm lens.
.
???
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My friends and I have a theory that Jay is a collective, like the Borg. But would a collective have its birthday on the IMDb Big List o' Birthdays for today?
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My friends and I have a theory that Jay is a collective, like the Borg. But would a collective have its birthday on the IMDb Big List o' Birthdays for today?
Of course. The Jay collective must have started on some day, right? <snigger>
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Of course. The Jay collective must have started on some day, right? <snigger>
You know the old hypothetical probability argument? If you have 1,000,000 chimps at 1,000,000 typewriters there is chance one of them will write the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Imagine 1,000,000 Jays at 1,000,000 word processors... my God, it explains his ubiquitous presence at every Apollo thread on the internet. Surely not, surely he is not a Borg-like species :o
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We are the Jay. Your Apollo knowledge and technical skill will be added to our own.
Resistance is futile.
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That a wonderful picture. I viewed it using the Flickr link you posted, the detail is stunning. Very impressive. I've been playing with the other end of the spectrum and trying my hand at macrophotography. I've had some neat results so far, but it's been a bit hit and miss. All my macro is in a natural setting rather than killing bugs and stacking images.
Thank you.
I've got a macro lens knocking about somewhere and must have a try at some macro work. Do you have a link to your images?
Here's the moon I took with a 1 mm lens.
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I've got a macro lens knocking about somewhere and must have a try at some macro work. Do you have a link to your images?
No, I have never uploaded any photos to share sites.
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Every time I see the claim that the Earth looks too small, I just post this gif
(http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp65/frenat/slide_truck_barn.gif) (http://s398.photobucket.com/user/frenat/media/slide_truck_barn.gif.html)
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Wow, that is amazing. I know how different lenses can drastically alter photographic perspeftive, but that is a dramatic example!! Even I didn't realizee how MUCH different lenses effect the same subject!
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Wow, that is amazing. I know how different lenses can drastically alter photographic perspeftive, but that is a dramatic example!! Even I didn't realizee how MUCH different lenses effect the same subject!
Yes, it is a great example. I have often heard this effect called depth compression. I'm a novice photographer and it is covered early on in my 'Noddy's Guide to Photography.' Even I know about this, and I'm a photography numptee.
Again it is another reason that the moon hoax loses credibility. Arguments like parallel shadows, C-rock's, multiple light sources and slow-mo film are inherently easy to debunk and thus self-defeating before their arguments get to base 1. Just a little bit of research. It's not asking for too much really. Sheesh. :o
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Wow, that is amazing. I know how different lenses can drastically alter photographic perspeftive, but that is a dramatic example!! Even I didn't realizee how MUCH different lenses effect the same subject!
It is pretty dramatic. I wish I could take credit for it but I just happened to grab the gif. The website of the guy that made it has since shut down.
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It is pretty dramatic. I wish I could take credit for it but I just happened to grab the gif. The website of the guy that made it has since shut down.
It's a good grab. I've saved it to my computer. I might try making something similar as a little project. I'm taking a weekend away soon, so it's a good chance to get the camera out.
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It's called a dolly zoom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom
It was a favorite Hitchcock trick. He used it in Vertigo, so it's also known as the "Hitchcock zoom" or "Vertigo effect" but I don't know if he was actually the first director or cinematographer to use it. The Wiki article mentions a cameraman named Irmin Roberts as its originator.
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The article says it's meant to be unsettling, to suggest a character is undergoing a realization that causes him or her to reassess everything he or she had previously believed.
So maybe this is what a hoax believer will see if he ever reassesses everything he had previously believed. There's always a first time.
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It's called a dolly zoom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom
It was a favorite Hitchcock trick. He used it in Vertigo, so it's also known as the "Hitchcock zoom" or "Vertigo effect" but I don't know if he was actually the first director or cinematographer to use it. The Wiki article mentions a cameraman named Irmin Roberts as its originator.
And was also used in Apollo 13 on Gene Kranz when Lovell announced the sighting of the oxygen venting.
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A similar effect is used to make the Moon look larger against foreground objects. A long telephoto lens will achieve this effect:
(http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2011/20mar11/Paco-Bellido1.jpg)
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In the '80s it was sometimes called the Spielberg Zoom even though Steven Spielberg never claimed credit for it. He just used it in creative ways after zooms had fallen somewhat out of style. Starting in the mid-1970s most cinematography was done with prime lenses, as cinéma vérité styles from earlier art film movements migrated into Hollywood mainstream. The classic movements of the camera survived, but changing focal length was seen as a way of drawing attention to the camera as an artificial eye rather than a proxy for the viewer. Even still, the dolly zoom doesn't overtly change the focal length in that way when combined with the zoom.
The insurgence of the found-footage genre and the attendant handheld cinematography (even in other genres) has resurrected the snap zoom, which is another way of establishing depth in a shot. Part of why Firefly works visually is the snap zooms on the exterior-space shots. In blatant contrast to the carefully choreographed (by necessity) process shots of the physical-model era, the space cinematography in Firefly mimics the happenstance cinematography of journalism. And now that's how a lot of that sort of stuff is shot.
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The insurgence of the found-footage genre and the attendant handheld cinematography (even in other genres) has resurrected the snap zoom, which is another way of establishing depth in a shot. Part of why Firefly works visually is the snap zooms on the exterior-space shots. In blatant contrast to the carefully choreographed (by necessity) process shots of the physical-model era, the space cinematography in Firefly mimics the happenstance cinematography of journalism. And now that's how a lot of that sort of stuff is shot.
I find it often over done, drawing attention to the artifice much of the time. Instead of feeling I am there, I feel like I am watching a movie, which reminds me, by jove, I am watching a movie.
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I haven't seen Vertigo in some time so I can't remember how many times Hitchcock used the effect. The clips on Youtube show it being used only twice, for just a couple seconds each, as Scottie pauses and looks down while climbing the tower stairs. And it didn't even feature a person's face, as compared with Spielberg's use of it on Chief Brody at the beach when the shark attacks.
So it would appear that Hitchcock was careful not to overuse it, even though he seems to have originated it.
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Just to add to the discussion, this is where I get exasperated with the CTs and the duplicity of their photography arguments when they hold the lofty position of twoof seekers. They claim all manner of expertise, but are not prepared to acknowledge an obvious untruth, dolly zoom being a good example. Even the most basic research should show why the Earth looks bigger in some photos. HWSNB wants to be recognised the carrier of Kaysing's flame and an expert with his TAFE in 'I know how to take the lens cap off the camera', yet is unwilling to put his hand up and point out where CTs are just talking BS. It's another reason why I don't trust their motives. I think it's called dishonesty or is just wilful ignorance. ::)
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My friends and I have a theory that Jay is a collective, like the Borg. But would a collective have its birthday on the IMDb Big List o' Birthdays for today?
