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People from the Moon

I'm pretty sure this image hasn't been seen in the wild yet so I'd like to show you the official Moon crew photograph. This picture was taken three or four days before we finished shooting in the Sarang Facility set during a lunch break; if you look closely you'll see Duncan's down the front actually eating his pud (desert for those outside the UK). We were both like this all through the shoot; neither of us really got the chance to sit down to eat as we used the hour lunch break to get extra stuff done so we'd always be eating lasagne and chips walking down corridors and bringing random plates of food into meetings. The catering on Moon was actually really good, but there was always the constant, easy allure of lots of chips (fries for our American cousins). I love chips but I don't think it's a particularly bright idea to have a massive plate of them every day for lunch. I was so distracted with the actual making of the film that I was just shoving food into my mouth-hole and I was a bit gutted that I'd got a little potbelly at the end of the shoot. I know going to the gym can be a bit boring but it was great therapy when we finished shooting and got into postproduction. To try and get some time in my own head away from the constant worries of not getting the film finished and running out of money in post, I got into this thing where I'd just get on the treadmill and try and run like Robert Patrick from Terminator 2 towards the mirror for as long as I could without showing on my face that I was about to burst. I got pretty good at doing the Terminator 2 run. So be warned; films will try to make you fat. You're stuck on a studio lot with very few options for eating other than what you bring with you or what the production decides to feed to you. And it's going to be with chips. The deserts were amazing though; the catering chap had this special strawberry syrup that he brought over from Spain that was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten in my life. Wish I'd gotten the name of it. It was so nice, you could actually put it on chips and it'd make them better.

So here are most of the people who made Moon. There's a few faces missing, as we never had everybody in one place. Notable omissions include Bill Pearson, Hideki Arichi, Barrett Heathcote, Matt Berry, Benedict Wong, Kaya Scodelario, Dominique McElligott and Kevin Spacey. Try getting that lot together for a photo on a day when you're not working with them!

It's tempting to start writing about all the individual people in this pic but I'd literally be here all day. We had a great crew on Moon and there was a lot of hard work done for very little money to bring this film to the screen. I was really glad that I made some really good friends over the course of the shoot. One person who was instrumental on getting this film made was the 1st Assistant Director Mick Ward. Mick's the chap in the blue jacket kneeling down at the front of the left hand side. He had an incredibly tough job to do keeping us on track with shooting as at one point we were a day and a half behind schedule and we simply had no wiggle room to make things up at the end. It got really stressful having the feeling of driving your car full speed towards a brick wall. I know this might sound a bit dramatic but that's what it feels like when your shoot starts slipping and clawing it back takes extreme effort and focus of will. Mick was sort of like our big brother as it's the first AD's job to run the set. He did some tough things that really ran the risk of pissing people off which was necessary as he was only doing it for the good of the film. On the third day of shooting he got fed up with everybody asking him what we were doing next and so he called everybody together and told everybody who had a call sheet in their pocket to put their hands up. Three people did. If you're unfamiliar with shooting, a call sheet is an A4 printed document a few sides in length that outlines the proposed days' shooting. It contains a running order of things to be shot and any associated information such as crew details, safety risks, locations, and any specific details that may be occurring on the individual day. They get drawn up the night before and handed out in the morning so all the information on there is current and they only ever cover a single day of shooting. So Mick gave everybody a bit of a bollocking and made sure people were carrying their call sheets and looking at them before they asked a question. This was all on day 3 and we'd already slipped by half a day at this point. Two days later we'd made the half-day back. That's how you get stuff made.

I'm pretty sure there are a couple of people to watch out for in the future amongst this crew but one in particular would be miss Suzy Willett. Suzy is sat right behind Mick and is just peeking her head round his ten-bob cabbage. Suzy was working on Moon as a spark (electrician), and is in the process of transitioning to Director of Photography. Keep an eye on her as she'll doubtless be bringing you things you like in the future. That Sam Rockwell chap too, on the extreme left. I've heard he's pretty good.