40 years ago today, 16 July 1969 at 14:32 (BST), the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket was launched.


According to Wikipedia:

the Apollo 11 mission was was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon.

It carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.

Four days later, on July 20th, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.

The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s.

On May 25, 1961, he'd addressed a joint session of Congress and stated: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

On May 12th, 1962, he gave a public speech in which he said: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."


Visit the interactive website WeChooseTheMoon.org created by JFK Presidential Library & Museum to experience a real-time recreation of the historic lunar mission.

This is simply amazing!


Ten Thousand Pictures of You
Written, Directed & Edited by Robin King
Starring Denise Hoey, David Crow, Ruth Larkin

This pixilation (stop-motion animation using real people) was made in 2006 for Screen South as part of the UK Film Council's Digital Shorts scheme. As much as possible, it was made 'in camera' without digital superimposure, using thousands of printed materials.

The whole film took about a year: roughly three months each for development, prep, shoot and post - although due to the nature of the film, part of the post bled into the shoot. The programs I used were Photoshop, Premiere 6.5 and some bespoke programs I coded myself (a 3D animatic planning program and another to smooth out some of the tracking shots).

To be honest my machine and the software weren't up to what I needed from them, and I would have a much better time of it now, with my macbookpro, FCP and a tablet...

I used a Canon Eos 350D Digital SLR to shoot, and took roughly 26,000 photos overall.

Man, this sort of thing makes me a bit jealous. Ok, a lot jealous. Not in a bad way. I see this sort of thing, and it makes me want to work harder. This winter/Spring is going to be a real slog for me with all the programs I need to learn to make some of the stuff I want to create.

Thanks to Chris Ollis - go and watch his stuff - for the hat tip.