Resistance is futile!
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A similar effect is used to make the Moon look larger against foreground objects. A long telephoto lens will achieve this effect:
(http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2011/20mar11/Paco-Bellido1.jpg)
...and that is my doh moment of today. 'Oh, I've always wondered how they make the moon look super big in photos'
Doh!!! As I said, a photographic numptee here.
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Truffaut used the dolly-zoom in his 1966 adaptation of "Fahrenheit 451". In Montag's dream, there is a POV shot of gliding down a corridor. The walls are going by, but the end of the corridor never seems to get closer (it retains the same angular size). Tobe Hooper used it to the opposite effect in 1982's "Poltergeist". Jo Beth Williams is trying to reach her children's room. In the shot, she keeps the same angular size, but the end of the hallway seems to telescope into the far distance; then she starts running towards it and the dolly-zoom goes the other way to collapse the corridor back towards her. It's a brilliant moment that really grabs you!
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Hey, I just found an example of it being used for comic effect. Apropos another thread, it's in the Key & Peele sketch "Georgina, Esther and Satan" at 4:16 when Georgina is possessed by Satan:
(Warning: dialogue is very NSFW)
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Fairly comprehensive set of SFW examples -- . I'd say about half of them don't really work.
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Really great compilation you found, Jay. I good have done without the incessant looping of the track from Vertigo.
I'd say the most effective shots were from Vertigo, Apollo 13, Road to Perdition, Poltergeist, and E.T. Most of the others seemed, for lack of another word, pretentious [edit: wrong word came to mind earlier] on the part of the director or cinematographer.
The ones that didn't work looked like really poor matte shots that didn't handle perspective well, like the dolly/crane shot at the end of the "Broadway Melody" number in Singing in the Rain (although, arguably, that one works because of the context of the scene).
Questions, since what I know about cinematography could fit on the head of pin: is the lens somehow linked mechanically to the dolly, causing the zoom (and focus tracking) to follow along, or does the camera operator do what he needs to do in the view finder? How did they do this with older, blimped cameras that didn't have a reflex view finder? Did the focus puller have to know what rate to change the focal length and the focus?
Anyone who knows, this might be a good article for the www.widescreenmuseum.com site.
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Really great compilation you found, Jay.
Thanks, one of the guys at Sundance pulled it up, so I bookmarked it.
I good have done without the incessant looping of the track from Vertigo.
I'm okay with it since it helps you focus on the visuals. Also, probably copyright blah blah handwaving.
I'd say the most effective shots were from Vertigo, Apollo 13, Road to Perdition, Poltergeist, and E.T.
Indeed.
Most of the others seemed, for lack of another word, pretentious [edit: wrong word came to mind earlier] on the part of the director or cinematographer.
Indeed -- more of a "look what I can do!" That's the same complaint I have with the current trend of handheld cameras and snap-zooms.
Questions, since what I know about cinematography could fit on the head of pin: is the lens somehow linked mechanically to the dolly, causing the zoom (and focus tracking) to follow along, or does the camera operator do what he needs to do in the view finder?
For most of those shots, not even that. The camera operator had the viewfinder and the pan and tilt wheels. The focus puller sat to the side and operated all the lens controls, which were typically pinioned into knobs (see below) precisely so that they could extend through holes and slots in the blimping. But the focus puller couldn't see through the viewfinder. Even with the advent of cable linkages, the job of focus puller was retained simply because geared heads still required both hands to operate.
The dolly was pushed by two or three stout lads, none of whom could see anything the camera saw.
How did they do this with older, blimped cameras that didn't have a reflex view finder? Did the focus puller have to know what rate to change the focal length and the focus?
Yes. Older cinematographers relied on taped distances for focus, and standalone viewfinders for focal length. The focus puller would measure the distance with a tape attached to the lens linkages, with the zero point set at the focal point. The knobs for focus and zoom had a white index mark. Behind the knobs is a white glass (or later, plastic) disc on which he can mark temporary settings with a grease pencil. So he measures the beginning and ending of each shot for focus and zoom, and marks the corresponding index positions in grease pencil. During the shot, he is responsible for manipulating both knobs at the proper rate between his index marks.
Similarly the dolly position at the beginning and ending of each shot is marked on the floor (or dolly track) with spike tape. It's the job of the dolly grips to push the dolly at a precise, repeatable speed through the shot. That's the case even when you're not attempting a dolly zoom.
The pinnacle of today's state of the art is fully programmable motion-control rigs, built in some cases from industrial robots. These can be programmed to accept and imitate even handheld camera movements, also at scaled speeds to account for different frame rates. The cinematographer can literally move the camera physically by any means and the rig will record its motion precisely. The lens adjustments can also be programmed in advance, also by capturing the "artful" manipulation of the controls by an expert focus puller.
Less expensive are servo-controlled remote heads that can be placed on dollies, cranes, and other traditional camera rigs. The camera operator and focus puller sit side-by-side at a remote station, often with the director, and operate remote versions of their respective controls. The operator, for example, has traditional pan and tilt wheels that behave as in a normal head, but simply encode the motion for repetition (in real time or recorded) by the servos in the remote head.
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In the '80s it was sometimes called the Spielberg Zoom even though Steven Spielberg never claimed credit for it. He just used it in creative ways after zooms had fallen somewhat out of style. Starting in the mid-1970s most cinematography was done with prime lenses, as cinéma vérité styles from earlier art film movements migrated into Hollywood mainstream. The classic movements of the camera survived, but changing focal length was seen as a way of drawing attention to the camera as an artificial eye rather than a proxy for the viewer. Even still, the dolly zoom doesn't overtly change the focal length in that way when combined with the zoom.
The insurgence of the found-footage genre and the attendant handheld cinematography (even in other genres) has resurrected the snap zoom, which is another way of establishing depth in a shot. Part of why Firefly works visually is the snap zooms on the exterior-space shots. In blatant contrast to the carefully choreographed (by necessity) process shots of the physical-model era, the space cinematography in Firefly mimics the happenstance cinematography of journalism. And now that's how a lot of that sort of stuff is shot.
The reboot series of Battlestar Galactica used something like that, often combined with an unsteady frame that pans back and forth as if "searching" to get the spacecraft in centre frame.
