The movie's screenwriter, Allison Schroeder, was immersed in NASA culture as well her grandmother was a white computer at Langley, and her father was an engineer who worked on the Mercury capsule - the type of craft that John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, rode into orbit in 1962. Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) offers help to NASA mission specialist Karl Zielinski (Olek Krupa) in a shot from "Hidden Figures." (Image credit: Hopper Stone)Ī lot of the cultural cues featured in the movie came from Shetterly's research and interviews with computers, as well as from her own memories - she is the daughter of a Langley scientist, and grew up surrounded by the lab's culture. "And if they're a black woman living in Tidewater, Virginia, what was that like? How did that work?" For instance, "What was it like for somebody who was sitting there, cranking away at calculations and stuff?" he said. Most people know the story of the space race, he said, but "the thing that I think gets missed a lot, from the perspective of where the field is going these days, is the stories about the real people," Barry added. "It's a great story in lots of respects, because it brings out the culture of the time." "We think this is a project worth some time and energy on our part to make sure that the story gets told right," Barry said. Usually, NASA has to review a movie to allow it to use the agency's "meatball" logo, but this process was more in-depth. The creators worked with NASA's chief historian, Bill Barry, to comb through the script and make sure the details were true to NASA in 1961. "It's as close as it can possibly be."įor "Hidden Figures," that authenticity came in the props - they rented some original consoles from the time for their mission control set, and built replicas for the rest - and in historical details from the time. "When you do a period piece, the one thing that you are doing in terms of production design and costume is, you have to strive for authenticity," Gigliotti said. Plus, they drew from extensive notes and interviews that Shetterly had gathered during her research and writing process. To place the movie firmly in history and to be true to the technical detail of what human computers were doing at the time, the movie's creators consulted with NASA historians, experts at IBM and even an on-set mathematician. Poster for "Hidden Figures" (2017) (Image credit: Hopper Stone) As the film's director, Ted Melfi, put it, "The hardest thing about making a movie is trying to get everyone to make the same movie - and everyone's making the same movie." Early NASA It was a story with inherent drama, and the script even had technical consultants crying at the drama of the ending, Donna Gigliotti, the film's producer, told reporters.Īs toured the set's mission control and met with actors and the show's creative team, their excitement for the subject matter was clear. For a focal point, the movie's creators chose John Glenn's flight into orbital space, which Langley mathematicians and engineers were intimately involved with planning and executing. In fact, the film's producers chose it based on just a 55-page book proposal. The narrative is based on the book "Hidden Figures," by Margot Shetterly, which will be released Sept. Henson, is joined by her co-workers Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) as she greets astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell), the man destined to become the first American to orbit Earth.
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