Case Study: Moon, dir.

Ed Duncan
Production Studio: Liberty Films and Studio 6

Moon is a 2009 science fiction film about a solitary lunar employee who experiences a
personal crisis as the end of his three-year stint nears. It is the feature debut of director
Duncan Jones[4]. Sam Rockwell stars as the employee Sam Bell, and Kevin Spacey
voices his robot companion, GERTY. Moon premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film
Festival and was released in selected theatres in New York and Los Angeles on 12
June 2009. The release was expanded to additional theatres in the United States and
Toronto on both 3 and 10 July[5] and was released in the United Kingdom on 17 July.[6]
This film was the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) winner of the 2009 award for
the Best British Independent Film. Director Duncan Jones was also awarded the BIFA
Douglas Hickox Award.[7]
The film has also been nominated for two BAFTAs at the 2010 awards. It won the
award for Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(film)

Moon is the first feature film of director Ed Duncan (son of David Bowie), who
co-wrote the script with Nathan Jones. The script was written specifically for
the starring actor, Sam Rockwell. The budget for the film was just $5 million,
and the whole film was shot at Shepperton Studios, London.

The interior shots of the base were filmed within an enclosed space
measuring 90 feet by 70 feet. Camera work was done on tracks, with no
removable walls, in order to save time. The whole film was shot in 33 days.

Technology

The character of ‘Gerty’ the computer is confined to rails, which is important

to the story. However, Gerty’s independent ‘arm’ movement creates a sense
of anthropomorphism.

There is some CG work in the film, but the director preferred to use model
miniatures (the lunar rovers, for example) to create a more ‘tactlie’, retro
feel. The outdoor shots were all filmed using ‘old-fashioned’ techniques,
creating a lunar landscape within the studio in favour of ‘green screening’.
Moon was heavily influenced by Science Fiction films of the late seventies
and early eighties, such as ‘Alien’, Silent Running’ and ‘Outland’, all of which
have a greater focus on character and human qualities than on technology.

Director, Ed Duncan says, of the making of Moon

I mean, this is an indie budget film, and it's science fiction which is pretty unusual
because the production values, it's difficult to do at an indie budget. So we very much
came up with a list of almost rules as to what we wanted the project to be and how it
was going to work. And we knew that we needed to keep the cast down to a minimum,
we knew that we wanted to keep it – have a completely controlled shooting
environment, so I wanted to shoot it in studio. And sort of by creating this list of rules, it
gave me a focus on what I needed to write as a story. So the idea of it being on the
moon, in the moon base, and using model miniatures, and using my effects background
for commercials, and very specific effects, ones that I knew we could achieve at the
budget. It just kind of gave me a set of commandments.

Douglas, Edward (23 January 2009). "Sundance EXL: Duncan Jones & Sam Rockwell
on Moon". ComingSoon.net (Coming Soon Media, L.P.).
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/sundancenews.php?id=52031. Retrieved
24 February 2009

Distribution

Sony Pictures worldwide Acquisition Group acquired distribution rights to the

film in English speaking territories. The film premiered at Sundance in the
USA (January 2009), and at the Edinburgh Film Festival (June 2009) in the
UK.

Research Tasks:

How much money did Moon take in the box office?

How was Moon responded to by film critics?

How many UK cinemas screened the film?