"Robert A. Heinlein - Shooting Destination Moon (Article)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

part- of the picture you will see the Luna in Lucerne Valley of the Mojave
Desert. You know that the ship is full size for you see men-climbing around it,
working on it, getting in the elevator of the Gantry crane and entering itтАФand
it is full size; we trucked it in pieces to the desert and set it up there. Then
you will see the Gantry crane pull away and the Luna blasts off for space.
That canтАЩt be full -size; no one has ever done it.
Try to find the transition point. Even money says you pick a point either too
late or too soon.
The Luna herself is one hundred fifty feet tall; the table top model of her and
the miniature Gantry crane are watchmakerтАЩs dreams. The miniature
floodlights mounted on the crane are the size of my little fingeftipтАФ and they


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work. - Such animation is done by infinite patience and skill. Twenty-four
separate planned and
scaled setups are required for each second of animation on the screen. Five
minutes of animation took longer to photograph than the eighty minutes of
live action. -
At one point it seemed that all this planning and effort would come to nothing;
the powers-that-be decided that the story was too cold and called in a
musical comedy writer to liven it up withтАФsssh!тАФsex. For a time we had a
version of the script which included dude ranches, cowboys, guitars and
hillbilly songs on the Moon, a trio of female hepsters singing into a mike,
interiors of cocktail lounges, and more of the like, combined with
pseudoscientific gimmicks which would- have puzzled
тАв even Flash Gordon.
It was never shot. That was the wildest detour on the road to the Moon; the
fact that the Luna got back into orbit can be attributed to the calm insistence
of Irving; Pi├зhel. But it gives one a chilling notion of what we mayexpect from
time to time. -
Somehow, the day came when the last scene had ~ shot and, despite
Hollywood detours, we had made amotion picture of the first trip to the Moon.
Irving Pichel~ said, тАЬPrint it!тАЭ for the last time, and we adjourned to~ celebrate
at a bar the- producer had set up in one end of the stage. I tried to assess my
personal account sheetтАФi1~. had cost me eighteen monthsтАЩ work, my peace
of mind,4i and almost all of my remaining hair.
Nevertheless, when I saw the тАЬrough cutтАЭ of th~
picture, it seemed to have been worth it. .




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