Image courtesy Statement Pictures for CNN Films/MacGillivray Freeman Films
Meet members of the original Apollo 11 mission nearly 60 years ago at Cincinnati Museum Center this weekend following a screening of humankind’s first steps on the Moon.
On Saturday, July 18, CMC will show Apollo 11: First Steps Edition in its five-story dome OMNIMAX Theater, followed by a Q&A panel discussion and meet-and-greet with film director Todd Douglas Miller, composer Matt Morton, NASA Apollo Mission Control engineer Frances “Poppy” Northcutt, and NASA data systems analyst Roy Tharpe. The latter two panelists were integral members of Apollo 11 in 1969.
Apollo 11 is a 2019 documentary edited, produced, and directed by Miller, using solely archival footage of the Apollo 11 mission. The film does not feature any new narration, interviews, or modern recreations, striving to present an unfiltered and unbiased look at the first time that humans, including Ohioan Neil Armstrong, landed on the Moon. The footage includes the preparation, launch, mission control operations, recovery, and post flight activities of Apollo 11, as well as the first steps on the Moon.
When Apollo 11 premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019, it received critical acclaim for the filmmaking techniques, score, editing, and its previously unreleased 70mm film footage. The production team sourced more than 11,000 hours of audio recordings from 60 key mission personnel alongside hundreds of hours of video.
The First Steps Edition of the documentary is a 47-minute edit of the film for museum IMAX theaters, such as the OMNIMAX at CMC, and includes extended large-format scenes that differ from the full-length documentary. CMC will also screen the full-length documentary in its Reakirt Auditorium the same day. Cody Hefner, vice president and head of marketing and communications at the CMC, says the OMNIMAX Theater presents a different experience than a normal flatscreen theater.
“It’s a much more immersive experience, and it really works when we show something that can feel so engulfing, like a film about the ocean or space,” he says. “So to see the Apollo 11 mission, you’re feeling the vastness of the moment, but also the sort of loneliness of where they are in space, how far they are from Earth, and how foreign this experience is.”
Photograph courtesy Cincinnati Museum Center
The screening is a part of America 250—Ohio’s year-long statewide series Ohio Goes to the Movies, which celebrates Ohioan actors, directors, and writers, as well as Ohio locations in films. Miller and Morton are both Columbus natives. Northcutt helped calculate the trajectories that guided the astronauts safely back to Earth, while Tharpe was a key member of the team responsible for testing the spacecraft equipment and provided one of the “go for launch” calls during Apollo 11’s liftoff.
“We’re very lucky that [the panelists] were both very excited to come to Cincinnati and participate, and in the fact that we still have these wonderful resources and people involved with the mission who can provide that perspective,” says Hefner.
The discussion will start with questions for the panelists created by the museum staff, who will then open the floor up to attendees.
The event, which is free to museum members and included with museum admission, will start with the First Steps Edition OMNIMAX screening at 10:30 a.m., followed by the panel discussion and meet-and-greet. The full-length documentary will be screened in the Reakirt Auditorium at 4 p.m. Hefner hopes that the screenings and talks with the panelists will inspire attendees.
“With the recent Artemis II mission gaining momentum and capturing people’s imaginations, I think this is a great opportunity for people to get that thrill of discovery and exploration and tap into this very innate human desire to go beyond and see what’s out there,” Hefner says. “Since the film is all original footage, you’re experiencing it in real time, along with the uncertainty and anxiety that the astronauts and NASA members felt 57 years ago.”
Image courtesy Statement Pictures for CNN Films/MacGillivray Freeman Films
Artemis II was a crewed flyby of the Moon that took place in early April this year. It is currently the only crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972 and was the first crewed flight of the NASA-led Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17. The mission was also a test flight for Artemis IV, a planned Moon landing for early 2028. The mission gained widespread global attention for its achievements, including breaking Apollo 13’s record for the greatest human distance from Earth.
Visitors can learn more about early human space travel at CMC’s Neil Armstrong Space Exploration Gallery exhibit, which features unique artifacts from the mission, including a moon rock collected where Armstrong made his first steps. Hefner says that the exhibit adds an additional layer to the film.
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