One of my favourite pieces of camera/greenscreen trickery was the stairway/mirror scene from Carl Sagan's "Contact"
My first reaction when I saw that scene in the theatre was "Wait! What the ***!"
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That is a good one. It took me a moment to realize what you were talking about because it is pretty seamless. But you can tell that the first part of the shot cannot be a reverse zoom from a mirror reflection because of the changing hallway perspective seen by the camera. It had to be actually in front of Ellie, dollying backward away from her.
There's a subtle edit just as she reaches the mirror. The camera's reflection isn't visible because we're looking over Ellie's left shoulder, not square-on to the mirror.
Speaking of "how did the director keep the camera out of the mirror?" shots, my favorite is in General Turgidson's bedroom in Doctor Strangelove. "Miss Foreign Affairs" answers the phone, and we see Turgidson's reflection in the mirrors on the walls as he comes out of the bathroom. The mirrors form a corner reflector, but we can only see shadow where the camera had to be. I wonder if that was simply done with careful lighting, or if Kubrick actually hid the camera behind a black drape.
Edited to add: Looking at it some more, I think the mirrors are all carefully but only slightly out of alignment, just enough to keep the camera out of the shot. The right wall may also not be exactly square with the left. We see them at an oblique angle so we can't really tell.
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Similarly the dolly position at the beginning and ending of each shot is marked on the floor (or dolly track) with spike tape. It's the job of the dolly grips to push the dolly at a precise, repeatable speed through the shot. That's the case even when you're not attempting a dolly zoom.
My only work in film was on this sales clip for the GE Defense Systems GPU-5a gun pod, three decades ago I was the dolly grip on all the "sound stage" shots (actually a National Guard armory in S. Burlington VT). All the field footage was done by others. I also had to operate the camera crane in addition to moving the dolly; of course it was just a smaller Fisher dolly carrying a 16mm Arriflex. I was and still am amazed what goes into even a little production like this. It took four of us five 10-12 hour days to set it up, shoot it, and break it down. I got the gig because my photographer friend had done some work with the head of GE's sales dept. for his side business, and the small two man production company out of Boston that were hired to film it wanted a couple of extra hands, and my friend recommended me. I had actually never seen this film until late last year when I thought to look for it on Youtube - and there it was.
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That is a good one. It took me a moment to realize what you were talking about because it is pretty seamless. But you can tell that the first part of the shot cannot be a reverse zoom from a mirror reflection because of the changing hallway perspective seen by the camera. It had to be actually in front of Ellie, dollying backward away from her.
Yep. Cameras don't see around corners!
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Yep. Cameras don't see around corners!
And you can't dolly up stairs either. That's a Steadicam shot. And it's a hard-as-[bleep] Steadicam shot because you're running backwards up the stairs with the camera boom in front of you. Take the weight of the camera and double it, because you have the battery counterweight at the other end of the boom. And you have to strap the vest on very tight, so your balance is compromised. There's a reason good Steadicam operators are expensive and hard to find.
The smartguns in Cameron's Aliens were on Steadicam rigs. Pretty awesome prop design, if you ask me. I'd make one for Comic Con events, but a Steadicam retails for about $6,000. A little beyond my price range. Plus our con is so well-attended you can barely walk the floor.
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My only work in film was on this sales clip for the GE Defense Systems GPU-5a gun pod, three decades ago
That's some pretty good work, to be honest.
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My only work in film was on this sales clip for the GE Defense Systems GPU-5a gun pod, three decades ago
That's some pretty good work, to be honest.
Thanks. I do sometimes wish it hadn't been a one-off job for me. It was hard work, but a lot of fun.
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Edited to add: Looking at it some more, I think the mirrors are all carefully but only slightly out of alignment, just enough to keep the camera out of the shot.
Yes, that's how they did it. The back wall mirror segments are both angled to camera-left. The last two segments of the side wall mirrors are also angled to camera-left. The reflect the space to the camera's left, which is presumably part of the dressed set. It also looks to me like the second-farthest segment on the side wall has also been tipped forward. The seam with its neighbor is inconsistent. You would want to tweak the mirror angle as best you can to keep the reflected perspective lines consistent -- e.g., the cove lighting. For the back wall segments you can see they weren't really that concerned; the reflected lines are wildly off.
Edit:
The actors I've talked to who worked with Kubrick say he was very much a cinematographer and not always much of an actor's director. Apparently he had a tendency to frustrate actors by obsessing over the visual aspects of a shot and give them no direction whatsoever. Then when he did his famous multiple takes, they'd never know if it was a retake because of some visual thing or because of what they were doing or not doing. In talking with Kubrick's people, I got the impression that Kubrick just hired actors he knew were good and could work without a lot of direction. I can see how that frustrates actors because film acting is a technical pursuit, unlike stage acting. Film acting is much more about nuances in performance while doing things like maintaining eyelines and hitting your marks.
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Thanks. I do sometimes wish it hadn't been a one-off job for me. It was hard work, but a lot of fun.
Work on set is typically a one-off for me too. As I said elsewhere, I'm doing a lot more conceptual design and fabrication these days and I'm considering it as fun retirement career. (I've discovered that people who have actually worked on spacecraft designs are somewhat in demand for designing fictional ones.) We have three full-time full-scale production companies in my area. The kid who played Bobby Brady is a camera operator for one of them. But many of the stage crews I work with are also grips. They do film grip work during the day and then run stage shows at night. I have yet to figure out how they do it.
But yes, grips are the hardest-working people in Hollywood. You hear actors complain about early-morning call times for makeup and such. But that's what time the grips get up every day. And they have to stay late too. The Aquabats! sometimes shoot their show in my neighborhood and some of their grips are people I've worked with for years. They score me stuff from the craft services table.
That's why I find it very difficult to imagine that all the Apollo visuals were shot on a stage and not one single grip has come forward over the decades to brag about working on the set.
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A great example, for the layman, of the amount of work in a production is in C.B. deMille's scenes in Sunset Boulevard. Wilder and Paramount used the working set of Samson and Delilah as a film-within-a-film. The sheer number of bodies is impressive.
To Jay's point, all of these people consider themselves at least craftsmen, if not artists, and take great pride in their work. Someone, somewhere, would have said something if Apollo had been faked on a soundstage.
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The reboot series of Battlestar Galactica used something like that, often combined with an unsteady frame that pans back and forth as if "searching" to get the spacecraft in centre frame.
