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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo 13 (film) | 4/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_(film) | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:37:59.048022+00:00 | kb-cron |
Principal photography for Apollo 13 started in August 1994. Howard anticipated difficulty in portraying weightlessness in a realistic manner. He discussed this with Steven Spielberg, who suggested filming aboard the KC-135 airplane, which can be flown in such a way as to create about 23 seconds of weightlessness, a method NASA has always used to train its astronauts for space flight. Howard obtained NASA's permission and assistance to obtain three hours and 54 minutes of filming time in 612 zero-g maneuvers. Filming in this environment was a time and cost saver because the stage recreation and computer graphics would have been expensive. The final three weeks of filming took place in the stages on the Universal Studios Lot in Universal City, California, where two life-size replicas of both the command module and the lunar module were built for simultaneous shooting on different soundstages. Air-cooling units lowered the temperatures inside each soundstage to around 38 °F (3 °C), to simulate the conditions necessary for condensation and the visibility of the actors' breath inside the spacecraft. Filming wrapped on February 25, 1995. The final scene to be filmed was the splashdown sequence at the film's conclusion, which was shot on a large, artificial lake on the Universal lot.
==== Safety ==== While filming in a 25-second burst of weightlessness was "charged and frenetic", the cast and crew only suffered from bumps and bruises, and most injuries occurred when they bumped on non-padded items. The cast and crew of Apollo 13 describe the weightlessness experience as being in a "vomit comet" and "roller coaster ride", but the motion sickness afflicted only a few members. During filming of the low-temperature scenes in the Universal stages, signs that explained frostbite symptoms were posted on the stages' walls, and the crew worked in parkas.
=== Post-production === The visual effects supervisor was Robert Legato. To avoid awkward visible switches to stock news footage in a live action film, he decided to produce the Saturn V launch sequence using miniature models and digital image stitching to create a panoramic background. On Howard's request to "shoot it like Martin Scorsese would shoot it", Legato studied Scorsese's scenes of pool games from The Color of Money, and copied his technique of creating a sense of rhythm by repeating two or three frames between each cut (just enough to be undetectable) for the engine ignition sequence. Legato says this scene inspired James Horner's soundtrack music for the launch. The long-range shot of the vehicle in flight was filmed using a $25 1:144 scale model Revell kit, with the camera realistically shaking, and it was digitized and re-filmed off of a high resolution monitor through a black filter, slightly overexposed to keep it from "looking like a video game". The exhaust of the attitude control thrusters was generated with computer-generated imagery (CGI). This was also attempted to show the astronaut's urine dump into space, but wasn't high enough resolution to look right, so droplets sprayed from an Evian bottle were photographed instead. The producers wanted to use CGI to render the splashdown, but Legato adamantly insisted this would not look realistic. Real parachutes were used with a prop capsule tossed out of a helicopter. During weightless filming, all of the dialogue had been rendered unusable by the loudness of the plane. This required Hanks, Bacon and Paxton to attend ADR sessions, where they redubbed all of the lines for the weightless scenes.
== Soundtrack ==
The score to Apollo 13 was composed and conducted by James Horner, and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. The soundtrack was released in 1995 by MCA Records and has seven tracks of score, eight period songs used in the film, and seven tracks of dialogue by the actors at a total running time of nearly seventy-eight minutes. The music also features solos by vocalist Annie Lennox and Tim Morrison on the trumpet. The score was a critical success and garnered Horner an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score.
== Release ==
=== Theatrical === Apollo 13 was released on June 30, 1995, in North America and on September 22, 1995, in the United Kingdom. In September 2002 and for its 30th anniversary in September 2025, the film was re-released in IMAX. It is the first film to be digitally remastered using IMAX DMR technology.
=== Home media === Apollo 13 was released on VHS on November 21, 1995, and on LaserDisc the following week. On September 9, 1997, the film debuted on a THX certified widescreen VHS release. A 10th-anniversary DVD of the film was released in 2005; it included both the original theatrical version and the IMAX version, along with several extras. The IMAX version has a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. In 2006, Apollo 13 was released on HD DVD and on April 13, 2010, it was released on Blu-ray as the 15th-anniversary edition on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 accident. The film was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on October 17, 2017.