Tuesday, March 24, 2009

AFI Dallas sneak preview and audio interview: Duncan Jones for Moon

See if you can spot the family resemblance.

By John P. Meyer

Photo by John P. Meyer

Duncan Jones - with a guest appearance by Bogie

Duncan Jones, we discover, cut his filmmaking teeth on the making of commercials - which explains the really effective faux one that sets the stage for his new low-budget sci fi movie, Moon. It's a slick piece of work, and it serves to explain why there's a guy hanging out mining rocks on the lunar surface while everyone back home on Earth goes about their business totally unburdened by the evils of burning fossil fuels.

Let's get another thing about Jones out of the way just so we can say we've covered it, and that's the fact that David Bowie is his father. So there.

Turns out (without giving too much away, because I'll be posting a full review of Moon when it opens its regular North Texas run in June) that Jones is a capable director, and his low budget sci fi flick is several cuts above the kind of thing you might catch on the Sci Fi Channel on a Saturday evening - both in terms of execution and thematic material.

Like the lunar surface itself, it's really quite reflective.

The movie plays AFI Dallas on Thursday, April 2 at NorthPark. Buy tickets here.

Mr. Jones was in Dallas just before SXSW and I had a chance to talk with him about Moon. Here are highlights from the audio:

Interview with Duncan Jones, writer-director of Moon

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* The story was written with (lead actor) Sam Rockwell firmly in mind from the beginning

* The working budget was $5 million

* They did not actually film on the moon (see "working budget," above)

* The lunar rover scenes were done using model miniatures

* Film guy is TOTALLY WRONG (sort of) about the lunar base sets having been inspired by 2001

* Jones' next film will be another sci fi flick but this time urban-based

NOTE that there's a rather large spoiler around the 10:20 mark of the audio - you might want to skip to 11:10, if you haven't yet seen the film.

Related stories

• AFI Dallas sneak previews: Your first look at a slew of films from the festival lineup (March 26, 2009)
• AFI Dallas sneak preview and audio interview: Christophe Barratier and Nora Arnezeder for Paris 36 (March 25, 2009)

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• Arts > Movies / Film > Film Festivals > AFI Dallas