Yes, it's a shooting style that seeks a particular brand of honesty, as if the shots weren't really planned and you're watching raw footage from a journalist cameraman who was just trying to get something on tape that he could edit later.
The style quotation is intentional; Battlestar Galactica contracted the same visual effects studio that did Firefly. In the early 2000s the style was fresh and groundbreaking, and not a lot of people were doing it. Thankfully the style got quickly overused and burned out early, at least for live action. I think some people were just using the dynamic camera because it was stylish, not because it conveyed the look that was appropriate to the work.
The reason it worked early on is because previous effects shots had to be carefully planned. The hero models weighed hundreds of pounds and the photography required multiple passes -- beauty pass, internal lighting pass, shadow pass. These passes had to be repeated frame-perfect by the motion-control rigs of the time, which had limited degrees of freedom. With limited angles and motions, you pretty much had to telegraph what to look at and when. And from an editorial standpoint, the photography around these VFX shots had to match the style, otherwise it becomes a jarring contrast. As ordinary cinematography became more fluid, the locked-down look of effects shots started to lose its appeal and its convincing power.
In Battlestar Galactica, the "camera" shakes with the concussion of guns firing and nearby explosions, just as you'd expect it to. The camera isn't sure what to look at, as if the action were unfolding chaotically. Sometimes shots are deliberately set up with cruddy lighting such as strong backlights and lens scatter. In the space exterior tracking shots you get the idea that the pilot of the camera ship is struggling to follow the subject. In other words, the camera behaves as if it's part of the shot in ways that a real camera would be part of the shot.
But yes, I also agree Zoic Studios went overboard in places and overused some of the things they could do. But it was part of the overall effect that, according to some, made Battlestar Galactica the best example of modern television production.
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To Jay's point, all of these people consider themselves at least craftsmen, if not artists, and take great pride in their work. Someone, somewhere, would have said something if Apollo had been faked on a soundstage.
Our grips for the National Geographic documentary were explicitly taken from the grip crew for From the Earth to the Moon, precisely for that expertise. They wouldn't shut up about it, and I didn't really want them to.
The outward appearance of the typical grip would lead you wrongly to conclude that he was little more than hired muscle. He is not. Not only do they consider themselves both artists and craftsmen, they think of themselves as a sort of high priesthood of it. And they constantly demonstrate it. The typical grip wears outdoor hiking shoes (soft soles, good tread, and strong ankle support), jeans and a T-shirt (very utilitarian), a baseball cap (often from Chapman -- I think they must give those hats out for free), and a well-provisioned tool belt with the ubiquitous roll of gaffer tape. They have to be familiar with a wide range of mechanical and electrical equipment. They have to fabricate stuff on short notice in record time, and that fabrication may have to hold or protect equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars. (A used 35mm Arri body runs you about $40,000). Quite a few of them also have rigger's certificates.
As an engineer, I'm awed by the simple vehicle known as the "grip truck." It's typically a generic 20,000-lb truck whose cargo section is a mobile workshop, and it's typically towing a location generator. Well-organized and packed to the gills, it provides practically everything you'd need to build anything. Give me two grips and their truck, and I think we could build a working flying machine on location anywhere in the world.
Grips are well aware of their key role in the success of a motion picture production, and they take an enormous amount of pride in simply getting things to work smoothly.
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The actors I've talked to who worked with Kubrick say he was very much a cinematographer and not always much of an actor's director. Apparently he had a tendency to frustrate actors by obsessing over the visual aspects of a shot and give them no direction whatsoever. Then when he did his famous multiple takes, they'd never know if it was a retake because of some visual thing or because of what they were doing or not doing. In talking with Kubrick's people, I got the impression that Kubrick just hired actors he knew were good and could work without a lot of direction. I can see how that frustrates actors because film acting is a technical pursuit, unlike stage acting. Film acting is much more about nuances in performance while doing things like maintaining eyelines and hitting your marks.
From what I've read, Kubrick explicitly wanted to wear all emotion out of his actors, so that's why you'd get literally dozens of takes. He'd also emotionally abuse his actors. He was a brilliant technician, but "not an actor's director" is kind of an understatement. It's why I can always tell that HBs don't know anything about Kubrick when they say he directed the Apollo missions--they would have looked very different.
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From what I've read, Kubrick explicitly wanted to wear all emotion out of his actors, so that's why you'd get literally dozens of takes.
I've heard that too. I've also heard Kubrick say he himself wasn't sure what he wanted, but he knew what he didn't want. That would lead to doing it over and over again until something clicked.
He'd also emotionally abuse his actors.
In all fairness I hear both copious praise and criticism from actors he's directed.
It's why I can always tell that HBs don't know anything about Kubrick when they say he directed the Apollo missions--they would have looked very different.
And Kubrick would have pissed off somebody badly enough for them to blab.
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And Kubrick would have pissed off somebody badly enough for them to blab.
I don't remember if it was Playboy, but one national magazine, after interviewing Kubrick just prior to the release of 2001 and not getting a thing out of him about the movie, published two full pages that had nothing but the repeated phrase (including the slug line): "We just spent eight hours interviewing Stanley Kubrick!"
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I've heard that too. I've also heard Kubrick say he himself wasn't sure what he wanted, but he knew what he didn't want. That would lead to doing it over and over again until something clicked.
Which . . . I don't know. Just indicates to me that the story aspect of filmmaking really didn't interest him much.
In all fairness I hear both copious praise and criticism from actors he's directed.
I'm just saying, you know, Shelley Duvall praises him now, but she was actually losing her hair from stress during The Shining. He was great to the kid, but not so much the adults. And the reason Alex has a snake in Clockwork Orange is that Malcolm McDowell was afraid of snakes.
And Kubrick would have pissed off somebody badly enough for them to blab.
And for "somebody," I'd suggest "probably Buzz." Or "quite a lot of people." Besides, the filming style of Apollo doesn't feel like Kubrick!
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And Kubrick would have pissed off somebody badly enough for them to blab.
Quite. The Kubrick argument rather defeats the compartmentalisation argument too. I do wonder if the HBs have ever seen the credits to a film and the sheer number of individuals involved in a production. So were they in on the secret too?
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Which . . . I don't know. Just indicates to me that the story aspect of filmmaking really didn't interest him much.
I think that's why he always adapted someone else's story. Maybe he had no interest in thinking up original stories, but he recognized how important it was to start with a good one. But on the other hand he wrote or co-wrote all or most of his screenplays. That's generally not something I'd expect from someone uninterested in the story. I think his interest in story and character was sophisticated enough, but it didn't conform to how others developed stories. While we think of Stanley Kubrick as a visual artist, I have to concede that those who worked with him appreciated his writing talent.
