ili tlh I i a ill TT ga COVER STORY Re-making ‘Rocketship X-M’ ‘ocketship X-M began in the late 1940s when Kurt Neu man, a writer and director, showed Robert Lippert, an independent producer, a story outline for a Serious sciencerfiction film, Neuman demonstrated that his story of a journey to the Moon could bbe made for less than $95,000. Lip: pert, a prolific producer with a good eye for what the public was willing 0 buy, took note of the current fly ing saucer craze and produced the file, XM originally stood for Exped tion Moon, but because of the similarity of Neuman's script to George Pal's Destination Moon, also in production, Neuman altered the final part of his story so that the five ‘explorers land on Mars instead. Rocketship XM, filmed in black and white, made millions of dollars 2 few ‘months after it was released in 1950. ‘An eight-year-old Wade Willams fell in love with the film, but its suc- ‘cess was short lived. The film was ‘sold to television in 1955, and was seen quite often until color program: ming became common, whereupon the black and-white adventure fod ed from view. ‘Several years ago, Williams insti- gated a nationwide search for the film. After many years of detective work, he was able to buy the rights to the film and make @ dupe nega: tive of a fine-grain positive 35mm print that Warner's had. The original negative had started to decompose In 1965 and had been destroyed. ‘Wade Williams wanted to ce: release the film, but in the age of ‘Star Wars and CE3K Williams knew that modern audiences would be bothered by the low budget effects, now over 25 years old. The rocket lift-off was stock V-2 footage, there were no exteriors of the ship. the ‘composites were faulty, etc. Effects Facelift for SF Classic By DAVID HUTCHISON Late in 1977 Williams made con tact with some effects artists in Hollywood, who he hoped might be interested in what was certainly an unusual plan. Wouldn't it be fun, he suggested, and interesting to im: prove this old, little known space adventure story by throwing out some effects footage, re-shooting it, ‘maybe adding some new scenes and making it available to the public ag ‘Quite a number of those who at tended Williams’ private screening thought it would be fun and in- teresting to do just that, The team assembled to create and shoot the new Rocketship X-M sequences is listed in a special box on this spread. Most of the names will be familiar to readers of ‘STARLOG magazine: They are cameramen, editors, designers, some of whom have worked on such Classic SF and fantasy films as Flesh Gordon, CE3K, Star Wars, Star Trek—The Motion Picture and whose contributions to SFifantasy are ex tensive. Early meetings of the team were spent deciding exactly what footage to junk. Eventually Tom Scherman designed a storyboard that met ‘everyone's satisfaction, There were to be 11 new shots: 1) new opening titles 2) replace Earth fi 3) replace all V-2 stock footage 4) replace shot of sun's corona seen through the ship’s port: hole while in space 5) add exterior shots of rocket under acceleration 6) add exterior shots of rocket with engines shut down 7) descent to Martian surface 8) remake long shot of ship com- Ing down on the Martian surface 9) new shot of crew disembarking 10) new shot of survivors returning to the ship. 11) exterior shot of rocket escaping from Mars with globe covering %s of background frame ‘Additionally, all the new footage ‘would be shot in color. The color negative would be printed onto black-and-white stock, so that the color grain in black and white would look like the grain of the black-and white emulsions of 1949, Also the entire film will be tinted. In the Criginal, only the Martian sequences had been tinted a deep red-violet, but the re-release will see color tinted footage throughout. Scenes inside the ship will be printed a soft chocolate brown, exteriors of the ship in space will be bluish to pick up the silver of the ship, bunker in- teriors a light yellow, etc. Tt was agreed to first tackle the scenes that were the most com: plicated logistically and Involved the most people—the sequence of the five people setting out from the ship ‘on Mars and the shot of the three scrambling back. A foreground miniature had to be built and 2 ‘model rocket re-created, The task of recreating the XM rocket fell to Bob Burns end Tom ‘Scherman. The rocket would have to be copied from the film. The frame 9