Interview with Duncan Jones (contains spoilers)

Duncan Jones - Moon Interview (November 2009)

Can you tell us where it all began, and your inspiration for making Moon.
Yeah absolutely. I had the chance to meet up with Sam Rockwell about three and a half years ago with a different film that I wanted to make with him and he loved the script but wanted to play a different character than the one I was hoping he would play. So we met up to try and convince each other and that didn't work out but we got on very well and we just started talking about the kinds of roles as an actor he wanted to play and the kinds of films we both loved. And there was this period of science fiction films in the late seventies and early eighties that we both sort of loved, films like Outland and Silent Running and Ridley Scott's Alien, about sort of blue collar working people in space and we both said it would be fantastic to do something like that. So I left that meeting and decided to write a film like that for Sam and that's how it all started.
 
Seeing as Moon is your first feature film, was it the kind of film making you expected to do?
I think in a lot of ways it was more ambitious than a normal first feature film. It was science fiction and there was an awful lot of technical challenges in pulling off the special effects that we used but I have a background in commercial so I felt fairly comfortable on the technical side and I knew that if I was going to make a first feature film I wanted to make something that really stood out from the rest of the films out there and fortunately I think Moon is really unique in that respect.
 
You spoke about the challenges you faced during the filming, what were the biggest challenges you faced during filming?
Well Moon was made for just under 5 million US dollars and it has nearly 450 special effects shots in it. There's a combination of model miniatures work, and computer generated imagery and then a lot of practical in-camera effects so there really were a whole host of skills that were necessary to pull it off and again for the time and money we had that was really where the challenge was.
 
In terms of the visuals and themes in the film, how much of Moon is your brainchild? What inspired you?
There were quite a few different things that inspired the visuals... There was this period of films in the late seventies and eighties, the work of guys like Douglas Trumble and Peter Hyams and Syd Mead who gave the look of those films, that kind of gritty, chunky, industrial look that those films had. Their science fiction I think had a very different aesthetic than science fiction today and we wanted to hark back to that period, so that was a big inspiration. And then for the exteriors, the lunar landscape was inspired a book of lunar photography by a guy called Michael Light who basically collated and put together and cleaned up all of the 70 mil photography from the Apollo moon missions.
 
How did Kevin Spacey become involved in Moon?
We managed to get the script to him because he works down at the Old Vic Theatre here in London, and he loved the script and he's a huge fan of Sam Rockwell and was very keen on the project. When we told him what the budget was and he saw what the concept artwork looked like he was a bit nervous and kind of backed off and said why don't you go and make the film without me and then come and show it to me when you're done. So that's what we did. We made the film without him and we showed it to him and I think he was so, he was very pleased with the production design and everything was up to the scale we said it would be. But he was so overwhelmed by Sam Rockwell's performance; I think that's what really won him over.
 
Does the relationship between Sam and his double or clone represent something significant to you about our perception of ourselves?
Definitely.  Moon was always designed to be very character-centric and about very human, elements of human nature and I think for me the whole idea of having the opportunity to meet yourself from a different period of your own life is really interesting. I was a very different person when I was younger than I am now. And in the case of Moon, Sam does have the opportunity to meet a version of himself from a slightly different period in his own life and I think that there is an immediate conflict there, and immediate tension because when you do look at yourself you often don't know whether you're only gonna see the faults or whether you see the good things about yourself but there are certainly differences that have evolved over the period of time.
 
When putting together the lunar landscape that's featured in the film, did you and the designers aim to make it look like people's expectations of the Moon or did you apply certain creative license for it?
Well there had to a certain creative license but we had two very different visual styles. We had the moon base itself and its interior and then we had the lunar landscape. The lunar landscape was very much based on this book about lunar photography by Michael Light. The interior was sort of an amalgam of things that we remembered and loved from all the science fiction films so there are elements of 2001 obviously, there is a lot of elements from Outland and from, bits and pieces here from Silent Running. There may be a doorway here, there might be a piece of computer equipment there where we really wanted to pay homage to these older films.
 
And how closely did you collaborate with NASA? What kind of insights did they provide to you about lunar landscape and the effects that kind of isolation that can have on someone?
We didn't really. Most of, my interaction with NASA was after we finished the film and it was incredible actually. There was a professor at the NASA space centre in Houston, Texas who had heard that the film involved thematically elements of helium-3 mining on the Moon and he was wondering if we wanted to do a screening down there. And then we sent him a version of the film to watch and he loved it and said "yeah come on down and do the screening" so really it was merely after the fact, just the fact that we were talking about the Moon and about a possible scientific endeavour that NASA are actually investigating the idea of helium-3 mining, that's kind of how that relationship happened, it was after we had made the film.
 
Did you get any feedback from them on the isolation that you explore in the film?
Yeah I had the opportunity to talk to three different astronauts at different times again after the film was finished. And one of the things that they did mention was that they felt the sort of work-a-day kind of atmosphere and what you do on a day-to-day basis felt pretty accurate as far as just the repetition and the jobs that you actually end up doing on the Moon are not always the most, it's not always the most exciting work a lot of the time.
 
The film's score has received a lot of praise, how closely did you work with Clint Mansell?
I worked with him quite closely. He's based in Los Angeles and we were obviously doing most of our post-production in the UK so I went out to LA about four or five times to meet up with him but on the whole, Clint is an incredibly talented guy and knows exactly what he's doing so my job was really to be there to be a sounding board in a way. He would play things to me and I would love them and then if he got stuck on something or wasn't quite sure which way to play it then I would give suggestions, but we had a very normal working relationship and we'll be working on another film in the future together.
 
And you're still touring with the film, how's that going?
It's been amazing. I mean I am getting to the point now  where I really want the DVD and the Blu-ray to be out for the people to see it and maybe not have to push so hard on the theatrical anymore so it's nice that we're reaching that transition  point now, between theatrical and DVD and Blu-ray. But then hopefully after that's done, I can move onto the next thing and then sort of, allow this to exist on its own without me having to be there to nurse it.
 
The film has been really well received widely... were you expecting that when you finished the film?
I don't know if anyone expects it. I was very hopeful, I mean everyone put in blood, sweat and tears to make the film and we all knew it was incredibly ambitious and that we had managed to achieve something quite special with the time and money we had so I we're all hopeful that people will recognise that. But I think what we're most delighted about is that the audience has been so much broader. I mean there is, older and younger, men and women, people who are interested in science fiction and people who have no interest in science fiction, all of these people seem to enjoy and get a lot out of Moon and I think that's because at its core it's a human story and Sam Rockwell's performance is absolutely phenomenal.