Much of contemporary western cinema sort of slaps you in the face with the typical elements of plot, conflict, and characterizations. I think Kubrick wanted to leave a lot of that ambiguous so that each viewer would find it in his own way. So you can consider a Kubrick film to be a meticulously crafted exercise in ambiguity. He scrupulously avoided interpreting his own films.
I'm just saying, you know, Shelley Duvall praises him now, but she was actually losing her hair from stress during The Shining.
Yeah, some of the behind-the-scenes stuff has her dropping f-bombs all over. But see, that was just more of Kubrick's genius (wink, wink). Her character was supposed to be coming unraveled, so why not unravel her for real?
I think that's why some of the actors think more kindly of him in retrospect. Part of it is likely just the nostalgia of remembering their collaboration with a celebrated director, especially now that he's passed away. And part of it may be realizing what he did in order to extract from them a performance worthy of their talent and of his film, even if it involved animosity and drove them nuts.
I think, despite his abusive approach, Kubrick genuinely respected his actors. For some scenes in Dr. Strangelove, Kubrick knew that all he had to do was point the camera at Peter Sellers and hold on for dear life. Especially in the Dr. Strangelove character, Sellers would deliver these brilliantly eccentric performances, probably partly improvised. That's why you see the rest of the cast basically doing nothing in those scenes. Their job was to be human props and avoid interfering with the magic that Kubrick and Sellers were casting. Kubrick wrote his screenplays but didn't always stick to them. I think he believed that no matter how much you wrote and rehearsed, the real work happened with the camera rolling. One other interpretation of his infamous shooting ratio is that he wanted his actors to get bored enough with the rote elements of the scene that they were motivated towards spontaneity.
I think Kubrick trusted people, but only after you proved that you were on his wavelength. Kubrick gave Douglas Trumbull carte blanche for the stargate sequences in 2001, which probably led to more LSD consumption worldwide than any other single factor. And as I said earlier, he didn't give a lot of specific direction to his actors; he worked out general themes and concepts with them in collaboration prior to rehearsals, but he didn't direct the final performance in detail. He hired and fired actors as the production developed. I'd interpret that as an ensemble-theater approach to story and character. But more importantly it establishes that if he was yelling at you, then he knew the performance he wanted from you was somewhere inside you. If he didn't think you could deliver what he wanted, he just fired you.
And for "somebody," I'd suggest "probably Buzz." Or "quite a lot of people."
...or everyone. At least every astronaut. All the astronauts I've met are ruthlessly pragmatic people who have little tolerance for mind games and foofaraw. The image of Buzz slugging Stanley Kubrick instead of Bart Sibrel does make me smile a bit. But I'd have to single out Pete Conrad as the astronaut most likely to respond to 70 takes for a scene with an entirely uncensored tirade of f-bombs and similarly well-articulated profanity. I honestly cannot see Conrad getting along at all with Stanley Kubrick, and probably coming to blows with him.
My correspondence with Anthony Frewin, Kubrick's long-time assistant, has been most enlightening. Frewin's general take on the whole idea of Kubrick directing the hoaxed Moon landing films is exactly that those people obviously don't know Kubrick very well at all. And that's not surprising. Many people clearly know of him, but only a comparative few knew him and worked with him.
NASA was enthusiastic about 2001. But there's a difference between enthusiasm over the finished product and tolerance of the means by which Kubrick produced it. I don't see NASA being especially tolerant of Kubrick's maverick style and controlling personality.
Besides, the filming style of Apollo doesn't feel like Kubrick!
Agreed, but what does Kubrick feel like? Even Kubrick didn't know what his style was. He simply approached each project with a sort of intuition. This is something I debate endlessly with other film fans. Kubrick is very much "I know it when I see it," but you can't easily list the characteristics of a prototypical Kubrick film. In practically every category of ways in which you can talk about film, Kubrick exhibited surprising variation.
We should probably ask LunarOrbit to move this to a less Apollo-hoax-related section of the forum since we've ventured ever so far afield. Interesting discussion, but probably off-topic.
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The actors I've talked to who worked with Kubrick say he was very much a cinematographer and not always much of an actor's director. Apparently he had a tendency to frustrate actors by obsessing over the visual aspects of a shot and give them no direction whatsoever.
So then how did he get along with his cinematographers if he's doing their jobs?
But I'd have to single out Pete Conrad as the astronaut most likely to respond to 70 takes for a scene with an entirely uncensored tirade of f-bombs and similarly well-articulated profanity.
Somewhere I read that Conrad begged for a tape delay on the A/G audio. The NASA PR guys held firm and I don't think Conrad slipped even once during his actual missions.
I think, despite his abusive approach, Kubrick genuinely respected his actors.
Including George C Scott? There's the famous story about Kubrick conning him into his over-the-top performance by promising him that he wouldn't use it, and Scott vowing never to work for Kubrick again. I wonder if Kubrick was deliberately lying, or if he changed his mind after seeing Scott's performance. I think Scott/Turgidson as a young boy in a general's body ("...frying chickens in the barnyard!") is the highlight of the movie, or at least one of its highlights. I can't imagine Turgidson any other way.
Speaking of Kubrick and his alleged direction of the Apollo lunar EVAs, somewhere I read him comment on the impossibility of accurately reproducing sunlight with artificial lighting on a large set. But I can't remember where. Has anybody else seen this? When I saw this I was already citing the lighting as one of the most compelling aspects of the Apollo footage (especially the 16mm films from the moving LRV) and being able to quote Kubrick himself say the same thing could be very helpful.
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So then how did he get along with his cinematographers if he's doing their jobs?
Actually very well, since he spoke their language and was, essentially, one of them. As do many directors, Stanley Kubrick worked only with a handful of carefully chosen cinematographers who shared his vision.
There's the famous story about Kubrick conning [George C. Scott] into his over-the-top performance by promising him that he wouldn't use it, and Scott vowing never to work for Kubrick again.
I don't think that's out of character for Kubrick. Yet another explanation for the infamous shooting ratio is that Kubrick considered the early takes for any shot merely to be filmed rehearsals. It is reported he felt like actors had a different mindset in rehearsals than when shooting, so he blurred the distinction between a rehearsal and a take. And that's coming more into vogue these days, again because the recording medium is cheap and shooting ratios have climbed. So it would have been entirely in character for him to say, "Give me a couple of over-the-top takes, George, and then we'll settle into it."
