The last time man stepped on the moon was in 1972. In the 35 years since then, a plethora of movies, documentaries, and mini-series have been made delving into every minute detail of the Apollo moon missions. The surprisingly unheard stories are those of the astronauts themselves – until now, that is.

Director David Sington’s debut feature documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon, relives the Apollo missions as told by the men who went on them. Of the 10 men who set foot on the surface of the moon, nine are featured in his film. Now in their seventies, the men give a humorous and candid account of their experiences.

In anticipation of Shadow’s September 21st theatrical release in Seattle, the Garfield Messenger had a chance to speak with director David Sington about the making of the film.

Garfield Messenger: What first sparked your interest in documentary filmmaking?

David Sington: I’ve always been very interested in films. In my mind really, I don’t really make a huge distinction between documentaries and drama. The advantage to documentaries is you get to meet amazing people and there’s a privileged access to very interesting aspects of the world. So I’ve filmed with everybody from Nobel prize-winning scientists to murderers to mountaineers to astronauts – you name it. It’s fascinating.

GM: Where did you get the idea for “In the Shadow of the Moon”?

DS: It wasn’t my idea actually, it was the producer’s idea, Duncan Copp. Duncan had gotten to know Dave Scott, the astronaut. Duncan suggested we would, as it were, reunite the [Apollo] astronauts all in one room and they would tell their story and we would illustrate it with archive material. Dave thought it was a good idea as well, so with Dave’s help we were able to get at least one astronaut from every single mission that went, which hadn’t really been done before. To take something of the historical significance of Apollo and show it in a new way is a very appealing idea.

GM: How many hours of footage did you have to work with in the cutting room?

DS: From the 10 astronauts we interviewed, we had a total of 60 hours [of footage]. Then we looked at hundreds of hours of [archival] footage, and we actually transferred and remastered another 60 hours. So in the cutting room, I had about 120 hours of material – which is a lot for a 90 minute film. It took us 9 months to cut it.

GM: How did you gain access to the rare NASA footage?

DS: There was footage that was shot in space at the time of the missions, and some of it was released at the time. All of it, even if it wasn’t released, ended up in cold storage under liquid nitrogen to preserve it. We knew from our contacts at NASA that when we embarked upon this project, they were in the process of taking this material out from cold storage and transferring it to high definition video, and it would be available to exploit. NASA was very kind and made tapes for us when they were making tapes for themselves, so we had first-generation tapes.

GM: What was the process behind getting a distributer for the film and how did Ron Howard’s name get attached to the project?

DS: We went to Sundance, as it were, with kind of a verbal expression of interest [from Ron Howard] in helping us, which I think was a useful thing to be able to tell distributers. We got a lot of interest from distributers. And then around May [Ron] managed to get to see the film again in New York and decided he still liked it. So we approached him and said, “We think it would be helpful if we attached your name to it as a sort of a seal of approval.” He doesn’t normally do that — I don’t think he’s done it before — but he was very kind, and he said “yes.”

GM: In doing the research and interviews for the film, what surprised you the most?

DS: It was a big surprise to me what brilliant raconteurs they are. I think the interviews got surprisingly emotional, and I realized that going to the moon had been a deeply emotional experience for these men, which is not something I think was really apparent at the time. If you listen to the onboard recordings of the astronauts talking amongst themselves, you see that they are incredibly enthusiastic, emotional, and engaged in what they’re doing in a very human way.

GM: How have people reacted to the film at screenings and festivals so far?

DS: The reception has been extremely warm, sometimes overwhelmingly so. It’s surprising the laughs you get in a big room. Certain audiences have found the film hilarious all the way through, which is great. I keep on waiting for the viewing where the audience sits there in stony silence and then troops out sullen and sort of dejected, but it hasn’t happened yet.

GM: What do you hope people who watch the film will take away from it?

DS: In the end I think it should make people hopeful about the future. It was just eight years, which is nothing. [It was] a blink of an eye from ’61 to ’69, from Kennedy’s challenge to Armstrong on the moon. If that can be achieved, then really there’s almost nothing that we can’t do. The other thing, which I think is a relevant point to today, is Apollo sprang out of the Cold War, which was a very serious business – far more serious than the global war on terror. We were hours away from World War III. Apollo sprang out of that, but it was a completely civilian, non-military, peaceful response. [Apollo] helped to win the Cold War, but it did so without firing a single bullet, and I think that’s a very relevant message to think about today, that there’s more than one way of fighting a war.