And it would have been in character for Kubrick secretly to have planned to use those takes all along. When I say I think Kubrick respected his actors, I mean that in a way that doesn't preclude him tricking them into giving him a performance they didn't necessarily agree with themselves, but which is better overall for the picture. So I wouldn't cry foul if you cited this as an example of disrespect. And I wouldn't begrudge any actor who refused to work with Kubrick after being treated that way. But whatever G.C. Scott thought of Kubrick and of the character he portrayed in Dr. Strangelove, I think we all agree it's a masterful performance. Kubrick did the right thing, and we give kudos to Scott for it, probably the way Kubrick intended.
I can't imagine Turgidson any other way.
The character works very much, right down to the compulsive gum-chewing. The "fryin' chickens in the barnyard" scene works so well because Scott has so far to deflate at the very end of it. Without Kubrick goading him to inflate it, I think it would lose effect.
Let's be honest: none of the characters in Dr. Strangelove is particularly mainstream or credible on his face. But the film works because it's a mulligan stew of comically misshapen people in a carefully seasoned narrative broth. I had some friends over the other day and the topic of Sterling Hayden came up. I played the famous scene from Dr. Strangelove (which none of the guests had seen) that ends in "...to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids." I think it was a great scene, well acted by Hayden and well lit by Kubrick.
Speaking of Kubrick and his alleged direction of the Apollo lunar EVAs, somewhere I read him comment on the impossibility of accurately reproducing sunlight with artificial lighting on a large set. But I can't remember where. Has anybody else seen this?
I'd like to find it too.
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I'm not sure how much of this is apocryphal, but I've read that in Strangelove, Sellers was originally slated to play Maj. Kong, and had worked hard with Terry Southern (one of the screenwriters and an American from the south) on getting down a southern U.S. accent. Before filming the bomber scenes, Sellers injured himself and couldn't move around in the cramped cockpit of the set (I guess he wasn't that keen on trying to pull off a fourth character in the film in any case), so they needed another actor. Supposedly John Wayne was offered the role, but he declined it because it was too pinko or some such, so they went with Slim Pickens. I simply can't imagine that film without Slim Pickens.
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All one really needs is geometry to show the impossibility of artificially lighting a huge set as the sun would. But hearing it from Kubrick -- who supposedly did just that for NASA -- is the icing on the cake.
I've also heard that story about Sellers originally playing Kong, but I don't think I've ever seen it authoritatively confirmed. And yeah, I can't imagine anybody but Pickens in the role.
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...so they went with Slim Pickens. I simply can't imagine that film without Slim Pickens.
Nor can I. That's the magic of theater and film. And yes, Sellers was slated to play Maj. Kong until he injured his ankle. Similarly, the guy originally cast as the senior drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket was replaced by R. Lee Ermey when Ermey got all up in Kubrick's face about it -- literally. The original actor was recast as the door gunner. Can you imagine Full Metal Jacket without Ermey as the senior drill instructor?
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The best part of Pickens' playing Major Kong is that he thought it as a straight dramatic role.
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All one really needs is geometry to show the impossibility of artificially lighting a huge set as the sun would. But hearing it from Kubrick -- who supposedly did just that for NASA -- is the icing on the cake.
[hoax believer]
Yeah, but he would say that wouldn't he?
[/hoax believer]
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"Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find:
- One forty-five caliber automatic
- Two boxes of ammunition
- Four days' concentrated emergency rations
- One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine,
vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
- One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
- One hundred dollars in rubles
- One hundred dollars in gold
- Nine packs of chewing gum
- One issue of prophylactics
- Three lipsticks
- Three pair of nylon stockings.
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."
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That line was originally "a pretty good weekend in Dallas." For obvious reasons, they changed it.
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The best part of Pickens' playing Major Kong is that he thought it as a straight dramatic role.
I've heard some story about how someone loved his in-character performance during some meeting and ended up casting him, not realising that he wasn't acting at all, that's actually the way Slim Pickens is :)
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You may be thinking of what James Earl Jones once said in an interview: he thought Slim Pickens was just staying in character off-camera, and someone had to tell him that's what Pickens was really like. And yes, Pickens was given only his pages of script (this is common in the motion picture business) and therefore didn't know it was a comedy. Woody Allen was infamous for rarely giving out full scripts to the cast and keeping the storylines of his movies on a "need to know" basis. One of my good friends was in Shadows and Fog, and tells the story of when he and Fred Gwynne were in the makeup trailer together -- Gwynne turned to him and asked, "So do you know what the f--- this movie is about?"
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And was also used in Apollo 13 on Gene Kranz when Lovell announced the sighting of the oxygen venting.
It took me multiple readings of this post for me to realize that you were talking about the movie, not the actual mission. It really, really was not parsing. Oy, I need to grab some more coffee.
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The "fryin' chickens in the barnyard" scene works so well because Scott has so far to deflate at the very end of it. Without Kubrick goading him to inflate it, I think it would lose effect.
"Has he got a chance?!?"
I thought Scott's performance was the best part of the film!
You may be thinking of what James Earl Jones once said in an interview: he thought Slim Pickens was just staying in character off-camera, and someone had to tell him that's what Pickens was really like.
That's probably it.
And yes, Pickens was given only his pages of script (this is common in the motion picture business) and therefore didn't know it was a comedy.
That's got to be weird. You spend all this time and effort working on something, and then you don't know until it's all finished what you were actually doing.
He must have figured out it was a comedy by the time they did his final scene in the film, though.
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The "fryin' chickens in the barnyard" scene works so well because Scott has so far to deflate at the very end of it. Without Kubrick goading him to inflate it, I think it would lose effect.
"Has he got a chance?!?"
I thought Scott's performance was the best part of the film!
You may be thinking of what James Earl Jones once said in an interview: he thought Slim Pickens was just staying in character off-camera, and someone had to tell him that's what Pickens was really like.
That's probably it.
And yes, Pickens was given only his pages of script (this is common in the motion picture business) and therefore didn't know it was a comedy.
That's got to be weird. You spend all this time and effort working on something, and then you don't know until it's all finished what you were actually doing.
He must have figured out it was a comedy by the time they did his final scene in the film, though.
All of those are fiction. Reality trumps that. The real Gene Kranz will always be a real hero.
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All of those are fiction. Reality trumps that. The real Gene Kranz will always be a real hero.
Oh, do you mean that NASA guy played by Ed Harris? *quickly ducking to avoid whatever Abaddon might throw at me*
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Oh, do you mean that NASA guy played by Ed Harris?
Yes, apparently in Dr. Strangelove as well.
I'm not sure we're all reading the same thread.
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The best part of Pickens' playing Major Kong is that he thought it as a straight dramatic role.
About as OT as it gets, but it reminds me of the story of Frankie Laine recording the theme to Blazing Saddles under the impression that it was a serious film.
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I did not know that. That is funny!
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The best part of Pickens' playing Major Kong is that he thought it as a straight dramatic role.
Apparently James Earl Jones thought that Pickens was staying in character off-set. That was until he realised that Pickens always talked like that!
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Yep, Pickens was a long-time rodeo circuit rider before turning to acting.
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To revisit George C. Scott's reaction to the film, he was initially angry at Kubrick for keeping the over-the-top takes, but according to his family he later came to see for himself that it was one of his best performances.
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I re-watched the film yesterday (for the elventy-millionth time)....what a great movie! The DVD has an excellent docu that goes into the making which is well worth watching. Learning how they created the bomb drop sequence was brilliant.
(http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2012/02/ef056aec69a7605127a03f31e039de68.jpg)
(http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thesideshow/SlimPickens.jpg)
(http://cinemagumbo.squarespace.com/storage/OTS%20DR%20STRANGELOVE.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1394494237251)
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I always liked that stencil:
NUCLEAR WARHEAD
HANDLE WITH CARE
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I always liked that stencil:
NUCLEAR WARHEAD
HANDLE WITH CARE
The humor in the film works at nearly every scale by such ironic juxtapositions, e.g., "You can't fight in here -- this is the War Room!" and the general callousness, detachment, and denial with which the characters approach their individuals roles in the impending apocalypse.
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Of course the bomb doesn't look very authentic because the nose is highly un-aerodynamic. You always want the center of pressure to be near the tail for stable flight.
I don't know if pictures of real US bombs were available in 1963, but they are now.
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Of course the bomb doesn't look very authentic because the nose is highly un-aerodynamic. You always want the center of pressure to be near the tail for stable flight.
The Dr. Strangelove bombs had big tail fins. That would serve to move the COP aft, but the unaerodynamic nose would create instability anyway from turbulent boundary flow, so yeah.
I don't know if pictures of real US bombs were available in 1963...
Likely not. Nowadays we know that some of the thermonuclear weapons carried on the B-52 had casings with relatively blunt noses, but not any with exposed longerons and shapers. I think Ken Adam simply went for something that would look "different" from a conventional bomb in such a way as to emphasize the menace. He had served in the RAF and I'm sure he was quite familiar with what bombs look like in general, and why. But when you look at his Bond set designs, you realize he wasn't always after realism.
There is, of course, the famous story about the USAF objection over the highly realistic depiction of the B-52 flight deck. Initially there were accusations of espionage, etc. It wasn't until Adam produced his research, including pictures from a popular aviation periodical and other open sources, that the Air Force realized they hadn't done as good a job as they'd thought of keeping the B-52 a secret. However, I don't think that applies much to the design of the bombs.
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I think Ken Adam simply went for something that would look "different" from a conventional bomb in such a way as to emphasize the menace.
I think you're right. Real bombs look rather bland.
The one feature of real thermonuclear bombs that surprised me when I first learned about them are the parachutes. Most have them to give the delivering airplane time to escape. They can also be used for "laydown" deliveries where the bomb is fuzed to detonate some time after landing. The bombs on the Leper Colony were larger than anything in the real US inventory (I think the one Major Kong rode was 20 MT), and it most definitely would have incinerated the B-52 as well as Major Kong when dropped as depicted from a low altitude and no parachute.
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I think Ken Adam simply went for something that would look "different" from a conventional bomb in such a way as to emphasize the menace.
I think you're right. Real bombs look rather bland.
The one feature of real thermonuclear bombs that surprised me when I first learned about them are the parachutes. Most have them to give the delivering airplane time to escape. They can also be used for "laydown" deliveries where the bomb is fuzed to detonate some time after landing. The bombs on the Leper Colony were larger than anything in the real US inventory (I think the one Major Kong rode was 20 MT), and it most definitely would have incinerated the B-52 as well as Major Kong when dropped as depicted from a low altitude and no parachute.
Very true. There were actually very few weapons of that yield in the US inventory, even back in '63. Heck, only a handful of that yield or greater were even tested, and all by the Soviets, with the biggest test by the US being the 15 MT Castle Bravo device in '54 - which was twice the high end estimated yield, as well as being the worst radiological disaster in US history.
That said, the information on typical US nuclear weapon yields wasn't available for decades after that movie was made, all the writers would probably have known was how big they could be; and they may well have gone with a bigger than typical bomb for dramatic effect in any case.
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Of course the bomb doesn't look very authentic because the nose is highly un-aerodynamic. You always want the center of pressure to be near the tail for stable flight.
I don't know if pictures of real US bombs were available in 1963, but they are now.
I always assumed the main driver for the design was that Slim Pickens had to ride rodeo on it without falling off...
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I always assumed the main driver for the design was that Slim Pickens had to ride rodeo on it without falling off...
And he had to be capable of climbing up it from the bomb bay floor to get access to the wiring panel (I'd love to know where he found the screwdriver and pliers as well!).
I imagine that trying to shimmy up the front of this would have been a tad difficult.... :o
(http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Mk41.jpg)
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You don't think a SAC crew wouldn't have had a tool kit stashed away somewhere?
BTW, it's always surprising to me how small thermonuclear devices are. When I was a kid, I marveled at the small size of the bomb recovered at Polomares (sp?) when the photos were published in Life. There's a photo somewhere, also, of a MIRV'ed Minuteman with the aerodynamic nose cone removed and some techs working on the bus - the individual warheads aren't that big.
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You don't think a SAC crew wouldn't have had a tool kit stashed away somewhere?
No doubt they have. But he didn't appear to have any kit when he left the cockpit or when he was climbing the bomb. It's nitpicking, I know, but it sticks out a bit.
BTW, it's always surprising to me how small thermonuclear devices are. When I was a kid, I marveled at the small size of the bomb recovered at Polomares (sp?) when the photos were published in Life. There's a photo somewhere, also, of a MIRV'ed Minuteman with the aerodynamic nose cone removed and some techs working on the bus - the individual warheads aren't that big.
The [url-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54]W54[/url] was made to be shot from an artillery piece. It was tiny
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Davy_Crockett_bomb.jpg)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/DavyCrockettBomb.jpg)
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The W-54 and variants almost scare me more than the much bigger bombs. One person could carry them, and you could easily envision it actually getting used by some low-level grunt and triggering a rapid escalation.
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Around my circle, it is basically required to sing "Davey! Davey Crockett!" when that particular weapons system is mentioned.
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I'm not sure if this issue some hoaxhead is implying has ever been brought up before regarding AS17-134-20384. A quick search didn't bring up anything. I'm just wondering if there is any links out there for a explanation of this photo?
"Ooops! Aside from the Earth lighting showing the Sun is directly overhead, while the astronaut's visor reflection shows a long sunset shadow:"
(http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo17/hires/as17-134-20384.jpg)
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The astronaut's visor is gold, thus tinting any reflection. The sun is centered behind the photographer, not directly overhead. Thus from the astronaut Schmitt's point of view, he should be seeing the shaded side of Cernan with shadow falling away behind Cernan. The hot spot on Schmitt's visor is consistent with the illumination angle as evidenced by Earth's terminator.
Looks like another failure in spatial reasoning. It's likely this specific claim has never been made before, but the same broken assumptions and handwaving claims can be made about nearly all the 7,000 lunar surface photographs. He's not a genius for applying the same faulty reasoning to a new photo.
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Besides, the shadow angle of the Earth (90° to the terminator) seems pretty consistent with the shadow angle of the corners that the sunshade casts over the visor.'''
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98915197/ApolloHoax/as17-134-20384%28shadow%20angle%29.jpg)
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Thanks guys. I'm better able to visualize it now although I doubt I would be able to adequately explain it. Anyway, I really got to stop following those youtube videos about this stuff. I watched part of one of the flat Earth videos. So according to the expert about it, Antarctica is actually the edge of the world and that's why commercial flights aren't allowed over it. My goodness the nonsense that people think up.
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That Apollo 17 image was part of a short series taken at around 01:20 on 12/12/72 - as determined by the mission transcript and confirmed by the meteorology visible on the Earth and the position of the terminator.
There is a companion photo (AS17-134-20387) that shows the position of the sun over the horizon in Cernan's curved visor and it is entirely consistent with where it should be according to Stellarium:
(http://i61.tinypic.com/2yl790p.jpg)
:)
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...I watched part of one of the flat Earth videos. So according to the expert about it, Antarctica is actually the edge of the world and that's why commercial flights aren't allowed over it. My goodness the nonsense that people think up.
Flat Earth? What the...?
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...I watched part of one of the flat Earth videos. So according to the expert about it, Antarctica is actually the edge of the world and that's why commercial flights aren't allowed over it. My goodness the nonsense that people think up.
Flat Earth? What the...?
Worth checking out. It reveals the role-playing mindset in all it's glory. Read up on the flat earth crapfest, then apply the same to bigfootery, UFOlogy, moon hoaxery, <insert nuttery of choice>.
It becomes very clear that the majority of proponents don't believe a single word they post, it's just outright blatant trollery.
From there, you can rapidly discern the trolls from the outright barking loons and your strategy of engagement becomes apparent.
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I'm not sure if this issue some hoaxhead is implying has ever been brought up before regarding AS17-134-20384. A quick search didn't bring up anything. I'm just wondering if there is any links out there for a explanation of this photo?
"Ooops! Aside from the Earth lighting showing the Sun is directly overhead, while the astronaut's visor reflection shows a long sunset shadow:"
(http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo17/hires/as17-134-20384.jpg)
Isn't this the photo that Marcus Allen has allegedly, attempted and gave up after several attempts being unable to duplicate? Therefore since he was unable to duplicate it is "likely" to have been created in a studio.
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I'm not sure if this issue some hoaxhead is implying has ever been brought up before regarding AS17-134-20384. A quick search didn't bring up anything. I'm just wondering if there is any links out there for a explanation of this photo?
"Ooops! Aside from the Earth lighting showing the Sun is directly overhead, while the astronaut's visor reflection shows a long sunset shadow:"
(http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo17/hires/as17-134-20384.jpg)
Isn't this the photo that Marcus Allen has allegedly, attempted and gave up after several attempts being unable to duplicate? Therefore since he was unable to duplicate it is "likely" to have been created in a studio.
If only he'd just rotated it about 25 degrees anticlockwise.
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Now if he did that,he'd lose his "credibility" as a HB and not sell anymore magazines or DVD's.
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I'm not sure if this issue some hoaxhead is implying has ever been brought up before regarding AS17-134-20384. A quick search didn't bring up anything. I'm just wondering if there is any links out there for a explanation of this photo?
There's a couple of things at play here. One is the effect of portraying a three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional plane (the film surface). This video explains a lot of these effects
The other effect is that the visor is heavily curved, so you are getting an almost fish-eye lens effect.
Poor spatial awareness and an inability to understand the most basic aspects of photography seems to be a common trait of hoax believers.
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Besides, the shadow angle of the Earth (90° to the terminator) seems pretty consistent with the shadow angle of the corners that the sunshade casts over the visor.'''
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/98915197/ApolloHoax/as17-134-20384%28shadow%20angle%29.jpg)
I have a question concerning Marcus Allen. Astrobrant indicated "All I can remember is related to an address he made in front of some scientists and technologists who dealt with all of the issues he raised. He was reportedly impressed by them and made some kind of conciliatory remarks before leaving."
Has anyone had the same indication or evidence?
Just asking.
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Besides, the shadow angle of the Earth (90° to the terminator) seems pretty consistent with the shadow angle of the corners that the sunshade casts over the visor.'''
I have a question concerning Marcus Allen. Astrobrant indicated "All I can remember is related to an address he made in front of some scientists and technologists who dealt with all of the issues he raised. He was reportedly impressed by them and made some kind of conciliatory remarks before leaving."
Has anyone had the same indication or evidence?
Just asking.
British Interplanetary Society
http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=32.msg242;topicseen#msg242
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Besides, the shadow angle of the Earth (90° to the terminator) seems pretty consistent with the shadow angle of the corners that the sunshade casts over the visor.'''
I have a question concerning Marcus Allen. Astrobrant indicated "All I can remember is related to an address he made in front of some scientists and technologists who dealt with all of the issues he raised. He was reportedly impressed by them and made some kind of conciliatory remarks before leaving."
Has anyone had the same indication or evidence?
Just asking.
British Interplanetary Society
http://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?topic=32.msg242;topicseen#msg242
I was under the impression that this conversion was fairly recent not 2012, but I could be wrong.